The main sources thus far used for the narrative of Shareshull's career, of his family, of his appointments and activities have been largely Latin records—plea rolls or chancery rolls—or some other type of official documents in Latin or in French, in all of which his identity has been obvious and his name clearly given, although in a surprising variety of forms. The fact that commissions or headings of sessions always specify the full name and that by great good fortune Shareshull and Shardelow did not have the same first name makes differentiation easy in hundreds of instances. But unluckily, for Shareshull's arguments in the upper courts and in eyres and therefore for his opinions on points of law—the very essence of his position in legal history—the year books are the most important source. That the reporters, their transcribers and the latters' successors, the blackletter printers, were incorrigibly careless in regard to the names of parties and to the abbreviations of the names of pleaders and judges is a matter of common knowledge. It is not so commonly recognized, however, that no two men of law have fared worse at their hands than Shareshull and Shardelow, especially Shareshull, and that Scardeburgh and Scorburgh are not only a close second but make confusion worse confounded for the first two.

It is evident that any attempt to formulate Shareshull's legal thought depends for its success on the ability to feel reasonably sure that a given dictum was his rather than that of Shardelow, or of Scardeburgh, or of Scorburgh. The lack of a systematic attack on the problem of the differentiation between these four contemporary men of law has been catastrophic for the reputation of Shareshull as a judge. Definite proof of the seriousness of the catastrophe is best shown by examples of the conspicuous mistakes and errors made by both early and recent writers and editors.