1920 CASTLE WATCHMEN 401 and those payable by the tenants of St. Edmund by the name of Waite-fe, with other commuted services ? ^ The answer is that he has confused the well-known castle- ward of the knights with the waite-fe due to the watchmen. An inquest of 1251 deals with the Suffolk manor of Kentwell, of which the demesne paid ' 63s. a year to Norwich castle or ward and waytefe '.^ An inquest after death in 1292 shows us 2^d. paid ' for the guard of the castle of Norwich and 4<^. for " Wayte- fe "';' in another we read of a payment 'of 7s. monthly for the guard of the castle of Norwich and | mark yearly there for " waytefe " ' ; * and, in yet another (1282), of ' 1 mark for the guard of the castle of Norwich every six weeks, and 15s. " wayte- fe " '.^ In all these cases the watchmen's ' waytefe ' was carefully distinguished, we see, from the castle-guard rents of the knights. Municipal ' waits ' are familiar to us in old corporation records, and ' the waits ' who watch by night are, as we know to our cost, with us still at Christmas. J. H. Round. Article // of the Articles of the Barons {i2ij) In a short note upon this clause contributed to the Law Quarterly Review of January 1920 (xxxvi. 58-60), Mr. W. C. BoUand suggests that the word abbrevientur in the barons' request ' ut assisae de nova dissaisina et de morte antecessoris abbre- vientur ' means 'recorded' and not, as Mr. McKechnie translates, ' shortened '. In the sense of ' record '. the word in general use was inbreviare, not abbreviare ; * but, quite apart from this, Mr. BoUand's arguments for his translation of abbreviare in the document of 1215 will not, I fear, stand the test of investiga- tion. Mr. BoUand makes three contentions in support of his view. 1. 'In 1215 assizes were heard and determined in the county court. The sheriff, who was the presiding judge, kept no rolls.' The recognition was a privilege authorized by a royal writ, and the subsequent action was from the first heard and determined before the king's justices. The writs, as given by Glanvil, make this quite clear. Thus the writ opening a case of novel disseisin instructs the sheriff to put the tenement in question
- Mr. Hall here cites ' i. 269 ' of the Memorials, but the statements on that page
relate to the services of the abbey's knights, not to the watchmen and their uxiite-fe.
- Cai. of Inquis., MisceU. i, no. 113.
» Cal. of Inquis. Post Mortem, iii, no. 30.
- Ibid. ii. 116. » Ibid. ii. 281.
' It should be noted that the charter of Henry II quoted by Ducange s.v. ' abbre- viare ' is an inferior text of Magna Carta (c. 26 inbreviare catalla defuncti). See ante, xxiii. 235 n. VOL. XXXV. — NO. OXXXIX. D d
