190 MANORIAL ADMINISTRATION
The auditors were men of considerable standing: rarely the
lord himself, but more generally trusted officials; or, in the case
of a religious house, the cellarer, accompanied by one or two
senior colleagues.1 They carried with them the rolls of the manor
for previous years, and sometimes even the extent or the customal
of the manor, as they are advised to do by Walter of Henley,2 and
the reeve must have found them possessed of a seemingly un-
canny knowledge of the details of the estate in the past, as they
checked his return by reference to previous figures and the details
given in the customal.3 It is very common to find an entry in the
neat hand of the scribe struck out and a new set of figures en-
tered in the heavy and less practised hand of the auditor. Again
and again the reeve starts his account by admitting that he is
twenty shillings in arrears. The auditor consults the balance
struck at the foot of the previous roll, and firmly alters it to fifty
shillings or eighty shillings as the case may be.4 The reeve
accounts for some 3391 day-works, but the auditors refuse to
allow so scanty a return "because the aforesaid total was found
false by 382 day-works, as appears by the extent [and therefore]
the said total is corrected and made true, namely 3773 day-
works".5
In the same way every item is closely scrutinised, and the
auditors cross-question the reeve concerning every detail which
seems unusual, and cause him to deliver up to them his evidences
as detailed in the compotus* At times the reeves have a melan-
choly tale to tell of how the lord's property has been taken from
them, as when they complain that "the Earl of Lancaster's men
as they travelled with the Queen through Gloucestershire, took
away from the manors of the lord of Berkeley so many ducks and
geese that all their eggs and their broods for the year were lost.
1 Reg. Roffense, 65, 66; Cart. Glouc. i, xc; Wore. Priory Reg. xxxviii;
Reynolds' Register, 18, 20; Davenport, op. tit. xxxvi; Archaeologia, Iviii,
353, etc.; and see Lit. Cant, n, 311, for letter of appointment of auditors. Their
office and authority was recognised by the second Statute of Westminster,
cap. n.
Op. tit. 7.
See Mm. Ace. 1004/10, where the auditors refer constantly to the extent
in going through the account, and correct it accordingly.
Min. Ace. 859/24, 25, 26, etc.; 918/8; 987/31, 26; 1030/5.
Comb. Antiq. Soc. Proc. xxvii, 172; cf. Ely Rolls, Barton, 21/2 Ed. III.
See Mm. Ace. 987/24 for a most interesting example of the care with
which suspected items were investigated. Cf. Higham Ferrers, 60.