Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/286

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168 OBSCUKE WORDS IN CHARTERS. As late as 11 Henry VL, the inquisition post mortem on the decease of the Duke of Norfolk contains, among the I'ents of the manors of Galsheria de Suprabosco and Subbosco, and of Pennand, all members of the Lordship Marcher of Gower, the redditus advocar'." ^ How late tlie expression con- tinued in such records, I know not, but it probably long- survived the thing originally signified by it. The instance of the protection rent first above cited from the Dartmoor Compotus is the only one which I have as yet found in the forest records, and the entry dis- appears from the later accounts. In the subsequent accounts, the reeve or forester accounts for payment of census only ; (Compot. 28 — 29 Ed. HI.) ; or, as it is some- times expressed, " respondet de denariis provenientibus de censar[ia] hominum commorantium infra precinctum dominii (or, infra forestam) pro libertate ejus habenda," &c. The pay- ment of any " census," at least under that name, has ceased long ago, and I am not aware of any class of inhabitants of the moor now called " censers ;" yet, we owe it to the mecha- nical habits generated in public offices, that the name is still regularly inserted in the warrants yearly issued for the purpose of clearing the forest of stray cattle. It should, however, be observed that, although the censarii here referred to may repre- sent the persons who paid census for advowry or protection, tempore Edward L, the name is so often applied in rentals and accounts to those who paid census on other grounds, that I will not undertake positively to identify the two classes of inhabitants. Before I close these remarks, let me bring under the notice of the reader two records, which appear to me closely con- nected with the subject, and to throw additional light on it. In an award or agreement between the Abbot of Fecamp, and Philip de Braiosa, made a.d. 1103 at Salisbury, the abbot is stated to have enfeoffed Philip of certain lands and a warren at Steyning in Sussex, reserving a right to take hares in the latter. The grant was on condition that, if any " homines " of the abbey were found trespassing in the warren, the right to do justice on them, and receive the forfeiture, should belong to the monks : — "Si vero externus ibi inventus fuerit,qui tamen " This common contraction in Welsh counsel record-agents to write the word as charters may be expanded with equal they find it, and certainly not to attempt plausibility into advorarin', or advocario- to translate it, as is sometimes rashly yam. 1 prefer the latter ; but I would done.