[1083] As an example of the possibility of error, in the printed Roll of 1159 (5 Hen. II.) a town is entered on the Roll as paying "quater xx. lv. libras et ii marcas et dim'." The explanation of this unintelligible entry is, I may observe, as follows. The original entry evidently ran, "quater xx et ii marcas et dim'" (82½ marcs). Over this a scribe will have written the equivalent amount in pounds ("lv libræ") by interlineation. Then came the modern transcriber, who with the stupidity of a mechanical copyist brought down this interlineation into the middle of the entry, thus converting it into sheer nonsense. We have also to reckon with such clerical errors as the addition or omission of an "x" or an "i," of a "bl." or a "no." Where the total to be accounted for is stated separately, we have a means of checking the accounts. But where, as at London, this is not so, we cannot be too careful in accepting the details as given. See also Addenda.
[1084] Liber Custumarum (Rolls Series), pp. 249-251.
[1085] "Contra Radulfum de Belphago qui tunc vicecomes erat in provincia illa et contra Radulfum Passelewe ejusdem provinciæ justiciarium" (Ramsey Cart., i. 149).
[1086] See Appendix K, on "Gervase of Cornhill."
APPENDIX Q
OSBERTUS OCTODENARII.
(See p. [170].)
The reference to this personage in the charter to the Earl of Essex is of quite exceptional interest. He was the Osbert (or Osbern) "Huit-deniers" (alias "Octodenarii" alias "Octonummi") who was a wealthy kinsman of Becket and employed him, in his house, as a clerk about this very time (circ. 1139-1142). We meet him as "Osbertus VIII. denarii" at London in 1130 (Rot. Pip., 31 Hen. I.), and I have also found him attesting a charter of Henry I., late in the reign, as "Osberto Octodenar[ii]." Garnier[1087] tells us that the future saint—
"A soen parent vint, un riche hume Lundreis,
Ke mult ert koneiiz et de Frauns et d'Engleis,