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PRE FACE.

PREFACE.

MR. HORWOOD, whose unexpected death will be deplored by workers in many fields of antiquarian research, wrote and passed through the press the whole of the text and translation contained in the present volume. He also prepared the "Table of Names"; and his successor is responsible only for this preface and for the index.

It is much to be regretted that no preface by Mr. Horwood has been found amongst his papers. His work must necessarily appear at a disadvantage when another editor has to explain by inference or conjecture those preliminary details which he would have explained directly.

The present volume contains reports of the whole of the eleventh year and of three terms in the twelfth year of the reign of Edward III. The last volume edited by Mr. Horwood concluded with the thirty-fifth or last year of the reign of Edward I.; and it may be asked why the next term selected for publication is Hilary in the eleventh year of the reign of Edward III. Mr. Horwood, it may be presumed, was not in possession of sufficient materials for another volume of Year Books of any portion of the reign of Edward I., and (finding that the old editions of the Year Books extend uninterruptedly from the first year of the reign of Edward II. to the tenth year of the reign of Edward III.) proceeded to fill up the first gap in the printed series. No complete Year Books of dates between the tenth and the seventeenth years of the reign of Edward III. appear to have been hitherto published, though there are manuscripts from which the whole of the deficiency may be

The MSS.

The Temple MS.

made good, and from which some extracts have been made for Fitzherbert's and other Abridgments.

Some reason, too, ought perhaps to be assigned for concluding the present volume with Trinity instead of Michaelmas term, 12 Edward III. It certainly was, at one time, Mr. Horwood's intention to complete the year, as reports of Michaelmas term were sent to the printers and even set up in type, but subsequently withdrawn. It is no less certain that he afterwards decided to end with Trinity term, as his directions to that effect appear upon the proofs with his final corrections. Possibly the great bulk of the volume deterred him from making any addition to it.

The whole of the MSS. used by Mr. Horwood have, it is believed, been identified. One belongs to the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, one to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, and one to Sir Charles Isham, Bart.; the rest are "Additional MSS." in the British Museum, numbered respectively 16,560, 25,184, and 25,185.

The Inner Temple MS., which bears a press-mark No. 510, is, for the most part, of a handwriting which is within a few years contemporaneous with the reports contained in the volume. It consists of 129 folios or leaves of vellum carefully numbered.

The volume, like many of the best MSS., is imperfect at the beginning, the first word of the first page being in the middle of a sentence. At the forty-second line, however, is the heading, "De Termino Pascha Anno "Regni Regis Edwardi Tertii a Conquestu Decimo," and, from Easter in the tenth year to Hilary in the twelfth year, there are reports under clearly marked and contemporaneous headings for cach term. Near the end of folio 446 is a space upon which is written in very small letters, but in a contemporary hand, " De termino "Pascha Anno Regni Regis E. etc. xii in aliis libris." There has also been here some other writing which has

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been erased. The reports next succeeding are distinctly attributed, in Sir Charles Isham's MS., and in the additional MS. 25185, to Easter term, but, as will hereafter be explained, some of them are assigned to another term in another MS. They extend from fol. 44b to fol. 47a.

Fol. 476 and the whole of fol. 48 contain copies of records which have been printed by Mr. Horwood as of Easter term 12 Edward III. at pp. 465-487 of the present volume. There are no cases assigned to Trinity or Michaelmas term.

From Hilary term 13 Edward III. to Michaelmas term 16 Edward III. consecutively, there are reports of cases in each term under contemporary term-headings in large and distinct writing. They end at fol. 1266 of the MS.

Folios 127 and 128 are about an inch shorter, and an inch narrower than the rest of the MS. Fol. 127a has the word nono at the top; fol. 127b the letters "hill." and fol. 128a the word nono. A word has been erased at the top of fol. 128b. Fol. 127a begins in the middle of a sentence. The report beginning on the third line appears in the printed Year Book as the fourth case in Hilary term in the ninth year of the reign of Edward III. It is, however, incomplete, and fol. 128 begins in the middle of another report, which has been identified as the third case (a quare impedit) in the printed Year Book of Trinity term, 9 Edward III.

The last folio (No. 129) bears writing in later hands, and includes miscellaneous notes in Latin and English. Among them are a copy of a charter, the great philosophical maxim " Mediocria firma," and a hexameter line :"Omnibus est notum quod multum deligo potum," in which, perhaps, deligo is used in the sense of diligo. There is also a prescription in English for use in case of fever, and some other memoranda.

The MS. is in excellent preservation throughout, and is of very great value. It is now in a handsome modern

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