Patent Rolls

The Patent Rolls (Latin: Rotuli litterarum patentium) are a series of administrative records compiled in the English, British and United Kingdom Chancery, running from 1201 to the present day.

The patent rolls comprise a register of the letters patent issued by the Crown, and sealed "open" with the Great Seal pendent, expressing the sovereign's will on a wide range of matters of public interest, including – but not restricted to – grants of official positions, lands, commissions, privileges and pardons, issued both to individuals and to corporations. The rolls were started in the reign of King John, under the Chancellorship of Hubert Walter. The texts of letters patent were copied onto sheets of parchment, which were stitched together (head-to-tail) into long rolls to form a roll for each year. As the volume of business grew, it became necessary to compile more than one roll for each year.

The most solemn grants of lands and privileges were issued, not as letters patent, but as charters, and were entered on the separate series of Charter Rolls. This series was discontinued in 1516, and all charters issued thereafter, mainly for grants of titles, were entered on the patent rolls.

The patent rolls run in an almost unbroken series from 1201 to the present day, with a small number of gaps, notably during the English Civil War and Interregnum (1641–1660). They are written almost exclusively in Latin in the early period. English was used occasionally in the 16th century, but only during the Commonwealth and after 1733 are all the entries in English.

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