In a communication from Mr. Milward to the Archælogical Journal, December, 1850, the following statement occurs, with reference to the charters, &c. preserved in the Eecord Office at Malta.

“There is also a volume of the fifteenth century, containing the accounts of the Commanderies. It is a continuation of an older and still more interesting volume which has, by some means, found its way into the Public Library. The latter gives the accounts of the property belonging to the Order in England and Scotland. Unfortunately these accounts are very difficult to decipher. I remember, however, looking over it, in company with a Scotch gentleman, who had edited various antiquarian works, and with another gentleman from Northumberland. The Scotchman read the MS. with tolerable facility; my friend from the North repeatedly identified certain allusions with property that he knew, and felt much interest in the book. There is also much that is valuable in the statement of the different prices paid for commodities, labour, &c.”

The following pages contain a valuable, and in its way, I believe, an unique, document for the illustration of certain social relations in this country during the first half of the fourteenth century. I propose, therefore, to analyse it carefully, bearing well in mind, in all that I say, and all that I derive from its entries, the great economic deductions from which we may reason as to the normal mode of life of our forefathers at that period. It is a very striking chapter in that most interesting of all conceivable histories, the history of culture; and from this certain and positive record of one form of being at a definite period we can, without any very great difficulty, draw some valuable conclusions respecting times both earlier and later than the one whose details are so clearly set before us. It is undoubtedly important for us to know how Englishmen of different grades lived in the year of grace 1338, and we are very fortunate in having an account of undeniable authority, and by a contemporary hand, which enables us to follow, step by step, many of the more interesting and valuable details of the condition of English civilisation at that date. I wish we had similar accounts for other periods, both anterior and subsequent to this one. These would certainly give us a nearer insight into the changes of English life, its progression and its principle, than we can glean from records of public events, which we universally construe by the light of our actual state and knowledge, and consequently, in general, with more or less inaccuracy. But, in the absence of these aids to history, let us still rejoice that we possess in these pages a document by which, with due consideration of circumstances, we can test all other similar documents bearing upon the state of our social life during the mediæval period. The fourteenth century did not stand alone and apart: it was the child of the thirteenth, and it was also the father of the fifteenth—it partakes, therefore, in some degree of both.

P. 89, last line but i, for Clave read Clare.

P. 229. Note to p. 69. Tothal. Dele this note. The mark of abbreviation does not appear in every recurrence of the name, and, where it does, it is not so sufficiently decided as to warrant my retaining the note.