Feet of Fines

Home Page

The Farndale Directory

Farndale Themes

Farndale History

Particular branches of the family tree

Other Information

General Sir Martin Farndale KCB

Links

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. Oner 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.

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.