We often find the expression 'ad inwaram' in Domesday, and it corresponds to the plain 'ad gildam [sic] regis'. If a Manor is said to contain seven hides ad inwaram, it is meant that it pays to the king for seven hides.... The Burton cartulary, the earliest survey after Domesday, employed the word 'wara' in the same sense.
One cannot disprove the first proposition without reading through all Domesday for this purpose. I can only say that I do not remember ever meeting in Domesday Book with such an expression. The solitary instance of its use known to me is in the Liber Niger of Peterborough (p. 159), where we read: 'in Estona sunt iii. hidæ ad in Waram'; and there the relevant entry in Domesday has no such expression. Of the statement as to the Burton cartulary, one can positively say it is an error. Its 'waræ' have quite another meaning and are spoken of as virgates would elsewhere be.
Collation with what I have termed the Northamptonshire geld-roll renders it clear that 'wara', in Domesday, represents the old English word for 'defence', in the sense of assessment, the 'defendit se' formula of the great Survey leading even to the phrase of 'Defensio x. acrarum', for assessment to Danegeld, which is found in the first volume of Fines published by the Pipe-Roll Society.
XVI. THE DOMESDAY 'JURATORES'
I now approach the subject of the Domesday juratores.
The lists of these in the I.E. and in the I.C.C. afford priceless information. The latter gives us the names for all but three of the Cambridgeshire Hundreds, the former for all Cambridgeshire (one Hundred excepted) and for three Hertfordshire Hundreds as well. The opening paragraph of the I.E. tells us 'quomodo barones regis inquisierunt, videlicet per sacramentum vicecomitis scire et omnium baronum et eorum francigenarum et tocius centuriatus presbyteri prepositi vi. villani [sic] uniuscuiusque ville'.[206] Careful reading of this phrase will show that the 'barones regis' must have been the Domesday Commissioners. The difficulty is caused by the statement as to the oaths of the sheriff, the tenants-in-chief (barones), and their foreign (? military) under-tenants (francigenæ). The lists of juratores contain the names of many francigenæ in their respective hundreds, but, so far as I can find, of no tenants-in-chief. The sheriff, of course, stands apart. His name indeed in the I.C.C. is appended to the list of jurors for the first Hundred on the list, but is not found in the I.E. Moreover, it should be noted that the above formula speaks of all the tenants-in-chief, but only of a single Hundred court. Two hypotheses suggest themselves. The one, that the sheriff and barones of the county made a circuit of the Hundreds, and then handed in, on their oaths, to the commissioners a return for the whole county; the other, that the circuit was made by the commissioners themselves, attended by the sheriff and barones. In the former case it is obvious that the commissioners would fail to obtain at first hand that direct local information which it was their object to elicit: and further, when we find the sheriff and barones charged with wrongdoing in these very returns, it is, to say the least, improbable that they were their own accusers, especially in the case of such a sheriff as Picot, at once dreaded and unscrupulous.
It seems, therefore, the best conclusion that the Domesday commissioners themselves attended every Hundred court, and heard the evidence, sometimes conflicting, of 'French' and 'English'.[207]
The order in which the Hundreds occur must not be passed over, because their sequence distinctly suggests a regular circuit of the country. Here is the sequence given in our three authorities: the I.C.C., the I.E., and the list of jurors prefixed to the latter:
| Staplehow | Staplehow | Staplehow |
| Cheveley | Cheveley | Cheveley |
| Staines | Staines | Staines |
| Radfield | Flammenditch | Erningford |
| Flammenditch | Childeford | Triplow |
| Childerford | Radfield | Radfield |
| Whittlesford | ([208]) | Flammenditch |
| Triplow | Triplow | Whittlesford |
| Erningford | Erningford | Weatherley |
| Weatherley | Weatherley | Stow |
| Stow | Stow | Papworth |
| Papworth | Papworth | Northstow |
| Northstow | Northstow | Chesterton |
| Chesterton | Ely | |
| Ely |
On comparing the first two of these lists it will be found that (except in the case of three contiguous Hundreds, which does not affect the argument) the Hundreds are taken in a certain sequence, which is seen, on reference to the valuable map prefixed to Mr Hamilton's book, to represent a circuit of the southern portion of the county from north-east to north-west, followed by an inquest on the district to its north, the 'two Hundreds' of Ely.