Part of the missing end of the Note Book might Appendix to the requisite size; perhaps then the copyist omitted one of the eight cases. That one of them was in the Note Book is made the more probable by this, that the same case at a later stage appears in another part of the Note Book, and the annotator has there written in the margin alibi supra, meaning that the same case was to be found above, which would only be true if it stood on the page now lost1. The method employed for restoring this lost page might, I thought, be also used for determining the question, whether be restored. anything and, if anything, what, had been lost from the end of the Note Book. The process could only be applied in a one-sided fashion; it might give positive but could not give negative results. The fact that a roll was not scored, would prove nothing, for the maker of the Note Book might have had a duplicate roll. The fact that a roll was scored, would go to prove that extracts from it were once in the book; though this would not be quite certain, for the direction to copy might never have been obeyed, or the copy might have been made in some other book. A search, (I dare not say an exhaustive, but still a diligent search,) through the plea rolls of the first forty years of Henry's reign, (I must gratefully acknowledge the help given me by Mr W. F. Noble,) resulted in the discovery of but two rolls, from which there were no extracts in the Note Book, and which yet were scored in the to me familiar fashion. This result if small was satisfactory. One of these two rolls was a roll for the eyre of 1221, that eyre of Martin Pateshull and the Abbot of Reading in the mid-western counties which Bracton has made famous; the county was Worcester. Now cases from this eyre, Leicestershire and Staffordshire cases, are the last things now in the Note Book. The probability therefore seems very strong that the marks on this Worcester roll were obeyed; extracts from that roll are just what we might expect to follow cases heard in other counties during the same eyre. This Worcester roll, again, has one inscription 1 Appendix to vol. 3, Case 8; 2 Assize Rolls, M. 6, 31. 1. Case 1111. which deserves note. There is a case on it which has been disordered by the intrusion of a postscript; one ought to read what comes below before what stands above. Against this he who scored the roll has scribbled (the words are faint but legible)-primo scribatur ibi postea supra; this is a direction to the copyist to transpose two sentences. We may then conclude with some certainty that the Note Book once had extracts from this roll. The second of the two rolls now in question, was the record of the eyre of A.R. 3 in Lincolnshire, an eyre in which Pateshull apparently took part and from which Bracton cites a case'. What else, if anything, may have been lost from the end of the book we cannot decide; but the fact that no scored roll has been found for any year from A.R. 22 to A.R. 40 both inclusive, a period from which very many rolls are still preserved, tends towards proof that there cannot have been many extracts in the Note Book of later date than the latest of those which now appear there. Beyond A.R. 40 my search has not been systematically prosecuted, and it must be confessed that the discovery of any rolls of considerably later date, bearing marks of just the kind that has here been described, would bring some of my inferences to the ground; but having compared roll after roll, case by case, with my transcript of the Note Book, it seems to me quite certain that the marks on the rolls were put there by the compiler of the Note Book. § 8. Of the Relation between the Note Book and Bracton's Treatise. It is now to be considered what reasons there are for Why Bracsupposing the Note Book to be Bracton's. ton's Note Book? from com The comparison of handwritings is not one of the tests No proof that can be applied, for we have no manuscript of Bracton's parison of treatise, (at least I have seen none,) that can claim to be the writings. 1 Tower Roll, No. 1. See Br. f. 298; this case is on the roll. hand autograph. On the two rolls which record his labours in Devonshire as a justice of assize, there are some corrections and interpolations, which very likely were made by his hand; they seem to be just of the kind that would be made by the judge himself. There does seem to me to be much likeness between them and the notes in the Note Book; but they are too brief to be trustworthy material; the inference that Bracton made them is but an inference; I have no skill in comparing hands; therefore no stress whatever is laid upon the resemblance. As to the few words occasionally written on the margin of rolls by the person who scored' them, these are hasty scrawls made with some blunt instrument, and cannot be profitably compared with the notes in the Note Book. We must look then beneath the external form to the matter which our book contains, and our first argument will be founded on the choice of rolls whence extracts have been made. The selection of Rolls. Rolls of the Detailed comparison. The First Argument: The Selection of Rolls. Now speaking largely we may say that the compiler of the Note Book has used just the set of rolls that Bracton used. Such is the general result, but the comparison must descend to details, and the three classes of rolls may be taken separately. 