xl INTRODUCTION 



necessary to add anything to what has been already said 

 about the MS. of this work (6). 



In 1856 M. Louis Lacour printed as a Traite inedit 

 d'economie rurale the Paris MS. of Walter of Henley and 

 the anonymous Husbandry combined. The present is the 

 first edition which attempts to give this celebrated treatise 

 in its original shape ; the later additions have, of course, 

 an interest of their own, and these, as well as the tracts 

 with which Walter of Henley's was confused, are now ren- 

 dered available. 



IV. 



THE ANONYMOUS HUSBANDBY. 



While little can be said about the date and authorship 

 of Walter of Henley's treatise, we have no indication at 

 all in regard to this anonymous work, except that it had 

 been written in time for John de Gare to transcribe it at 

 Canterbury. It enjoyed a smaller circulation in all pro- 

 bability than the other, but it was treated as a practical 

 work which it was well to possess in a handy form. The 

 present edition has been printed, not from a book, but from 

 a roll in S. John's College, Cambridge, which is precisely 

 similar in shape and appearance to the rolls in which the 

 bailiffs kept their accounts. It measures seven feet four 

 inches long, and is about six inches wide. The hand is of 

 the early part of the fourteenth century. 



It also occurs in conjunction with Walter of Henley's 

 treatise in the book in the Cambridge University Library 

 marked Hh. hi. 11 f. 1653, but in a later hand than the 

 transcript of Walter of Henley in the same book (11). It 

 is found in the two Canterbury MSS. (2 & 10) and in the 

 British Museum, Add. 6159, f. 217 (12) ; also in the 

 Merton College MS. (7), and at Paris (4). The fact that 

 the compiler of the Paris MS. had before him all the 

 materials which occur in the Merton MS., and used a 

 similar arrangement of Walter of Henley, may indicate a 



