Feet of Fines
Land Disputes
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A foot of fines is the record of an agreement between two parties
after a land dispute. The agreement itself was called the final concord or
‘fine’ for short. In practice the disputes were often fictitious and a foot of
fines was really just a way to record the transfer of land in an official way,
through the court of the King.
Feet of Fines records span the period 1195 to 1833. There are some
examples before that, even back to King Stephen in 1140, but from 1195, the
process was formalised so that three copies of the agreement were made on a
sheet of parchment. One was retained by each party and the third was at the
foot of the parchment. The three bits were separated by cutting, the parties
retained their segments and the third was retained by the Crown. That is why
the document is usually referred to in the plural as ‘feet of fines’.
At first, the fines were made in the
Eyre Court in the Exchequer, before justices of Eyre. From the early
fourteenth century, fines were made in the Court of Common Pleas.
The primary source to find feet of fines is at the National
Archives at Kew in London who provide a
detailed guide.
In researching the Farndale family, I am mostly interested in the
Feet of Fines for Yorkshire. One source is the on line Medieval Genealogy site where many
fines records are searchable. Another source is the British History On Line site, from
1486.
Fine Rolls at National Archives, Kew, C60 including grants of
wardship and marriage.
The Henry III
Fine Rolls Project has transcribed Fine Rolls records between 1216 and
1272. A fine was an agreement to pay the king a sum of money for a specified
concession. The rolls on which the fines were recorded provide the earliest
systematic evidence of what people and institutions across society wanted from
the king and he was prepared to give. They open a large window onto the
politics, government, economy and society of England.