Historians have rivalled one another in their witness to the extraordinary interest and importance of the twelfth-century Exchequer. “The whole framework of society,” writes the Bishop of Oxford, “may be said to have passed annually under its review.... The regular action of the central power of the kingdom becomes known to us first in the proceedings of the Exchequer.” Gneist insists on “its paramount importance” while “finance is the centre of all government”; and in her brilliant monograph on Henry the Second, Mrs. Green asserts “that the study of the Exchequer is in effect the key to English history at this time.... It was the fount of English law and English freedom.” One can, therefore, understand Mr. Hall’s enthusiasm for “the most characteristic of all our national institutions ... the stock from which the several branches of the administration originally sprang.” Nor does this study appeal to us only on account of its importance. A glamour, picturesque, sentimental it may be, and yet dazzling in its splendour, surrounds an institution possessing so immemorial an antiquity that “Barons of the Exchequer” meet us alike in the days of our Norman kings and in those of Queen Victoria. Its “tellers,” at least coeval with the Conquest, were only finally abolished some sixty years ago, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer is believed to represent that “clericus cancellarii” whose seat at the Exchequer of the second Henry was close to that of the official ancestor of the present secretary to the Treasury. Yet, older than these, older even than the very name of the Exchequer, was its wondrous system of wooden tallies, that hieroglyphic method of account which carries us back to a distant past, but which, Sir John Lubbock has observed, was “actually in use at the Exchequer until the year 1824.” Of all survivals of an archaic age this was, probably, the most marvellous; it is not easy to realize that even in the present century English officials were keeping their accounts with pieces of wood which “had attained the dimensions, and presented somewhat the appearance, of one of the wooden swords of the South Sea Islanders.” It was an almost tragic feature in the passing of “the old order” that when these antique relics were finally committed to the flames, there perished, in the conflagration said to have been thus caused, that Palace of Parliament which, like themselves, had lingered on to witness the birth of the era of Reform.

But what, it may be asked, was the Exchequer, and why was it so named? The earliest answer, it would seem, is that of William Fitz Stephen, who, in his biography of Becket, tells us that, in 1164, John the Marshal was in London, officially engaged “at the quadrangular table, which, from its counters (calculis) of two colours, is commonly called the Exchequer (scaccarium), but which is rather the king’s table for white money (nummis albicoloribus), where also are held the king’s pleas of the Crown.”[135] The passage is not particularly clear, but I quote it because it is not, I believe, mentioned by Mr. Hall,[136] and because William Fitz Stephen knew his London well. The questions I have asked above are those which avowedly are answered in the first chapter of the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario’ (circ. 1178). I need not, however, repeat in detail the explanations there given, for they should be familiar from the works of Dr. Stubbs and of every writer on the subject. Suffice it to say that while, in shape, the ‘Exchequer’, with its ledge, as Mr. Hall observes, was not unlike a billiard table, “it derived its name from the chequered cloth” which, says Dr. Stubbs, covered it, and which gave it a resemblance to a chess board (scaccarium). Antiquaries have questioned this, as they will question everything; but the fact remains that the symbol of the Exchequer, of which types have been depicted by Mr. Hall, is that which swings and creaks before the wayside ‘chequers,’ which once, in azure and gold, blazed upon the hill of Lewes, and which still is proudly quartered by the Earl Marshal of England.

In the present paper I propose to consider the origin and development of the institution, and to examine critically some of the statements in the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario,’ of which the authority has hitherto been accepted almost without question.

It is alleged that a cruel hoax was perpetrated on the Royal Society by that ‘merry monarch’ Charles II., who called on its members to account for a phenomenon which existed only in his own imagination. Antiquaries and historians have, with similar success, been hoaxed by Richard the son of Nigel, who stated as a fact in his ‘Dialogue on the Exchequer,’ that there is no mention of a ‘blanch’ ferm to be found in Domesday Book. Richard proceeded to infer from this that those who spoke of ‘blanch’ ferm existing before the Conquest must be mistaken.[137]

Dr. Stubbs actually accepts the statement that “the blanch-ferm is not mentioned in Domesday,” but declares that Stapleton, in his well-known argument,[138] has clearly shown it to have had “its origin in a state of things that did not exist in Normandy, and was ‘consequent upon the monetary system of the Anglo-Saxons.’ The argument,” he writes, “is very technical, but quite conclusive.” Sir James Ramsay also, though writing as a specialist on finance, contents himself with citing Stapleton, through Stubbs, and with adding a reference to “white silver” in the Laws of Ælfred,[139] and ignores the evidence in Domesday Book.

