Passing over the elaborate entry for Bradwell, Essex,[538] the two versions of which, it will be found, are clearly derived from the same original, I pass, in conclusion, to the return for Northumberland (‘Testa,’ 392–3). Although not among the counties cited above by Mr. Hall, its return to the “Inquisicio facta de tenementis, etc., que sunt data vel alienata,” etc.,[539] is specially full and valuable for comparison. Its text appears to reproduce the original in extenso. Now any one comparing this return with the meagre list in the ‘Liber Rubeus’ (pp. 562–4) will perceive at once that the latter is derived from the same original. The names occur in identical order. The only discrepancy is that the ‘Red Book’ shows us “Sewale filius Henrici” in possession of land (Matfen and Nafferton)—held by the interesting serjeanty of being coroner—while the ‘Testa’ reads “Philippus de Ulkotes tenet terram que fuit Sewall’ filii Henrici.” It might be urged, as is done by Mr. Hall in the case of the serjeanties and the Boulogne Inquest (pp. ccxxviii., 575), that this proves the ‘Testa’ return to be the later of the two. But here, again, the real explanation is that—as in the case of Lancashire, where Theobald Walter’s name, we saw, is given in the ‘Red Book’ when he was dead—the appearance of Sewal is merely due to the carelessness, in the ‘Red Book,’ of the scribe. This, indeed, is evident from his similar appearance in a list which is, according to Mr. Hall, later than either.[540] How essential it is to collate these parallel lists is shown by the very first entry, relating to the interesting tenure of earl Patrick (of Dunbar). According to the ‘Testa’ (the right reading) he held “iij villas in theynagio.” The ‘Red Book’ makes him hold “iii milites (!) in theynagio,” a reading which its editor accepts without question. Another no less striking correction is afforded by the ‘Testa,’ in its entry relating to the porter of Bamborough Castle and his tenure: “Robertus Janitor de Bamburg’ tenet.” In Mr. Hall’s text we find him as “Robertus, junior” (!), and, as such, the unfortunate man is indexed, although he appears elsewhere, both in the ‘Red Book’ and the ‘Testa,’ as “Robertus Portarius.”[541] From these instances it will be evident that though (in the printed text at least) the ‘Testa’ is not perfect, the ‘Red Book’ list, for Northumberland, is, when compared with it, worthless.
Indeed, the marvellously elaborate returns for Somerset and Dorset, Lincolnshire, Lancashire, etc., printed in the ‘Testa de Nevill,’ with which the meagre lists in the ‘Liber Rubeus’ cannot be compared for an instant, make one read with absolute amazement Mr. Hall’s statement, when comparing the two, that
one or the other is in its present form lamentably incomplete. This deficiency chiefly exists on the side of the Testa, for it will be evident at once that the isolated and fragmentary membranes which formed the sole surviving contents of Nevill’s Testa in the reign of Edward I. cannot be satisfactorily compared with the relatively complete returns preserved in the Red Book (p. ccxxiv.).
It is evident that the editor has no conception how many and how long are the returns in the ‘Testa’ relating to this great Inquest.[542] This may be due to his conception that they are there headed “De Testa de Nevill” (p. ccxxv.), an idea which he repeated in a lengthy communication to the ‘Athenæum’ (10th Sept., 1898) on the “Testa de Nevill.” Mr. Hall wrote:
The really important point about the whole matter is one which seems to have been entirely overlooked, namely that not only does the title ‘Testa de Nevill’ refer to certain antique lists alone, which, indeed, form but a small percentage of the whole register, but that the greater part of the lists thus headed appear to have been made at a certain date in the fourteenth year of John.... ‘De Testa de Nevill’ is the invariable heading of these lists (p. 354).
The very point of the matter is that, on the contrary, the greater portion of these lists have no such heading, but are hidden away among later returns, from which they can only be disentangled by careful and patient labour.[543] The result of my researches is that I believe the printed ‘Testa’ to contain no fewer than a hundred columns (amounting to nearly an eighth of its contents) representing returns to this Inquest. At the close of this paper I append a list of these columns, of which only thirty-eight are headed (or included in the portion headed) “De testa de Nevill.”
To resume. For the great Inquest of 1212 (14 John) we have (1) mention in a chronicle, (2) the writ directing it to be made, (3) the record of a sworn verdict of jurors who made it. For the alleged Inquests of 1210–12 (12 and 13 John) we have nothing at all.[544] We have, further, the fact that, when collated, the returns said to belong to these “independent” Inquests are found to be clearly derived from a single original. In spite, therefore, of the ‘Red Book’ and its editor, it may safely be asserted that there was but one Inquest, that of the 14th year, the returns to which were handed in on 25th June (1212).
Thus “the remarkable circumstance,” as Mr. Hall terms it (p. ccxxiii.), that the ‘Testa’ compilers know nothing of “the original returns of the 12th and 13th years,” while, “on the other hand, the scribe of the ‘Red Book’ had not access to the returns of the 14th year,” is at once accounted for: they both used the same returns, those of 1212.[545]
As my criticism has, at times, been deemed merely destructive, I may point out that, here at least, it has established the facts about an Inquest worthy to be named, in future, by historians in conjunction with those of 1086 and 1166, while the rough list I shall append of its returns, as printed in the ‘Testa,’ will, one may hope, enable its evidence to be more generally used than it has been hitherto. The unfortunate description of the ‘Testa,’ on its title-page, as “temp. Henry III. and Edward I.,” has greatly obscured its character and misled the ordinary searcher.
Historically speaking, this Inquest may be viewed from two standpoints. Politically, it illustrates John’s exactions by its effort to revive rights of the Crown alleged to have lapsed.[546] Institutionally, it is of great interest, not only as an instance of “the sworn inquest” employed on a vast scale, but also for its contrast to the inquest of knights in 1166, and its points of resemblance to the Domesday inquest of 1086. Of far wider compass than the former—for it dealt in detail with the towns[547]—it was carried out on a totally different principle. Instead of each tenant-in-chief making his own return of his fees and sending it in separately, the sheriff conducted the enquiry, Hundred by Hundred, for the county; and out of these returns the feudal lists had to be subsequently constructed by the officials. Lincolnshire is not among the counties named by Mr. Hall for comparison, but it shows us well how the inquest was made Wapentake by Wapentake, and then the list of fees within the county extracted from the returns and grouped under Honours. This, I believe, is what was done in Middlesex also.[548] It is noteworthy that in the case of Middlesex the returns of 1212 were made the basis for collecting the aid “for the marriage of the king’s sister,”[549] in 1235, the same personal names occurring in both lists. If, as this implies, they formed a definitive assessment, we obtain a striking explanation of the fact that 1212, as Mr. Hall observes, seems to mark a terminal break in Swereford’s work (pp. lxii.-iii.). Personally, however, I am not sure that “the Scutages,” as Mr. Hall asserts, “concluded abruptly” in 1212. My reckoning being different from his, I make the last scutage dealt with by Swereford to be that which is recorded on John’s 13th year roll, that is, the roll of Michaelmas, 1211.