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 220 THE ESCHEATRIES, 1827-41 April in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset on 6 December 1335, 1 was again acting on 4 April 1336, 2 and held office nearly five years longer, 3 the unity of the southern escheatry being thereby broken. Middleneye, indeed, did not surrender until 3 February 1341, 4 and so survived a change much more important than that of 1335-6. Mr. Tout has shown that, originally, the bureau- cratic policy was to have county-group escheatries and the baronial policy to have escheatries north and south of Trent. 5 It is clear, however, that the two parties had exchanged policies before 1340. Edward III, returning from Flanders, involved in debt and foreign complications, was helpless before the parliament which met early in 1340. One of the grievances of parliament was the maladministration of the escheators. It was pointed out that the king and people were worse served by the two escheators than when there were various escheators of less estate. It was therefore enacted that the group system should be reverted to, and that the officers should be appointed for one year only by the chancellor, treasurer, and chief baron of the exchequer. 6 The statute was immediately put into force, the county groups being restored between May and July 1340. 7 The new officials in no case held office a full year, being all replaced between January and May 1341. 8 The last and greatest change in the escheatries occurred in November 1341, when the escheatries were regrouped to coincide with the shrievalties, 9 an arrangement which was afterwards the regular practice. We must note that for the first appoint- ments, in 1341, the sheriffs were without exception chosen as the escheators in their shrievalties. 10 I propose now briefly to examine the phrases citra and ultra Trentam and to consider how far the river was actually the boundary between the two escheatries during the same period, and particularly from 1327 to 1332, when the system of two great escheatries was temporarily revived. A mere brook in much of its course through Staffordshire, the Trent subsequently flows through Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Lincolnshire, forming a boundary between counties only in three small portions of its course. That it could not have been a satisfactory line of demar- cation between the escheatries is therefore obvious. This is especially clear in the case of lands such as those of Thomas of Bardolph (obiit, ante 30 December 1329), which included the manors of Stoke Bardolph and Shelford situated in Nottingham- 1 Cal. of Fine Rolls, 1327-37, p. 466. 2 Cal. of Close Rolls, 1334-7, p. 562. 3 Ibid., 1337-9, passim; 1339-41, passim ; Cal. of Fine Rolls, 1337-47,^.204,205. u Ibid. p. 205. 5 Tout, p. 361. 6 Statutes of the Realm, i. 283, 285, 294. 7 Cal. of Fine Rolls, 1337-47, pp. 181-2, 184-5. 8 Ibid. pp. 196, 199-201, 204-5. 9 Ibid. pp. 246-8, 250. 10 Ibid. pp. 250-1. •