What is "manorial roll"

n. The record, kept by a manorial court, of the property held by tenants and the rent paid; physically a continuous roll of parchment documents stitched together.

A manorial roll or court roll is the roll or record kept of the activities of a manorial court, in particular containing entries relating to the rents and holdings, deaths, alienations, and successions of the customary tenants or copyholders. The records were invariably kept in roll form in the Middle Ages, but in the post-medieval period were more usually entered into volumes. Despite this change of format, the records often continued to be known as court rolls, although the term court books is also found.

A copy of the relevant entry in the court roll constituted the tenant's title to his holding, and this form of land tenure therefore became known as copyhold.