Now the index to the Government edition of Domesday is a very imperfect production, but we need travel no farther than its pages to discover that there is no difficulty to solve; for the “alba firma” is duly entered under an Isle of Wight manor (i. 39 b). Moreover, we read on the same folio of “lx solidos albos” and “xii libras blancas” in a way that suggests the identity of the two descriptions. But, further, we find, scattered over Domesday, ‘Libræ albæ,’ ‘blancæ,’ and ‘candidæ,’ together with ‘libræ de albis denariis’ or ‘de candidis denariis,’ and ‘libræ alborum nummorum’ or ‘candidorum nummorum.’ The ‘blanch’ system, therefore, was already quite familiar. This, however, is not all. On the folio mentioned above (i. 39 b) we read of another manor: “T. R. E. xxv lib. ad pensum et arsuram.” This can only refer to that payment in weighed and assayed money, the method of which is described in the ‘Dialogue’ under ‘Quid ad militem argentarium’ and ‘Quid ad fusorem’ (I. vi.). All this elaborate system, therefore, must have been already in operation before the Conquest.

But the ‘Dialogue’ asserts in its next and very remarkable chapter—“A quibus vel ad quid instituta fuerit argenti examinatio”—that this system was first introduced by the famous Roger, bishop of Salisbury, the writer’s great-uncle, after he had sat at the Exchequer for some years, and had discovered the need of introducing it.[140] Between this statement and the evidence of Domesday the contradiction is so absolute that a grave question at once arises as to the value of the writer’s assertions on the early Norman period. Like the men of his time, he revelled in texts, and loved to drag them in on every possible occasion. One is, therefore, only following his example in suggesting that his guiding principle was, “I magnify my office.” The greatness and the privileges of a seat at the Exchequer were ever present in his mind. But to this he added another principle, for which insufficient allowance, perhaps, has hitherto been made. And this was, ‘I magnify my house.’ Nor can one blame the worthy treasurer for dwelling on his family’s achievements and exalting his father and his great-uncle as the true pillars of the Exchequer. He was perfectly justified in doing this; but historians should have been on their guard when he claims for Bishop Roger the introduction of a system which Domesday Book shows us as already in general operation.[141]

Enlightened by this discovery, we can more hardily approach a statement by the writer in the same chapter, which has been very widely repeated. One need only mention its acceptance by such specialists as Stapleton, in his work on the Norman Exchequer, and Mr. Hubert Hall, who, in his work on the ‘Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer,’ refers to it four times.[142] He first tells us that

Again, he writes on p. 161:

The passage itself in the ‘Dialogus,’ which Mr. Hall translates in extenso (pp. 180–182), requires careful examination. The “high authority” of which he speaks proves to be, in fact, only tradition, for the opening words of the passage run: “Sicut traditum est a patribus.” Now one would not strain unduly the words of the Dialogue’s author, but his meaning may be fairly understood to be that the rents of the royal demesne were not only paid in kind (for that he clearly asserts), but were also valued in kind alone. For he thus describes the change introduced under Henry I.:

This can only imply the substitution of a money valuation for a rent payable in kind. And yet we have to go no further than this very chapter to learn that these rents had previously been reckoned in money (not in kind). For if, as stated in the note below, they had, when they were paid in kind, to be reduced by the king’s officers to a money standard, it could only be because their amounts were due, not in kind, but in money.[144] Fortunately, however, we are not dependent on this obvious contradiction, for the evidence of Domesday makes it certain that, just as the assay was employed under the Conqueror, and indeed under the Confessor, instead of being first introduced under Henry I., so the valuation in money of the rents from the royal demesne was not a reform effected, as alleged, by the latter king, but was the rule under William I.; and, indeed, almost as much the rule before the Conquest.[145] We gather from Domesday that the Conqueror advanced the commutation of the old “firma unius diei,” etc., for a sum of money; but even under his predecessor there were only a few localities in which the archaic system had lingered on.

I have said something in ‘Feudal England’[146] of the “Firma unius noctis,” and I would now add to the evidence that I there adduced on this curious and interesting subject.

