INTRODUCTION. 



THE position which the history of the village commune at 

 present occupies in the field of historical research is of itself 

 sufficient inducement to bring to public notice the following 

 material for the illustration of the social relations of the agri- 

 cultural classes in North Hampshire during the latter half of the 

 sixteenth century, which furnishes a vast store of new, important, 

 and interesting matter. 



Much has already been published with respect to our primitive 

 agricultural institutions, and many surveys, court rolls, and extents 

 of manorial property at this period are to be found in the Public 

 Record Office and elsewhere. We however, possess very few, 

 if any, original returns relating to the little known system of 

 PURVEYANCE, which are so trustworthy to a unique degree in 

 their details as the document on which we are about to treat, 

 or afford so much statistical and local information relating to 

 the various parishes comprised within its survey. 



This remarkable and curious record, which the writer discovered 

 amongst a mass of theological literature presented to the Church 

 of Whitchurch, Hants, by the Rev. Joseph Wood, a vicar of the 

 parish in the early part of the last century,* consists of a 

 complete list of the owners and holders of land in a group of 

 North Hampshire villages in the year 1575, 17th Elizabeth, 

 assessed for the purveyance or furnishing of certain provisions 



* It is doe to the Rev. J. H. Hodgson, late vicar of Whitchnrch, to 

 express the writer's great obligation for the facility kindly afforded him of 

 transcribing this interesting record. In the Vestry of the Church there is a 

 marble tablet commemorating the Founder of the Library, the Rev. Joseph 

 Wood, which bears this inscription: "Here lye the remains of Mr. Joseph 

 Wood, the late worthy vicar of this parish, whose piety towards God, chanty 

 to the poor, and uncommon benevolence and good nature justly gained the 

 love and esteem of all men. By the assistance of Queen Ann's Bounty he 

 augmented the Vicarage with a Rent-Charge of thirty-three pounds ten 

 shillings and eight pence per annum for ever. And left a handsome library 

 of Books for the use of his successors. He died February 27, 1731, aged 78. 



