Note 13 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

Here, again, Mr Freeman's error can be traced beyond the possibility of question, to a misreading of Domesday: the entry runs, 'modo sunt ibi quater xx. et viii. [88] domus, et c. [sunt] penitus destructæ'. Mr Freeman must have hurriedly ignored the 'quater', and then added the 'twenty-eight' thus evolved to the hundred houses that were destroyed. All this Mr Freeman did, and we have in 'that great record, from which there is no appeal', the proof of the fact. Clearly, in the notable words of M. Bémont (Revue Historique), 'il est prudent de revoir après lui les textes qu'il invoque'.13