What then was the 'third document' from which they both copied? Obviously it was either the original returns of the Domesday jurors, or a copy (exhaustive or not) of these returns. Now we cannot suppose that two scribes, working, as I have said, independently, would both have worked, not from the original returns themselves, but from a copy, and that the same copy of these returns--a copy, moreover, of the existence of which we have no evidence whatever. Moreover, in this hypothetical copy, there would, we may safely assert, have been some clerical errors. These would have duly re-appeared in both the _Inquisitiones_, and collation with Domesday Book would enable us to detect them. Yet in no single instance, though each of them contains errors, have I found a clerical error common to both. We are thus driven to the conclusion that in both these _Inquisitiones_ we have copies of the actual returns made by the Domesday jurors.
One of the postulates in the above argument is that the _Inq. Com. Cant._ and the _Inq. Eliensis_ 'agree closely' in their versions. Here is an instance in illustration:[10]
Meldeburna pro x. sol[idis] se Meldeburne pro x. hidis se defendebat T.R.E. et modo pro defendebat in tempore R. ÆD. et viii. Et de his x. hidis tenet modo pro viii. Et de his x. predictus abbas ii. hidas et hun[dredis] tenet abbas de eli I^{ am.} virgam. v. carrucis est ii. hidas et i. v[irgam]. ibi terra. Una carruca et dimidia, v. carucis ibi est terra. I. et una hida et una virga in caruca et dimidia, et i. hida dominio, et dimidia carruca et dimidia, in dominio, et potest fieri. iii. Carucæ dimidia caruca potest fieri. villanis. vi. villani, ix. iii. carucæ hominibus. vi. bordarii, iii. cotarii, villani, ix. bordarii, iii. dimidium molendinum de iii. cotarii. Pratum v. carucis. solidis, et viii. denariis. i. molendinum de ii. solidis Pratum v. carrucis. Pastura ad et viii. denariis. Pastura ad pecora villæ, ccc. oves iii. pecora villæ. oves ccc., iii^{ es.} minus, xxxiiii. porci. Inter minus, et xxxiiii. porci. Inter totum valet c. sol., et quando totum valet v. lib. Quando recepit totidem. T.R.E. vi. lib. recepit v. lib. T.R.E. vi. Hæc terra jacet et jacuit in lib. Hæc terra jacet et jacuit ecclesia sancte Ædel. de eli in in ecclesia sancte Ædel' dominio. ely in dominio.