Register of Inquisitions Post Mortem

Register of Inquisitions Post Mortem
Name	Register of Inquisitions Post Mortem
Caption	Royal seal and medieval manuscript folio
Date	13th–16th centuries
Language	Latin
Location	England and Wales archives
Genre	administrative record

Register of Inquisitions Post Mortem

The Register of Inquisitions Post Mortem is a medieval English administrative corpus recording inquiries held on the deaths of tenants-in-chief to determine feudal incidents, land tenure succession, and royal rights. Compiled in the chancery and on commission, the registers connect the reigns of Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI with localities across Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cornwall, Kent, and Wales. Scholars of William the Conqueror's aftermath, the Domesday Book, and later fiscal policy often consult these records alongside materials from the Exchequer, the Chancery, and the Pipe Rolls.

History and Origin

Origins trace to Angevin and Plantagenet administrative reforms under Henry II and crystallize in the 13th century during Henry III's reign. The mechanism built upon precedent documents such as the Domesday Book and procedural models in the Curia Regis and the Exchequer of Normandy. Royal writs directed escheators and royal justices—figures associated with Simon de Montfort, William Marshal, and later administrators linked to Walter de Gray—to hold local juries that produced inquisitions. The registers themselves were kept at the Chancery and docketed for reference by officials including Simon of Sudbury and Thomas Cromwell's predecessors in the royal bureaucracy.

Purpose and Legal Function

Functionally, the inquisitions served to ascertain heirs, wardships, marriage rights, and the value of feudal incidents payable to the Crown, matters central to disputes involving magnates like Earl Warenne, Earl of Norfolk, Duke of Lancaster, and families such as the Fitzgeralds, Percys, Nevilles, and Beauforts. They underpinned fiscal policies during crises like the Hundred Years' War and intersected with legal instruments used in cases referencing the Statute of Mortmain, Quia Emptores, and royal prerogatives asserted by monarchs such as Edward I and Henry V. The registers were admissible in proceedings before royal courts like the King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas and informed Crown grants, escheats, and feudal reliefs involving landholdings in manors, boroughs such as Winchester, York, and Bristol, and counties including Surrey and Norfolk.

Procedure and Administration

Procedurally, the king issued writs directing county escheators—linked to offices held by figures like Hugh le Despenser or Ralph Neville—to empanel juries composed of local knights and freeholders in shire centers such as Salzburg (sic: medieval context typically English shires) and market towns like Nottingham and Leicester. On inquiry, jurors reported lineage, ages, marriages, tenures, and services due, producing returns forwarded to the Exchequer and entered into registers by clerks influenced by chancery practice associated with chancery clerks under Ralph de Norwich and scribes trained in cathedral schools like Canterbury Cathedral and Lincoln Cathedral. The administrative loop involved seal-bearing commissioners, muster rolls analogous to those for Agincourt preparations, and coordination with sheriffs and bailiffs operating in feudal circuits.

Contents and Types of Inquisitions

Registers contain diverse categories: inquisitions held on tenants-in-chief of the Crown, inquisitions for the escheats of religious houses such as those tied to Westminster Abbey and Gloucester Abbey, inquiries into disputes involving merchants of London and guilds such as the Worshipful Company of Mercers, and special commissions following rebellions connected to houses like the Percys and events including the Peasants' Revolt. Typical entries name deceased tenants—often members of baronial families like the de Clares, de Bohuns, Mortimers, Scropes, and D'Engayne—their heirs, manorial holdings from Sussex to Cumberland, services due (knight service, serjeanty), and assessed values used for reliefs and fines. Variants include partial inquisitions, coroners' inquisitions overlapping with issues after deaths in battle such as Bannockburn or Crécy, and inquisitions triggered by the dissolution actions under Henry VIII later reflected in legal continuities.

Preservation and Editions

Surviving registers are dispersed among repositories: the National Archives (UK) collections formerly in the Public Record Office, county record offices in Lancaster, Exeter, and Hereford, and manuscript holdings at institutions like the Bodleian Library, British Library, and Cambridge University Library. Modern printed and diplomatic editions began with editors affiliated to institutions such as the Record Commission and later the Royal Historical Society; notable scholarly works appear in series edited by the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem editors and in county histories produced by antiquaries including William Dugdale, John Leland, and Edward Hasted. Paleographers and medievalists use facsimiles, transcripts, and calendars to reconstruct entries, cross-referencing with the Feudal Aids, Inquisitiones Post Mortem calendars, and medieval cartularies.

Historical Significance and Uses

The registers are indispensable for prosopography of medieval nobility—illuminating careers of figures like Edward the Black Prince, John of Gaunt, Isabella of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and lesser nobles—and for local studies of manorial economies in counties such as Derbyshire and Hertfordshire. Genealogists, legal historians, economic historians, and landscape archaeologists use them to trace inheritance patterns, settlement continuity, and fiscal extraction linked to conflicts like the Wars of the Roses and policies of rulers including Richard II and Henry VII. Their evidence supports studies in landholding networks, service obligations, and institutional change across medieval England and Wales, making the registers a cornerstone source comparable in utility to the Domesday Book, Pipe Rolls, and Patent Rolls for reconstructing medieval society.

Category:Medieval England Documents