Manorial Records - St Michaels, St Albans
Barbara
Chapman writes: As you said in your article on Manorial Records they can be of
great help both to the Genealogist and the Local Historian, and I have had great
success in using many of the Manorial Records held at HALS. As my area of interest is Leverstock Green I have been
involved with several Manorial records: Hemel Hempstead, Abbots Langley,
Gorhambury, Westwick & Pre (St. Michaels St. Albans) as well as Ashridge and
others.
I've not come across any as yet on microfilm at HALS, though perhaps the most
useful are the Gorhambury Estate Records ( which includes much of their Manorial
Rolls) which were extremely well catalogued in the 1920's, and have further been
deposited with HALS and catalogued to recent years. When Sir Nicholas
Bacon took over the Manor in the 16th century it made life relatively easy for
20th/21st Century genealogists and historians. He was Master of the Rolls
himself at the time and extremely meticulous. He initiated a fantastic
survey IN ENGLISH of the entire manorial estate which gives not only the names
of all the tenants and copyholders and freeholders within the manor, but also a
field by field account of the property with geographical descriptions of where
everything was. This has enable myself and others to build us an extremely
accurate picture of both the people and the property on the estate at the time.
(1569) Later Lords of the Manor followed his example to give us a very
clear picture.
I would certainly recommend anyone who thinks they have an ancestor who came
from St. Michaels parish St. Albans ( which more or less correlated with the
manor) to check the detailed catalogues at HALS
as the records are copious and most in English. Some of the later stewards
employed on the Estate adopted anglicised Latin for their manorial rolls or
extracts. It is also worth checking with me as I have transcribed quite a
large number of documents from the Gorhambury records.
In contrast the Abbots Langley and Hemel Hempstead records aren't always as
helpful - more frequently being in Latin, and generally not as detailed as the
Gorhambury documents. However, this may not matter for the genealogist, as
the surveys do tend to give the names of the tenants of the manor, if not the
same minute detail for the property they owned/leased.
I will look at my records and sort out a suitable transcript to e-mail you.
Barbara Chapman.
If you can add to the information given above tell me.