Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/504

496 Although, in the absence of the original roll, we shall only be able to suggest an approximate date for its institution, it is possible to point to a remarkable feature which, so far as we are aware, cannot be paralleled in any of the great series of enrolments such as the Pipe, Charter, Curia Regis, Patent, or Close Rolls. In no case is the earliest extant roll of any of these the first of the series, and we are unable to say whether there was at the head of the first roll either a formal title or prefatory words of any kind. In the case of this Cheshire roll the opening words can be given. The herald who in 1580 made extracts from the roll called 'Domesday' tells us that 'in initio praefati rotuli scribitur sic':

"Incepto finem det gratia trina labori. Hic referens rotulus multorum pacta virorum, Non sinet a pacto quem resilire suo, Fallere temptanti iustos obstacula ponet, Ne quis sic faciat pagina sancta monet."

It may well be that these lines were inspired by the originator of the record. They purport to give in concise form the very objects for which it was established. This roll was to be such a record of men's acts and deeds as would prevent any one withdrawing from his solemn undertaking or attempting to deceive the righteous, and its holy pages would stand for ever as a warning against such wicked practices. The phraseology used in many of the enrolments amply bears out this statement of the purposes of the roll.

The earliest document which it has been possible, so far, to trace and date as enrolled on the 'Domesday' seems to be a charter (copied in the 1580 extracts) entered into during the period when Ranulph de Mainwaring was justiciar of Chester. He held office from about 1194 to 1208. The enrolment may not have been contemporary with the date of the deed, and it would not be safe to do more than to suggest this period for the institution of the roll, but it is curious, if it had an earlier date, that no older entries have survived. The herald's extracts of 1580 do not appear to follow any particular order, but look as if he turned over the roll (whether composed of membranes or of documents tied up together) and selected here and there entries which provided early genealogical information. His note about the verses at the head of the roll is not his earliest note, and the charter referred to above is by no means the first abstracted or the one following the verses. But it seems likely that if there had been any considerable number of entries of an earlier date some of them at least would have been extracted by the herald (who gives quite a number of documents entered in 1208–29, the