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manors, or to families among different branches of whom a single 
manor was divided. We have then a class of persons who may or 
may not have been the subject of enquiry to anyone before us, 
and of whom the Topographer is perhaps the first to bring their 
names from out of the obscurity which rests upon them. In these 
cases he must apply himself resolutely to his work. If he has 
collections for his county made by some former collector, and 
preserved in manuscript, he is fortunate, for they will serve at 
least as guides to his authorities, and sometimes may be allowed 
to supply the place of his own research. If the heralds have 
preceded him, he may find the sequences of the lords as they have 
recorded them; but in respect of races of whom no authentic 
account has previously been given, it is his duty to search for 
himself, and to gather for himself from the remains of past ages 
who they were, how they followed each other, and what was done 
by each. And for this purpose he has first the great Norman 
Survey, in which the name of the founder of these smaller feuds 
is sometimes to be read. He has his chance of meeting with him 
again in the Chartularies which contain the deeds of the eleventh, 
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, either his own, or of persons 
who claim him as their ancestor. He may even be so fortunate 
as to find deeds themselves. He may search the early proceedings 
in the courts of justice, where we have sometimes titles traced to 
the conquest. He may find a transaction or two in one of the 
earlier of the Pipe Rolls. When we approach the time when 
what the law calls ‘the memory of man’ begins, he may, and 
probably would find transactions in the Fines which would show - 
who in those early times had stepped into the place of the 
original mesne lord, how the tenancy had become divided, and 
possibly even the record of a transfer from one family to another. 
He has also the Red Book and the Black Book of the Exchequer, 
rich in matter of the greatest importance to him, as showing in 
whom the fees were vested at particular periods ; and in the 
Testa de Nevil he may be so fortunate as to meet with notices 
