Introduction

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These inquisitions are termed Chancery Inquisitions, because the writ directing them generally issued out of the Court of Chancery. They extend in an almost unbroken series over nearly four and a half centuries, commencing early in the reign of Henry III., and only terminating with the Civil Wars in the seventeenth century, when the feudal system finally broke down, to be abolished by law at the Restoration.

Inquisitions post mortem were, strictly speaking, surveys made by an officer of the Crown, usually the Escheator, of the estates held by tenants in chief at the time of their death. The object of this survey was fiscal, to ascertain the annual value of the deceased's property, so as to enable the Exchequer to calculate the amount payable by the heir on succeeding to his ancestor's estate, or as it was called his relief. The age of the heir was another subject of inquiry, as if a minor the king would be entitled to retain the property and receive the rents until such heir came of age.

William Brown, ed. (1892) Yorkshire Inquisitions of the Reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., Vol. I, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, p. iii.

Preface

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Upon the announcement of the death of any person reputed to hold directly of the King, a writ was prepared in the Chancery, and sent under the Great Seal to the escheators of those counties where the deceased's lands were situate, requiring them to certify to the King, upon the oath of a jury to be empanelled by the Sheriff, touching certain matters specified in the writ. The reply, or return, known as an "inquisition," "office," or "escheat," was sent to the Chancery, sewn on to the writ, and the name of the person delivering it, and the date of its receipt were noted on its face by the receiving clerk.

Such was the simplest case. The writ issued immediately upon the death of the tenant, in other words, as it is always stated in the writ," quia datum est nobis intelligi, quod A. B. qui de nobis tenuit in capite, diem clausit extremum," a decent paraphrase of the bald statement, "has died." From this characteristic phrase, which invariably occurred in it, this the simplest form of such writs, came to be known as a writ of "diem clausit extremum," and upon this writ by far the greater number of the inquisitions calendared in the present volume were taken.

Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents, Henry VII., Vol. I., for Her Majesty's Stationery office, 1898, p. vii.