the creation of a separate official. Already in the time of Richard I., there appears "the keeper of the king's escheats," and early in the reign of Henry III. the sheriffs are relieved by the two escheators, one on each side of the Trent, who answer directly at the Exchequer, although it is not until the year 17 Edward II. (1323–4) that their accounts are transferred from the Pipe Roll to a separate enrolment.
The office of escheator passed through a period of experimental fluctuation during the first half of the fourteenth century; Edward I. in 1275 temporarily abolished the original two escheatries, dividing the realm into three stewardships with the sheriffs as escheators in each county; Edward II. in 1323 divided the country into ten escheatries,[44] a plan readopted by Edward III. in 1340; between 1332 and 1340 there were five escheators, between 1341 and 1357 the office was held by the sheriffs, though separate patents were issued, while from 1357 onwards the office suffered no change of importance until the Tudor period, when the Court of Wards was established (32 Henry VIII.) and the feodary appears. The functions of the escheator were to take into the king's hand and administer the lands of all tenants in chief and of others whose lands by death, escheat or forfeiture, fell to the crown, to deliver seisin to the heirs, after taking security for the payment of relief, to make partitions of lands among heiresses, to assign dowers to the widows of tenants, and in general to watch over the interests of the crown in all matters of feudal obligation.
The documents given below show the machinery in operation. Instances are given of the different tenures[45] (Nos. 1 to 6), while the uncertainty prevailing in the twelfth century as to the incidents due from land held by serjeanty is illustrated in No. 5. The gradual substitution of a money economy for a feudal economy, which finds expression in scutage (No. 17) and otherwise (No. 18), encouraged an elasticity of tenure which made a change from serjeanty to knight service (No. 7) and from personal service to a rent (No. 8) convenient equally to lord and tenant. The degree to which subinfeudation had commonly proceeded in the thirteenth century is shown in No. 9, and the burden of the feudal incidents is exemplified in Nos. 10 to 15. The ordinary revenues of the Crown from feudal incidents and aids, rents, the profits of justice, and escheats, were never sufficient to meet emergencies, just as the feudal army was inadequate for a protracted campaign, and hence the Crown was forced to resort on the one hand to a universal land-tax (No. 16) or a limited exaction from the crown demesnes (No. 19), and on the other to a tax on the feudal unit, the knight's fee (No. 17); the provisions for the collection of a carucage illustrate the royal determination to exact the uttermost farthing, while the assessment of a scutage was conducted on the modern principle of extracting the money first and settling the liability afterwards. No. 20 is a rare surviving instance of an original writ Precipe issued before Magna Carta, and shows precisely the method of the royal procedure in attracting legal causes to the King's jurisdiction out of the hands of the lord. The section concludes with the important articles of enquiry initiated by Edward I., which led to the compilation of the Hundred Rolls and the proceedings quo warranto, and also set out in detail the King's conception of his sovereignty and of the royal origin of all feudal franchises and liberties (No. 21); while the last document (No. 22) furnishes a curious instance of one of the minor royal rights.
AUTHORITIES
The principal modern writers dealing with the subject of this section are:—Pollock & Maitland, History of English Law; Maitland, Lectures on Constitutional History; Stubbs, Constitutional History; Hazlitt, Tenures of land and customs of manors; Round, Feudal England; Round, The King's Serjeants and Officers of State; Baldwin, Scutage and Knight Service in England; McKechnie, Magna Carta; Freeman, Norman Conquest; Hatschek, Englische Verfassungsgeschichte; Digby, History of the Law of Real Property.
Documentary authorities:—The principal original sources are, The Red Book of the Exchequer (Hall, Rolls Series); The Hundred Rolls (Record Commission), Placita de quo Warranto (Record Commission); Placitorum Abbreviatio (Record Commission); Testa de Nevill (Record Commission),[46] Inquisitions Post Mortem (Record Office Calendars), Feudal Aids (Record Office Calendars).
[44] Besides these ten, the palatinate county of Chester had its own escheator, and the Mayor of London exercised the office in London. Minor escheatries were carved out from time to time.
[45] Unfree tenure is illustrated below in section III., The Manor.
[46] A new edition is in course of preparation.
1. Frankalmoin [Ancient Deeds, B. 4249]. temp. Henry II.
To all sons of Holy Mother Church, present and to come, Roger son of Elyas of Helpstone, greeting. Know ye that I have given and granted and by my present charter confirmed to God and the church of St. Michael of Stamford and the nuns serving God there, for the souls of my father and my mother and for the salvation of my soul and the souls of my ancestors and successors, in free and pure and perpetual alms, 2 acres of land, less 1 rood, in the fields of Helpstone, to wit, 3 roods of land on Peselond between the land of Payn the knight and between the land of Robert Blund, and ½ acre between the land of William Peri and between the land of William son of Ede, and 2 roods between the land of Sir Roger de Torpel, lying on both sides. I have given, moreover, to God and the church of St. Michael and the nuns serving God there, in free and pure and perpetual alms ½d. of rent which John son of Richard of Barnack used to render to me on the day of St. Peter's Chains[47] for a house and for a rood of land in Helpstone. And the aforesaid land and ½d. of rent I, Roger, and my heirs will warrant to the aforesaid nuns against all men and against all women. Witnesses:—Payn of Helpstone, Roger his son, Geoffrey of Lohoum, Geoffrey of Norbury, Walter of Helpstone, Robert son of Simon, Geoffrey son of John, Geoffrey son of Herlewin, Walter of Tickencote, Richard Pec.
[47] August 1.
2. Knight Service [Inquisitions post mortem, Edward II, 2, 19], 1308.
Somerset.—Inquisition made before the escheator of the lord the King at Somerton on 29 January in the first year of the reign of King Edward [II], of the lands and tenements that were of Hugh Poyntz in the county of Somerset on the day on which he died, how much, to wit, he held of the lord the King in chief and how much of others and by what service, and how much those lands and tenements are worth yearly in all issues, and who is his next heir and of what age, by the oath of Matthew de Esse[48] … Who say by their oath that the aforesaid Hugh Poyntz held in his demesne as of fee in the county aforesaid on the day on which he died the manor of Curry Mallet, with the appurtenances, of the lord the King in chief for a moiety of the barony of Curry Mallet by the service of one knight's fee; in which manor is a capital messuage which is worth 4s. a year with the fruit and herbage of the garden; and there are there 280 acres of arable land which are worth 4l. 13s. 4d. a year at 4d. an acre; and there are there 60 acres of meadow which are worth 4l. 10s. a year at 18d. an acre; and there is there a park the pasture whereof is worth 6s. 8d. a year and not more owing to the sustenance of deer; and the pleas and perquisites of the court there are worth 4s. a year; And there are there 12 free tenants in fee, who render yearly at the feasts of Michaelmas and Easter by equal portions 74s. 8d. for all service; and there are there 16 customary tenants, each of whom holds ½ virgate of land in villeinage, rendering yearly at the said terms by equal portions 4s., and the works of each are worth from the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
