were reduced to writing, we can easily suppose that it would become the practice for the justiciar of Chester, by his officials, to take charge of the original documents for safe custody and future reference. A place of deposit for such documents would be required, and this is probably the origin of the sealed bag or wallet which we find became known as the Baga de Domesday, and contained the records of certain special matters done and to be done at the 'doomsday' meetings. This 'Domesday' Bag seems to have been preserved with very great care, carefully guarded by seals and handed over by one justiciar to his successor with some ceremony. We have several references to the Baga de Domesday in the time of Edward II. In 1324–5 an indenture records that Roger the Welshman, locum tenens of the (retiring) justiciar, Oliver de Ingham, handed over in the castle of Chester certain documents to John de Hegham, locum tenens of Richard Dammary, the (succeeding) justiciar, including Unam bagam que vocatur Domsday, sealed with the seals of Geoffrey de Warburton (a magnate) and Robert de Praers (the sheriff). In the bag were divers fines and county memoranda, including two specified fines, as well as seventeen notes of other fines, levied in the court.[1] Then the Plea Roll record of the county court of 18 March 1319/20 shows that the feet of fines in the Baga de Domesday were searched in pleno comitatu, in the presence of the knights and other fideles, and a particular fine, taken before Robert de Holland the justiciar on 7 February 1318/19, was found and proved to have been levied without opposition by any one.[2] Another reference about the same date is to documents remaining in baga rotulorum.[3] No doubt the 'Domesday' bag was, at this later date, the place where the 'Domesday' roll was kept, with documents awaiting enrolment or required for use at the meetings of the county.
Some time towards the end of the twelfth century a regular system of enrolment sprang up which led to the great general series of judicial and other rolls,[4] including, we have no doubt, those now known as the Cheshire Plea Rolls.[5] The latter were notes, taken by the clerk of the county court, of the legal cases which came before it. It has been suggested that the Plea Roll and the 'Domesday' Roll were the same, but we feel sure that this was not so. The extant Plea Rolls do not contain the 'Domesday' enrolments, at any rate in the thirteenth century. It is true that upon the Plea Rolls are found entered a number
- ↑ Shakerley (Vernon) MS., no. 3, fo. 249.
- ↑ Cheshire Plea Roll 32, m. 10 d.
- ↑ Shakerley (Vernon) MS., no. 1, fo. 3.
- ↑ The extant Plea Rolls of the king's courts begin in 1194, the Charter Rolls in 1199, and so on.
- ↑ The earliest extant roll is of the year 1259–60, but there is evidence for a much earlier date. We have in preparation for publication a volume of these rolls.
