Feet of Fines
Land Disputes
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The medieval feet of fines, also known as final concords,
were legal documents used to record property transfers and resolve land
disputes in England from the late 12th century until 1833. They served as a
highly secure, centralized method of land registration at a time when formal,
modern land registries did not exist
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.