Christ Church MS. 102

For examples and discussion of such collections and their difficulties, see Elsa de Haas and G. D. G. Hall, Early Registers of Writs, Selden Society 87 (1970); and the exemplary calendar of a fully developed register, taken from Oxford: St John’s College, MS 256, W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, 3rd ed., 9 vols (London, 1923–26), 2:618–36. For other examples of this genre, see our MSS 103 (item 19) and 123 below; those two, but not this manuscript, appear in the list of manuscripts at de Haas and Hall, xxiii-vii. A substantial number of stubs (at least nine) precede the incipit, which occurs on the leaf signed ‘C iiij’; the running title here identifies the writ as ‘Quare impedit’. The text breaks off in a section with running title ‘de manucapcione’.

Owing to missing leaves, the MS lacks materials from the sections ‘De decepcione’ (after fol. 60), ‘De secca ad molendum’ (after fol. 84), ‘De noua dessenia’ (after fol. 124), ‘De posteissenia’ (after fol. 130), ‘De recordo et processu mittendo’ (after fols 130, 131, and 135), ‘Dattincta mortis antecessoris’ and ‘de ingressu’ (after fol. 141).

The person who added the folio numbers also at times adds some annotations cross-referencing briefs with statutes (fol. 100^v 103, 105^v – 106,109^v-110, 112^v-113). The care taken to provide that foliation suggests the volume originally ended with an index (cf our MS 103). Comparison of what we have with Holdsworth’s listing of the contents of Oxford: St Johns, MS 256 (as cited above) hints at the amount lost at the beginning – the first five ‘capitula’ – and the end – two further capitula. The opening may have been preceded by further ancillary material: the few letters of text visible on the recto of the very first stub are in English, while the verso is blank, suggesting that the Registrum was preceded by another short text.