have altered the name both of the town and river, its true form, and therefore its true meaning, has been well and faithfully preserved in the Survey.
A rental of 1624 is sometimes referred to in the glossary. By this is meant a document in the Sheffield Free Library (Reference Department) the title of which is: 'Sheffeld Towne. A Rentall of all the Renttes belonging to the Right Honble Thomas Earle of Arundell & Surrey & William Earle of Pembroche, in the collection of Stephen Bright & Peter Perins hoc' (?) Anno—1624.'
Field-names in Ecclesall are mentioned with the date of 1807. These have been taken from the index of a survey made in that year by Mr. Fairbank.
After the glossary had been printed to the letter R, Mr. Thomas Hurst, Chief Librarian of the Sheffield Public Libraries, purchased for the central library a thick folio volume containing the records of the Great Court Baron of the manor of Holmesfield, in the parish of Dronfield, from the year 1588 to 1799. I at once read this manuscript, and extracts will be found from it from the letter S to the end of the alphabet and also in the Addenda. The volume is, upon the whole, well preserved, but it has been rebound, apparently about the end of the last century, and there seem to be a few missing leaves not bound up.
These records present a faithful and deeply interesting picture of old English life. We may see in them the institutions and customs of a village community as they then existed, and as they must have existed at a period far anterior to the year 1588. The community was divided into quarters, and not, as in Bradfield and Ecclesfield, into four birelaws.[1] Each of these quarters had its own duties and obligations to perform. It is amusing to read of the four sides of the village pinfold being repaired by the four quarters of the community. Fanshawgate quarter had to repair one side, Horsleygate quarter another side, and so on. The greatest care is taken of the roads, commons, watercourses, and fences. Scabbed sheep or horses are not allowed to stray upon the common pastures 'until
- ↑ In Sheffield only the divisions known as Ecclesall and Brightside retain the word birelaw, but probably there were two others which lost the name.
