Manorial Records
Manorial documents were produced in the administration of medieval manors, landed estates that involved certain rights and obligations. These documents begin to appear during the 12th century, and fall into three main groups:
Surveys
These vary in scope and content, but provide a picture of the manor at a particular point in time
Manor Court Rolls
These include the main court and its satellites, recording transfers of land between lords and tenants as well as daily transactions between the manor’s inhabitants
Accounts
Various documents arising from the financial interests of the lord in his manor, including the names of tenants and the rents they owed
Manorial records continued to be created in varying degrees until 1922, when the Law of Property Act abolished manorial jurisdiction. Many manors, however, had disappeared long before that date.
For a free guide to the Archive Service's holdings of manorial records in PDF format, please see the Guides to Sources.
To search a definitive list of surviving Staffordshire manorial records, please go to the National Archives catalogue discovery.