sions difficulties which are not always to be surmounted. In such cases, the leading opinions are given, with references to the authorities on which they are founded.

As historical events sometimes, and legal instruments of any pretence to antiquity frequently, have no other indications of their date than the name of a day, or of a religious ceremony of periodical occurrence, a useful approximation to the year may very often be obtained from a knowledge of the origin of the name by which the event or instrument is dated. In history, we sometimes find important events dated by moveable feasts, which are readily ascertained by the tables of Golden Numbers, Dominical Letters, and the thirty-five Easters, with that of the feasts themselves, when the year is known; but sometimes no more is indicated than the feast, as in the date of the death of Constantine the Great, which Socrates places on May 22, and Eusebius on Whitsunday, but neither of them state the year. The methods of determining the time of events so dated are described in the Glossary. English charters anterior to the 18th Edw. I are of frequent occurrence, with no other indication of their date than the name of the day. In order to shew the utility of determining in such a case the date of the name, we may suppose it to be that of the Immaculate Conception, on the origin of which there are discordant opinions. Those authorities which fix the year of its institution in the 14th and 15th centuries, would either be contradicted by the charter, or would prove the charter to be a forgery. Bellarmin thinks that it began to be observed about the year 1130, but this is merely an opinion at variance with others. The Saxon kalendars of the 10th century, at the end of the first volume, contain this festival, and thus the investigation of the age of such a

charter, instead of being limited to 1288-9, obtains nearly three centuries, which might be of vast importance, particularly in the adjustment of a genealogy.

Many festivals bear several names, though they are observed at the same time, and others bear the same or nearly the same names but are different in their objects and time of observance. These being frequently confounded, are carefully distinguished, and to the greater part of them an origin has been traced, which may promote the accuracy and success of legal and historical investigations. The Rose Sunday of the Middle ages may be cited as an example of similarity of names applied to very different days, which on this account are very liable to confusion; for instance, Benedict, a canon of St. Peter's before 1143, speaks of Dominica de Rosa, which is properly Midlent Sunday, when he means Sunday in the octaves of the Ascension, which is named Dominica Rosa; but a little attention to the origin of the names will in most cases determine the days to which they belong.

Some of the more technical terms of dates occasion obscurity and perplexity; for instance, the French chronologists understand Caput Kalendarum to have commonly denoted the day of the month on which we begin to count the kalends of the following month, and in some cases it certainly does, when we have to look further for assistance where it is necessary to ascertain the exact date.

Innumerable instances resembling the preceding, may be readily collected from the Glossary, in which it has been a principal object, to assemble in an alphabetical order whatever might tend to elucidate the obscurities of the chronology of the middle ages. In order the better to preserve the utility of this department of the work, by re

moving from it every thing that did not immediately belong to the explanations, it became necessary either to reject many curious and not altogether useless facts, or to embody them in a separate department. The latter course has been pursued.

The Kalendars, it is presumed, will be found of considerable service. They are six in number, of which two are incorporated in one, but the others are distinct. They range from the middle of the tenth century to the end of the fourteenth, and may, therefore, be supposed to contain all the information which can be expected from works of their description. Of one, of which the original is believed to have been the property of King Æthelstan, it must be confessed that it contains much matter that is not likely to prove remarkably useful, and it has been presented more as a literary curiosity than as an assistant in chronology. The obits of another have been retained, so far as they could be read by the transcriber; because it is possible that one or other of them may determine the date of some particular fact. For instance, we know from the Saxon Chronicles that the battle of Malden was fought in the year 993, and we ascertain what is not mentioned by our historians, from the obit of Byrhtnoth, that it took place on the eleventh of August. The tables interspersed through the Glossary, and the Perpetual Lunar Kalendar, will furnish the means of verifying dates.

DATES, CHARTERS, AND CUSTOMS

OF THE

MIDDLE AGES,

&c. &c.

BOOK I.

ON CHARTERS AND DATES.

Confusion in mediæval chronology-Number and obscurity of terms productive of error-General chronology-The name Chartæ used among the Anglo-Saxons-Ancient English charters-Charter of Ethelbert I, the most ancient-Achronical charters-Forged charter of King Edgar-Ancient conveyances without writings-Reasons for the omission of dates in charters-Law of datesForgeries of the Saxon monks-Prevalence of the French language after the Conquest-English not wholly neglected-Saxon proclamation in the 13th century-Earliest instruments in English-Signature of the cross before and after the reign of Edward the Confessor-Manner of recording the names of witnesses-Anathema and benediction in Saxon charters; adopted by some of the Anglo-Normans-Maledictions in the manumissions of Saxon serfs-Brevia Testata-Use of seals-Dates, omitted in some and repeated in other Saxon charters— Redundancy of dates—Annunciations of the end of the world in charters-Dates from historical occurrencesIrregularities as to time and place; of no legal importance-Dates, studiously neglected by the omission of parts

B

BOOK

I.

-Extraordinary use of the Roman computation by halends, &c.-Necessity of inquiries with respect to the authors and witnesses of charters-Recent forgery of a charter of Henry II to the town of Liverpool-Diplomatic doctrine of dates-General and particular rulesCircumstances to be noticed in English charters.

Among the

THEORETICAL Writers on historical composition have estab-
lished the maxim, that they who relate the events of ages
anterior to their own, deserve credit so far only as they ac-
quaint us with the sources, from which they derive their
information.* These historical authorities resolve them-
selves into two classes of corroborative testimony,-public
acts and monuments, and private writers.
former are medals, inscriptions, charters, diplomas, statutes,
and, in short, all instruments of a national character; in
the latter class are comprised authors of histories, chronicles,
annals, memoirs, and letters, who are either contemporary,
or remote from the events, which they relate, and whose
credibility is necessarily proportionate to their presence or
distance. Hence the verification of facts requires the insti-
tution of a comparison between the record and the monu-
ments of the age described, between the narration and its
reasoning, and the documents on which the assertions and
inferences depend. He that would verify the accounts of
the historian, or that would compare public records and
authors of the same period together, will often find himself
perplexed by the irregularity and obscurity which embarrass
the chronology of the middle ages. The statesman, the
churchman, and the historian, in speaking of the same time,
employ very different language; and, indeed, it rarely hap-
pens that two contemporary writers agree in adopting the

"Des historiens qui racontent les événemens des siècles antérieurs au temps où ils ont vécu, ne mêritent proprement de foi qu'autant qu'ils font connoître les sources où ils ont puisse."-P. GREFFET, Traité des différentes sortes de Preuves qui servent à établir la Verité de l'Histoire.