Worcester volume in 1695, when Dr. Smith penned his Preface. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1700 vesting the Library, after the death of Sir John, in trustees, who were Matthew Hutton, John Anstis, and Humphrey Wanley. Sir John died in 1702. The library then passed at once into the custody of the three trustees. The first thing done was to make out a catalogue of the contents of the library on the death of Sir John, when the trustees took possession. In 1705, Wanley, one of the trustees, published his “Antiquæ Literaturæ Septentrionalis Liber, etc.” His preface is dated 28th August, 1704. For the first time the Church Mund and Church Grith laws appear in Wanley’s Catalogue. He was the first who named the volume Nero A. 1 as the “Worcester” volume, and Platna copied Wanley. From these facts I conclude that the above laws were purchased or otherwise obtained by Sir John Cotton, and were put into the “Worcester” volume between 1695 and 1702. I am aware that Dr. Smith’s catalogue was very imperfect, and these laws might have been in the library when he issued his imperfect catalogue. But this is a pure conjecture on my part. My conclusions are based on facts, and not on conjectures. There is not the slightest doubt about the correctness and completeness of the official catalogue of 1632. They were not then in the library. I have considered these details as vitally essential in the important discussion which is here to follow. LORD SELBORNE’S “ANCIENT FACTS AND FICTIONS.” He has published a book on “Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes,” in which he has devoted a large portion to prove that the Church Grith law of A.D. 1014 “was either a draft or project of laws which the framer, evidently an ecclesiastic of Ælfric’s school, wished to have enacted.... There is indeed now written in the margin of that manuscript,[181] in a small modern hand, the date ‘Aᵒ. Dom. 1014.’”[182] I have often examined the manuscript, and found the reading to be “Aⁿᵒ. dni. 1014.” Lord Selborne gives the reading as it is printed in the Catalogue, but decidedly it is not the reading in the manuscript. It is supposed to have been written by Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker. There is internal evidence in article 43 to support this date (1014), viz. “But let us do as is needful to us; let us take to us for an example that which former secular Witan deliberately instituted. Athelstan and Edmund, and _Edgar who was last_,” etc. Ethelred had returned from exile in the spring of 1014, after which this law was passed.