The Estate Book of Henry de Bray. Edited by Dorothy
Willis. (Royal Historical Society. Issued to members.)—Miss Willis has edited with great care and skill the curious estate book kept by a small landowner, holding about five hundred acres, at Harlestone, Northamptonshire, at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is perhaps the only existing record of a small estate of that period, though there is plenty of material relating to the great lordships. Henry de Bray, like most mediaeval landowners, was a highly litigious person. The entries that interest us most are the details concerning his small tenantry. The daughters of Roger Bente, who held two cottages and two acres, or Richard Le Fewer, Robert Champeneys, and Robert Lawe, who rented cottages from Henry de Bray, would- have been amazed to know that after six centuries their names would be recorded in print. Anhistorian with the gift of imagination might recreate the little Northamptonshire village. as it was about the year 1300, from• this apparently dun. register.
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