THE BURTON CHARTULARY. IOI 
The Chartulary is essential for the history of the above-named 
places ; but some of its contents have more than a local interest ; 
it contains, for instance, a nominal list of all the Burton tenants of 
the time of the Abbot Nigel, who died a.D. 1113. Many of these 
tenants must have been born before the Conquest, and all of them 
within a few years after it. This part of the Chartulary has there- 
fore an ethnological interest, for the names of these tenants supply 
us approximately with the relative proportions of the Saxon and 
Danish races in this part of the Kingdom. No doubt any assump- 
tion based on baptismal names only must be received with caution, 
for these races had become much blended by intermarriage by this 
date; but it is impossible not to be struck by the large proportion 
of Danish or Scandinavian names amongst the Burton tenantry ; 
and this tends to confirm an opinion which has been long held by 
the writer, that men of Danish descent formed a very large pro- 
portion of the English race at the Norman Conquest, and that this 
important political and ethnographical fact has not received suf- 
ficient attention in recent histories of the English people. 
The social habits and condition of the people receive many 
illustrations in the pages ofthe Chartulary. Thus the “ corrodium” 
or allowance of food and clothing made by religious houses in 
exchange for a gift of land or money, was the method by which an 
annuity was secured in the middle ages, and the details of the 
charges on this head throw some light on the mode of life 
and food of the middle classes in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries. 
The legal proceedings (folios 86—g3) between the monks and 
their customary tenants of Mickle-Over, who claimed to be free 
tenants, are very curious and interesting. Although the villains 
were unsuccessful in their suit, they appear to have found in- 
fluential protectors, and on two occasions obtained access to 
King Edward I. and laid their grievances in person before him. 
The prosecution of the Abbot for appropriating the missing 
treasury of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, attainted and beheaded a.D. 
1323, is noteworthy when taken in connection with the finding of 
a large number of coins (over 100,000) in the River Dove near 
