The inquisition process was obviously vulnerable to fraud and manipulation and several cases are known where escheators seem to have returned inaccurate IPMs at the suit of one party in a dispute. They were also suspected, sometimes no doubt with justice, of defrauding the crown by returning inaccurate valuations or claiming that no lands were held in chief when some in fact were. [14. M. L. Holford, ‘The valuations', in Companion, 122. The role of false or favourable inquisitions in land disputes has been explored in several articles by S. J. Payling, e.g. ‘Legal right and dispute resolution in late medieval England: the sale of the lordship of Dunster', EHR cxxvi (2011), 17-43 (at 26-7, 29-30, esp. 30 n. 54).] The prevalence of such malpractice is not easy to assess. The escheator's two appearances annually at the Exchequer, to make his ‘proffers', provided some opportunity for the crown to monitor his activities, and further checks were provided by the auditing of the escheator's account, a process that will be described in more detail in a future feature.
Although we have spoken of the escheator's activities, in practice he was typically assisted by one or more clerks, deputies and bailiffs whose role and even identity is often elusive (but who will be the subject of future posts). John Ermynglond, who rendered account at the exchequer as John Straunge's attorney in 1404-5 and 1405-6, may well have held such an office. [15. E 368/177, m. 7d; E 368/178 m. 8. James Andrew, Straunge's attorney at his exchequer proffers, represented several other parties at the exchequer and is unlikely to have had a particular connection with the escheator's secretariat. (See http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/andrew-james-1434).] The escheator's oath stipulated that he was to take extents ‘in his proper person', but it is not easy to say if this was regularly the case, or to guess at how many IPMs were actually carried out by escheators to whom they are attributed. (As we shall see in a future post, the statement that an inquisition was taken by a named escheator does not mean that his under-escheator was not involved.)
The medieval escheator is badly in need of a modern historian. We need to know more about the men who held the office, their connections in local society, and the influences that were brought to bear on the inquisitions they took. We need also to know more about the changing nature of their responsibilities in the late medieval period, the effectiveness with which they enforced the crown's rights, and their relationships with similar officials - notably the commissioners appointed from time to time to enquire into evasions of royal rights and, by Henry VII's reign, the officials responsible for the royal prerogative. We must hope that the greater prominence given to the escheators in the calendars for 1422-47, and soon from 1399-1422, will lead to more detailed assessments of their importance in local society in this and other periods.
Taken from: http://www.inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/contexts/the-escheator-a-short-introduction/
