The first volume of this work was published in 1913, and the editors then believed that the second and third volumes would follow in quick succession. But the four years of war, which so soon followed, interrupted the task. Professor Davis was absorbed in the duties of the War Trade Intelligence Department, and his interests thenceforward were diverted to the problems of modern history. At his death, in 1928, the materials for the later volumes were substantially as he had left th...
The first volume of this work was published in 1913, and the editors then believed that the second and third volumes would follow in quick succession. But the four years of war, which so soon followed, interrupted the task. Professor Davis was absorbed in the duties of the War Trade Intelligence Department, and his interests thenceforward were diverted to the problems of modern history. At his death, in 1928, the materials for the later volumes were substantially as he had left them in 1914. In 1930 the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, with the concurrence of Mrs. Davis, entrusted the task of continuing the Regesta to the elder of the present editors, who made haste to secure the help of a younger scholar, lest the work should again be interrupted by death. The slowness with which we executed our task is due in part to the necessity of learning by actual examination what sources had been exhausted and what remained unused: in part to the unevenness in the abstracts and descriptions inevitable in the co-operation of a number of voluntary helpers. A second war involved another period of delay in which research was impossible; and we are conscious that we have not entirely overcome either of our initial difficulties. We are, however, persuaded that even an imperfect catalogue is a step to a more perfect presentation of the acts of the Norman period, in which the full texts can be printed, and original charters reproduced in facsimile.<br><br>In preparing the present volume we have had the advantage of the late William Farrer’s Itinerary of Henry I, printed in the English Historical Review in 1919, and issued separately with a valuable index. We cannot adequately express our obligations to Farrer’s work; and though we have not always adopted his conjectural dates, we have rarely had to dissent from the limits of date which he fixed. We have followed his example in stating these, even when the documents are arranged according to the dates which we have thoug
