INTRODUCTION XXIX 



Hengham, a collection of statutes, &c. The treatise of 

 Walter of Henley has been inserted in the time of Henry IV. 

 It is commenced on a blank leaf, and continued along the 

 foot of eleven subsequent pages. It has no numbers to the 

 chapters, and no headings ; the text corresponds very 

 closely with that of 13, but it is somewhat later in date, 

 and is much more carefully written. This is one of the 

 latest transcripts, but it appears to be of great value for 

 settling the form of the original work, though the language 

 and spelling have been modernised by the transcriber. 



(9) Dd. ix. 38 f. 252. This is a parchment folio written 

 by various hands in the fourteenth century ; it belonged 

 to the monastery at Eeading. It contains, besides a col- 

 lection of statutes, much interesting information about the 

 relations of the abbey and the town. Some of this has been 

 printed, from other sources, by Coates in his History of 

 Reading, App. No. V. It is one of two copies of the 

 Husbandry which were certainly written at Eeading, and 

 which I have taken as representing one group of MSS. 

 The text is, however, not precisely similar to that in 

 the other numbers of the group ; the chief difference 

 is the omission of the sentence on the relative cost 

 of working land on the two field and three field sys- 

 tems. 



(I) Ee. i. 1 f. 251. This is the MS. from which the 

 text of the present edition is printed. It has been repro- 

 duced exactly, without any emendations, in accordance 

 with the reasons stated above. The volume is a folio on 

 parchment, and contains Bracton, Hengham, statutes of 

 the realm, and documents relating to lands belonging to 

 the Prior of Luffield. A considerable portion of the volume 

 is of the time of Henry III., but the transcript of Walter of 

 Henley appears not to be of quite such an early date ; other 

 treatises and documents have been added and inserted in 

 the early part of the fourteenth century. 



(II) Hh. iii. 11 f. lib. This is a folio on parchment 

 containing a collection of statutes, and it formerly belonged 

 to F. Tate, a Eeader in the Middle Temple in the time of 



