viii Preface. 



with prosaic details ; the reply must be, that in 

 any acknowledged science, speculations, and other 

 the usual impedimenta of extraordinary genius 

 should be put to the ordinary tests of observation 

 and experiment, and that there are no (or scarcely 

 any) practical systems of knowledge, where so 

 many theories, alike unproved and improbable, are 

 permitted to survive, thrive, and increase, as in 

 the accepted School of History. The practical 

 Sciences have formulated their systems, not with- 

 out labour, and by careful examinations and com- 

 parisons ; the modern historian, it is true, has 

 dismissed the wonders, signs, and portents of the 

 mediaeval world, but taking into consideration 

 the usages and relative opportunities of the differ- 

 ent- ages, he often displays so vast an inexperience 

 of the ordinary phenomena of the physical world, 

 as to convict himself of a credulity much less ex- 

 cusable than that of an antecessor, whom it is his 

 frequent pleasure to decry. 



It may be permitted to notice some of the 

 novelties in these pages : for example, it appears 

 that the number of Liberi Homines and Soche- 

 manni in Lincoln, and Norfolk (presumably also 

 Suffolk), have been greatly overestimated, the 

 figures in Domesday giving no direct clue as to 