1. Rolls of the Bench. Some difficulty is occasioned at starting by the loss of the earliest rolls of this class and the loss of the Note Book's first page. Henry III. was crowned on the 28th Oct. 1216. Almost the whole of his first year was taken up by the civil war, which was ended by the treaty of Lambeth on the 11th Sept. 1217. Thereupon a court began to sit at Westminster, and the first pleas after the war were of Michaelmas term 1217 (A.R. 1-2). Bracton had a roll for this term and the Note Book has extracts from it. But it is not for another two years, namely until Michaelmas 1219 (A.R. 3—4), that we find an extant roll. The Note Book has extracts from the roll for Easter and Trinity 1219 (A.R. 3). These are preceded by fifteen cases, the first now in the book; they have no heading because what was once the first page has disappeared. They certainly belong to the interval between Michaelmas term 1217 (A.R. 1-2) and Michaelmas term 1219 (A.R. 3-4) and they do not belong to Easter or Trinity 1219 (A.R. 3). The terms left open for them are Hilary, Easter, Trinity, Michaelmas 1218, and Hilary 1219. Their date should be fixed. rolls. The adjournments seem to point to a Trinity term; this The earliest among other reasons led me when I had them printed to ascribe them to Trinity 1218 (A.R. 2). Bracton cites several of them; he cites Case 5 from Trinity A.R. 2; Case 8 from term. S. Mich. A.R. 2 post guerram, that is probably from Michaelmas 1217 (A.R. 1-2); Case 12 as inter prima placita post guerram (a rather vague phrase); for what seems to be a later stage of Case 11, he vouches the roll of Michaelmas A.R. 2—3 (1218), while Case 9 is spoken of as having come before Pateshull in A.R. 2 but no term is mentioned. This evidence is somewhat perplexing; but we must remember that the same case often appears in different stages on several different rolls. Bracton cites five cases from Trinity 1218 (A.R. 2) and one from Michaelmas 1218 (A.R. 2—3), none of which are in the Note Book; he cites no case, at least expressly, from either Hilary or Easter 1218 (A.R. 2). Again on one occasion he cites a case (f. 302) in secundo rotulo post guerram de termino S. Trinitatis. This led me at one time to believe that the Court did not sit in Hilary or Easter 1218 (A.R. 2); but on examining the feet of fines I had to abandon this notion; the Court sat in all four terms of 1218. I now think that there was but one roll for the three first terms of that year. In the early years of the reign it is not uncommon to find a roll covering more than one term. This would explain the citation "in the second roll after the war, from Trinity term." Also it will explain a note in the margin of the Note Book over against Case 9, namely, De term. S. Trin. ann. eodem ij°. The annotator has probably put this somewhere about the place where the Detailed comparison transactions of the Easter term end and those of the Trinity term begin. If that be its meaning I do not think that it is quite in the right place, for in Cases 5, 6, and 7 we read of what was done three weeks after S. John's day i.e. Midsummer. On the whole I still think that the fifteen extracts in question, or all but the first two or three, belong to Trinity A.D. 1218 (A.R. 2), but that they may well have been preceded in the Note Book by a few extracts from the Hilary and Easter terms. In that case the maker of the Note Book had the rolls continued. for all terms from the beginning of the reigu down to and including Trinity 1218. From Michaelmas 1218 (A.R. 2—3) there are no extracts. The Court sat in that term and Bracton cites a solitary case. So this we must account an instance of Bracton having had a roll which the maker of the Note Book is not proved to have had. From Hilary 1219 (A.R. 3) we get no extracts; but Bracton cites no case; no fines have been found; an eyre on a large scale was going on, and we may conclude that the Bench at Westminster was unoccupied1. From the next nine terms the Note Book has extracts and Bracton has citations. We pass therefore unchecked to Trinity 1221 (A.R. 5). From this the Note Book has nothing. Bracton apparently has one case. But I have found no roll and no fines and think it very doubtful whether the Court sat. On the morrow of Trinity, Pateshull, Hareng and Lexington, three of the usual judges of the Bench, began an eyre in the west which seems to have kept them away throughout the summer and far into the autumn. From the next term again, Michaelmas 1221 (A.R. 5—6) there is nothing in the Note Book. Bracton does not cite any cases distinctly from Mich. A.R. 5-6; but he cites eight from Mich. A.R. 6. This seems at first sight ambiguous; but six out of the eight are essoin cases which would, I suppose, be adjudged on the first days of the term, and I infer therefore 1 See the letters of 26th Jan. 19 in Foedera, vol. 1. p. 154. 2 I have spoken of this eyre in Pleas of the Crown for the County of |