Feet of Fines
A foot of fine (plural, feet of fines) is the archival copy of the agreement between two parties in a medieval English lawsuit over land. In the reign of Henry II of England, the royal justices first began the practice of registering the settlement of disagreements over land by having both parties bring a suit before the royal courts, and the resulting decision was thus giving royal sanction to the settlement.
At first, two copies of the agreement were made, with one going to each of the litigants. However, under Hubert Walter's justiciarship, probably about 1195, the practice was started of having a third copy made which was filed in the treasury.
The first recorded "foot of the fine" is endorsed with the statement "This is the first chirograph that was made in the king's court in the form of three chirographs, according to the command of his lordship of Canterbury and other barons of the king, to the end that by this form a record can be made to be passed on to the treasurer to put in the treasury."[1] The agreement concerns Walter's brother Theobald, who was the plaintiff.[2]
Within a few years, the practice of recording foot of fines had spread widely, and even to Scotland, as in 1198 an agreement between William de Bruce of Annandale and Adam of Carlisle over eight ploughgates in Lockerbie, Scotland was filed with the English treasury, recorded with those from Northumberland.[2] While early fines could be made in the Exchequer, after the early 14th century, fines were always made in the Court of Common Pleas. The procedure survived well into the 1830s.
| FINE Final concord Court's decision recorded three times on one face of one document |
|
|---|---|
| Decision copy 1 Litigant one |
Decision copy 2 Litigant two |
| Foot of Fine Decision copy 3 Court archive |
|
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Clanchy, C. T. (1993). From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307 (Second Edition ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-16857-7.
- Saul, Nigel (2000). A Companion to Medieval England 1066–1485. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 0-7524-2969-8.
- National Archives - Feet of Fines
- British History Online (University of London)
