"As the persons there mentioned were the patriarchs of most of the English gentry for many ages, and of many of our chief nobility of the present day, it will not be improper to examine into the authenticity of this roll of names; for different authors have given, some a greater, and some a less, number. As to the orthography, it is of little consequence; the spelling of names was not at that time, nor for many ages afterwards, fixed; every one writing them as he pleased.

"Grafton, in his Chronicle,' has given very many names, which he received from Clarenceux, king at arms, and out of John Harding's Chronicle,' with others. Holinshed mentions upwards of six hundred; Stowe, in his 'Chronicle,' only four hundred and seven; Thomas Scriven, Esquire, still fewer. Fuller, in his 'Church History,' has copied them, but he does not mention who Mr. Scriven was, nor from whence that gentleman took them. Foxe, in his Acts and Monuments,' has also given in a list of the names of William's officers and great men; but these, Fuller thinks, were not collected by Foxe. This catalogue of names is valuable, however, because the initials of the Christian names are given. The great difference made in these collections, naturally leads us to suspect that many omissions are made in some, and that numbers of names have been put into others to please individuals. Sir William Dugdale openly accuses the monks of Battel of flattery, from having inserted the names of persons whose ancestors were never at the Conquest. Guilliam Tayleur, a Norman historian, who could not have had any communication with the monks of Battel, has also published the muster-roll, which was called over after the battle of Hastings."

"The day after the battel, very early in the morning, Odo, Bishop

In the foregoing enumeration of the copies of this famous Roll, the writer does not mention Leland's copy, nor that of Dugdale. It is remarkable that although many, perhaps the majority, of the names occur in all the copies, others occur in one or two only; and the difference between the copies is such as to render all attempts at collation useless. As my object is to

give names said to have been introduced into this country by the Norman Conquest, rather than a critical inquiry into the authenticity of the several lists, I shall lay before the reader three of the latter, namely, those of Leland, Holinshed, and Foxe, adding, en passant, such notes and observations as may seem useful in illustration of the subject.

The original ROLL, compiled by the monks of Battel, was hung up in their monastery, beneath the following Latin verses :

"Dicitur a bello, Bellum locus hic, quia bello
Angligenae victi, sunt hic in morte relicti :

Martyris in Christi kesto cecidere Calixti:
Sexagenus erat sextus millesimus annus
Cum pereunt Angli stella monstrante cometa.”

Id est,

"This place is called Battel, because the English, slain in war, were here left dead. They fell on the

of Baieux, sung masse for those that were departed. The duke after that, desirous to know the estate of his battell, and what people he had therein lost and were slaine, he caused to come unto him a clerk, that had written their names when they were embarked at S. Valeries, and commanded him to call them all by their names, who called them that had bin at the battell, and passed the seas with Duke William."-John Foxe, Acts and Mon.

day of the feast of Christ's martyr, Calixtus. It was the year one thousand and sixty-six when the English perished, a great comet being visible at the time.” (?)

A metrical English version of these verses was formerly inscribed on a tablet in the parish church of Battel.

66

This place of war is Battel called, because in battel here, Quite conquered and overthrown the English nation were; This slaughter happened to them upon St. Celict's day, The year whereof (1066) this number doth array."

Of the history of the Roll subsequently to the dissolution of the monastery nothing certain is known. Three months after the surrender of the abbey, the site and lands were given by Henry VIII to Sir Anthony Browne, ancestor of the Viscounts Montague. This family sold the mansion, with its appurtenances, to Sir Thomas Webster, Bart. (whose descendants still possess it), and resided afterwards at their other seat, Cowdray House near Midhurst, and thither this famous document was probably carried.* Cowdray was destroyed by fire in 1793, when the Roll is presumed to have perished, with everything else of value which that lordly edifice contained.

* Gleanings respecting Battel Abbey.

Leland's Copy.

THE preference ought unquestionably to be conceded to this copy. John Leland saw and transcribed

the original; and in the notes to his transcript he notices some particular points marked upon the Roll, which he also transfers to his copy. There seems to be an attempt to arrange the names in such a manner as to make the last syllable of the second pair rhyme with that of the first, and also to produce alliteration in the pairs, e. g.

"Ferers et Foleville,

Briaunson et Baskeville."

*This may have been the origin of Moon.

This name occurs in most copies of the Roll, but it would seem to be an interpolation, unless, indeed, it be an English spelling of the French Brun.

Some of the Normans "affecting religion took the name of some Saint."-Noble, pp. 6, 7.

† This name would seem to be of the local kind, and was probably borrowed from Hastings in Sussex. This, however, is no argument against the Norman origin of this celebrated family, as some Norman grandees took the names of the seignories given them by the Conqueror.