^{page 371 note a} This place is miscalled in certain maps and books Scotterthorpe, but it is a blunder of very modern date. Till about the beginning of this century it was always written Scalthorpe or Scawthorpe, and is still so pronounced by every one who has not been misled by the modern corrupt spelling.

^{page 371 note b} Codex Dipl. v. 7.

^{page 371 note c} Ibid. iv. 169.

^{page 371 note d} Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2d S., vi. 416.

^{page 372 note a} Itin. of King John in Sir T. D. Hardy's Descrip. of the Patent Rolls.

^{page 373 note a} A lot or water-lot is a certain definite portion of a drain, ditch, or bank, which is repaired by on person. The words are still in every-day use.

^{page 373 note b} Spelman believed that the evil custom which these words are said to denot e was prevalent in former days in Scotland. His words are “Turpis Scotorum veterum consuetudo, quâ territorii dominus vassalli sponsam primâ nocte comprimeret, floremque carperet pudicitife.” —Gloss sub voc. Marchet. Cowel asserts that the practice was not only “very common in Scotland,” but also “in the north parts of England.” —Law Diet, sub voc. Marchet. Sir William Blackstone had evidently come to the conclusion tha t there was no truth in the story as far as related to his own country, for he says, “I cannot learn that ever this custom prevailed in England, though it certainly did in Scotland…till abolished by Malcolm III.” —Commentaries, xvi. edit. ii. 83. Mr. Cosmo Innes has some remarks upon the question in his very learned Lectures on Scotch Legal Antiquities. Hxse sums up thus: “I have not looked carefully into the French authorities, but I think there is no evidence of a custom so odious existing in England; and in Scotland I venture to say that there is nothing to ground a suspicion of such a right,” p. 53.

^{page 374 note a} Cf. Wishaw's, Law Diet, sub voc. DecinersGoogle Scholar.

^{page 374 note b} Ings in this part of Lincolnshire signifies low-lying grass-land. There are ings in most of the neighbouring parishes. Young, Arthur, in his General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lincoln, p. 179Google Scholar, uses the word. “There are,” he says, “at South Sornercots, but one thousand acres of ings or common meadow,” and it is common in this sense in inclosure awards and local acts of parliament.

^{page 375 note a} The oaths commonly administered to these officers and other officials attached to a manor court may be seen in Sir Scoggs's, WilliamPractice of Court Leet and Court Baron, 1714, p. 15, et seqGoogle Scholar.

^{page 377 note a} Simeon of Durham says that Henry, I. “ligneam turrim quam Berefreit vocant erexit.” Surtees Sor. ed. i. 124Google Scholar. In the Inventory of John Nevil of Faldingworth, co. Lincoln, taken in 1590, occurs “the belfrey with other wood xxs.” —Cf. Cange, Du, Gloss, sub voc. BelfredusGoogle Scholar.

^{page 378 note a} For its derivation, sec Atkinson's Cleveland GlossaryGoogle Scholar, sub voc.

^{page 378 note b} Archæologia, III. 236Google Scholar.

^{page 378 note c} Ibid. xvi. 361.

^{page 379 note a} Probably the 3rd of May. See Plumpton Corres. (Camd. Soc), p. 71.

^{page 379 note b} See Cornell's Law Diet, sub voc. Agist. Du Cange Gloss. Med. Latin, sub voc. Agistare. The word lias occasionally been mis-speltjoist by persons who were ignorant of its derivation. See Young's, ArthurLine. Agriculture, p. 235Google Scholar.

^{page 381 note a} Meere, Mere or Mear, signifies a mark or boundary of any kind between one person's land and another's, or between one parish, township, or manor and another. In a fine roll of the manor of Kirton in Lindsey for 1630, we find “of Richard Welborne for ploughing vp the king's meere-balk.” In a survey of the same manor made in 1787, persons are spoken of who know their own lands “by meres or boundaries.” The road dividing the parish of Winterton, Lincolnshire, from Winteringham is called the mere, Meerehole is a spot on the bank of the river Trent, between the township of Butterwick and Burringham. Cf. Archæologia, VIII. 96, XXXVII. 315, XXXVIII. 408, XLII. 159.

