PREFATORY NOTE. 



A LARGER body of material for the agrarian history of 

 mediaeval England is already in print than is commonly 

 supposed ; but it is scattered about in publications of very 

 different kinds and dates. It has occurred to the Editor, there- 

 fore, that it would be of service to scholars to furnish them with 

 a preliminary survey of this material, classified according to 

 nature, date, and locality. There is this additional reason : that 

 new interest is now being directed to the subject, and fresh 

 documents are likely to be printed during the next few years 

 in increasing numbers. It is surely desirable that, in selecting 

 documents for this purpose, regard should be paid to previous 

 efforts, and that those should first be chosen which belong to 

 classes of material or refer to periods or districts before least 

 satisfactorily represented. A list of the kind here presented 

 will thus, it is hoped, indicate the lacunae which most need to 

 be filled. 



The list was primarily intended to include only documents 

 printed in whole or in large fragments. It excludes accordingly 

 mere lists or calendars, as well as modern accounts in English 

 which are anything other than literal translations. But the 

 Compiler has so far departed from the original design as to add 

 a list of text-books of manorial law, as well as another of manorial 

 maps. It is believed that these will be useful to investigators, 

 and that even an incomplete list may often be suggestive through 

 mere juxtaposition. 



It may be well to call particular attention, first, to the inten- 

 tional omission of the contents of such great bodies of record as 

 the Domesday Book and the Hundred Rolls, which are already 



