suppose, the principal maxims of the common law, the penalties for
misdemeanors, and the forms of judicial proceedings. Thus much may be
at least collected from that injunction to observe it, which we find
in the Laws of King Edward the Elder, the son of Alfred.--"_Omnibus
qui reipublicæ præsunt etiam atque etiam mando, ut omnibus æquos
se præbeant judices, perinde ac in judiciali libro_ (Saxonice, [Old
English: dom bec]) _scriptum habetur: nec quidquid formident quin
jus commune_ (Saxonice, [Old English: folcrihte]) _audactes libereque
dicant._"

But notwithstanding this, it appears to me by no means conclusive,
that the _Dombec_ referred to in the Laws of Edward the Elder and the
_Liber Judicialis_ of Alfred are the same; on the contrary, Alfred's
_Liber Judicialis_ seems to have been known not under the name
of _Dombec_, but under that of the _Winchester Roll_, from the
circumstance of its having been principally kept at Winchester: and
Sir Henry Spelman says, the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror was
sometimes called _Rotulus Wintoniæ, a similitudine antiquoris_, from
its resemblance to an older document preserved at Winchester. And he
quotes Ingulphus Abbot of Croyland, who says, "Iste rotulus (i.e. the
Domesday Book of William) vocatus est Rotulus Wintoniæ, et ab Anglicis
pro sua generalitate, omnia tenementa totius terræ integre continente
_Domesday_ cognominatur." And the he proceeds, "Talem rotulum et
multum similem; ediderat quondam Rex Alfredus, in quo totam terram
Angliæ per comitatus, centurias, et decurias descripserat, sicut
prænotatur. Qui quidem Rotulus Wintoniæ vocatus est, quia deponebatur
apud Wintoniam conservandus," &c.

Here is nothing said of this work being called [Old English: dom bec]:
neither does Spelman, in his enumeration of the works of Alfred,