In Devonshire we meet with a singular feature, which, I think, has escaped attention. Exeter, we read, “reddit xviii. lib. per annum.” I have elsewhere[147] discussed this payment, and shown that it was strangely small; but I now proceed to a new point, namely, that the figure 18 may prove highly significant. Lidford, Barnstaple, and Totnes, we read,[148] “rendered” between them the same amount of (military) service as Exeter “rendered”; and this service was equally divided between them.[149] Now, if we turn from the service to the payments made by this group of boroughs, we find that the “render” of each was £3 a year, so that the whole group paid £9, exactly half the “render” of Exeter.[150]

If we follow the clue thus given us, and turn to the manors which Queen Edith and Harold’s mother and Harold himself had held, but which, in 1086, had passed to the king,[151] we find these remarkable figures: £15, £30, £45, £18, £48, £1½, £48 (formerly £23), £2, £6, £23 (formerly £18), £24, £3, £18, £3, £18, £12, £18, £24, £4 (?), £24, £1 (?), £7, £6, £6, £12, £8, £2, £3, £18, £20 (formerly £24). It is evident enough that these “renders” are based on some common unit, like the ‘renders’ of the comital manors in Somerset.[152] Moreover, we can trace, in Cornwall, something of the same kind. The manor of royal demesne which heads its survey “reddit xii lib. ad pondus et arsuram,”[153] and this is followed by renders of £8, £5, £6, £3 (‘olim’), £18, £6, £3, £7, £6, £6, £4, £5. Even a ‘render’ of £8 was duodecimal in a way; for on fo. 121 b it occurs four times as £8 and thrice as “xii markæ.”

Not only is the rent of these manors distinguished from that of those in private hands by the form ‘reddit,’ instead of ‘valet,’ but the render is stereotyped, being normally unchanged, while the ‘valet’ ever fluctuates. The explanation I suggest for these archaic “renders” is that they represent the commutation of some formerly existing payment in kind similar to the “firma unius noctis.” If the unit of that payment was commuted at a fixed rate, it would obviously produce that artificial uniformity of which we have seen the traces in Devon and Cornwall. We may thus penetrate behind these “renders” to an earlier system then extinct.

This conclusion is confirmed, I think, by some striking instances in Hampshire.[154] Of ‘Neteham’ we read, “T.R.E. et post valuit lxxvi lib. et xvi sol. et viii den.” (i. 38); and of ‘Brestone,’ similarly, “T.R.E. et post valuit lxxvi lib. et xvi sol. et viii den.” (i. 38 b). The explanation is found in these two entries on the latter fo.:

That is, I take it that the half-day’s ferm “rendered” T.R.E. was worth £38 8s. 4d., so that the two other manors, for each of which the sum was £76 16s. 8d., must originally have rendered a whole ‘firma.’ This gives us the value of the ‘firma’ for the other Hampshire manors which “rendered.”[155]

We will now return to the ‘Dialogus’ and its statements on the “firma comitatus.”

It is distinctly asserted, in the above passage, that the ‘firma comitatus’ only dated from this reform under Henry I.[156] This is at variance with the strong evidence set forth in my ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ that Geoffrey’s grandfather, who was dead before this alleged reform, held Middlesex, Essex, and Herts at farm, the very amount of the farm due from him being mentioned. But, indeed, in Domesday itself there are hints, if not actual evidence, that the ‘firma’ was more or less in existence. In Warwickshire, for instance, “T.R.E. vicecomitatus de Warwic cum burgo et cum regalibus Maneriis reddebat lxv libras,” etc., etc. In Worcestershire, also, “vicecomes ... de Dominicis Maneriis regis reddit cxxiii lib. et iiii sol. ad pensum.” Here we have exactly that “summa summarum” of which the ‘Dialogus’ speaks as a novelty introduced under Henry I.[157] Again, in at least one passage (i. 85), we recognise a distinct allusion to the “terræ datæ” system:

Now we know the history of this manor, which had been detached from the royal demesne about a quarter of a century before, when Edward gave it to bishop Giso on his return from his visit to Rome. It follows, therefore, that £12 must have been, ever since, annually credited to the sheriff, in consideration of the Crown having alienated this manor.[158] We thus carry back to a period before the Conquest that Exchequer practice of the 12th century, which is thus alluded to in Stephen’s charter to Geoffrey earl of Essex (1141):

I hasten to add that the Charter of Constance, the Conqueror’s daughter, quoted by Stapleton from the Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Caen, affords an exact parallel in the words: “et ei computabitur in suo redditu cum dica.” But the fact remains that we can prove the existence, under Edward the Confessor, of characteristic features of the later Exchequer system, of which one, at least, as Stapleton explained, must have been of English origin.

