XXXI. Extract from a Record explanatory of Grants by Henry II. and Edward I. to certain Ostmen in Waterford of the privilege of “Lex Anglicorum in Hibernia.”

The original record, from which the Extract that follows was taken, has been preserved in the Bermingham Tower, Dublin. It contains the Pleas of the Crown and Gaol Delivery at Waterford, before John Wogan, Justiciary of Ireland, on Thursday the morrow of St. Matthias the Apostle (February 25), in the fourth year of the reign of Edward II. (1311), and will be seen to be somewhat illustrative of the social condition of the inhabitants of that part of Ireland at the time of the invasion by Henry II. and also at the commencement of the fourteenth century. The Ostmen mentioned in it were the descendants of the Norwegians, commonly spoken of as Danes, who had many years before formed permanent settlements on the coasts; as to whose history Worsaae's volume on the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland may be consulted with advantage. A few preliminary observations may serve to render the document more readily intelligible.