Joseph Hunter

“ We see, however, that various persons must have attempted the formation of lists such as these; that they executed their task to the best of their power: but it follows, as a necessary conclusion, that their labours are something entirely different from a Bede-Roll of the monastery of Battle, or even from a list, had such been made in the Abbey at the time of its foundation, of the persons who formed the army of Duke William ”

“ Others have been content with the notion that it is a list of families who became settled in England at the Conquest. But though warning has from time to time been given not to trust too implicitly to any thing which is presented to us as being the roll in question, people not inattentive to gentilitial inquiry, nor without something of the spirit of critical research, are heard to speak of such a roll as a document, a record, or at least a quasi record ”

“ This is true; but if such a list had existed when Leland visited Battle and noticed the historical manuscripts in the library, I think he would hardly have omitted to take notice of it, if any such document had then existed; and when so many persons prepared lists of men or families who came in with the Conqueror, as we shall soon see to have been the case, if the monks of Battle had possessed so early and authentic a list, that some of those persons would not have obtained copies of the list and formed their own collections upon it. ”

“ Had such a list been prepared, and had it descended to our time, we should then undoubtedly have had a Battle Abbey Roll in the highest and best sense.
Of the general probability every one may form an opinion. ”

“ There are names of families in them which we know historically did not become settled in England till long after the Conquest. Persons are omitted of whom we have the best evidence that they were in the expedition. In fact, any critical student in that part of history might at this time form a similar list from Domesday Book and the old Norman chroniclers, and one which would be far more worthy of regard than any of these, though still depending for its authority on the credit which we gave to the skill and diligence of the individual compiler. ”

“ It is true that it is an old list of families said to have come in with the Conqueror, but it is not said that it was found at Battle. It is, moreover, entirely different from either Holinshead's or Stowe's, being one of those sing-song lists in which the names are placed in couplets, of which more afterwards. If this is the list of which Willis speaks, we have then three lists, for all of which a Battle Abbey authority is claimed. ”