The Eyre Court

Henry II took a grip on a court system in a muddle. He developed a system of travelling eyres for royal judges to travel around the country. The old French word erre, means journey. The eyre justices (or sometimes just ‘justices’) were judges of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries who were sent out from the central courts at Westminster Hall around the counties of England (not Chester nor Durham). Generally they travelled out every seven years, but the interval changed from time to time.

The first eyre was in 1166, when Henry II appointed Geoffrey de Mandeville and Sir Richard de Lucy. Six eyres were appointed in 1176. The eyres were the primary source for local justice until the reign of Edward II.

“Henry’s policy of asserting the legal rights of the Crown did not make him popular. Eyres were sudden, frightening descents that not only tried legal cases, but generally asserted royal power, including by aggressive imposition of higher taxes and feudal extractions” (Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 66).

Thery considered a miscellany of cases, known as ‘pleas’ arising during the period since the last eyre. Lawsuits were generally called civil pleas, and criminal cases were called crown pleas. They also dealt with crown pleas which related to offences against the King’s own property. From 1278, they were involved in the King’s claims for land held by local noblemen (the quo warranto process). The general eyres also had a role in supervising local government.

These records tend to be very formal and written in Latin. The records are full of technical and legal terms and abbreviations.

Agreements reached in land disputes can be found in feet of fines.

The records are held as rolls of parchment, made up of lengths known as membranes, stitched together. In the early days there was a single roll for each county, but over time more rolls were needed.

The National Archives holds Courts of law records from the medieval period: general eyres 1194-1348.

The earliest surviving eyre roll dates from 1194 and the last eyre to produce any records was in Kent in 1348.