CHAP. VI. On the documentary Evidence relative to Tithes. DOM SECTION 1. On public documentary Evidence. Book, begun 14 W. I. in 1081, OMESDAY Book, kept in the Court of the Domesday receipt of the Exchequer, in a place formerly called Domus Dei, and then for shortness Domesday, is the most ancient public document now in existence, and has always been considered a book of authority. finished in 1086. different It appears to have been known under the Knownunder names of Scriptura Thesauri Regis Liber de Wintonia - Liber Regis -and Rotulus Regis, was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, except those in the four northern counties, not comprehended in it on account of their uncultivated state, and describes the quantity and value of them in the time of Edward the Confessor, as well as at the period. Classed under different titles. Particulars entered by verdict of juries. Calendarium 3 John to of the survey, together with the names of the owners and their particular condition. It was classed under different titles, that of Terra, comprehending the arable land; Silva, the wood; Pastura, the pasture; and Pratum, the meadow land sufficient for those oxen to live on which tilled the arable soil. Commissioners, called King's Justiciaries, were appointed by King William, for the purpose of making the survey, and they entered every particular in their register by the verdict of juries. Exact copies of some parts of Domesday Book, and extracts from others, will be found in the Harleian collection of manuscripts in the British Museum. (1) The patent rolls, kept in the Tower, commence in the third year of King John, and end in the twenty-third year of Edward the Fourth. Those in the Rolls Chapel begin with a small roll of to 27Geo.III. King Edward the Fifth, and are continued down to the twenty-seventh of George the Third. and Edw. V. (*) 3 Holinsh. Chr. 13. Sax. Chr. A.D. 1086. Stowe's Chr. 118. Cam. Brit. clxii. Ingul. 79. 1 Inst. 83. a. n. 1. 4 Inst. 269. Anon. Hob. R. 188. Bul. N. P. 248. Hume's Hist. E. ch. 4. Preface to Jones's Hist. Rec. xiii. 1 Reeve's Hist. Eng. 219. Rep. Com. on the Pub. Rec. in 1801 and 1812. They contain grants of offices and lands, restitutions of temporalties to bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastical persons, with confirmations of grants made to bodies corporate, as well ecclesiastical as civil. (') ficiorum of in 1288, finished for the province The taxation of Pope Nicholas the Fourth, Valor Benekept in the King's Remembrancer's Office, in Pope Nichothe Exchequer, was finished in the nineteenth las, began and twentieth years of Edward the First, to whom that Pope granted the tenths and firstfruits of all ecclesiastical benefices for six years, in order that the king might be better enabled to fulfil the promise he had made to the Pope, and proceed to the Holy Land. All taxes paid to our Kings, and to the Popes,/ were regulated by this document, until the survey made in the twenty-sixth year of Henry the Eighth; it is therefore evidence, or a medium of proof affording an inference of the rate or value at which the persons employed thought fit at that time to estimate a living. (2) of Canter bury in 1291; for that of York in 1292. founded All the statutes of the Colleges in our Univer- Statutes of sities which were founded before the Reform- colleges ation, are also regulated by this criterion, ac- before the cording to which their benefices, under a certain Reformation. (1) Rep. Com, Pub. Rec. 1812. Append. F. 3. (2) Per Lord Redesdale, in Bullen v. Mitchell, 2 Pr. Rep. The estimate low. Taxation of Ireland. Nonarum In value, are exempted from the restriction in the statute twenty-first of Henry the Eighth, concerning pluralities. (1) In this valuation the church possessions were never estimated at too high a rate, and whatever imputation therefore may be cast upon it on general grounds, on that point it is universally allowed to be correct, and to be depended upon. (2) There is also in the Court of Exchequer, at Westminster, a valuation and taxation of the whole of Ireland, made under the authority of Pope Nicholas the Fourth, which extends to the possessions of archbishops, bishops, rectories, vicarages, and every kind of ecclesiastical benefice. (3) The Nonæ rolls kept in the King's Rememquisitiones, brancer's office are inquisitions returned to a commission for assessing the ninth part of the 15 Edw. III. 1341. (1) Humphreys v. Knight, Cro. Car. 456. Ashby v.Power, Gwm. 1238. Per Lord Eldon, in Bullen v. Mitchell, 2 Pr. R. 494. 2 Holinsh. Chr. 285. Rep. Pub. Rec. 1812. Append. L. (2) Per Richards, C. B. in Boulton v. Richards and Booth, 6 Pr. R. 489. (3) Rep. Com. Pub. Rec. 1812. Append. L. There are also copies of these rolls in Lincoln and Lichfield cathedrals. value of sheaves, fleeces, and lambs throughout the kingdom. sioners ap King Edward the Third was empowered by Commisact of parliament, to appoint commissioners in pointed. every diocese and deanery, to enquire into the real value of all ecclesiastical benefices, rectories, vicarages, and other property, who certified their proceedings under seal. ninths stated. In these inquisitions the prelates, earls, barons, Value of the commons, and parishioners of every parish, stated on their oath the true value, sometimes separately, of the ninth of their sheaves, wool, and lambs, then the ancient tax of Pope Nicholas, and the circumstances which had produced an increase or decrease of value since that period. The latter part of the inquisition relates to "all those who dwell in forests and wastes, and all other that live not of their gain nor store, who by the good advice of them who shall be deputed taxers, shall be lawfully set at the value to the fifteenth without being unreasonably charged." Some of the original inquisitions from whence Kept in the the Nonæ rolls were formed, as well as the en- exchequer. rolments themselves, are now in the Exchequer, though they do not appear to have been trans cribed into books. It should be also observed, |