PREFACE xv 



work in which my attention has not been called away to other 

 business. 



All students of Domesday Book must acknowledge their 

 indebtedness to the writings of the three great scholars who 

 have done so much to turn these statistics into matter of living 

 interert Professors Maitland and Vinogradoff and Mr. Round ; 

 my quotations from their works are very many, and their teach- 

 ing has influenced me more than I have been able to express. 

 If I have occasionally disagreed with one or other of them, it is 

 with the greatest diffidence, and then only when I have been 

 compelled by evidence which has apparently escaped their 

 notice. 



My grateful thanks are due to many of my friends who 

 have given me generous help : to the Rev. S. S. Pearse, Vicar 

 of Combe, who has not only read the whole book in MS., but 

 has also placed at my disposal his own collections for the 

 History of Combe, of which I have made full use ; to the 

 Rev. F. J. Brown, Rector of Steeple Aston, who has helped 

 me in ecclesiastical matters ; to Dr. Holdsworth of St. John's 

 College, who has read and criticized my seventh chapter ; 

 and last, but by no means least, to the Rev. Dr. Cox, the 

 general editor of this series, who has given me many hints 

 and generous assistance. 



I am much indebted to the kindness of Mr. P. J. Carlyon 

 Britton, the President of the British Numismatic Society, for the 

 illustrations of the Conqueror's seal, and to the same Society 

 for the impressions of the Confessor's and Conqueror's coins ; 

 also to the Rev. J. Harvey Bloom, for the Confessor's seal. 



