I have said that in all these cases it might perhaps be held that the additional details found in the I.E. were not due to special information possessed by its compilers, but were derived from the original returns, though omitted by their other transcribers. It is possible, however, to put the matter to the test. If, anticipating for a moment, we find that we have, for the eastern counties, in Domesday the actual materials from which the compilers of the I.E. worked, we can assert that any additional details must have been supplied from their own knowledge. An excellent instance in point is afforded by Tuddenham, in Suffolk:
| D.B. | I.E. |
|---|---|
| In Tudenham Geroldus i. lib' hominem ... comend' Saxæ de abbate T.R.E. xii. ac' pro man', iii. bord' Semp' i. car. ii. ac' prati ... val. iii. sol.; et in eadem ii. liberi homines comend' i. sancte Æ. et alter comend' heroldi x. ac', et dim. car. et val. ii. sol. Hoc tenet Geroldus de R. [de Raimes] (ii. 423b). | In Tudenham i. li. homo Ælfric' commend' S. Ædel' xii. ac' et iii. b. et i. c. et iii. ac' prati et val. viginiti iii. s. In eadem i. l. ho' hedric'[236] commend' S. Ædel' viii. ac' et val' xx. den. Hoc tenet R. de Raimes (p. 151). |
One knows not, truly, which blunder is the worst, that of the Domesday scribe, who has converted a probable 'S. æ',[237] i.e. Ely Abbey, into 'Saxæ', or that of the compiler of the I.E., who, by interpolating the word 'viginti', has converted three shillings into three-and-twenty. But the point is that the latter could name the Abbot's sokeman (nameless in Domesday) and could supply his acreage and the value of his holding. The actual details seem to have been:
| Acres | Pence | |
|---|---|---|
| Abbot's sokeman | 8 | 20 |
| Harold's sokeman | 2 | 4 |
| —————— | ||
| 10 | 24 | |
Domesday records the totals only.
Enough has now been said of the twelfth century transcripts in which alone are preserved to us the contents of the Inquisitio. We have seen that they point to the existence of some common original, which, while closely parallel with Domesday, as a record of the Abbey's possessions, contained certain special features and additional information. Why, when, and from what sources that original was compiled, I shall now endeavour to explain.
XVIII. THE ELY RETURN
The theory I propound for the origin of the so-called Inquisitio Eliensis is that it was the actual return ordered by that writ of the Conqueror,[238] of which a copy is given in all three MSS. (A, B, C) and which is printed in Mr Hamilton's book, on p. xxi (No. VIII). I give the wording of the writ, followed by the heading to the Inquisitio with which it should be closely compared.