tenant had held of the king and how much of others, by what service, how much the lands were worth per year, and who the next heir was and his age. Early forms of the writ sometimes spelled out what the value of the land might be made up of, and the advowson of churches was sometimes specified as an item. When each inquisition was complete it was returned to the chancery along with the writ which had ordered it; and copies were retained both in the chancery and the exchequer. The inquisitions, accordingly, give copious information land ownership and use, buildings and amenities, land values, demography and social life and customs. Ipms have attracted considerable scholarly attention over the years, and interest in them has enjoyed a renaissance recently with the publication of several more volumes of calendars of fifteenth-century ipms and a volume of essays exploring the potential of the source. The wider scope of historical interest in our own day is reflected in the inclusion, in the recent calendars, of details passed over in nineteenth-century ones, most obviously the manorial extents themselves but also the names of the jurors. And more recent calendars also include the valuations of churches, generally omitted earlier on. Ecclesiastical patronage rights were included in ipms because they were a form of property, heritable and transferrable along with land. In particular, lordship of a manor often included the patronage (or advowson) of the church within it. Not all manors were co-terminous with parishes, of course; there might be several manors within one parish or more than one parish church within a manor. The church in a manor might be a dependency of a former minster, so not have fully parochial status. Above all, many lay patrons had given away their rights of advowson in the wake of the twelfth-century canon law reforms which restricted the rights of the laity over the churches that they had formerly
tenant had held of the king and how much of others, by what service, how much the lands were worth per year, and who the next heir was and his age. Early forms of the writ sometimes spelled out what the value of the land might be made up of, and the advowson of churches was sometimes specified as an item. When each inquisition was complete it was returned to the chancery along with the writ which had ordered it; and copies were retained both in the chancery and the exchequer. The inquisitions, accordingly, give copious information land ownership and use, buildings and amenities, land values, demography and social life and customs. Ipms have attracted considerable scholarly attention over the years, and interest in them has enjoyed a renaissance recently with the publication of several more volumes of calendars of fifteenth-century ipms and a volume of essays exploring the potential of the source. The wider scope of historical interest in our own day is reflected in the inclusion, in the recent calendars, of details passed over in nineteenth-century ones, most obviously the manorial extents themselves but also the names of the jurors. And more recent calendars also include the valuations of churches, generally omitted earlier on. Ecclesiastical patronage rights were included in ipms because they were a form of property, heritable and transferrable along with land. In particular, lordship of a manor often included the patronage (or advowson) of the church within it. Not all manors were co-terminous with parishes, of course; there might be several manors within one parish or more than one parish church within a manor. The church in a manor might be a dependency of a former minster, so not have fully parochial status. Above all, many lay patrons had given away their rights of advowson in the wake of the twelfth-century canon law reforms which restricted the rights of the laity over the churches that they had formerly
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