CAUTION.-Beware of Counterfeits adopting the Title.

WHITE SOUND TEETH, FRA GRANT BREATH, HEALTHY GUMS to OLD AGE,

Domesday Book-"The Abbreviatio"-" The Breviate "-"The Boldon Book "-"The Red Book of the Exchequer "-" The Black Book of the Exchequer "-" The Smaller Black Book of the Exchequer ""The Pipe Rolls"-"Testa de Nevill ""The Book of Aids."

HE Domesday Committee of the Royal Historical Society has issued an exceedingly interesting compilation of notes on the manuscripts recently exhibited at the Public Record Office.

Many of these manuscripts-or perhaps, it may be said, most of them, from Domesday Book downwards-are perfectly well known to the majority of readers; but there are certain incidents, chiefly historical, which are not so universally understood as to preclude the advisability of repetition, and we shall therefore give a short account of the more important of these famous records, the best known of which is of course the Domesday Book.

This remarkable record, the oldest survey among the national chronicles, was formerly kept by the side of the Tally Court in the Receipt of the Exchequer, whence it was removed to the Chapter House at Westminster in 1696, and from thence to the Public Record Office in 1859, where it is now to be found.

The book is in two volumes, one folio, and the other quarto. The larger volume contains 382 leaves of parchment, with five old fly-leaves at the beginning, and four at the end. The leaves, according to the Society's Report, measure 14 by 9 inches, and are mostly in quaternions of eight leaves; each page is divided into double columns, which seem to have been carefully ruled, for in the margins may still be seen the small holes made by the "runner" used as a guide for the ruler. No ornament is to be found in the whole of the book, but the name of each county is written in red, and a dash of the same colour is bestowed on capital letters, and also on the names of places occurring throughout the text; the name of each place has a red line drawn through it.

Volume II. is, as we have said, of a smaller size, the leaves being 10 by 6 inches, and the manner of execution is distinctly inferior in every respect to that displayed in the larger volume. Perhaps the novelty and consequent charm attending the inquisition had by that time begun to wear off, or orders may have been received from the King to complete the record as quickly as possible, which

Notes on the Manuscripts, etc., exhibited at H.M. Public Record Office. London: Longmans, Green and Co. 4to., 1886.

JANUARY, 1887.

4

was done at the expense of that neatness which is one of the main features of the earlier volume.

It is considered to be highly probable that the survey was commenced late in 1085, and finished in 1086, according to the colophon in the second volume, which reads as follows:

"Anno millesimo octogesimo sexto ab incarnatione Domini vicesimo vero regni Willelmi facta est ista descriptio non solum per hos tres comitatus sed etiam per alios."

The directions given to the commissioners who undertook the compilation were to inquire the name of each place, who held it at the time of Edward the Confessor, who held it then, how many hides were in the manor, how many ploughs in the demesne, how many homagers, villeins, cottars, serving-men, free tenants, and tenants in socage respectively; how much wood, meadow, and pasture, and the number of mills and fish-ponds. These inquisitions having been taken, were sent to Winchester, and there methodized and enrolled in the form we now see them.

There is a printed edition of Domesday which was completed in 1783, and also a facsimile reproduction in photo-zincography, the latter process necessitating the taking to pieces of the two volumes. On being put together again, they were bound by Rivière in 1869, and returned to the Record Office.

In Devon's Issues of the Exchequer, under date 1320, the following entry appears, relating to the binding of the smaller book:

"To William the book-binder of London, for binding and newly repairing the Book of Domesday, in which is contained the counties of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, and for his stipend, costs and labour: received the money the 5th day of December, by his own hands-3s. 4d."

The chest in which the two volumes are deposited was formerly kept in the Receipt of the Court of Exchequer, under three locks and keys, in charge of the auditor, the chamberlains, and deputy-chamberlains of the Court. This box, now in the Record Office, measures externally 3 feet 2 inches in length, 2 feet I inch in breadth, and 2 feet 3 inches in height. The Crown and other regalia are supposed to have been at one time kept in this box.

The Abbreviatio of "Domesday."-This record, which was produced for the inspection of the members of the Committee, is thus described by Sir Francis Palgrave in the introduction to his Ancient Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer.

66

'Besides the original Domesday, the Treasury possesses an abridgment forming a very beautiful volume, apparently compiled early in the reign of Edward I. The handwriting is a fine specimen of caligraphy; the capitals are illuminated; in the margins of some of the pages are circles of gold, containing heads or half lengths, representing the chief tenants whose lands are therein described. Prefixed are leaves of vellum, with six illuminations or pictures of incidents from the