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naming them, it may be necessary to state, that the great Domesday, having been reprinted by order of Government in 1783, is not included in this collection. We begin therefore with the third volume, which is merely an index to the general Domesday, with a dissertation upon that important record, viz.

III.-LIBRI CENSUALIS VOCATI DOMESDAY BOOK INDICES ACCESSIT DISSERTATIO GENERALIS DE RATIONE HUJUSCE LIBRI.

IV.-LIBRI CENSUALIS VOCATI DOMESDAY BOOK ADDITAMENTAEX CODIC. ANTIQUISS.-EXON' DOMESDAY-INQUISITIO ELIENSIS LIBER WINTON-BOLDON BOOK.

Of the records which compose the fourth volume, supplementary to Domesday, the first in point of time is

THE EXON DOMESDAY, the original of which is preserved among the muniments and charters, belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral. Its main body presents a description of the western parts of the kingdom, comprising the Counties of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, and it is supposed, so far as it extends, to contain an exact transcript of the original rolls or returns made by the Conqueror's Commissioners at the time of forming the general survey, from which the great Domesday itself was compiled.

THE INQUISITIO ELIENSIS is a document of the same kind as the Exeter Domesday, relating to the property of the monastery of Ely, recorded afterwards in two volumes of the Domesday Survey: The original is preserved in. a Register of the Monastery, remaining among the Cotton Manuscripts in the British Museum, marked Tiberius A. VI. and is at least as old as the 12th century. Another copy of this inquisition is contained in the Chartulary of Ely Monastery, preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge, called by Gale, Liber Eliensis. In point of form, arrangement, and contents, it very much resembles the Exeter Survey.

THE WINTON DOMESDAY. The original was formerly the property of James West, Esq. now preserved in the archives of the Society of Antiquaries, at London, and consists of two distinct parts or records, both written on vellum.

Immediately following the title of the first portion, is a rubric, stating that King Henry I. desirous of ascertaining what King Edward the Confessor held in Winchester, as of his own demesne, ordered this survey to be made upon the oaths of the burgesses. Immediately after the title page in the printed volume, is a beautiful fac-simile of the rubric, contained in the original. This survey was taken between the years 1107 and 1128. The next is

THE BOLDON Book, or Survey of the Palatinate of Durham. In the year 1183, Hugh Pudsey, called also De Puteaco, De Pusar, and De Pusas, nephew to Stephen, King of England, caused this Survey to be made, since known by the name of "The Boldon Book," It probably had its name from Boldon, a village and parish near Sunderland, in the same diocese, where it was either compiled, or according to the census of whose inhabitants, the other manors, &c. in that bishoprick were regulated. This latter is the most probable origin of the name, for in the account of rents and services required of other places, reference is frequently made to those rendered by the people of Boldon. Of the motives or reasons which led to this compilation, we have no record. Its title, however, in the Laud M. S. 542, shews at once the nature and design of the work"Inquisitio de Consuetudinibus et Redditibus totius Episcopatus Dunelmensis: facta per Hugonem Episcopum, Anno 1183."

TAXATIO ECCLESIASTICA ANGLIÆ ET WALLIÆ AUCTORITATE P. NICHOLAI IV. CIRCA A. D. 1291. In the year 1253, Pope Innocent the Fourth, to whose predecessors in the see of Rome the first fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical benefices had for a long time been paid, gave the same to King Henry III. for three years, which occasioned a taxation in the following year, sometimes called the "Norwich Taxation," and sometimes "Pope Innocent's Valor." In the year 1288, Pope Nicholas IV. granted the tenths to King Edward I. for six years, towards defraying the expenses of an expedition to the Holy Land, and that they might be collected to their

full value, a taxation by the King's precept was begun in that year, and finished as to the province of Canterbury, in 1291; and as to that of York, in the following year; the whole being under the direction of John, Bishop of Winton, and Oliver, Bishop of Lincoln.

A third taxation, entitled "Nova Taxatio," as to some part of the province of York, was made A. D. 1318, (11th Edward II.) by virtue of a royal mandate, directed to the Bishop of Carlisle, chiefly on account of the invasion of the Scots, by which the clergy of those border countries were rendered unable to pay the former tax.

The taxation of Pope Nicholas is a most important record, because all the taxes, as well of our Kings as the Pope's, were regu. lated by it, until the survey made in the 26th year of Henry VIII.; and because the statutes of colleges which were founded before the Reformation, are also interpreted by this criterion, according to which their benefices, under a certain value, are exempted from the restriction in the statute 21st Henry VIII. concerning pluralities.

VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS TEMP. HENR. VIII. AUCTORITATE REGIA INSTITUTUS, 4 VOLS.-This survey was made in pursuance of an Act passed in the 26th year of Henry VIII., for ascertaining the annual value of all the possessions, manors, lands, tenements, hereditaments, and profits, as well spiritual as temporal, appertaining to any monastery, priory, church, college, conventual parsonage, vicarage, chauntry, free chapel, or other ecclesiastical edifice or community within the realm; and by it a certain number of commissioners in each district were appointed by articles under the King's own hand, who had power to examine the clergy touching the value, extent, and nature of all the ecclesiastical property in the kingdom.

CALENDARIUM

INQUISITIONUM POST MORTEM SIVE ESCAETARUM, VOL. 1. TEMPORIBUS REGUM HEN. III. ED. I. & ED. II.

VOL. 2. TEMPORE REGIS EDWARDI III.

VOL. 3. TEMPORIBUS REGUM RIC. II. & HEN. IV.

The records preserved in the Tower of London, entitled, Inquisitiones Post Mortem, or as they are sometimes called, Escheats,

commence with the early part of the reign of Henry III., and end with the third year of Richard III. The originals are preserved in bundles chronologically arranged: they were taken by virtue of writs, directed to the escheators of each county or district, to summon a jury on oath, who were to enquire what lands any person died seized of, and by what rents and services the same were held, and who was the next heir, and of what age the heir was, that the King might be informed of his right of escheat or wardship. They also shew whether the tenant was attainted of treason, or was an alien, in either of which cases they were seized into the King's hands: they likewise shew the quantity, quality, and value of the lands of which each tenant died seized, &c., and they are the best evidences of the descents of families and of property. The calendar to these records now published, is a transcript of the official calendars, revised and corrected with the originals.

DUCATUS

LANCASTRIE PARS PRIMA CALENDARIUM INQUISITIONUM POST MORTEM, &C. TEMPORIBUS REGUM EDW. I. EDW. III. RIC. II. HEN. V. HEN. VI. EDW. IV. HEN. VII. HEN. VIII. EDW. VI. REGIN. MAR. PHIL. & MAR. ELIZ. JAC. I. CAR. 1.

PARS SECUNDA A CALENDAR TO THE PLEADINGS, &c., IN THE REIGNS OF HEN. VII. HEN. VIII. EDW. VI. QUEEN MARY AND PHIL. AND MARY.

According to the return made to the select committee of the House of Commons, in the year 1800, the Inquisitions Post Mortem, in the repository of the Duchy of Lancaster, then found, amounted to 2400, beginning with the first year of King Henry V. 1413, and ending with the 18th year of Charles I. 1642. A more recent investigation has shewn their number to amount to 3569, which it was found necessary to put into a better state of arrangement, to clean, repair, and bind them into volumes, and compose the new calendar, which forms the first part of this volume.

The Pleadings, consisting of bills, answers, depositions, and surveys, in suits exhibited in the Duchy court, commence with the first year of King Henry VII., and are continued to the present time. The calendar now published, extends from the earliest date of these pleadings, to the reign of Philip and Mary, including 5682 records, and forms the second part of the volume.

ROTULI HUNDREDORUM TEMP. HEN. III. & EDW. I. IN TURR' LOND' ET IN CURIA RECEPTE SCACCARIJ WESTM. ASSERVATI. VOL. 1 & 2.

The hundred rolls contain inquisitions taken in pursuance of a special commission, issued under the great seal, dated the 11th of October, in the second year of King Edward I. It was one of the functions of the justices of Eyre, to enquire in every county, of the knight's fees, escheats, wardships, marriages, presentations to churches, &c., and usurpations of the rights of the crown, in order to preserve the profitable tenures of the King, and that he might be duly answered of the fruits of such escheats, wardships, &c., which formed a material part of his revenue, and also to enquire into oppressions and frauds of the King's ministers and officers; and for these purposes, the justices delivered in charge to the hundredors certain articles, called “Capitula Itineris.”

During the turbulent reign of King Henry III., the revenues of the crown had been considerably diminished by tenants in Capite alienating without licence; and by ecclesiastics as well as laymen, withholding from the crown, under various pretexts, its just rights, usurping the right of holding courts and other Jura Regalia.

King Edward I., on his return from the Holy Land, corrected these abuses, and one of the first acts of his administration, after his arrival, was to enquire into the state of the demesnes, the rights and revenues of the crown, and the conduct of those officers who had defrauded the King and oppressed the people: for this purpose, peculiar evidence was necessary, and the King therefore appointed special commissioners for the whole kingdom, who commenced their inquiries, and returned the rolls of their inquisitions into the Court of Exchequer, which exhibited at one view a return of the demesne lands, manors, tenants, alienations, wardships, marriages, escheats, and every other kind of property; in which the right of the crown was affected, with the abuses of its officers.

PLACITA DE QUO WARRANTO TEMPORIBUS EDW. I. II. & III. IN CURIA RECEPTE SCACCARIJ WESTM. ASSERVATA. To describe the nature of these records, reference may be had to the preceding Hundred Rolls. The statute of Gloucester was

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