until the feudal land system was finally overthrown. Calendars, or short abstracts of these Inquisitions, carefully indexed, have been printed in four folio volumes by the Record Commissioners, 1806-1828, up to the end of the reign of Richard III. These calendars, which are invaluable for reference, must be used with caution, and should never be quoted as proving the death of any person by a particular date, for unfortunately not a few inquisitions that are not _post mortem_, but _ad quod damnum_, are included amongst them. There are also many errors in nomenclature, and in assigning manors to special counties; it is therefore wisest to make the rule of never quoting these inquisitions, unless the original has been seen, or a full transcript obtained. The inquisitions subsequent to the time of Richard III. have not been calendared. Private enterprise has more than once announced that such a work would be taken in hand, and subscribers names obtained, but up to the present time (1879) there seems no immediate prospect of publication. The Record Commissioners have also published a Calendar to the Inquisitions of this class, pertaining to the Duchy of Lancaster, from the time of Edward I. to Charles I. Extracts and abstracts from these Inquisitions, covering particular periods, or for particular counties, are numerous in our public libraries; for lists of such MSS., see Sims’ _Manual_, pp. 125-8. Another form of inquisition was the _Inquisitio ad quod damnum_, which was a judicial inquiry, held by virtue of a writ directed to the Escheator of the county, when any license of alienation of lands, or grant of a market, fair, or other privilege was solicited. A local jury was sworn to inquire whether if the claim was granted it would interfere with any vested right, or be to the detriment of the crown or some of its subjects--hence the name _ad quod damnum_. These inquisitions, especially with relation to alienating lands to religious houses, are often very valuable to the local historian, for the jury in such cases had to state the amount, value, and nature of the remainder of the lands of the intended donor. A calendar of these records from 1 Edward II. to 38 Henry VI., was officially published in 1803, and is bound up with the previously mentioned calendar of the Charter Rolls. It should be remembered, as already stated, that many inquisitions _ad quod damnum_, particularly the earlier ones, are wrongly catalogued and arranged among the _post mortem_ inquests.