Texts of the "Inquisitio Eliensis” 125

not be derived from B, because it corrects, throughout, B's inaccuracies. Consequently they are independent. More difficult to determine is the genesis of A, the worst of the three texts; but as it virtually reproduces all the inaccuracies found in B (besides containing many fresh ones), without correcting any, it can only be inferred that B was its source. Thus we have on the one hand C, and, on the other B (with its offspring A), derived independently from some common source. And this conclusion agrees well with the fact that a long catalogue of lands abstracted from the House of Ely is found in C, but not in A or B,18 and with the circumstance that the famous rubric ("Hic subscribitur inquisitio"), which heads the inquisition in A and B, is placed by C at the end of the lists of jurors.

Starting from this conclusion, let us now proceed to ask, What was the document from which B and C copied independently? Clearly, it was not Domesday Book, for outside the eastern counties they record the returns in full, like the Inquisitio Com. Cant. itself. Were they then taken from the original returns, or at least from the copy of those returns in the Inq. Com. Cant. ? This point can only be determined by close analysis of the variants; if we find B and C containing occasionally the same errors and peculiarities, although copied independently, it follows that the document from which they both copied must have contained those same errors and peculiarities. Let us take the case of Papworth. The right reading, as given both in Domesday and the Inq. Com. Cant., I have placed on the left, and the wrong reading, in B and C, on the right :

[tenet abbas] ii. hidas et iii. virgas et dim. [virgam].

I. hida et i. virga et dimidia

[virga] in dominio.

218 Ed. Hamilton, pp. 184-189.

219 Ibid., pp. 97, 101.

220 Comits "et."

221 Here the scribe of C, puzzled by the evident corruption of the text from which he copied, read "inv[enit]."

Here are some further illustrations of errors in the I.E. :

Again, the clause "Tost" pro viii. hidis et xl. acris," which ought to head the Hardwick entries, is wrongly appended in the I.E. (p. 110) to a Kingston entry with which it had nothing to do. So too, "hoc manerium pro x. hidis se defendit (sic) T.R.E. et modo pro viii. hidis," which belongs to Whaddon, is erroneously thrown back by the I.E. (p. 107), into Trumpington, a Manor in another Hundred. It is singular also that all the MSS. of the I.E. read "iii. cotarii" (p. 101), where D.B. and the I.C.C. have iii. bordarii (p. 3), and “x. cotarii” (p. 101), where they have "x. bordarii" (p. 6): conversely, the former, in one place, read "xv. bordarii" (p. 107), where the latter have "XV. cotarii" (p. 63).

In comparing the text of the I.E. with that of the I.C.C., we shall find most striking and instructive variants in the lists of juratores for the several Hundreds. Take, for instance, the lists for the Hundreds of Cheveley and Staines, which follow one another in both MSS.

The second name on these lists can be conclusively tested. For the relative entry in the I.C.C. is "Esselei tenet euerard[us] 220 filius brientii de Alberico." This proves that the I.C.C. is right in reading "Euerard[us]," while the I.E. is right in adding "homo Alb[er]ici de uer." These are the lists for Staines Hundred.

229 Eurard[us] in D.B.

" (I.C.C.) or "Wighen"

230 "Juraverunt homines scilicet Alerann[us], Rogger[us] homo Walteri Giffardi" omitted in C.

231 A sokeman of the Abbot of Ely at Suafham.

In these two lists the points to strike us are that Harold is placed first on one list and seventh on another; Aleran third on one list and first on another; and "Fareman" distinguished more clearly in the I.E. than in the I.C.C. as a separate individual.

If we now collect from the other Hundreds some instances of instructive variants, we shall obtain important evidence.

It is impossible to examine the italicised variations in these

232

Staplehoe Hundred.

233 This is a noticeable case because "mo" has been interlined in B text of I.E., and because this man can be identified in I.C.C. and D.B. as an under-tenant in the Hundred.

234 The I.E. version ("bans") is the right one.

The Lost Original Return

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parallel texts without coming to the conclusion that they must have been independently derived from some common original, an original containing more detail than either of them. On the other hand, the comparatively close agreement between the texts of the actual returns in the I.C.C. and the I.E. leads one to infer that these were copied with far more exactitude than the comparatively unimportant surnames of the jurors. For us the value of these variations in the jurors' lists lies in the evidence afforded on the origin of the existing MSS.

The object of this careful scrutiny has been to prove that as certain errors and peculiarities are found in two independent MSS., they must have existed in the original document from which both were copied, and which was neither the I.C.C. transcripts nor the original Domesday returns. What then was this document ? It was, and can only have been, the true Inquisitio Eliensis, the date and origin of which I shall discuss below. Further, I should imagine this document to have probably been a roll or rolls, which-on its contents being subsequently transcribed into a book for convenience-was allowed, precisely as happened to the Domesday rolls themselves, to disappear. In perfect accordance with this view we find the whole contents of the Inquisitio arranged for a special purpose, and no mere transcript of the Domesday returns. Thus, after abstracting all the entries relating to the Cambridgeshire estates, and subjoining a list of houses held in Cambridge itself, it proceeds to add up all the items independently, and record their total values to the Abbey. This analysis is carried out for several counties (pp. 121-124), and is, of course, peculiar to the Inquisitio, although inserted between the abstracts of the Domesday returns for Cambridgeshire and Herts. So too the breviate or short abstract of the estates (pp. 168-173), which was part of the original document-for it is found in all the derived MSS.-must have been specially compiled for it, and so also was the Nomina Villarum (pp. 174-183).

B.H.

K