Exchequer, Recusant Rolls

As a century-long series specially concerned with recusants convicted under the 1581 and later Acts, one class of documents merits particular attention: the Recusant Rolls of the Exchequer (1592-1691). Initially, however, penalties owing to the Crown for recusancy, as for other religious offences, were recorded on the Pipe Rolls of sheriffs’ accounts amid numerous unrelated items of royal revenue and it was not until the early 1590s, following a spate of convictions prompted by the Armada-crisis of 1588 (ensuing upon the more stringent anti-recusant legislation of the previous year) that special Rolls devoted to the thousands of recusancy-cases were inaugurated. Catholics penalised on other grounds usually appeared in the Pipe Rolls and after the cessation of the Recusant Rolls as a separate series the Clerks of the Pipe long continued to receive an allowance for ‘drawing down and charging recusants’ convictions’.