It seems very desirable that one portion of our annual Volume should be appropriated to the registration of such of our Public Records as evidence the alienations and descent. of lands and manors, and the genealogy of our leading families, from the earliest times.
   Documents of this character are of prominent interest to any County Collection; but in Kent, as will be more fully explained, when we come to the "Inquisitiones post Mortem," they are of incalculable value. By them we are able to prove, in many instances, which of our manors and lands are exempted from the operation of Gavelkind. Many an estate has been lost to the eldest male heir by want of knowledge of the information contained in these records; and we trust that, in this respect, the pages of 'Archaeologia Cantiana' will be of great use to the legal profession, and to heirs of intestate proprietors. They will do more,—they will be rendering actual national service, by placing upon permanent record muniments that must remain in a perishable and precarious condition, as long as they exist only in manuscript,—and we shall be setting an example which we trust may be followed by all kindred societies, now so numerous throughout the kingdom. 
   The earliest evidences which we have, after Domesday, are the Pipe Rolls, which commence with the reign of