Feet of fines

A fine (finalis concordia) was a legal agreement enrolled in the royal courts to transfer property. Despite the name, it was not a penalty. It was a final settlement of a fictitious lawsuit, used from 1195 to 1833 as a secure method of conveying land. The procedure created an official court record of the transaction, making it more durable than a private deed. The “foot” of the fine is the court's copy, and the surviving collection of these documents, held at the National Archives, forms one of the most complete series of property records for medieval and early modern England.

How the process worked

The buyer (called the querent) brought a fictitious action against the seller (the deforciant), claiming a right to the property. The deforciant acknowledged the claim. The court then recorded the agreement between the parties as a final concord. The document stated the names of the parties, a description of the property (by name, acreage, and parish), and the consideration paid.

Three copies of the concord were written on a single piece of parchment. The parchment was cut into three parts along indented (wavy) lines. The buyer received one copy. The seller received another. The third part, cut from the bottom of the parchment, was the “foot” (pes finis), and it was retained by the court. This is the copy that survives in the National Archives, classified under CP 25.

Date range and coverage

The series begins in 1195, when Hubert Walter, Chief Justiciar to Richard I, ordered that a third copy be kept by the court. Earlier fines exist in small numbers from the 1170s. The procedure was abolished by the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833, which replaced it with a simpler form of conveyance. The series therefore spans over six centuries and covers property transactions from the reign of Richard I to the reign of William IV.

Fines were levied at Westminster before the Court of Common Pleas, and also before the justices in eyre and, later, the assize judges on circuit. The documents are arranged by county and by legal term (Hilary, Easter, Trinity, Michaelmas).

What a fine contains

A typical fine names the querent and deforciant, describes the property (a manor, messuages, acres of arable, meadow, pasture, or woodland in a named parish), and states the consideration. The consideration was often formulaic. Many fines state that the querent gave the deforciant a sum of silver, but the actual price may have been different. The fine was a legal mechanism, not a market report. Some fines also name a remainder (the person who would inherit after the querent), providing evidence of family relationships.

Published calendars

The original documents are in Latin (to 1733) and written in a compressed legal hand. Published calendars make them accessible. For Hampshire, the Hampshire Record Society published abstracts of fines from 1196 to 1272. For Sussex, the Sussex Record Society published calendars covering 1190 to 1249 (Vol. 2), 1249 to 1307 (Vol. 7), and 1307 to 1509 (Vol. 23). These calendars give the date, parties, property, and consideration in English, and they are indexed by place name and personal name.

Why fines matter for manorial research

The Victoria County History relies on fines to establish manorial descents where other records are silent. An Inquisition Post Mortem records who held a manor at death. A fine records who transferred it and to whom. Together with IPMs, fines fill gaps in descent chains, confirming sales, settlements, and family arrangements that would otherwise be undocumented. Where the VCH states that a manor “passed by fine” to a new holder, the foot of fine is the primary source.