“Qui ‘Liber Albus’ erat, nunc est contrarius albo,
Factus et est unctis pollicibusque niger.
Dum tamen est extans, istum describite librum;
Ne, semel amisso, postea nullus erit.
Quod si nullus erit—nonnulla est nostraque culpa—
Hei! pretii summi, perdita gemma, Vale!”
The design of the work is thus laid down by John Carpenter himself:—
“Forasmuch as the fallibility of human memory and the shortness of life do not allow us to gain an accurate knowledge of everything that deserves remembrance, even though the same may have been committed to writing, more especially, if it has been so committed without order or arrangement, and still more so, when no such written account exists; seeing, too, that when, as not unfrequently happens, all the aged, most experienced, and most discreet rulers of the Royal City of London have been carried off at the same instance, as it were, by pestilence, younger persons who have succeeded them in the government of the City have, on various occasions, been often at a loss from the very want of such written information; the result of which has repeatedly been disputes and perplexity among them as to the decisions which they should give; it has long been deemed necessary, as well by the superior authorities of the said City as by those of subordinate rank, that a volume—from the fact of its containing the regulations of the City, it might be designated a ‘Repertory’—should be compiled from the more noteworthy memoranda that lie scattered without order or classification throughout the books and rolls, as well as the Charters of the said City. And forasmuch as such design—for some cause unknown, unless, indeed, it be the extreme laboriousness of the undertaking—has not been heretofore carried into effect, a volume of this nature, by favour of our Lord, is now at length compiled, in the Mayoralty of that illustrious man, Richard Whityngton, Mayor of the said City; that is to say, in the month of November, in the year of our Lord’s Incarnation one thousand four hundred and nineteen, being the seventh year of the reign of King Henry, the fifth of that name since the Conquest; containing therein not only those laudable observances, which, though not written, have been usually followed and approved in the said City, to the end that they may not be lost in oblivion hereafter, but also those noteworthy memoranda which have been committed to writing, but lie scattered in disorder in manner before mentioned; that so, by their being ascertained, the superior authorities of the said City, as well as those of subordinate rank, may know henceforth with greater accuracy what in rare and unusual emergencies should be done.”
