Court of Augmentations

Court of Augmentations, in Reformation England, the most important of a group of financial courts organized during the reign of Henry VIII; the others were the courts of General Surveyors, First Fruits and Tenths, and Wards and Liveries. They were instituted chiefly so that the crown might gain better control over its lands and finances.

The Court of Augmentations was instituted in 1535 to handle the various financial and property problems brought on by the dissolution of the monasteries after Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic church. Monks had to be placed in positions elsewhere or granted pensions; debts owed by the monasteries had to be paid; and the monasteries’ property itself had to be assessed and then disposed of by sale or lease.

The machinery of the Court of Augmentations was modeled after that of the duchy of Lancaster, the lands of which were administered separately from the mass of crown lands. Augmentations as such became both a court and a department of revenue, as was the case with the other financial courts, which owed their creation to Henry’s minister Thomas Cromwell, the person most responsible for replacing the medieval household administration with a modern state administration dependent upon a civil service.

The court had a chancellor and treasurer as well as lawyers and auditors; in addition, there were receivers who had charge of the monastic lands within a particular county. Their primary responsibility was the collection of rents.

In 1547 the Court of Augmentations was joined with the Court of General Surveyors, which had been established in 1542 out of the old household surveyors department to administer crown lands, handle cases, and register leases.

The remaining financial courts had very specific functions. The Court of First Fruits and Tenths was established in 1540 to collect from clerical benefices certain moneys that had previously been sent to Rome. First fruits were the first year’s profits owed by the new holder of a benefice; tenths were 10 percent of the annual income, due each year. The Court of Wards was established in 1540 (in 1542, as Wards and Liveries) to deal with moneys owed to the king by virtue of his position as a feudal lord; it was also empowered to protect certain rights of marriage and wardship. In 1554, under Queen Mary, the functions of Augmentations, General Surveyors, and First Fruits and Tenths were absorbed by the Exchequer. The Court of Wards and Liveries remained separate until it was abolished in 1660.