Excerpt from The Coucher Book of the Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, in the West Riding County of York The contents of the volume, as will be seen from the following pages, present a very mixed appearance. The first design was sufficiently simple. The book was to be a record of the muniments by virtue of which the house held its various possessions. The deeds were copied in sections arranged topographically. The original writer generally commenced transcribing, at the top of a page, the charters relating to a particular vill (or several vills grouped under one name), and when he had copied all the deeds connected with that vill, or group, which he considered it necessary to include, he usually left a certain space blank for the insertion of subsequent grants, and then commenced again with the charters of another place. But in after years the original design was not adhered to, and the blank spaces were gradually filled up with various miscellaneous entries, ranging from a Papal Bull to a medical recipe. The greater part, however, Of these later entries are transcripts Of documents connected with the rather numerous law proceedings indulged in by the monks. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.