Journals

• Official and permanent legal record of the proceedings of Parliament.
• Record only what was done, not what was said.
• Similar to the Daily Digest of the U S. Congressional Record
  • In the House of Commons, the Votes & Proceedings are consolidated into the Journals on a sessional basis and become the authoritative record of the decisions of the House.
  • In the House of Lords, the Journals are compiled from the Minutes of Proceedings.
• The House of Commons and the House of Lords met together until the 1400s
• Early original Journals are in Latin until the beginning of the 1600s
• Does not contain speeches except from 1580-1620
• Indexes can be found in the last volume of the session starting with volume 30 (1765)
• Prior to 1801 the Journals also included the Sessional Papers
• General indexes provide dates in regnal years (one source on converting from regnal years to an ordinary date can be found at: http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cal/medcal.shtml).