his land _escheated_ to the lord of the manor; that is, it came back to the lord who _in theory_ was the owner of the soil. These periodical meetings at which all this business and a great deal else was transacted were called the _Courts_ of the Manor, and the Records of these Courts were kept with exceeding and most jealous scrupulousness; they were invariably drawn up in Latin, according to a strictly legal form, and were inscribed on long _rolls_ of parchment, and are known as Manor Court Rolls. This is not the time to say much more about the Court Rolls. They are not very easy reading--they require a somewhat long apprenticeship before they can be readily deciphered; but when one has once become familiar with them, they afford the student some very curious and unexpected information from time to time, though it must be allowed that you have to do a good deal of digging for every nugget that you find. Observe, however, this--that it is not far from the truth to say that in East Anglia--for I will not travel out of my own province--every tiller of the soil who occupied a plot of land, however small, was sure to be a tenant under some lord of the manor; when he died _a record of his death was entered upon the_ _Court Rolls of the Manor_; the name of his successor was inscribed; the amount of fine set down which his heir paid for entering upon his inheritance; and if he died _without heirs_ the fact was noticed, the lands which he had held being forfeited, or _escheating_, as it was called, to the lord. Thus the Court Rolls of a manor of the fourteenth century--for before the statute _Quia Emptores_ I suspect that they were kept with much less regularity and much less care than they were afterwards--are practically the _registers of the deaths_ of all occupiers of land within the manor; and, as every householder was an occupier of land, the death of every householder may be said to be inscribed upon the Rolls. * * * * * * *