Though the land could not be bought and sold outright, manors became divided and subdivided, let and underlet, for various terms of years, and in many curious ways, so that in time the profits, or the income, of a manor, instead of going straight to the lord of the manor, might be going to half a dozen different persons and places. For instance, the half of a manor might be divided amongst several people for, say, twenty years, or for the lives of three or four people; but at the end of the twenty years, or on the death of the last of those persons, it must go back to the lord of the manor, who could keep it in his hands or let it out in other ways to quite a different set of people. [Illustration: _Manor House, Thirteenth Century_ _Built by Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath, and Chancellor to Edward I at Acton Burnell, Shropshire._] It is not very difficult to understand that the management of an estate of many manors, broken up into many small portions, became very complicated. Records of all these various transactions had to be made in writing: and carefully kept, and copied and re-copied time after time. People who understood all the "ins and outs" of the laws relating to the possession of land became very important and very busy. There are immense numbers of documents, some of them dating back to Norman and even earlier times, still in existence. The Record Office, in London, has many thousands of documents connected with the king's business; the borough towns and cities and the monasteries each had their own records, but most of these latter records disappeared in the sixteenth century; every old estate has such documents; and many of the old manors have still records going back many centuries. Of course thousands more of these old documents have been lost, some destroyed purposely, and others through carelessness and ignorance. Some have been burnt in times of danger, when their owner, knowing that there were documents amongst them which might get him into trouble and cost him his head, set fire to bundles of papers and parchments. Others have been stored away in dark, damp cellars and forgotten for years and years, and rats and mice have nibbled them away, or mildew and damp have caused them to rot. Those that we have left can still be read, and it is surprising to find in many cases how well they have been preserved all through the centuries. The letters are very often beautifully formed, and the whole clear and distinct. They were written in Norman French and Latin, the latter being the language in which law business was carried on for many centuries.[13] [13] Notice a fine specimen, written before the Conquest, given on p. 103, and the illustration facing p. 88. CHAPTER XXVIII Traces of Early Times in the Churches