Cambridge, Sept. 6. 1851.
_Domesday Book of Scotland_ (Vol. iv., p. 7.).--Your correspondent
ABERDONIENSIS is informed that what he is in quest of was published by
the "Bannatyne Club," under the name of the "Ragman Rolls," in 1834,
4to. It is entitled, _Instrumenta Publica sive Processus super
Fidelitatibus et Homagiis Scotorum Domino Regi Angliæ factis_, A.D.
M.CC.XCI.--M.CC.XCVI.
"The documents contained in this volume have not been selected in
the view of reviving or illustrating the ancient National
Controversy as to the feudal dependence of Scotland on the English
Crown. It has been long known that in these Records may be found
the largest and most authentic enumerations now extant of the
Nobility, Barons, Landholders and Burgesses, as well as of the
Clergy of Scotland, prior to the fourteenth century. No part of
the public Records of Scotland prior to that era has been
preserved, and whatever may have been their fate, certain it is,
that to these English Records of our temporary national
degradation, are we now indebted for the only genuine Statistical
Notices of the Kingdom towards the close of the thirteenth
century."
[Star symbol] "This singular document, so often quoted and
referred to, was never printed _in extenso_."