Here we have the very same phrase as that in the Inquest of Sheriffs, while the enormous "superplus" of a thousand marcs must represent the excess of receipts over the amount required for the _firmæ_, which excess, the counties being "in custodia," fell to the share of the Crown. Thus we obtain the right explanation of the employment in this capacity of royal officers, and we further get a glimpse, which we would not lose, of one of those administrative changes which, as under Henry II., tell of a system of government as yet empirical and imperfect. It is clear that this measure was no mere development, but a sudden and unforeseen step. For in the case of Essex, the scene of our story, William de Eynsford ("Æinesford"), a Kentish landowner, had leased the county for five years, from Michaelmas, 1128, the consideration he paid for his lease being a hundred marcs (£66 13_s._ 4_d._). Early in the second year of his lease, that is between Michaelmas, 1129, and Easter, 1130, he must have been superseded by the royal _custodes_, on the king taking the county into his own hands. He, however, received "compensation for disturbance," four-fifths of his hundred marcs ("de Gersoma") being remitted to him in consideration of his losing four out of his five years' lease. All this we learn from the brief record in the Roll (p. 63). Another point that should be here noticed is the use of the term "Gersoma." Retrospectively, its use in this Roll illustrates its use in Domesday. In those cases, where a _firmarius_ was willing, as a speculation, to give for an estate more than its fixed rental (_firma_), he gave the excess "de Gersoma," either in the form of a lump sum, or in that of an annual payment. APPENDIX J. THE GREAT SEAL OF THE EMPRESS. (See p. 116.) There yet remains one point, in connection with this remarkable charter, perhaps the most striking, certainly the most novel, of all. This is that of the seal. According to the transcript in the Ashmole MSS., the legend "in circumferentia sigillo" was this: "Matildis Imperatrix Rom' et Regina Angliæ." Now, that any such seal was designed for the Empress has never been suspected by any historian. We cannot, on a question of royal seals, appeal to a higher or more recognized authority than Mr. Walter de Gray Birch. He has written as follows on the subject:—