The Inquest of Sheriffs (1170) Several years ago there were discovered at the Public Record Office a number of parchment scraps relating to East Anglia, evidently belonging to some group, and of singularly early date. My friend, the late Mr. Walford Selby, showed them to me at the time, and asked me what I thought they were. As was announced at the time in the columns of the ‘Athenæum,’[319] I pronounced them to be nothing less than fragments of original returns to the great ‘Inquest of Sheriffs’ in 1170. Dr. Stubbs, when editing the text of that document for his well-known ‘Select Charters,’ declared that “the report, if ever it was made, must have been a record of the most interesting kind conceivable.” It was believed, however, that no trace of the returns could be found. Mr. Selby intended to publish these fragments as an interesting appendix to the ‘Liber Rubeus’; and when Mr. Hall succeeded him as editor, he printed them as Appendix A.[320] Having studied for himself these fragments, he rejects their connection with the ‘Inquest of Sheriffs,’ although, as he frankly observes, he has only ventured to do so “with considerable hesitation.” An entire section of the preface (pp. cc.-ccxi.) is devoted to his reasons for rejecting the above view and for advancing a wholly different explanation. Approaching the question with an open mind, we find the facts to be as follows: These records relate to an Inquest held, so far as we can date them, in 1170, and covering the doings of the four years 1166–1170. Moreover, they describe that period as “postquam dominus Rex transfretavit” (with slight variations in the phrase), which is precisely the starting-point prescribed for the ‘Inquest of Sheriffs.’ In all this they answer to the Inquest; and all this Mr. Hall admits. But he raises curiously vague difficulties, which resolve themselves at last into the assertion--upon which, we read, he must insist--“that there is nothing more than a superficial resemblance, and certainly nothing to correspond to the articles of inquiry as they are alone known to us.” Here at least we have a definite issue. Let us then adopt the simple plan of printing side by side the second article of enquiry, from Dr. Stubbs’ text, and the very first of the returns on Mr. Hall’s list. ARTICLE. RETURN.