Chancery: Inquisitions Post Mortem, Series II, and other Inquisitions, Henry VII...

As well as inquisitions post mortem, this series also includes inquisitions ad quod damnum (taken, for example, when the grant of a market or some such privilege was solicited, or where an alienation to the church in mortmain was proposed, to ascertain whether such a grant would prejudice existing interests), inquisitions relating to idiots and lunatics, criminal inquisitions into the goods of felons, and other miscellaneous inquisitions.

Two of the files, known as Cardinal's Bundles (C 142/76 and C 142/77), contain inquisitions concerning religious houses surrendered to Cardinal Wolsey and suppressed to found his colleges, and inquisitions taken into his property after his death on the confiscation of the colleges' lands to the Crown.

Each file is usually made up of the documentation of inquisitions post mortem following the deaths of about twenty persons. The actual number of inquisitions in each file is likely to be rather greater than twenty, given that a tenant might well have held lands in more than one county, in which case separate inquisitions were required to be conducted in each shire concerned. The series is arranged, as far as possible, in chronological order.

Inquisitions made upon the lands of particularly wealthy magnates may take up several files on their own.

Accounts submitted to the Exchequer by the escheators are in E 136

additional finding aid ZBOX 1/58/3

Copies of the inquisitions post mortem in this series may be found in: E 150 WARD 7

Topics

Conveyancing

Mental illness

Trade and commerce

Religions

Landed estates