Inquisicio ecclesiarum. Maugerius episcopus dedit ecclesiam de Rippel’ Willelmo de Bosco clerico suo et vicariam ejusdem ecclesie dedit Ricardo de Sancto Paterno clerico suo. Qui Ricardus reddit predicto Willelmo x marcas de pensione. Ecclesia autem integra valet per annum L marcas.
Idem episcopus dedit ecclesiam de Hambur’ juxta Wych magistro Ricardo de Cirencestra, que valet per annum x marcas (‘Testa,’ p. 44).
Bishop Mauger died in the very month of the Inquest (June, 1212). The Notts and Derbyshire returns (p. 18) include two similar entries relating to the archbishop of York, and those for Somerset and Dorset contain two at least relating to the bishop of Bath (pp. 161 b, 162 a). The Sussex and Surrey returns similarly contain two entries (p. 226 a) relating to Surrey churches to which the archbishop of Canterbury had presented. In this last case the annual value of the livings is deposed to, it should be noted, by six men of each parish.[535]
Having now dealt with Middlesex and Worcestershire, I pass to Lancashire, another county cited by Mr. Hall for comparison. The magnificent return for this county in 1212[536] is noteworthy for several reasons. In the first place, it is headed:
Hec est inquisicio facta per sacramentum fidelium militum de tenementis datis et alienatis infra Limam in comitatu Lancastrie, scilicet per Rogerum Gerneth, etc., etc.
This is a good illustration of the principle of “sworn inquest.” In the second, it leads off with the entry: “Gilbertus filius Reinfri tenet feodum unius militis.” Although this was a well-known man, jure uxoris a local magnate, the ‘Red Book’ text leads off with the gross corruption: “Gilfridus filius Rumfrai i militem” (568). Mr. Hall, in his index (p. 1183), identifies him with the “Galfridus filius Reinfrei” of another ‘Red Book’ return (p. 599)—where the ‘Testa’ has, rightly, “Gilbertus”—and fails to recognise in him the above Gilbert. This is a striking comment on his views expressed at the outset as to the inferiority of the ‘Testa’ text. So also is the fact that the ‘Red Book’ reads “Thomas de Elgburgo” at the foot of the same page, where the ‘Testa’ has “Thomas de Goldebur[go]” (p. 406), the correctness of the latter reading being proved by the “Thomas de Goldeburgo” of the ‘Red Book’ itself (p. 69) in its extract from the Pipe Roll of 1187. Yet the editor ignores the ‘Testa’ form, and gives ‘Elgburgo’ in the Index.[537]
A third point is that the ‘Red Book’ compresses here into a skeleton nearly thirteen columns of the closely printed ‘Testa de Nevill.’ The text of the latter is of value not only for its wealth of information and its witness to the detailed and far-reaching character of this Inquest, but for such expressions as “pro herede Theobaldi Walteri qui est in custodia sua” (i.e. regis). Theobald had died more than five years before the Inquest was made; and yet in the ‘Red Book’ text he appears as the living tenant.
This instance is of some importance in its bearing on apparent contrasts in the ‘Testa’ and ‘Red Book’ versions. For Mr. Hall, believing them to represent two successive returns, observes that
In the Inquisitions ... of the years 1210–11 entered in the Red Book of the Exchequer, Walter Tosard is returned as holding his land in Banningham.... In the original return, dated 1212, from which the earliest list of Feudal services in Testa de Nevill was compiled, we find that Walter Tosard held this serjeanty, and that Avicia Tosard still holds it (p. ccxxviii.).
The apparent discrepancy of the two returns is explained, exactly as in the case of Theobald Walter, by the fact that the full return mentioned Walter Tosard as dead, while the brief and inaccurate abstract of it, in the Red Book of the Exchequer, gives his name as if he were alive.