Note 54 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 3)

It should be noticed how skilfully the queries were framed in the inquest of 1166, to entrap the unwary tenant, and make him commit himself to the facts. If his enfeoffed knights were short of the required number, he was caught under the third query; if, on the other hand, he had an excess, he was caught under the others. Now, did the 'barons', when they made their returns, anticipate this sweeping and unwelcome reform? Presumably not. They appear to have drawn up their cartae carefully and willingly, few of those who had an excess of knights taking even the precaution of mentioning their servitium debitum.54 The church, moreover, from the terms in which her payments are thenceforth entered (vide infra), must have uniformly and systematically adopted an attitude of protest. Yet there is no trace of such protest in her returns. May we then infer that the crown sought to deliberately entrap its tenants? Two circumstances might favour that view. In the first place the tenants had to make their returns extra sigillum pendentes, thereby solemnly committing themselves;55 in the second, the tenants would, of course, have been tempted to conceal or understate their excess of knights, had they foreseen the use that the crown would make of their returns.