Starting from this conclusion, let us now proceed to ask, what was the document from which B and C copied independently? Clearly, it was not Domesday Book, for outside the eastern counties they record the returns in full, like the _Inq. Com. Cant._ itself. Were they then taken from the original returns, or at least from the copy of those returns in the _Inq. Com. Cant._? This point can only be determined by close analysis of the variants; if we find B and C containing occasionally the same errors and peculiarities, although copied independently, it follows that the document from which they both copied must have contained those same errors and peculiarities. Let us take the case of Papworth. The right reading, as given both in Domesday and the _Inq. Com. Cant._, I have placed on the left, and the wrong reading, in B and C, on the right:
[tenet abbas] ii. hidas et iii. [tenet abbas] ii. hidas et dim. virgas et dim. [virgam]. virgam et[220] iii. virgas. I. hida et i. virga et dimidia I. hida et dimidia virga et una [virga] in dominio. virga[221] in dominio.
Here are some further illustrations of errors in the I.E.:
VIII. hidas et dimidiam et VIII. hidis et dimidia et dimidia dimidiam virgam.... In dominio virga ... iii. hidæ et dimidia iii. hidæ et dimidia (p. 18). _et dimidia virga_ in dominio (p. 104). II. carruce in dominio. Et IIII^{ or.} carruce ... in tercia potest fieri (p. 21). dominio. I. hida _et dimidia_ et xii. I. hida et xii. acræ in dominio acræ in dominio (p. 87). (p. 110). tenet Radulfus de Picot (p. 85). Rod[bertus] tenet de vicecomite (p. 110). Johannes filius _Waleranni_ Johannem filium (p. 27). _Walteri_ (p. 103).
Again, the clause 'Tost[222] pro viii. hidis et xl. acris', which ought to head the Hardwick entries, is wrongly appended in the I.E. (p. 110) to a Kingston entry with which it had nothing to do. So too, 'hoc manerium pro x. hidis se defendit [_sic_] T.R.E. et modo pro viii. hidis', which belongs to Whaddon, is erroneously thrown back by the I.E. (p. 107), into Trumpington, a Manor in another Hundred. It is singular also that all the MSS. of the I.E. read 'iii. cotarii' (p. 101), where D.B. and the I.C.C. have 'iii. bordarii' (p. 3), and 'x. cotarii' (p. 101), where they have 'x. bordarii' (p. 6): conversely, the former, in one place, read 'xv. bordarii' (p. 107), where the latter have 'xv. cotarii' (p. 63).