INTRODUCTION. 7 



to the crown a return at all adequate to the burden it imposed 

 on the subject. 



Although it may possibly be said this register presents no 

 feature of striking novelty to those who are familiar with 

 documents of this description ; yet the minute details given in 

 this assessment, forming in fact, a complete terrier and directory 

 of the inhabitants of these villages in the period alluded to, are 

 by no means devoid of interest and historical value. Indeed, 

 records of this class appear to be deserving of more attention 

 than they have hitherto received from those who desire to obtain 

 official and therefore correct information as to the social condition 

 of the agricultural classes in past ages. 



To the student of family history and personal status, this 

 enumeration of the many owners, tenants, and tillers of the land 

 in the golden days of the most notable of our Tudor Queens 

 must be of considerable value and interest. Particularly to our 

 American friends, many of whom may trace back their lineage to 

 the old homesteads in these pleasant Hampshire villages which 

 their forefathers, yeomen and free-born subjects, left " for 

 conscience sake " in the seventeenth century, and assisted in 

 founding a community in New England, stamped so strongly with 

 the impress of their integrity and enterprise that two centuries 

 and a half has not effaced or dimmed its character. 



We can also discern from this record the early practice and the 

 gradual improvement of husbandry; we can also perceive and 

 comprehend the then system of agricultural tenure, the mode of 

 distribution of the land itself, and trace up to a period extending 

 to the Norman dynasty, the names of many old yeomen families, 

 who, in several cases have left behind them direct representatives 

 at the present day. 



The parish or manor was formerly divided into four portions : 

 first, the lord held together with his feudal rights over the whole 

 except the glebe of the parson or impropriator, a demesne which 

 he cultivated by his bailiff : secondly, there were the small estates 

 possessed by the freeholders, who paid quit-rents: thirdly, there 

 were the tenements and lands of the customary tenants; and 

 lastly, the waste or common over which the tenants had the right 

 of pasture, and sometimes of turf. 



From the regular division of the manors in this North Hamp- 

 shire district, as elsewhere, it is shown that many of them were 



