Introduction. xiii 



But this is not Berthelet's only allusion to these books. In 

 an edition of the Book of Surveying, printed by Berthelet,^ 

 there are some remarks by him at the back of the title-page 

 to the following effect. " To the reder. Whan I had printed 

 the boke long}*ng to a Justice of the peace, togither with 

 other small bokes very necessary, I bethought me vpon this 

 boke of Surueyenge, compyled sometyme by master Fitz- 

 herbarde, how good and howe profytable it is for all states, 

 that be lordes and possessioners of landes, .... or tenauntes 

 of the same, .... also how well it agreeth with the argument 

 of the other small bokes, as court-baron, court-hundred, and 

 chartuary, I went in hande and printed it in the same 

 volume that the other be, to binde them al-togither. And 

 haue amended it in many places." 



The mention of " the boke longyng to a Justice of the 

 peace" is interesting, as bringing us back again to Sir Anthony 

 Fitzherbert "In 1538," says Mr. Wallis,^ "Robert Redman 

 printed " The newe Boke of Justices of the Peas, by A. F. K. 

 [Anthony Fitzherbert, Knight], lately translated out of French 

 into English, In the yere of our Lord God, M.D.xxxviii. 

 The 29 day of December, Cum priuilegio." ^ Mr. Hobson's 

 list (Hist. Ashborne, p. 234) mentions this as " the first work 

 on the subject ever printed," but this is not the case. 

 Wynkyn de Worde and Copland both printed, as early as 

 1515, "The Boke of Justices of the Peas, the charge, with al 



* The date is 1539; the words here quoted appear also in Berthelet's edition 

 of 1546. 



' I am quoting from an article by Mr. A. Wallis entitled " Relics of Literature,'* 

 which appeared in the Derby Mercury, Nov. 1869. It contains some usefiil infor- 

 mation about the editions of Fitzherbert's works. It should be observed that 1538 

 was the very year of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's death, which took place on May 27. 



' In an edition printed by T. Petit in 1541, a copy of which is in the Cambridge 

 University Library, the title is — "The Xewe Booke of Justyces of Peas, made by 

 Anthony Fitzherbard Judge, lately tra^tslated out of Frenche into Englyshe, The 

 yere of our Lord God MDXLI." 



