Select document: Exchequer malpractice in late medieval Ireland: a petition from Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane, 1438

Abstract

Preserved amongst the Chancery masters’ exhibits at the National Archives of the U.K., formerly known as the Public Record Office, is a box of documents concerning the Fleming family, Lords Slane, in Ireland. These papers, dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, relate primarily to a protracted inheritance dispute between the heirs male and heirs general of Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane, who died in 1458. This case had been brought into the English Chancery because the family were also landowners in Devon and Cornwall, and it had then rumbled on for decades. Within this box, however, there is also a parchment roll containing a number of entries relating to their Irish lands. The eighth item on this roll is especially interesting.