When they have escaped damp, they have preserved their parch ment contents for centuries in all their pristine freshness and clean liness. Chests, coffers, coffins, and " forcers " bound with iron and painted of different colours, cases or "scrinia,"* "akippets," or small turned boxes, and hampers, or "hampers of twyggya," were also used.
Inscriptions on labels, letters, and " signs " furnished the means of reference. We owe the following specimens of these " signs " to the kindness of Sir Francis Palgrave, who has obliged us with the loan of the blocks, cut for his calendars of the exchequer before mentioned. These signs in most cases bear analogy to the subject of the docu ments which they are intended to mark.
The rolls of the justices of the forest were marked by the sapling oak (No. 1). Papal bulls by the triple crown (2). Four canvas pouches holding rolls and tallies of certain payments made for tho church of Westminster were marked by the church (3). The head in a cowl (4) marked an indenture respecting the jewels found in the house of the Fratres Minores in Salop. The scales (s), the assay of the mint in Dublin. The Briton having one foot shod and the other bare, with the lance and sword (6), marked the wooden " coffin " holding the acquittance of receipts from Llewellin, Prince of Wales. Three herrings (7), the " forcer " of leather bound with iron, containing documents relating to Yarmouth, fie. The lancer (8), documents relating to Aragon. The united hands (9), the marriage between Henry, Prince of Wales, and Philippa, daughter of Henry IV. The galley (10), the recognisance of merchants of the three galleys of Venice. The hand and book (11), fealty to kings John and Henry. The charter or cyrograph (12), treaties and truces between England and Scotland. The hooded monk (13), advowsons of Irish churches. And the castle with a banner of the Clare arms (14), records relating to the possessions of the earl of Olouceater in Wales.
Our ancestors before the Norman conquest pursued no system of public registration. There are numerous charters of the Angle.Saxon kings and deeds between private individuals still existing : eix volumes of these were edited by the late most able scholar, John Mitchell Kemblo, under the title of Codex Diplonuttleus Levi Saxonici, but oven he did not exhaust the precious store. I I istorical events were chronicled in monastic chartulariea.
The Anglo-Saxons, whose judicial proceedings were conducted orally, had no records except the "land-hoes" or charters. The transactions of the folk-moots were not registered or recorded, and in the adminis tration of justice no reference was made to written precedents. In such a state of society, though tho actual possession of land constituted one of the best titles to real property, still the "land-boo" furnished evidence of it also. And so important were these land-books con sidered, that when the monks of Ely purchased seven hydes and a half of land, they gave throe hydes, besides -thirty " aurei," to recover the charter or " cyrogtaph " of the title. Duplicates and triplicates of those
land-books were made, and one " part " was delivered into the custody of the Burthegn, or chamberlain, to be preserved in the " horde," or royal treasury.
When a written account is made of any act, it is clear that it is made not for the exclusive benefit of one party only. In the Domesday Book of the Norman conqueror, we see evidence that his power was far from absolute. The financial registrations (Rotuli Pipe) of Henry I., in whose reign the earliest example is found—the records of the judicial proceedings of the "Curia Regis," which begin with Richard I.—and the special acts of the monarch himself enrolled on the " close," " patent," and " charter " rolls commencing in the reign of John—are all so many irresistible proofs how larger interests were gradually trenching op the will of the king. The judicial records of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, and the parliamentary records beginning with Edward I., are further evidence of the increasing influence of the nobles and commonalty of the realm.
The king was legally considered as possessing the sovereign power. His peace was broken when the subject fell by the hand of the mur derer; his parliament was to be summoned; his honour to be vindi cated; and his army to be levied. It was the king's exchequer, the king's wardrobe, the king's court, and essentially the king's chancery ; for the chancellor's functions were originally those-of a private secre tary, combining duties both spiritual and temporal. Holding the keepership of the king's conscience, the chancellor was necessarily of the clerical body, and the chief of the king's chapel. The great seal was in his custody, and the scope of his secretarial duties embraced all those of modern times performed by our secretaries of state for the home and foreign departments ; and of all the business transacted a systema tic and orderly registration was preserved in the several inrolments called "patent,'" close, " charter," &c. All records of these several depart ments formed part of the king's treasure • and, in accordance with the practice of the ancient Persians five hundred years before the Christian era, when Darius caused a search for the decree of Cyrus to be " made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon " (Ezra, vi. 1), were deposited in the king's "treasuries." * The mutual interest of all parties naturally made the preservation of the records an object of general solicitude; to the king, as they furnished indisputable precedents for his calls of military service and taxation ; to the nobles, in protecting them in their feudal rights and various privileges ; and to the commons most of all, in limiting the powers both of king and nobles, sheltering them from capricious extortion, and securing to them a certain amount of consistency in the administration of justice.