What then was the change that took place on the introduction of the Exchequer? How did it modify the system previously in existence? Our only clue is found in the well-known words of the ‘Dialogus’: “Quod autem hodie dicitur ad scaccarium, olim dicebatur ad taleas.” Writing as a specialist on Exchequer history, Mr. Hall contends that “this expression in itself denotes the actual place of receipt and issue of the revenue rather than a court or council chamber.”[160] But one cannot see that ‘scaccarium’ in itself denotes a court or council chamber more than does ‘talea.’ The one was a chequered table, the other a wooden tally. My own view is that the change really consisted of the introduction of the chequered table[161] to assist the balancing of the accounts. Previously, tallies alone would be used, and it is noteworthy that even after the ‘Exchequer’ system was in full operation, the deduction for the loss involved by ‘combustion’ was still effected by tally.[162] I have little doubt that the ‘combustion’ tally was in use in the 11th century for payments “ad arsuram et pensum.”

Instead, then, of the sheriffs’ accounts being balanced by the cumbrous system of tallies, the introduction of the Exchequer table, very possibly under Henry I., enabled them to be depicted to the eye by an ingenious system of counters. To the modern mind it is strange, of course, that, while the reformers were about it, they did not substitute parchment, and work out the accounts on it. But, doubtless for the benefit of unlearned sheriffs, the old system of ocular demonstration was still adhered to, and the Treasurer’s Roll merely recorded the results of the ‘game’ by which the accounts had been worked out upon the table.

Mr. Hall’s belief is best set forth in an article he contributed to the ‘Athenæum’ (November 27, 1886), and of which he reprinted this passage, subsequently, in ‘Domesday Studies’ (1891):

The purchase of the ‘ministerium thesauri Wintoniæ,’ recorded in the Pipe Roll of 1130,[164] does not affect the question of audit. There can be no question that the national Treasury, in 1130, was at Winchester, or that the Treasurer’s official residence was there also.[165] The really important passages on the roll, passages which I venture to think have been generally misunderstood, are these:

It has been assumed that these entries refer to the Exchequer business of balancing the sheriffs’ accounts, and Madox even went so far as to draw the conclusion, from their wording, that, at the time of the Roll, Brian Fitz Count was Treasurer. The true meaning was exactly contrary, and an interesting allusion is thus obscured.

For the Pipe Rolls do not, as is sometimes imagined, display the national accounts. They probably do not exhaust the receipts (for some, it is believed, were paid ‘in camera’), and they certainly only record a portion of the royal expenditure. What became of the money which is so continually entered as paid ‘in Thesauro’? It found its way into the national treasury, whence it was paid out as was required by writ of ‘Liberate’ addressed to the Treasurer and chamberlains.[166] Of these outgoings, in the 12th century, there is, it would seem, no record; but they were certainly audited from time to time, the king calling on the Treasurer to account for the money in his charge, as, at the Exchequer, the Treasurer himself had called on the sheriffs to account for the sums for which they were liable. To this ‘generalis compotus,’ associated with the Winchester Treasury, there are, in the ‘Dialogus,’ several allusions which may have been somewhat overlooked.

These are sufficient allusions to the Treasury, as distinct from the Exchequer, account. I invite particular attention to this Treasury audit, because, so far as I can find, it has hitherto escaped notice. The second extract refers to the use of the £10,000 space on the chequered table, and therefore proves the use of such a table for the Treasury account as well.

Now my point is that the earl of Gloucester and Brian ‘Fitz Count,’ in 1130, were magnates (magni regni) delegated by the king, as described in the second passage,[168] to audit the Treasurer’s account. And this view is confirmed by the fact that William de Pont de l’Arche, who here accounts to them, is styled by Dr. Stubbs “the Treasurer,” and is, in any case, subsequently described as “custos thesaurorum regalium.” Their mission had nothing, I hold, to do with that audit of the sheriffs’ accounts, which was the annual function of the Exchequer.

