In the Middle Ages and later, manorial courts decided on how land was used and transferred, as well as the rights and responsibilities of people who lived in the areas that they controlled.
Court decisions and other material kept by manors tell us much about the locality. They can be a treasure chest of information about particular local people - whether rich or poor.
Enormous collections of records exist for the manors that operated within the parish of Kettering:
- Huxloe Hundred
- Kettering Rectory Manor
- Kettering Manor (or Royal Manor)
The Manorial Documents Register is a directory of the 225 collections of original documents created by the three manors and states where they are now deposited. The vast majority have not been digitised or published and many items written before 1733 are in Latin. But there is also good news.
As a result of work by Charles Wise, a significant amount of information from the Kettering manors is available online, mentioning numerous individuals and places. He extracted much of interest from the Rolls of the Rectory and Royal Manors of Kettering. These were published in English as a series of articles that appeared in ‘The Kettering Guardian’ during 1901, along with material about their historical context. Many of these articles were later printed in ‘Northamptonshire Notes & Queries’ with the title ‘Glimpses of Kettering’, where they can be read free of charge by using the links below. Years are shown for those that contain details from the Court Rolls themselves.
- Introduction & First Series, 1569
- Second series, 1570
- Third series, 1572; Fourth series, 1576 & 1578
- Fifth series, 1570; Sixth series, History of the Courts of the Royal Manor
- Seventh series, 1604; Eighth series, 1604
- Ninth series, 1606; Tenth series, 1607
- Eleventh series, 1608; Twelvth series, 1608
- Thirteenth series, 1609; Fourteenth series, 1610
- Fifteenth series, 1610; Sixteenth series, 1610
- Seventeenth series, 1634; Eighteenth series
- Nineteenth series
- Twentieth series, depositions about where tenants of the Parsonage Manor had ground their corn or malt.
- Twenty-first series, further depositions
- Twenty-second series
- Twenty-third series
- Twenty-fourth series
- Twenty-fifth series, 1679
- Twenty-sixth series, 1680, 1681 & 1682; Twenty-seventh series, 1682, 1683 & 1684
- Twenty-eighth series, 1684 & 1685