Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/75

1922



1898 Mr. A. Hughes and Mr. J. Jennings issued their well-known List of Sheriffs for England and Wales from the Earliest Times to 1831. This is a useful compilation, especially from the year 1155 onwards, when its editors were able to draw from the uninterrupted succession of the Pipe Rolls. As a work of reference for the preceding period, however, it is much less satisfactory, since it does not attempt to do more than to indicate the sheriffs and their terms in so far as these may be gathered from Domesday and the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I. Thus, for the important period succeeding the Conquest, the gaps in the List are necessarily great. The editors made no attempt to supply these from material afforded by charters and chronicles. But even in the unique Pipe Roll of Henry I there is much that escaped their notice. Careful analysis of this source both discloses a considerable number of sheriffs unnoticed in the List, and also enables one to make numerous corrections in the terms of service of many there given. The results of such an analysis are presented in thefollowing paper, where the sheriffs, given by counties, are followed by such discussion and proof as seems necessary.

Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire

In these counties Richard Basset and Aubrey de Vere jointly account for the 'new' or current farm of the year 1129–30. Their account is followed by an entry in which Maenfinin is debited with 10 marks of silver ''de Qersoma pro Comitatibus habendis usque ad .iiij. annos''. Finally, a few entries further down, Juliana, the daughter of Richard Winton', renders account of 43 and more de veteri firma Buckingehamscirae et Bedefordscirae. From this last reference it would appear that Richard