INTRODUCTION. 



The Document which is described and printed in the following pages is Classification 



preserved amongst the Records of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners which 



have been deposited in the Public Record Ofllce since the year 1890. The 



modem official reference is to Ecclesiastical Commission, Various, Bdle. 22, 



Roll 159270, but in the older official lists of the Commissioners' archives the 



Roll bearing this number headed a long series of Rent Rolls of the Bishopric 



of Winchester extending from the year 1207 to 1455, with numerous gaps 



for the earlier period.'^ The Roll itself, Hke others of the series, once 



bore the 17th century press-mark, " 1207. John 8° Roach 4°" which has 



been replaced by a later official endorsement. The period thus assigned 



to it was derived from an erroneous calculation of the pontifical date.* 



There are no existing means of tracing the life-history of these Official 

 manorial Records, or of realizing their earlier official environment. Like 

 the strong castle and stately palace in which they were once compiled and 

 preserved, they serve to recall the princely state and fiscal establish- 

 ment to which they owed their inception and execution in the days 

 when the Norman rule was yet remembered in the land. Unlike the 

 records of the Royal Exchequer, upon which they were largely based, these 

 Rolls have not descended to us with any direct official traditions of their 

 early custody, but from our knowledge of their later vicissitudes ' we have 

 much cause for thankfulness that so large a number came into the careful 

 custody of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.'* Fortunately, the Roll which 

 has been printed in the following pages had escaped serious injury, and 

 the skilful repair which it has undergone since its transfer to the Public 

 Record Office still further facilitated the task of its transcription. 



The Roll in its present state consists of 13 parchment membranes of The Pai»o- 

 the average length of 24 inches and the average width of 13 inches. The ^'^^ ^' 

 last membrane, however, contains only 17 lines of writing, and the spare 

 parchment has long since been cut away. 



The several membranes, which are now mounted on guards, were formerly 

 secured by being loosely stitched at the top ; but it would appear from 

 other specimens of the class to which the document belongs that they 

 were originally secured at the head by leather thongs passed between two 

 pairs of eyelet holes at a slight distance apart. The lower extremity of 



1 178 rolls exist for this period of 248 years, but of these several are the second parts of 

 year rolls. 



2 See p. viii. 



' Somerset Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc. Trans, xviii., 84. 



* It may be of interest to mention that, on the occasion of a recent visit to Winchester 

 for the purpose of inspecting the Cathedral archives, by the kind permission of the Dean and 

 Chapter the present Editors were enabled, through the courtesy of their custodian, the Eev. F. T. 

 Madge, to inspect a Compotus or Pipe Roll of the 4th year of Bishop Athelmar (1253), which 

 is missing in the series preserved in the Public Record Office, on behalf of the Ecclesiastical 

 Commissioners. The whole of the Accounts of this troublous Pontificate are now missing, for 

 reasons which may perhaps be explained by the fiscal relations between the Bishopric and the 

 Convent referred to below (p. xi., n. 1). 



