From this difficulty it is a short step to the inquests which it seems in some cases to have necessitated. The Abbot of Ramsey heads his return, 'Haec est inquisitio'; the Earl of Warwick similarly commences, 'Hoc est quod inquisivi per homines'. Earl Patrick makes his return, 'secundum quod de probis et antiquis hominibus meis inquirere potui'. 'Fecimus inquirere,' writes the Bishop of Bath, 'per legales homines meos.... Haec autem per eos inquisivimus.' This brings us directly to the very important inquest referred to in the _carta_ of the Earl of Arundel: Dominus noster Rex Henricus quadam contentione quae surrexit inter milites de honore de Arundel de exercitu quodam de Walliis, elegit iiij. milites de honore, de melioribus et legalioribus, et antiquioribus ... et fecit eos recognoscere servitia militum de honore, et super legalitatem et sacramenta eorum inde neminem audire voluit. Mr Eyton argued elaborately on genealogical grounds that this inquest must have taken place under Henry I, but indeed it is quite obvious from the language of the _carta_ itself that this was so. It is, consequently, worthy of notice for its bearing on 'the sworn inquest'. While on this subject, attention may be called to the unique entry in the Pipe-Roll of 12 Henry II (1166): 'Alanus de Munbi debet xl. s. quia non interfuit Jurat' feodorum militum' (p. 8). Investigation proves (through what is known as the Lindsey Survey) that Alan was an under-tenant of the honour of Brittany, the successor of that Eudo who held in Mumby _temp._ Domesday. This fact throws light on the entry, by suggesting that the inquest referred to concerned the honour of Brittany, the number of fees in which was then and subsequently doubtful. But to return. It is infinitely easier to trace the change brought about by the inquest of 1166 in the case of the church fiefs than of the lay ones. For on the former it was uniform and glaring. Previously to 1166 the church tenants had paid on their _servitium debitum_ alone; after 1166 they paid, as a rule, on all the fees actually created upon the fief. Thus the assessment of the Bishop of Durham was raised at a blow from ten fees to more than seventy.[57] There were several equally striking cases among the prelates. Now, whether or not the church tenants feared something of the kind, they had generally been careful in their returns to set forth their _servitium debitum_, and when, in 1168, they were uniformly assessed on their total of fees, their uniform protest is expressed in the formula 'quos non recognoscit' applied to the payment on their excess knights. Such is the meaning of this puzzling formula which is peculiar to the church fiefs.[58] In these cases it wholly replaces the _de veteri_ and _de novo_ assessment which, from 1166, was applied to the lay fiefs. II. THE SERVITIUM DEBITUM