traced to a William Scriven, a name little known in literary history.
But although these ten lists differ so much from each other, that they may safely be asserted to be the work of different hands, yet there is a strong family resemblance; that is, there are many names which are common to all of them or nearly all. This is to be accounted for by the fact that whatever errors there may be in them, and whatever sophistications may have been committed upon any of them, there is still a large amount of truth; nor could it well be otherwise, since it is not any matter of question whether there were not some Norman families who came over with the Conqueror, and who remained in England, where large possessions had been given to them.
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; and that whatsoever authority they possess, depends upon the opinion we may form of the success of the anonymous authors, which opinion must be guided by the concurrence which we perceive between the results of their labours, and the conclusion to which we ourselves may arrive by the study of the contemporary Norman chroniclers, and of our own chronicles and records, especially Domesday Book.
Authority seems to be quite out of the question in respect of any of them, not excepting those for which any claim is set up that they had been found at Battle. If we wish to know if Warren or Laci came in with the Conqueror, we should not now think of answering the question by referring to these lists; we know it on far higher evidence. But if we ask the same question respecting Mauley or Fumival, and appeal to these lists, we should find them there; but if we appeal to other authorities, we should find them absent from Domesday Book, and we should hardly find them in England at all, before the reigns of Richard the First and John. Lists of which this can be said, cannot be held to
