But the special interest of the entry, “c et xx libr.” (£120) lies in the fact that this amount, which was the sum paid in 1130 and 1156, was obsolete after that time, much larger sums being thenceforth exacted from London. It is, of course, just possible that the obsolete figure was retained, as a protest, on this list; but it is far more probable that what we have here is a copy temp. John of an earlier document, perhaps not later than the middle of the 12th century.[525]
| HIDAGIUM COMITATUS TOCIUS MIDDLESEXE. | ||
| In Hundredo de Osulvestune. | ||
| Villa de Stebehee | lta hid. | |
| Terra de Fafintune | iiij hid.[526] | |
| H[er]gotestune | ij hid. | Abb’is |
| Brambelee | v hid. | |
| Fulcham | la hid. | |
| Villa sancti Petri | xvj hid. | 2 dimid. |
| Hamstede | v hid. iiij | abb’s[527] |
| Lya | x hid. | abb’is |
| Tolendune | ij hid. | |
| Terra Gub’ti | dim. hid. | |
| Abbas Colcestr’ | dim. hid. | |
| Chelchede | ij. hid | abb’is |
| Kensintune | x hid. | |
| Lilletune | v hid. | |
| Tiburne | v hid. | Vs. |
| Willesdune | xv hid. | |
| Herlestune | v hid. | |
| Tuferd | iiij xij d. hid. | |
| Sum[ma] c et quater xx hid. et xi hid. et dim. | ||
| In Hundred’ de Ystelwrke | c et v hid. | |
| In Hundredo de Spelethorn. | ||
| Stanes | xxxv hid. | Abb’ |
| Stanwelle | xv hid. | |
| Bedefunte | x hid. | |
| alia Bedefunte | x hid. | |
| Feltham | xv hid. | |
| Kenetune | v hid. | |
| Suneb[er]ia | vij hid. | Abb. |
| Sep[er]tune | viij hid. | Abb. |
| Hanewrtha | v hid. iij | Abb’ |
| Summa c et x hid. | ||
| In Hundredo de la Gare. | ||
| Herghes | c hid. | |
| Kingesb[er]ia | x hid. | |
| Stanmere | ix hid. | |
| Terra com’ | vj hid. | |
| Alia Stanmere | ix. hid. | et dim. |
| Heneclune[528] | xx hid. | Abb. |
| Summa c et xl et ix hid. | ||
| In Dimidio Hundredo de Mimes lxx hid. | ||
| Toteham | [5][529] hid. | |
| Edelmetune | [35][529] hid. | |
| Mimes | [35][529] hid. | |
| Enefeld | xxx hid. | |
| Summa lx et ix hid. | ||
| Summa summarum octies c et liij hid. et dimid. | ||
| Summa Hidarum Abbatie Westm’. | c et xviij hid. | |
| Danegeld. | ||
| Middelsexe | quater xx libr’ et c sol. et vj d. | |
| Londr’ | c et xx libr. | |
| Summa Hundredorum. | ||
| Osuluestane | cc et xj hid. | |
| Spelthorn | c et x hid. | |
| Elethorn | c et xxiiij hid. | |
| Garehundr’ | c et xlix hid. | et dim. |
| Thistelwrkhundr’ | c et v hid. | |
| Explicit de comitatu de Middelsexe. | ||
This list obviously requires to be edited by a local worker, who should collate it with Domesday. In its present form it is clearly corrupt. The amount of Danegeld due from the county implies an assessment of 850¼ hides (at two shillings on the hide), but the actual total is here given as 853½. This again does not tally with the “summa hundredorum,” which only records 809½,[530] while the detailed list of hundreds, it seems, gives no more than 725½. It should be observed that the hundred of “Mimms” is the Domesday hundred of Edmonton, while that of ‘Isleworth,’ similarly, is the Domesday hundred of Hounslow, which contained Isleworth and Hampton.
XII
The Great Inquest of Service, 1212
It will be my object in this paper to recover and identify the fragments of a great national inquest, which seems to have escaped the notice of constitutional historians, and which, if its full returns had been preserved, might not unworthily be compared with the Domesday Inquest itself. In the course of doing so, I shall hope to prove that abstracts of these returns have been wrongly assigned by all antiquaries to an earlier and imaginary inquest, and that their belief has recently received an official confirmation. The solution I shall now propound will remove the admitted difficulties, to which the existing belief on the MSS. has, we shall find, given rise.
The bewildering congeries of returns known as the ‘Testa de Nevill’—an Edwardian manuscript shovelled together, and printed by the old Record Commission in 1807—has long been at once the hunting-ground and the despair of the topographer and the student of genealogy. Now that the returns contained in the Red Book of the Exchequer are also at length in type,[531] it is possible to collate the two collections, and thus to remove, in part at least, the obscurity that has hitherto surrounded them.
Mr. Hall, in his preface to the ‘Red Book,’ writes thus:
The Sergeanties and Inquisitions which form a considerable part of the Feodary in the Red Book of the Exchequer, have hitherto been little known, and their true value has been by no means sufficiently appreciated. This neglect has perhaps arisen from the greater convenience of reference to the printed collection known as the Testa de Nevill; but as it is now very generally recognised that the text of this work is far from satisfactory in its present form, the evidence of the kindred returns contained in earlier Exchequer Registers deserves our most careful attention (p. ccxxi.).
In the ‘Red Book’ itself the returns are headed:
Inquisitiones factæ tempore regis Johannis per totam Angliam anno scilicet regni sui xiio et xiiio in quolibet comitatu de servitiis militum et aliorum qui de eo tenent in capite secundum rotulos liberatos thesaurario per manus vicecomitum Angliæ tempore prædicto (p. 469).