Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/27

 PREFACE

THE Advertisement of the Victoria History sets forth the scheme under which the History of Norfolk is projected. Only a small part of the whole undertaking there detailed finds a place in this volume, and it will therefore suffice to refer here only to the subject matter now presented to the reader. The principle underlying the plan of the Victoria History is that of co-operation between local students of history and archaeology and those who possess expert knowledge in certain periods of history or departments of archæological research. The contributors to this volume have cheerfully acquiesced in these conditions, and it is hoped that by the method adopted greater accuracy has been obtained than could otherwise have been secured.

The investigations which have been made in the course of compiling the natural history of Norfolk have brought to light the want of special studies from which the county suffers in various departments.

The tastes and inclinations of students of local natural history lie mostly in certain directions, and the less popular orders in Botany and Entomology have received comparatively little attention. Much difficulty has therefore been experienced in obtaining representative lists for some of these orders. While the imperfections to which this work must plead guilty are to be deplored, it is possible that the energies of local naturalists may be directed thereby to those departments of the flora and fauna which require further study.

It has been reluctantly decided that the Domesday Survey of Norfolk cannot be dealt with on the same lines as those adopted for other counties. Its abnormal length is but one of the difficulties ; more serious are those which arise from the unsatisfactory state of the text and from the obscurity of its formulæ, even when the text is sound. Any translation would in fact be almost unintelligible. Those who are most competent to judge are of opinion that the time for dealing with this most difficult record is not yet ripe, and its contents are at present so imperfectly known that Professor Maitland has to speak in his Domesday XIX