The manorial records for the English estates of the abbey of Bec have survived
only in part; yet, imperfect as they are, their variety justifies their publication.
Gaps, often very large gaps, in sequence are frequent; nevertheless some charters
of the twelfth century, and account rolls, court rolls and custumals going back to
the thirteenth century, have survived. From these a small selection has been
printed in the hope that they may be of value to students of manorial development;
for estates with records of such varied types are all too few. As the earliest court
rolls have already been printed by F. W. Maitland, ¹ the documents in this volume
are limited to charters, custumals, and accounts. ²

The English manors directly exploited for the benefit of the monks of Bec and
not for any of the conventual priories numbered twenty-four and were distributed
through fourteen different counties. ³ At first they were divided into two custodies,
but during the thirteenth century they became united under the administration of
the prior or proctor of Ogbourne. At the time the records were made, demesne
farming was most vigorous on the Wiltshire and north Hampshire manors near to
Ogbourne and at the second administrative centre, Ruislip. Nowhere, however, had
it altogether disappeared. The documents in this selection relate to the peak
period of demesne farming on this widely scattered estate. Space does not permit
the inclusion of those that illustrate the dissolution of the demesne.

My thanks are due to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, the Provost and
Fellows of King's College, Cambridge, and the Provost and Fellows of Eton College
for permission to publish material from their private archives: also to the late Canon
S. L. Ollard, Mr. John Saltmarsh and the late Sir Henry Marten for their kind
assistance whilst I was exploring these archives, and to Mr. R. Blakiston, who arranged
for the temporary housing of the Eton account rolls in the Public Record Office.
To Mr. Edward Miller, who read the documents in proof, I owe many helpful sug-
gestions, and to Mr. J. S. Drew much information on the medieval plough.

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