AprIL 6. 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
365 
called curtana, and ij other swords, all iij swords 
“tae in a yerde di of crymysym tisshue cloth 
of gold.” 
The name of curtana for many ages continued 
to be given to the first royal sword in England. 
It existed as long ago as the reign of Henry III., 
at whose coronation (4.p. 1236) it was carried 
by the Earl of Chester. We find it at the corona- 
tions of Edward II. and Richard II. ; also in the 
time of Henry IV., Richard III, and Henry VIL.; 
and among the royal arms of Edward VI. we read 
of “a swerde called curtana.” 
Can any of your readers explain the origin of the 
name curtana, a sword so famous that it carries us 
back to the days of ancient chivalry, when it was 
wielded by the Dane Uggiero, or by the still 
more famed Orlando. Epwarp F. Rimpavtr. 
IS THE DOMBEC THE DOMESDAY OF ALFRED ? 
I beg to propose the following “Query” : —Is the 
Dombec, a work referred to in the Laws of Edward 
the Elder, the same as what has been called the 
Domesday or Winchester Book of Alfred the 
Great? [ incline to think that it is not, and shall 
be much obliged to any of your correspondents, 
learned in the Anglo-Saxon period of our history, 
who will give himself the trouble of resolving my 
doubts. 
Sir Henry Spelman, in his Glossary, voce Dombec, 
calls it the Liber Judicialis of the Anglo-Saxons ; 
and says it is mentioned in the first chapter of 
the Laws of Edward the Elder, where the king 
directs his judges to conduct themselves in their 
judicial proceedings as on Szepe 50m bec ycand, 
that is, as is enjoined in their Dome Book. —“ Quod,” 
he continues, “an de precedentium Regum legi- 
bus qua hodie extant, intelligendum sit: an de 
alio quopiam libro hactenus non prodeunte, incer- 
tum est.” 
But this uncertainty does not seem to have at- 
tached itself to the mind of Sir William Black- 
stone; for in the third section of the Introduction 
prefixed to his Commentaries on the Laws of Eng- 
land, he informs us that our antiquaries “ tell us 
that in the time of Alfred, the local customs of the 
several provinces of the kingdom were grown so 
various, that he found it expedient to compile his 
Dome Book, or Liber Judicialis, for the general 
use of the whole kingdom.” ‘This book is said to 
have been extant so late as the reign of King Ed- 
ward LYV., but is now unfortunately lost. It con- 
tained, we may probably suppose, the principal 
maxims of the common law, the penalties for mis- 
demeanors, and the forms of judicial proceedings. 
Thus much may be at least collected from that in- 
junction to observe it, which we find in. the Laws 
of King Edward the Elder, the son of Alfred. — 
“ Omnibus qui reipublice presunt etiam atque etiam 
mando, ut omnibus equos se prebeant judices, per- 
inde acin judiciali libro (Saxonice, 60m bec) serip- 
tum habetur: nec quidquid formident quin jus 
commune (Saxonice, Folepihte) audactes libereque 
dicant.” 
But notwithstanding this, it appears to me by 
no means conclusive, that the Dombec referred to 
in the Laws of Edward the Elder and the Liber 
Judicialis of Alfred are the same; on the contrary, 
Alfred’s Liber Judicialis seems to have been known 
not under the name of Dombec, but under that of 
the Winchester Roll, from the circumstance of its 
having been principally kept at Winchester: and 
Sir Henry Spelman says, the Domesday Book of 
William the Conqueror was sometimes called 
Rotulus Wintonie, a similitudine antiquoris, from its 
resemblance to an older document preserved at 
Winchester. And he quotes Ingulphus Abbot of 
Croyland, who says, ‘““Iste rotulus (7.e. the Domes- 
day Book of William) vocatus est Rotulus Win- 
toniz, et ab Anglicis pro sua generalitate, omnia 
tenementa totius terre integre continente Dumes- 
day cognominatur.” And then he proceeds,“ Talem 
rotulum et multum similem, ediderat quondam 
Rex Alfredus, in quo totam terram Angliz per 
comitatus, centurias, et decurias descripserat, sicut 
prenotatur. Qui quidem Rotulus Wintoniz-voca- 
tus est, quia deponebatur apud Wintoniam con- 
servandus,” &e. 
Here is nothing said of this work being called 
50m bec: neither does Spelman, in his enumera- 
tion of the works of Alfred, give the least intima- 
tion that any one of his collections of laws was 
called 50m bec. 
We know, indeed, that Alfred compiled a code 
of laws for his subjects ; but whether any part of 
them has been: preserved, or how much of them is 
embodied in subsequent codes, cannot now be de- 
termined. Asser mentions that he frequently re- 
primanded the judges for wrong judgments; and 
Spelman, that he wrote “a book against unjust 
magistrates,” but any complete body of laws, if 
such was ever framed by Alfred, is now lost ; and 
that attributed to him in Wilkin’s Leges Anglo- 
Sazon, is held in suspicion by most writers. 
For these reasons, and considering that Sir Wil- 
liam Blackstone’s knowledge of English history 
was rather superficial, I incline to the belief, that 
the 50m bec referred to in the laws. of Edward 
the Elder, was some collection of laws made prior 
to the time of Alfred: this might clearly be the 
case, as Sharon Turner informs us that the Saxon 
laws were committed to writing as early as the 
commencement of the 7th century. 
The opinions of your learned correspondents 
on this disputed point may be of much interest to 
many of your readers, and to none more than to 
Grorce Munrorp. 
East Winch. 
