Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/43

Rh is doubtful whether the number of churches destroyed was twenty-two or fifty-two, an amount of difference so large that we might also reasonably suspect his narrative, whilst he also commits the mistake of attributing the formation of the Forest to Rufus.

Now, the first thing which strikes us is that as the writers are more distant in point of time, and therefore less capable of knowing, they singularly enough become more precise and specific. What Florence of Worcester speaks of in merely general terms, Vitalis, and Walter Mapes, and Knyghton, give in minute details down to the very number of the parishes and churches.

As far as mere written testimony goes, we have nothing to set against their evidence, except Domesday, and the negative proof of The Chronicle. Not one word does The Chronicler, who, be it remembered, personally knew the Conqueror —who 25