METHOD OF COMPILATION 15 



" All this is to be given in triplicate ; that is, in the time of King 

 Edward, when King William gave it, and at the present time. 

 " 12. And if more can be had than is had." 



From the fact that all the statistics for all the counties run 

 on approximately the same lines, we are justified in concluding 

 that a somewhat similar set of questions was propounded 

 throughout the kingdom. 



The jury for each hundred would answer these questions 

 for each vill in that hundred, and their answers would be noted 

 down in detail, as in the Cambridgeshire Inquest. Sometimes 

 they were unable to make any return for a particular estate : 

 " No one made a return to the King's legates " of the manor of 

 Woodchester (Glos), "nor did any of them \i.e. the tenants] 

 come to this survey (descriptio)" 1 Once, at least, the owner 

 of the property in question proved his title to the satisfaction 

 of the Commissioners : Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, produced 

 his charters, which testified that the church of St. Peter, 

 Exeter, was seised of the manor of Newton before King 

 Edward reigned. 2 In the Cambridgeshire Inquest we have 

 what is probably a copy of their original returns set forth 

 hundred by hundred and vill by vill. The Ely Inquest 

 contains a copy of the statistics relating to the estates of the 

 abbey of Ely in six counties. Mr. Round tells us that for 

 their estates in the counties of Hertford and Cambridge, these 

 statistics are an independent copy of the original returns ; for 

 their estates in Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, they are extracted 

 from the second volume of Domesday Book ; while of the 

 statistics of their four estates in Huntingdon, he cannot speak 

 positively. 3 The Exetec- Domesday contains a similar copy 

 of the original returns for the five western counties, which 

 have been rearranged under the names of the owners of the 

 estates. 



The jurors would speak to all these details from personal 



1 D. B., I. 164 a 2. 2 Id., ioi b 2. 



3 F. E., 135. 





