The King must have realized large sums of money by these transactions, which were carried out through, and in the names of, his commissioners or agents, and not usually granted direct from the Crown; very little of the land confiscated from the abbeys was retained as royal property, but appears to have been almost immediately sold or granted away. But to begin from the oldest reliable period at which deeds may refer to, is to go back to the Norman Conquest, or, rather, to the time when the lands had been distributed among the Norman noblemen, as described in the famous Domesday Book, compiled, it is said, between 1080 and 1085. Reference is therein made to previous Saxon possessors; but only in very few instances can any certain information be obtained of private property prior to the eleventh century. Private deeds do exist between the time of William I. and Richard I.; from this latter King’s reign, about A.D. 1179, legal memory dates[2]; but usually the earliest family deeds are of Edward I., because then it was that the legal era was fixed to commence. This King has been, so far as regards manorial rights and customs, rightly called the ‘English Solon.’ He passed innumerable Acts of Parliament on the subject of legal matters; he revised the whole of the national laws, retaining but improving existing arrangements. A most interesting account of early English law and manorial customs is published by the Selden Society. It is very rare indeed to discover private deeds earlier than this; but, of course, every rule has its exception. To prove a title to property it is now only requisite to show a twenty years’ possession of it. Papers forming the title deeds to farms or small holdings are seldom of any great age. The custom of depositing estate records in the care of the family lawyer has tended to preserve a few deeds; but, on the other hand, has resulted in much wholesale destruction of useless but curious documentary evidence. Vast numbers of deeds have been and are being sold when a lawyer’s office has been broken up. These papers, having lain for years unclaimed until the ownership was lost or forgotten, finally were sold to some antiquarian bookseller or antiquary, or else the skin was cleansed and used again, parchment being a valuable substance. It is employed in many trades. From it size is prepared. Gold-beaters employ it largely, and also to the book-binder’s trade it is essential, besides having many other and varied uses. Even now lawyers find great difficulty in preserving and storing the deeds entrusted to their charge. The dangers of fire and damp are conflicting, and to avoid the one may bring about greater risk from the other cause.