They are accordingly given, by the editor, the marginal date “1210–1212” throughout (pp. 469–574). On the other hand, the ‘Testa de Nevill’ returns were, as he shows, delivered at the Exchequer on the morrow of St. John the Baptist (25th June), 1212 (p. ccxxi.). Thus then we have, according to him, two successive and “independent returns”:
(1) The ‘Liber Rubeus’ returns made between May, 1210, and May, 1212.
(2) The ‘Testa de Nevill’ returns made in June, 1212.[532]
It is necessary to keep these dates very clearly in mind, because, although the editor accepts the ‘Red Book’ statement, and adopts accordingly the marginal date “1210–1212,” he yet, by an incomprehensible confusion, speaks of the same as the Inquisition of “1210–1211” on p. ccxxviii. (bis), and even as “the earlier Inquisition of 1210 entered in the Red Book” (p. ccxxvi.), and of “the two independent returns of 1210 and 1212” with “two stormy years” between them (p. ccxxiv.); while in another place he actually dates the said “returns of 1210” as belonging to “1212” (p. clxv.). He thus dates the Red Book Inquisitions in one place ‘1210–1212,’ in another ‘1210–1211,’ in a third ‘1210,’ and in a fourth ‘1212.’
Now I may explain at the outset that what I propose to do is to show that instead of two Inquests (one recorded in the ‘Red Book’ and the other in the ‘Testa’), there was only a single Inquest, with one series of returns, and that this was the Inquest of June, 1212.
As this view is in direct conflict with the heading in the ‘Red Book’ itself, we must first glance at Mr. Hall’s statement that “the date of the Inquisitions entered in the Red Book can be proved from internal evidence” (p. ccxxiii.). What he there claims to prove is that their date is between 1209 and “the early part of 1213.” Such a conclusion, it will be perceived, in no way proves that they do not belong, as I shall contend they do belong, to June, 1212. Putting aside the obvious and inherent improbability of an Inquest being made in 1212 on the very matter which had formed the subject of an Inquest only just concluded, we need only compare the returns to prove their common origin. Mr. Hall observes that at times
we come upon a passage of a few lines or a whole page or more in the MSS., headed in the later Register ‘De Testa de Nevill,’ dated in the original rolls in the 14th year of John, and corresponding entry for entry with the Red Book Inquest of the 12th and 13th years of that reign (p. ccxxv.).
But the obvious inference that the two Inquests were really one and the same seems not to have occurred to him. We will glance, therefore, at the parallel returns he has himself selected. Foremost among these is “the Middlesex Inquisition” for 1212, of which he has printed “the original return” as an appendix to his Preface (pp. ccxxvi., cclxxxii.-iv.), for comparison with the texts in the ‘Red Book’ and in the ‘Testa de Nevill.’ But he warns us
that the numerous variants and the independent wording of the entries, as well as the thirteenth century note “in Libro” on the bottom of the Roll, forbid the supposition that this is really an original of the earlier Inquisition of 1210 (sic) entered in the Red Book.
The “original” return and the two texts all begin with the “Honour” of William de Windsor, who inherited from his Domesday ancestor, Walter fitz Other, a compact block of four manors, East and West Bedfont, Stanwell, and Hatton, in the south-west of the county. The first entry is for East Bedfont, and the second ran, in the “original” return: “Walterius Bedestfont, Andreas Bucherel, feudum unius militis.” But Walterius, Mr. Hall tells us, was altered in a contemporary hand to “in alterius.” The ‘Testa’ renders this as “in villa alterius,” while the ‘Red Book’ gives us “Walterius de Bedefonte, Andreas Bukerellus j feodum.” There can be no question that the ‘Testa de Nevill’ is right, and that Andrew Bucherel was the sole tenant of the fee, for the scutage is accounted for accordingly on the same page (p. 361). It follows, therefore, that the ‘Red Book’ and the “original” return have both evolved, in error, a Walter de Bedfont from “in alteri” Bedfont. Hence I conclude that the strip of parchment termed by Mr. Hall “the original return,” was not the original return, and that the error common to the ‘Red Book’ and itself demonstrates a close connection between the two.