The 331

of the king's of a

kind borne by individual and not in the

regular way; estimating the value of agricultural
ment, crops, or live-stock; determining the king's
boundaries rights many things incidental, as
well as checking up on the doings of forest officials;
or temporary of the king's find and the

purchase of for the king; oversight of equipment

and supplies for the king's sailors prc
for shipbuilding; estimating the cost of work'

ding lumber
ing lai;d, and

stocking it, also the amount of needed for It, and
purchase of the seed; cost of provisioning castles
maintaining garrisons; ; usually for a
time) of all sorts of collected tax to
the property of Jews; estimating the value of
land in connection with agricultural equipment, cattle,
etc,; assessment and collection of taxes; assessing
and losses, usually those which the for s*"<me
felt obligated to make good; and, beyond these, miscel-
laneous employments which be classified
which surpass in variety what the lively imagination
might picture as falling within a thirteenth-century
king's interest. All of these of the people show a
habit of mind, a method, of powerful kings who
could do business as they chose, a away from official-
dom in local affaire. And all of this, in courts out,
marks the Plantagenet sovereign's view of his
to the localities and what local government to
be in the long period of decline of the old
system.
No less varied than the subject matter of inquiries
and trusts is their degree of difficulty or responsibility.
The use of local men is often merely to witness a thing
that they may certify it if question later, or they
may be called upon to state facts of memory or tradition
when the alternative is their testimony or nothing,
From these extremes of mechanical action by impercep-
tible degrees the cases vary to elaborate estimates, judg-