Page:The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of the British Empire Part 2.djvu/820

 3lDmigsions to t)t 3)nns of Court. PROSPECTUS. IT is with considerable pleasure that I am enabled to inform the sub- scribers to my Collectanea that special permission has been granted me by the authorities to edit, and to publish in this work_ the Admissions of members to Lincoln's Inn, to the Middle Temple, and to Gray's Inn. As these records are practically virgin soil, and as I am now placing the information they contain at the disposal of the public for the first time, I may with propriety explain their peculiar value both to the biographer and the genealogist. These entries (which commence about the middle of the i6th century) refer to the gentry and their younger sons ; and as it is customary to record the parentage of each student on his admission, it is obvious that no other series of documents outside the College of Arms — saving the similar Lists of Admis- sions to the Universities — can afford so much authentic information relating to our Aristocracy, or throw so much additional light on their genealogical history. The earlier admissions supply the data for identification which are generally wanting in the early Parish Registers, while the subsequent, and even recent, entries form a supplement to the Heralds' Visitations, which in many cases they enable us to continue over an often obscure period. They certainly equal these Visitations in interest, even if they do not excel them, inasmuch as each re- spective register supplies a fund of original information relating to families in every part of England and Ireland. It is a marked result of our national system of primogeniture that the cadet branches of our landed families are often hopelessly obscured, while the parent stem can be clearly traced through its connection with the ancestral estate. But it frequently happens that these same branches emerge again into eminence, and possibly surpass the ancestral distinctions of their house. Now, it is precisely m these cases — where an awkward gap has to be bridged over — that these Admissions may provide the missing link, and enable us to establish a connected pedigree. A To increase the general interest, notes of identification will be added' where possible, but the special feature of the Admissions will rather be found in those names which are not to be met with elsewhere, and among which many must discover those of their missing or perhaps obscure ancestors. In short, these Admissions belong to that class of records the importance of which is now so strongly insisted on both by the historian and the genealo- , gist. And while they possess for the latter a special value, as dealing exclusively' with the aristocratic classes, they will be appreciated by the former as th| national authentic register of the greatest of our learned professions.