^{page 381 note b} A bush of ivy or other evergreen has been for ages the sign of a tavern both in England and the neighbouring continental lands. Cf. Singer's Shakespeare, , As You Like It, act v. scene 4, noteGoogle Scholar.

^{page 382 note a} Recte cannabum, hemp.

^{page 382 note b} The survey of the manor and soke of Kirton in Lindsey, taken in 1787, contains a passage which fully bears out the above statement. The original is in the office of the Duchy of Cornwall; we quote from a privately-printed copy. “On the North and South Cliffs [of Kirton in Lindsey] are several commons ailed the Old Leys and Lodge Leys, which were formerly plowed; but, by length of time, arcbecome unknown land, and are therefore stocked by Gaits like the other commons. These are usually fed when the field is fallow; however, when hay or grass is wanted for their working oxen, they turn them upon the leys in the corn fields, but send servants to take care of them and prevent their trespassing on the corn,” p. 264. The manor of Scotter adjoins the manor and soke of Kirton in Lindsey.

^{page 384 note a} A contracted form of forester, but no mark of contraction is put over the word, and it was probably pronounced as written. Foster is a surname in the neighbourhood.

“An home he bare, the baudricke was of grene:

A foster was he soothly as I gesse.”

Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales.

^{page 384 note b} Law Diet, sub voc.

^{page 385 note a} Colts.

^{page 385 note b} Warren.

^{page 385 note c} The small portions of cultivated land between the Trent bank and the highway are called groves. The word is no doubt related to grave, to dig, because this land was the place where soil was graved from for repairing the banks.

^{page 386 note a} A furrow.

^{page 387 note a} Now pronounced ket, unwholesome meat, carrion. A person who deals in bad meat is called a ketbutcher. The corvus corone is called a ket craw.

^{page 387 note b} Pit, to bury. “It is ordered that euery inhabitant in Bottesford and Yadlethorpe that haue any cattle that die of the fellon or morren upon the comons or wastes of Bottesford and Yadlethorpe shall sufficientlie pitt the same to the sight and discretion of the cargraues or two or three sufficient and honest men of the said tounes, and likewise shall burne the place where the said cattle dye, vpon payne for euery defalt xs³.”—Bottesford Manor Records, 1617Google Scholar.

^{page 387 note c} There is some obscurity as to the derivation of the word burleyman, and as to the duties which devolved upon those who filled the office. They are mentioned in the court roll of Kirton-in-Lindsey, of the 20th of Elizabeth, . Cf. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv. 368Google Scholar; Whitaker's, Whalley, ed. 1876, ii. 227Google Scholar; Athenaeum, 1879, 12th July, p. 41, 26th July, p. 115Google Scholar; (GJoinme's, T. L.Index to Municipal Offices, pp. 33, 45Google Scholar.

^{page 388 note a} Coarse grass growing on the moors, so called, perhaps, because it was frequently used for thatching buildings instead of straw.

^{page 387 note b} To grave means here to dig with a common spade, to shoot, to pare the surface with a paring spade.

^{page 387 note c} Peat cut for fuel. The upper portion consisting of peat intermixed with roots of grass, when cut for fuel, was called bags, the lower, consisting of peat only, turves. Bagmore, a place in the parish of Burton-on-Stather, probably derives its name from this source.

^{page 387 note d} A pool of stagnant water or very sluggish stream is here meant. Before the enclosures there were many such places surrounding the latter of the places indicated in the text. Their sides were covered by thickets of willow, alder, and birch.

“It neither grew in syke nor ditch,

Nor yet in ony shcugh;

But at the gates O'Paradise

This birk grew fair enengh.”

“The Wife of Usher's Well,” in Scott's, Border Min. ed. 1861, ii. 258Google Scholar.