Deputy Keeper of Public Records in Ireland: twenty-first report

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KEEPER OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS IN IRELAND. 
29 

Appendix III. 
INDEX to CALENDAR OF FIANTS OF THE REIGN OF 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
A Calendar of the Fiants of the reign of Queen Elizabeth has been printed in seven sections as appendices to the 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, and 18th Reports of the Deputy Keeper. 
Added to the last are a few of earlier reigns found during the arrangement of the Fiants of ^Elizabeth. 
An Index is now furnished to these seven sections, the reference being to the current block numbers, 1 to 6811, in the Calendar. 
This Calendar is in continuation of those of the Piants of Hen. 
VIII., 
Edw. 
VI., 
and Mary, printed (with indices) respectively in the 7, 8, and 9th Reports of the Deputy Keeper. 
The term " Fiant" is derived from the first word of the usual form "Fiant literae patentes,"—"Let letters patent he made." 
Fiants are the warrants to the Chancery, authorising the issue of letters patent under the great seal, and may be regarded as the Irish equivalent of the " Signed Bill" of English procedure. 
They take the place also of the English Signet Bills, and other warrants connected with the " Privy Seals." 
As in the case of the Signed Bills, letters patent (under an Irish statute of Henry VI.), 
issued as of the date on which the fiant was delivered into Chancery. 
In the introduction to the Calendar of the Fiants of the reign of Henry VIII., 
the first of the series published, in the 7th Report of the Deputy Keeper, 1875, pp. 
27-32, some account of the documents classed as fiants was given, with examples printed at length. 
Treating of the Fiants of Henry VIII., 
the 7th Report, p. 
27, recognises three classes, those signed by the sovereign, those signed by the deputy, and those signed by other competent authority. 
The first class, not infrequent in the reign of Henry VIII., 
is very rare in the subsequent reigns. 
There are only three examples in that of Elizabeth; numbered 85, 1213 and 3192 in the Calendar. 
Fiants signed by the deputy or other chief governor include grants of office (a few principal offices excepted), presentations to church benefices (bishoprics excepted), commissions for local government, for taking musters, for martial law, dividing and forming counties, inquiries for various purposes, ecclesiastical courts, and many other objects connected with the government, protections, licenses of absence, licenses for aliena¬ tions, authority to impress victual, forage, &c, denization of foreigners, and grants of English liberty to Irish. 
The council joined with the deputy in signing pardons, orders in eounciL, and occasionally fiants for commissions and some other purposes. 
The foregoing were signed by virtue of the powers conferred on the chief governor under Ms patent of appointment. 
The powers so bestowed were not uniform. 
Being appointed ordinarily by English patent, no fiants of appointment of lords lieutenant or lords deputy will be found in the Calendar, but there are a few for lords justices. 
No. 
4084 gives at some length the. 
powers conferred on Archbishop Loffcus and Sir Henry Wallop when made lords justices.