Several years ago there were discovered at the Public Record Office a number of parchment scraps relating to East Anglia, evidently belonging to some group, and of singularly early date. My friend, the late Mr. Walford Selby, showed them to me at the time, and asked me what I thought they were. As was announced at the time in the columns of the ‘Athenæum,’[319] I pronounced them to be nothing less than fragments of original returns to the great ‘Inquest of Sheriffs’ in 1170. Dr. Stubbs, when editing the text of that document for his well-known ‘Select Charters,’ declared that “the report, if ever it was made, must have been a record of the most interesting kind conceivable.” It was believed, however, that no trace of the returns could be found. Mr. Selby intended to publish these fragments as an interesting appendix to the ‘Liber Rubeus’; and when Mr. Hall succeeded him as editor, he printed them as Appendix A.[320] Having studied for himself these fragments, he rejects their connection with the ‘Inquest of Sheriffs,’ although, as he frankly observes, he has only ventured to do so “with considerable hesitation.” An entire section of the preface (pp. cc.-ccxi.) is devoted to his reasons for rejecting the above view and for advancing a wholly different explanation.
Approaching the question with an open mind, we find the facts to be as follows: These records relate to an Inquest held, so far as we can date them, in 1170, and covering the doings of the four years 1166–1170. Moreover, they describe that period as “postquam dominus Rex transfretavit” (with slight variations in the phrase), which is precisely the starting-point prescribed for the ‘Inquest of Sheriffs.’ In all this they answer to the Inquest; and all this Mr. Hall admits. But he raises curiously vague difficulties, which resolve themselves at last into the assertion—upon which, we read, he must insist—“that there is nothing more than a superficial resemblance, and certainly nothing to correspond to the articles of inquiry as they are alone known to us.” Here at least we have a definite issue. Let us then adopt the simple plan of printing side by side the second article of enquiry, from Dr. Stubbs’ text, and the very first of the returns on Mr. Hall’s list.
| Article. | Return. |
| Similiter inquiratur de archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, et eorum senescallis et ministris, quid vel quantum acceperint per terras suas post terminum praedictum [postquam dominus Rex transfretavit] de singulis hundredis et de singulis villatis suis, et singulis hominibus suis, per judicium vel sine judicio; et omnes prisas illas scribant separatim et causas et occasiones earum. | Hæc est inquisitio de manerio Comitis Arundeliæ in Snetesham, scilicet quod homines sui dederunt postquam dominus noster Rex Anglorum extremo transfretavit in Normanniam. Quando Comes perexit ad servandas les Marches de Wales pluribus vicibus, scilicet, homines de domenio suo dederunt c solidos; et Ricardus filius Atrac et sui pares de uno socagio dederunt iii marcas gratis.... Quando comes rediit de Francia, iterum dederunt,’ &c., &c. |
I have slightly altered Mr. Hall’s punctuation, which seems to me erroneous; but this in no way affects the argument. It is to the enquiry I have printed above that these interesting documents are undoubtedly the returns. Their common feature is that they record payments made by vills, or by individuals to their lords, that they record them “separatim,” and that they specially record their “causas et occasiones.” We may go further. The very phrase in the above article—“per judicium”[321]—occurs no less than eleven times in the return for the Valoines barony, being duly appended, as prescribed, to the several payments and their “causes.”
The correspondence of Inquest and returns being thus close and indeed obvious, one is led to wonder how their editor can have committed himself to so unfortunate an assertion. He would seem, instead of studying the articles, to have started with a preconceived and erroneous view of their character, and then rejected my own view because the returns “are not specially connected with the alleged maladministration of the fiscal officers which was the subject of the above inquiry, but ... with the private feudal relations of the same (i.e. individual barons) with their subtenants.” He cannot have read the second article, which is specially concerned with the latter relations, and which stands in every way on a level with the first (concerning the fiscal officers). Moreover, by a lucky chance, there is preserved among these documents at least one fragment of the return to the enquiry as to the king’s officers. For we read that the men on one manor “nil dederunt Vicecomiti neque prepositis Regis præter xvi d. quos dederunt ad castellum firmandum de Oreford,” etc., etc. Nay more, we can identify at least two of these returns as having been made in reply to the third article of the Inquest:
Et similiter inquirant de hominibus illis qui post terminum illum habuerunt alias ballivas de domino rege in custodia, sive de episcopatu, sive de abbatia, sive de baronia, sive de honore aliquo vel eschaeta.
The returns numbered 55, 56 (p. cclxxx.) are classed by Mr. Hall among “Baroniæ incertæ.” They relate, however, to the barony or “honour” of William Fitz Alan, which had been for many years in the king’s hands. It was ‘farmed’ in 1170, as it had been for ten years, by Guy l’Estrange (“Wido Extraneus.”) Guy had a brother John,[322] who appears in these returns as in charge of the Norfolk portion of the honour. Since Michaelmas, 1165, a part of William Fitz Alan’s land had been granted out to Geoffrey de Vere, and we accordingly find, at the end of the second return, one of William Fitz Alan’s knights,[323] William de Pagrave, making him a payment. Now all this might have been explained by an intelligent editor. Mr. Hall has elaborated, instead, a series of fantastic errors.
I have dwelt on the point at some length, because, apart from the intrinsic interest of these curious returns—which have thus come to light after more than seven centuries—they establish the fact that this great enquiry extended to private landowners, a fact which even Dr. Stubbs, I fear, seems to have overlooked in the analysis he gives of the ‘Inquest.’ And further, they corroborate the articles of enquiry, where we can apply the test, and thus confirm the authenticity of the document in which those articles are found.
We must not, however, ignore Mr. Hall’s own hypothesis, for the Rolls edition in which it is enshrined gives it an official cachet; and there may be those who think that arguments of this character require an answer.