The Manorial Documents Register

The Manorial Documents Register (MDR) is a database maintained by the National Archives that records the existence and location of surviving manorial documents for England and Wales. It does not hold the documents themselves. It tells you what exists and where to find it. For anyone researching the history of a specific manor, the MDR is the essential starting point after the Victoria County History.

What the register covers

The MDR indexes five categories of manorial document. Court rolls record the proceedings of the manorial court, including admissions of new tenants, surrenders of copyhold land, and the enforcement of manorial customs. Surveys describe the extent and value of the manor at a particular date. Maps show the physical layout of the manor, its fields, boundaries, and buildings. Terriers list the lands and tenements belonging to the manor with their boundaries and tenants. Extents are detailed valuations, typically taken at the death of a lord as part of an Inquisition Post Mortem.

The register also records rentals (lists of tenants and their rents), custumals (statements of manorial custom), and miscellaneous accounts. Not every manor has surviving documents of every type. Some have continuous court roll series running from the thirteenth century to the nineteenth. Others have nothing more than a single survey or a mention in a larger collection.

Where the documents are held

Manorial documents are scattered across dozens of repositories. The largest collections are at the National Archives itself, the county record offices (Hampshire Record Office in Winchester, West Sussex Record Office in Chichester), and university libraries (particularly the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Cambridge University Library). Some remain in private hands, held by the lord of the manor or by estates that have owned them for centuries.

The Manorial Documents Rules 1959 (as amended 1963 and 1967) provide that no manorial document may be destroyed, damaged, or removed from England and Wales without the written consent of the Master of the Rolls. This statutory protection means that even documents in private possession cannot be disposed of without permission. The rules also require that the National Archives be notified of any change in the custody of manorial documents.

Using the MDR

The register is searchable online through the National Archives Discovery catalogue. A search by manor name returns a list of known documents, their dates, their type, and the repository where they are held. Each entry includes a reference number that can be used to order the document at the relevant archive.

The MDR is not complete. It was compiled over decades, county by county, and some areas have fuller coverage than others. Hampshire and Sussex are well covered. The register is periodically updated as new deposits are made at record offices and as previously unrecorded documents come to light. Researchers who discover manorial documents not listed in the register should notify the National Archives.

The MDR and this platform

Each manor profile on this platform includes a section listing the manorial documents recorded in the MDR. We cross-reference the register entries with the VCH accounts and with the holdings of Hampshire Record Office and West Sussex Record Office. Where court rolls or surveys survive, they can supplement the VCH account with detail about individual tenants, field names, agricultural practice, and the day-to-day administration of the manor.