There are historical traces of attempts under that monarch, to form a sort of norman Domesday, for purposes, no doubt, of revenue. It would seem that this design was resisted, and perhaps was only imperfectly executed in the form we find the existing roll. Philip Augustus afterwards caused much more complete registers of the Fœda Normannorum to be formed. Transcripts of these are in the King's library, and at the Hotel Soubise, and partially in the Liber-niger of Coutances which M. de Gerville quotes. The 'Fœda Normannorum' in Duchesne seems part of a document of this later period. While this volume was in progress, and after the notes had been prepared, the 7th and 8th vols, of the 'Mémoires des antiquaires de Normandie' reached the translator. They contain a calendar and analysis of a vast number of charters to religious houses within the department of Calvados, and furnish a perpetual recurrence of the names of the early owners of the principal fiefs in that district. Another great addition has at the same time been made to the stock of materials for the illustration of Wace, in the publication at Rouen of the first vol. of the 'Chroniques Anglo-Normandes,' comprising such portions of Gaimar, of the Estotre de Seint Ædward le Rei, of the continuation of Wace's Brut d'Angleterre, and of Benoit de Sainte-More, as relate to the norman conquest. They had all been previously resorted to in MS. and more copious extracts would have been added, if they had not been made so accessible by the publication referred to. Its continuation will add other valuable historic documents relative to the period in question. For the graphic illustrations of the volume recourse has been had to a few of the illuminations of the beautiful Cambridge MS. of the Estoire de Seint Ædward le Rei. Several other subjects, that appeared appropriate, have been added from various sources. But the principal storehouse of the illustrations has been that noble and exquisite relic of antiquity, the tapestry of the cathedral of Bayeux. To this series of pictures the chronicle of Wace, (a prebend of that church, as already observed,) would almost seem to have been intended as what, in modern times, would be called the letter press. The controversies long carried on, as to the age of this interesting piece of workmanship, and as to the identity of the Matilda to whom it may owe its origin, need not be reviewed here. The reader will find in Ducarel, in the observations of M.H.F. Delauney annexed to the French translation of Ducarel, in the Archæologia, in Mr. Dawson Turner's Letters, Dr. Dibdin's Tour, and other modern works, ingenious and ample discussions upon what is known or conjectured on the subject.