Original Documents Accounts of the Constables of the Castle of Dovor

AMONGST the stores of valuable materials treasured up in the Public Repositories of Records, available for the elucidation of those subjects of research which engage the attention of the Historian and the Antiquary, there may be none more rich in all the details relating to mediaeval times than the Miscellaneous Records late of the Queen's Remembrancer.This mass of curious evidences has been gradually reduced into order through the intelligent care and the energetic directions of a gentleman, whose experience and important contributions to history and topography, as also to the illustration of our language and national antiquities, must ever claim grateful esteem.To the constant kindness of the Rev.Joseph Hunter we are indebted for calling attention to the existence, amongst the unpublished records in question actually deposited in the Office at Carlton Ride, of certain Rolls of Account, Inventories, Indentures, Fabric Rolls, and other evidences illustrative of the history of one of the most remarkable national fortresses, Dovor Castle.Similar Documents, as Mr. Hunter informs us, exist in connexion with the history of many, if not all of the royal castles and residences.It were needless to set forth the value of such materials as throwing light upon the details of Military Architecture and of medieval warfare generally.Our late lamented coadjutor, Mr. Hudson Turner, was amongst the first and ablest labourers in this department of archaeological researches, and the fruitful results of his toil amongst the Liberate and Close Rolls are well known to our readers through Mr. Parker's attractive publication on the " Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages."We have gladly availed ourselves of Mr. Hunter's obliging suggestion, in pointing out these inedited materials relating to Dovor Castle, and have selected from amongst the Indentures in which are detailed, on the appointment of each successive Warden of the Castle and Cinque Ports, the state of the church goods, furniture, munitions of war, and miscellaneous stores, the two following examples.They appear to have been written in the fourteenth century, in Latin or in French, and a specimen in each of these languages has been taken, since the obsolete words are often rendered intelligible by comparison of the corresponding terms in these Indentures

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