Definition
Latin: "Keeper of the pleas of the crown." A historical English legal office responsible for maintaining the criminal records of the crown. The precise nature of the office is disputed in the sources: some authorities equate it with the custos rotulorum (keeper of the rolls), while others treat it as an alternative title for the coroner. The title itself signals criminal rather than civil jurisdiction, as placita coronae (pleas of the crown) was the established category for serious criminal matters falling under royal cognizance.
Common Confusion
Three offices are entangled in the historical sources and have been conflated by different authorities:
CUSTOS PLACITORUM CORONE — Keeper of the pleas of the crown. Whether this was a distinct office or a functional description applied to another officer remains unresolved. Burrill notes the title itself indicates criminal jurisdiction, which points away from the custos rotulorum's administrative function.
CUSTOS ROTULORUM — Keeper of the rolls. A civil administrative office concerned with the records of the county, later associated with the clerk of the peace and the commission of the peace. Cowell and Blount both assert the two offices were identical, but this equation is contested.
CORONER — The royal officer responsible for investigating deaths and certain criminal matters within the county on behalf of the crown. Bracton's discussion and the structural logic of the pleas of the crown suggest the custos placitorum corone may have been a name applied to the coroner rather than to a separate officeholder.
Researchers should treat all three terms as potentially overlapping in early medieval sources while remaining alert to the possibility that later commentary has imprecisely conflated offices that were originally distinct.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in medieval English legal sources and in the historical dictionaries that drew on them. A researcher will encounter it principally in:
— Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, the primary medieval source cited by both Black's and Burrill's for this term. The folio references vary slightly between dictionaries (fol. 146 in Black's, fol. 14b and fol. 136b in Burrill's), so cross-checking the manuscript tradition matters.
— The writ de odio et atia, referenced in Burrill's truncated entry. This writ, used to challenge imprisonment on malicious accusation, connects the custos placitorum corone to early criminal procedure and bail practice. The broken entry in Burrill's suggests the original discussion extended further than what survives in the digitized or reprinted version — researchers using Burrill's should check for completeness.
— Secondary histories of English law, particularly Crabb's History of English Law (cited by Burrill's at p. 150), which provides context the dictionaries alone do not supply.
The practical research trap here is accepting one dictionary's resolution of the office-identity question as settled. Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's each take a slightly different position: Bouvier's aligns with Blount and Cowell in equating the office with the custos rotulorum; Black's and Burrill's lean toward the coroner interpretation. Neither position is definitive, and the disagreement reflects genuine ambiguity in medieval sources rather than a later error of transmission. Any argument that turns on the nature of this office should go back to Bracton and Crabb rather than stopping at the dictionaries.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are substantially consistent in their core definition — keeper of the pleas of the crown — but diverge on the office-identity question.
Black's and Burrill's share nearly identical language, both citing Bracton and both noting Cowell's identification with the custos rotulorum while declining to adopt it. Burrill's adds the Crabb citation and the reference to the writ de odio et atia, making it the more substantively developed entry. Bouvier's is the shortest of the three and the most willing to accept the Blount-Cowell equation without qualification.
All three entries treat this as an obsolete office without any modern survival. None of the dictionaries suggests it persisted beyond the medieval period in any formal sense. The absence of case law citations across all three entries is notable and consistent with the term's status as a matter of legal history rather than live doctrine.
Burrill's entry is cut off mid-sentence in the available text, which limits its utility on the de odio et atia connection. Researchers should treat the Burrill's entry as potentially incomplete.
Jurisdictional Note
This is an exclusively English medieval office with no direct American counterpart or colonial reception. It will not appear in American primary sources except in historical or comparative legal writing. In English sources, the relevant jurisdictional frame is pre-common law medieval administration rather than any modern English jurisdiction.