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The 1607 Summer Circuit


This map shows the progress of the 1607 Summer Circuit to the extent I have ascertained it. The Welsh circuits are incomplete, because rolls have not survived for all the counties and sessions. In Wales there were supposed to be two sessions during the Summer, so the justices should each time have retraced their path; the data I have is insuffient to demonstrate that pattern in 1607. The English circuits seem normal, except that the West Circuit seems confused and too extended. The data here comes from the Trinity term rolls of Common Pleas and King's Bench and from the rolls of the Great Sessions preserved in the National Library of Wales. The English circuits are analyzed in Cockburn, A History of English Assizes, 1558-1714.

A comparison with the Summer circuit of 1531 would indicate that the circuits had slowed down somewhat and become more regular.