210 Malmesbury Abbey. 
appointed by Her present Majesty’s Government, who are now 
preparing a Report which will shortly be laid before Parliament. 
It is somewhat remarkable that amongst the country gentlemen 
who appear to have interested themselves in this matter (those of 
Dorsetshire, Huntingdon, and Surrey for instance) no mention 
should be made of the gentlemen of Gloucestershire or the members 
for that county; and yet it is well known that Sir Matthew Hale, 
whose treatise “‘On the Inrolling and Registering of Conyeyances”’ 
has been already referred to, lived in Gloucestershire and would 
probably have made communications on the subject to the members 
of his own district. Almost the whole case is discussed in that 
work, and the opinion announced by this eminent lawyer was 
decidedly in favour of a general register. The book it is true does 
not bear his name, being merely attributed to ‘a person of great 
learning and judgment,” but is well known to have been his 
production. In our own day the counties of York and Middlesex 
have obtained Acts for local registers, but as before observed, 
the gentry of Wiltshire were the first in the field. 
Malmesbury Abbey. 
The following petition has, I believe, been unnoticed by any 
local topographer. It is an application made in the 10th year of 
Henry VI. for the appointment to a vacant ‘‘ Corrody” (in medizeval 
Latin, “‘ Corrodium”’) or Allowance charged upon a Monastery for 
maintaining a seryant to the King, and providing him with meat, 
drink, and other necessaries. 
“Au Roy nostre souveraign Sieur. Supplie tres humblement 
yostre humble liege serviteur Thomas Hill varlet du celier de 
nostre souyeraigne Dame la Regne; Que de vostre benigne grace, 
il vous plais lui granter et ottroyer une corrodie estant en |’Abbaye 
de Malmesbury, a present vacante en vostre main par la mort et 
