RECORDS, PUBLIC. 



RECORDS, PUBLIC. 



gro 



In the rolumina, or scapi, of the ancients, the writing was carried in j wealth, English was substituted; but soon after the Restoration, Latin 



the time of Henry VIII., contain so many skins that they cease 

 to be rolls, but become simply oblong books, and, unlike the early 

 rolls of the same series, are exceedingly ill-adapted for preservation 

 anil inconvenient for use. There are many of these miscalled rolls of 

 the reign of Charles II., which in shape, size, and weight reeinble the 

 largest Cheshire cheese, often requiring two men to lift them from 

 the rack. Membranes may be fastened together after the chancery 

 fashion in any numbers, and yet remain a legitimate roll, though 

 imposing much bodily labour in the consultation. The land-tax com- 

 missioners' Act of 1 Geo. IV. extends, it is said, 900 feet when 

 unrolled. Other records have the shape of books. Doomsday Book, 

 called both ' Kotulus ' and ' Liber,' the oldest and most precious of our 

 records, counting eight centuries as its age, and still in the finest order, 

 is a book ; and as occasions presented themselves for adopting this 

 shape without infringing on ancient precedent, the far more accessible 

 shape which we now call a " book " seems to have been employed. 

 A considerable part of the records of the courts of the surveyor- 

 general and augmentations, in the reign of Henry VIII., of wards and 

 liveries, and requests, are made up as books. Other documents, those 

 relating to fines, the ' Pedes Finium or Finales Concordia:,' the writs 

 of ' Dedimua Potestatem,' and acknowledgments and certificates, 

 writ* of the several courts and returns, writs of summons and 

 returns to parliament, inquisitiones post mortem, &c., Ac., by tens 

 and hundreds of thousands are filed, that is, each document is 

 pierced through with a string or gut, and thus fastened together in a 

 bundle. 



The material on which the record is written is generally parchment, 

 which, until the reign of Elizabeth, is extremely clear and well pro 

 pared. From that period until the present, the parchment gradually 

 deteriorates, and the worst specimens are furnished in the reigns of 

 George IV. and William IV. The earliest record written on paper, 

 known to the writer, is of the time of Edward II. It is one of a series 

 entitled, ' Papirus magistri Johannis Guicardi contra-rotulatoris Magme 

 Costumse in Castro Burdegalix, anno domini M. ccc. viiiV These 

 records are in the office of the queen's remembrancer of the exchequer. 



Tallies were records of wood. [TALLY.] 



The handwriting of the courts, commonly called court-hand, which 

 had reached its perfection about the reign of our second Edward, 

 differs materially from that employed in chartularies and monastic 

 writings. As printing extended, it relaxed into all the opposite* of 

 uniformity, clearness, legibility, and beauty which it once possessed. 

 The ink too lost its ancient indelibility ; and, like the parchment, both 

 handwriting and ink are the lowest in character in the later times ; 

 with equal care, venerable Domesday will outlive its degenerate 

 descendants. 



All the great series of our records, except those of parliament, are 

 written in Latin, the spelling of which is much abbreviated. The 

 reader who desires to be further informed on the subject may consult 

 the collections of contractions which Mr. Hardy has inserted in the 

 preface to his ' Close Rolls of King John,' and Mr. Hunter, in his 

 preface to the ' Fines of Richard I. and John.' During the Common- 



recent times. Many of our statutes from Edward I. to Henry V., and 

 the principal part of the rolls of parliament, are written in Norman 

 French. Petitions to parliament continued to be presented in Nor- 

 man French until the reign of Richard II., whose renunciation of* the 

 crown is said to have been read before the estates of the realm at 

 Westminster first in Latin and then in English. After this period 

 we find English often used in transactions between the people and 

 government, a sure sign that the distinctions of Norman origin were 

 nearly absorbed among the people at large. 



Sir Francis Palgrave's edition of the ' Calendars and Inventories of 

 the Treasury of the Exchequer,' some of which were compiled as 

 early as the 14th century, are extremely interesting in exhibiting the 

 ancient modes in which records were preserved. No uniform system 

 of arrangement seems to have been employed, but a different expedient 

 was used for the preservation of nearly every separate document. 

 Great numbers, juds^ng from the quantity found in arranging the 

 miscellaneous records of the queen's remembrancer of the exchequer, 

 were kept in pouches or bags of leather, e:mvas, cordovan, and buck' 



ram, a mode which is still used in this department of the exchequer. 

 These pouches, which fasten like m xlern reticules, are described by 

 Agarde, who was keeper of the Treasury of the Exchequer, " as hang- 

 ing against the walls." The following drawing represents a leathern 



pouch containing the tallies and the account of the bailiff of the 

 manor of Gravesend in the 37 and 38 of Edward III. 



When they have escaped damp, they have preserved their parch- 

 ment contents for centuries in all their pristine freshness and clean- 

 liness. Chests, coffers, coffins, and "forcers" bound with^ iron and 

 painted of different colours, cases or "scrinia,"* "skippets," or small 



* The Romans kept their record in ' Scrinia,' respectively distinguished as 

 1 Scriniu Viatoria ; Scrinia Btatnria ; Scrinia Palatii ; Scrinia Sacra ; Sorini.% 

 Augusta.' 



