ments to guide us, it is possible to give a summary account of the stages in its composition. At first, it was a Liber vitae pure and simple, containing lists of names, which had become too numerous for inclusion on diptychs and for public recitation, drawn up in an orderly fashion and in an unusually beautiful and costly manner. Although the book was preserved throughout the migrations of St. Cuthbert's community, the lists were left without continuation. At the close of the tenth century, it reached Durham; and there, in the course of time, a few records of gifts to the monastery were inscribed on a vacant leaf. This precedent was followed in the time of William of Saint-Calais, and a few memoranda of a narrative kind were made in it at a somewhat later period, which were an extension of its original use and were more appropriate to a register or chartulary. In addition to these, records of compacts of spiritual fellowship with other religious houses were made in it, and it is probable that, as on f. 42, we have what is clearly a list of the monks at Durham following upon the last of the early lists, so the names on ff. 21d., 22, are lists of monks from other monasteries with which it had entered into confraternity. Those, at any rate, in the first column of fo. 22, headed by the names of bishops Wulstan and Samson, and including those of Heming and Florence, can be identified as monks of Worcester. At this point, the development which we have noticed in the Salzburg book, from liber vitae to liber confraternitatum, is imminent. Finally, however, the book became a receptacle of the names of any who had qualified for remembrance by the convent, and was continued at haphazard, without any regular system, so that high and low, priest, monk and layman jostle each other on its pages. If the casual way in which its hospitality was exercised is typical of the methods of a monastery in other directions, it is little wonder that the duty of indiscriminate hospitality to strangers was a fertile source of temporal difficulties to religious houses.

The intention of this introduction is merely to provide such general guidance as may be useful in anticipation of a further volume, in which critical treatment will be applied to the text of the Liber Vitae, and notes identifying names, so far as is possible, will be added. It is unnecessary therefore to enlarge upon the value of the MS., which will be apparent to more than one type of scholar. Its most obvious interest lies in the testimony which it bears to the connection of many persons famous in ecclesiastical and secular history with the church of Durham. Here will be found inscribed, for example, the names of Herbert of Bosham, the clerk of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and of Walter Map (f. 23d.), of Robert Grosseteste, while archdeacon of Leicester, and of his friend Adam Marsh (f. 25), of the legate Pandulf (f. 54d.), and of John Cumin, archbishop of Dublin (f. 58d.). While of these illustrious clerks there are not a few, famous lay-folk of all periods occur everywhere. Earl Patrick heads the list on f. 60, Walter of Bolbec that on f. 59d., Bernard Baliol, the elder and younger, head that on f. 62. The list of seculares on f. 68d., headed by Henry Percy, the first earl of Northumberland, and his sons, includes other names prominent in the political history of the reign of Richard II. Here, for example, are the London merchants, William Walworth and John Philipot, and the ill-fated Michael de la Pole, whose name also occurs on the other side of the leaf, with those of his descendants added lower down. The first vacant space of honour which could be found in the book is occupied by the names of Edward IV, his queen and son, beneath the sacred names Jesus, Maria, Cuthbertus' (f. 16d.). We may also note the dated lists on ff. 70, 70d., and 75, and the heading Nomina monachorum ad succurrendum on ff. 52, 57, reminding us of the readiness of laymen to retire to a monastery in extremis and end their days in the religious habit which was a passport to salvation. Worthy of note also are the occasional prayers in which the object of the book is declared, e.g. (f. 23d.): 'Deprecamur

te domine sancte pater per ihesum Christum filium tuum in spiritu sancto ut eorum nomina sint scripta in [libro] uite,' and (fo. 44), ' Eadwinus monacus. Aedmundus monachus. Servi dei et Sancti Cuthberti. Sint nomina eorum, in libro vite.'

In conclusion, we may recall the reference in Rites of Durham1 to the famous book which, having survived so many centuries, now has its resting-place among our national

treasures:

There did lye on the high altar an excellent fine booke uerye richly couered with gold and siluer conteining the names of all the benefactors towards St Cuthberts church from the first originall foundation thereof, the uerye letters for the most part beinge all gilded as is apparent in the said booke till this day the layinge that booke on the high altar did show how highly they esteemed their founders and benefactors, and the dayly and quotidian remembrance they had of them in the time of masse and diuine seruice did argue not onely their gratitude, but also a most diuine and charitable affection to the soles of theire benefactors as well dead as living, which booke is as yett extant declaringe the sd use in the inscription thereof.

The description was given from memory, and, like all such descriptions, is not wholly accurate; but it declares without ambiguity the purpose and the practical use of the book which lies before us in facsimile.

Leeds, May, 1923.

1 Surtees Soc., vol. 107, PP. 3, 4.

A.H.T.