Irish chancery rolls to survive were a Patent Roll for
1302 −1303 and a Close Roll for 1308−1309. The Irish
Record Commission set to work to produce a calendar
(in Latin) of the medieval rolls then surviving, which
was published under the editorship of Edward Tresham
in 1828. Transcripts of some entries on those rolls were
also made by individual scholars both in the nineteenth
century and earlier and survive in manuscript. All the
surviving original rolls, however, were subsequently
destroyed in the fire at the Four Courts in Dublin in
1922 during the Civil War. Fate had been kinder to the
Pipe Rolls of the Irish Exchequer, at least prior to their
wholesale destruction. Many more of these survived,
the earliest being for 14 John (1211−1212). Before
their wholesale destruction in 1922, a full transcript
had been made of the earliest Pipe Roll (although this
was not published till 1941), and a full transcript of
the Pipe Roll for 45 Henry III (1260−1261) and of
much the Roll for the following year survives in the
Royal Irish Academy. Later rolls down to 1348 survive
only in the form of the summaries printed in appen-
dices to the Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the
Public Records in Irelandpublished between 1903
and 1927. There is a further unpublished calendar of
the Pipe Roll for 1356−1357 in the National Archives
of Ireland in Dublin. Transcripts and calendars of
other material from the Pipe Rolls survive in other
manuscript collections. By the early nineteenth cen-
tury the earliest surviving memoranda roll belonged
to 22 Edward I (12931294), but they survived there-
after in relatively large quantity. In 1922, all but two
of them were destroyed, the sole survivors being the
rolls for 3 Edward II (1309−1310) and 13− 14
Edward II (1319−1320). The destroyed rolls are,
however, calendared at some length in forty-three
Record Commission calendars made prior to their
destruction, now available in the National Archives
of Ireland. There are also other transcripts and cal-
endars made by private scholars. None of the series
of Receipt and Issue Rolls of the Irish Exchequer
retained in Ireland survives.
The records produced in Ireland by the Irish exche-
quer but sent to England for administrative purposes
have fared much better. Irish Receipt and Issue Rolls
survive with a few gaps for most of the period during
which treasurers of Ireland found themselves account-
ing at the English exchequer and are now available at
The National Archives (formerly the Public Record
Office) at Kew in London. They are an essential source
for Irish medieval administrative and political histori-
ans. The British National Archives is also the location
for the surviving records of the English exchequer and
chancery. The latter are also mainly available in cal-
endared form as well.
PAUL BRAND
References and Further Reading
Brand, Paul. “The Licensing of Mortmain Alienations in the Medi-
eval Lordship of Ireland.” In The Making of the Common Law,
London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press, 1992.
Connolly, Philomena. Irish Exchequer Payments, 1270−1446.
Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1998
.Medieval Record Sources (Maynooth Research Guides
for Irish Local History, No. 4). Dublin: Four Courts Press,
2002.
Lydon, J. F. “Survey of the Memoranda Rolls of the Irish Exche-
quer, 1294−1509.” Analecta Hibernica, 23 (1966): 49−134.
Otway-Ruthven, A. J. “The Medieval Irish Chancery.” In Album
Helen Maud Cam, vol. II,Etudes preséntées a la Commission
Internationale pur l’histoire des assemblées d’Etats,vol. 24.
Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1961.
Richardson, H. G., and G. O. Sayles. The Administration of Medi-
eval Ireland, 1172− 1377. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commis-
sion, 1963.RECORDS, ECCLESIASTICAL
Although the great days of Hiberno-Latin composi-
tion were past, the tradition of compiling annals, mar-
tyrologies, and hagiographical composition continued
apace in the post-Norman church. There seems to have
been a distinct impetus to the redaction of older mate-
rials and the composition of new ones in the centuries
following the Anglo-Norman invasion, a spurt of
assertive cultural creativity not seen since the early
Christian period. But in the post-conquest age we are
dealing with a dual tradition of compiling ecclesias-
tical records. The churches inter Anglicos andinter
Hibernicoswere run and organized on quite different
lines. For most of the Middle Ages, ten sees, the
wealthier ones, were in Anglo-Norman hands, thirteen
in Gaelic hands, and the remaining nine fluctuated
between both communities or were held by absentees.
Among the Irish, tenure of church lands, religious
houses, and the custody of sacred relics were concen-
trated in the hands of hereditary ecclesiastical estate
managers, erenaghs (from Old Irish airchinnech), and
coarbs (from Old Irish comarba). Marriage within the
native clergy was thus essential to the maintenance of
the system, since ecclesiastical families ruled the
church. Within the colonial enclaves, the clergy oper-
ated within defined territorial limits and were con-
trolled by the state and by a carefully regulated system
of ecclesiastical courts. Senior clergy were royal offic-
ers, episcopal temporalia were controlled by the
crown, and the clergy at all levels were subject to tax.
Diocesan synods and episcopal visitations were much
more regular within the Pale. In consequence, we are
much better provided with documentation from the
colonial church, but we can be sure that the function-
ing of the Gaelic church in most fundamental respects
was not entirely independent of or unlike that of the
Anglo-Norman church.RECORDS, ADMINISTRATIVE