The strand connecting the other studies contained in this volume is the critical treatment of historical evidence, especially of records and kindred documents. It is possible that some of the discoveries resulting from this treatment may not only illustrate the importance of absolute exactitude in statement, but may also encourage that searching and independent study of ‘sources’ which affords so valuable an historical training, and is at times the means of obtaining light on hitherto perplexing problems. The opening paper (originally read before the Society of Antiquaries) is a plea for the more scientific study of the great field for exploration presented by our English place-names. Certain current beliefs on the settlement of the English invaders are based, it is here urged, on nothing but the rash conclusions of Kemble, writing, as he did, under the influence of a now abandoned theory. In the paper which follows, the value of charters, for the Norman period, is illustrated, some points of ‘diplomatic’ investigated, and the danger of inexactitude revealed. Finance, the key to much of our early institutional history, is dealt with in a paper on “The origin of the Exchequer,” a problem of long standing. On the one hand, allowance is here made for the personal equation of the author of the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario,’ and some of his statements critically examined, with the result of showing that he exaggerates the changes introduced under Henry I., by the founder of his own house, and that certain alleged innovations were, in truth, older than the Conquest. On the other, it is shown that his treatise does, when carefully studied, reveal the existence of a Treasury audit, which has hitherto escaped notice. Further, the office of Chamberlain of the Exchequer is traced back as a feudal serjeanty to the days of the Conqueror himself, and its connection with the tenure of Porchester Castle established, probably, for the first time. The geographical position of Porchester should, in this connection, be observed.