ROLL, in Law, signifies a schedule or parchment which may be rolled up by the hand into the form of a pipe.
In these schedules of parchment, all the pleadings, memorials, and acts of court, are entered and filed by the proper officer; which being done, they become records of the court. Of these there are in the exchequer several kinds, as the great wardrobe roll, the cofferer's roll, the subsidy-roll, &c.
Roll is also used for a list of the names of persons of the same condition, or of those who have entered into the same engagement. Thus a court-roll of a manor, is that in which the names, rents, and services, of each tenant are copied and enrolled.