X Introduction. 



begin in Edward the Second's reign, are inquests to ascertain 

 whether petitions, as, for instance, petitions to alienate land, 

 may be granted without damage to the king or any one else. 

 Whenever these have seemed of sufficient interest they have been 

 referred to. 



The earliest documents of this list are of the twelfth century. 

 They concern the estates of great religious houses, and seem to be 

 modelled after " Domesday Book." Doubtless, as in the case 

 of Burton monastery, these accounts of lands, tenants, rents, and 

 services were drawn up that the heads of such houses might 

 know the amount of revenue due to them. They were to the 

 heads of religious houses what " Domesday " was to the king. 

 The documents of this time exhibit little variety. They are not 

 divided into classes, nor drawn up by special officers as part of 

 their regular duties, nor do they bear the titles, so familiar later, 

 of coiiipotus, extenta, or siipervisus. Briefly, they do not seem, as 

 do the documents of the next century, to be a necessary part of 

 the manorial system. 



With the thirteenth century a great increase takes place both 

 in the number and in the variety of manorial documents, and 

 from this time they naturally fall into the following distinct 

 groups : — 



I. Account Rolls. Under this heading come the compoti and 

 rotiili of the prcpositus, ballivns, biirsaruis, or later, of the collector 

 reditwnn, ?cs\6. firmarius . These rolls state the income accruing to 

 the lord of the manor from fixed rents and farms, sales of works, 

 sales of pasturage and grain, perquisites of courts, and the like, 

 as well as the outgo incident to carrying on the estate, — expenses 

 of ploughing, reaping, and sowing, and repairing implements and 

 buildings. On the backs of these rolls, memoranda of farm-stock, 

 works of tenants, and other matters, were often jotted down. 



It is apparent from the list of printed documents of this class 

 that only isolated and scattered examples of account rolls are 

 accessible to the student who is restricted to the use of published 

 material. In Maclean's " Trigg Minor," however, some half- 



