No subject has been more studied than Domesday Book. Translations, explanations and dictionaries have been written upon it. These are very valuable as explaining the obscure points and giving the modern acreage, as compared with the carucate, bovate and hide. To understand a county history these must be closely compared. Many of the manors named in the old Survey are now lost. It must be remembered that waste lands and commons were not always mentioned, nor were churches or any property which was not taxable. For this reason Domesday often disappoints us by its meagreness of detail, but it forms the beginning or basis from which an inquiry may be started, and to pursue it through the centuries which followed, the public rolls and manuscripts are the only means of information; of these Domesday will prove valuable as a key.
The really practical book on old English writing best known and most popular, because neither complicated nor expensive, is Wright’s ‘Court-hand Restored,’ price £1, compiled in 1846 to meet a long-felt want, for Latin having ceased as the law language, lawyers no longer were obliged to know old legal forms and words as part of their profession, although they often felt the need of understanding them where any search through old deeds was requisite. Since then this book has passed through nine editions, the last of which was brought out in 1879, edited and improved by Mr. C. T. Martin, of the Public Record Office.[7] It contains alphabets in all styles, facsimiles of all classes of English writing, with translations, a glossary of obsolete words and place-names, supplying a valuable textbook to paleography, giving the reader all the information necessary for studying old deeds. Since then (1892) Mr. Martin has compiled a fuller and more elaborate glossary, called ‘The Record Interpreter,’ 10s. 6d. The amateur will need no other books if he is provided with these two volumes. A list of abbreviations taken from the Pipe Rolls was issued among the yearly volumes of the Pipe Rolls Society, price 12s. 6d. The fourth volume of ‘The Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense,’ edited by the late Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, in the Rolls Series of ‘Chronicles and Memorials,’ also contains a list of contracted words and their explanations. Its price is 10s. 6d.
The study of old deeds brings in its train a multiplicity of other subjects bearing upon old customs and legal formulæ, some of which were complicated. All the writers upon the law explain these formalities; ‘though now antiquated so far as the actual law work and procedure is concerned,’ they give the ancient methods; of these ‘Blackstone’s Commentaries’ is the best known.
Jacobs’ ‘Law Dictionary’ is another similar book; also ‘A New Law Dictionary,’ by J. Nicholson. But these books are now out of date; they may by chance be met with at sales or on bookstalls, where they may be bought for a few shillings. Perhaps an advertisement in the Exchange and Mart might be successful in obtaining replies. Of guides to various branches of archæology there are plenty lately issued since the subject became fashionable.
‘Record Searching,’ by W. Rye, gives a glimpse into the various public collections of books and MSS., and the class of information likely to be derived from manuscripts.
‘How to write the History of a Family,’ by Phillimore, is a similar work, useful to genealogists.
‘How to write the History of a Parish,’ by J. C. Cox, LL.D.
The information contained in all these three last books might be with advantage remodelled and extended. They are in reality indices to help the archæologist and put him in the way of obtaining information.
A charming little book, full of information, has been written by Mr. Chester Waters, upon Parish Registers, price 3s. 9d. Every clergyman should possess a copy of it.[8] On Church History there are recently published two very good 1s. volumes, called ‘Illustrated Notes on English Church History,’ by Rev. Arthur Lane; small engravings of all the English cathedrals and many handsome and celebrated churches are given, but no descriptions of them. A very good series of Diocesan Histories has been brought out by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. These may now be bought second-hand at 1s. per volume.
For derivation of words and place-names there is no better guide than Taylor’s ‘Words and Places,’ and Edmunds’ ‘Place-names’; both these are trustworthy, and have become recognised authorities; and also Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon dictionary.