er corporate bodies throughout the country and in the
muniment-rooms of old families. There are also the records of the
manorial courts preserved in countless court-rolls and registers; also
the scattered muniments of the dissolved monasteries represented by the
many collections of charters and the valuable chartularies, or registers
of charters, which have fortunately survived and exist both in public
and in private keeping.

It will be noticed that in this enumeration of public and private
documents in England reference is made to rolls. The practice of
entering records on rolls has been in favour in England from a very
early date subsequent to the Norman Conquest; and while in other
countries the comprehensive term of "charters" (literally "papers": Gr.
[Greek: chartes]) is employed as a general description of documents of
the middle ages, in England the fuller phrase "charters and rolls" is
required. The master of the rolls, the _Magister Rotulorum_, is the
official keeper of the public records.

From the great body of records, both public and private, many fall
easily and naturally into the class in which the text takes a simpler
narrative form; such as judicial records, laws, decrees, proclamations,
registers, &c., which tell their own story in formulae and phraseology
early developed and requiring little change. These we may leave on one
side. For fuller description we select those deeds which, conferring
grants and favours and privileges, conform more nearly to the idea of
the Roman diploma and have received the special attention of the
chanceries in the development and arrangement of their formulae and in
their methods of execution.

Structure of medieval diplomas.

All such medieval deeds are composed of certain recognized members or
sections, some essential, others special and peculiar to the most
elaborate and solemn documents. A deed of the more elaborate character
is made up of two principal divisions: 1. the TEXT, in which is set
out the object of the deed, the statement of the considerations and
circumstances which have led to it, and the declaration of the will
and intention of the person executing the deed, together with such
protecting clauses as the particular circumstances of the case may
require; 2. the PROTOCOL (originally, the first sheet of a papyrus
roll; Gr. [Greek: protos], first, and [Greek: kollan], to glue),
consisting of the introductory and of the concludi