Of this large mass of documents I had copied or abstracted
scarcely more than five hundred, and I had not yet got beyond the
year 1355. The court rolls, bailiffs' accounts, and early leases, I
had hardly looked at when this lecture was delivered.
The following address gives some of the results of my examination of
the first series of the Rougham charters. It was delivered in the
Public Reading-room of the village of Tittleshall, a parish adjoining
Rougham, and was listened to with apparent interest and great
attention by an audience of farmers, village tradesmen, mechanics,
and labourers. I was careful to avoid naming any place which my
audience were not likely to know well; and there is hardly a parish
mentioned which is five miles from the lecture-room.
When speaking of "six hundred years," I gave myself roughly a limit
of thirty years before and after 1282, and I have rarely gone beyond
that limit on one side or the other.
They who are acquainted with Mr. Rogers' "History of Prices" will
observe that I have ventured to put forward views, on more points
than one, very different from those which he advocates.
Of the value of Mr. Rogers' compilation, and of the statistics which
he has tabulated, there can be but one opinion. It is when we come to
draw our inferences from such returns as these, and bring to bear
upon them the sidelights which further evidence affords, that
differences of opinion arise among inquirers.
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