There is a remarkable entry on the roll of 1187 which alludes to an overhauling of the national treasure at Winchester, at the beginning of that year, the date proving that it was wholly unconnected with either session of the Exchequer:

One might compare with these phrases the ‘Dialogus’ language as to the knights, ‘qui et camerarii dicuntur, quod pro camerariis ministrant.’

Also the description of the usher’s office:

But the latter part of the entry (which is duly quoted by Eyton[169]) is also of much importance. For in Mr. Hall’s work, under 1187, we only read, ‘Treasure conveyed abroad from Winchester.’[170]

It is an essential part of Mr. Hall’s theory, which makes the “Westminster Treasury ... the principal Treasury of the kingdom,”[171] that the Winchester Treasury was merely “an emporium in connection with the transport of bullion (and especially of the regalia and plate), as well as other supplies, viâ Southampton, or other seaports, to the Continent.”[172] But the above passage shows us, on the contrary, treasure sent thence to Salisbury, Oxford, and Guildford. It is manifest that treasure, despatched from Westminster to Oxford or Guildford would not be sent viâ Winchester. From this it follows that Winchester was still a central Treasury, and not a mere ‘emporium’ en route to the south. It is certain that under Henry I., some sixty years before, the session at Westminster of the Barons of the Exchequer did not, as Stapleton observed, affect the position of the national Treasury at Winchester. It is, then, equally certain that the money received at that session must have been duly transmitted to the Winchester Treasury. For that was where the treasure (in coined money) was kept when Stephen succeeded at the close of 1135.

The whole difficulty has arisen from Mr. Hall’s inability to distinguish between the ‘Receipt’ at Westminster, where the money was paid in, and the national Treasury at Winchester in which it was permanently stored. This is, roughly speaking, like confusing a man’s investments with his balance at his bankers. The steadily growing importance of Westminster and the concurrent decadence of Winchester led, of course, eventually, to the shifting of the central Treasury, but at the time of the ‘Dialogus,’ in the days of Henry II., it is clear that the Exchequer was not looked on as the seat of a permanent Treasury. For the storage of treasure is always implied by the payment for the light of the night watchman; and as to the watchman and his light, the evidence of the ‘Dialogue’ is clear:

There is absolutely no escaping from these words: a watchman is only provided for the treasure “while the Exchequer is in session”; its treasury is temporary, not permanent. The whole passage, as it seems to me, is absolutely destructive of Mr. Hall’s hypothesis of “the existence of a permanent financial staff under the Treasurer and chamberlains of the Exchequer at Westminster.”[173]

The change from the “Treasury” to the “Exchequer” was, I hold, a gradual process. Careful study of the annual revenues bestowed by our sovereigns on the foreign houses of Tiron, Fontevrault, and Cluny[174] proves clearly how insensibly the “Treasury at Winchester” was superseded by the “Exchequer at London” as the place of payment. This is especially the case with Tiron, where Henry I.’s original grant, made about the middle of his reign, provides for payment “de thesauro meo, in festo Sancti Michaelis, Wintonie.”[175] Under Richard I. this becomes payable “at Michaelmas from his exchequer at London.”[176] Documents between the two show us intermediate stages.

Precisely the same gradual process is seen in the parallel development of the chamberlainship of the “Exchequer” from that of the “Treasury.” Just as Henry II., shortly before his accession, confirmed the grant to Tiron as “de thesauro Wintonie,”[177] so he restored to William Mauduit, at about the same time, “camerariam meam thesauri,” which office was held by his descendants as a chamberlainship of the Exchequer.

The ‘Dialogus’ shows us the Treasurer and the two chamberlains of the Exchequer as the three inseparable Treasury officers. Domesday connects the first with Winchester by showing us Henry “thesaurarius” as a tenant-in-chief in Hampshire. I propose to show that it also connects one of the chamberlains with that county. In that same invaluable but unprinted charter of which I have spoken above, which was granted at Leicester (1153) to William Mauduit, Duke Henry says:

This carries back the ‘cameraria thesauri’ (‘illam camerariam’) to the Domesday tenant, whose son Robert occurs in the earlier Winchester Survey, and, though dead in 1130, is mentioned on the Roll of that year (p. 37), in connection with the Treasury in Normandy.

The history of Porchester, in the Norman period, has yet to be worked out. Mr. Clark, for instance, tells us that the castle was “always in the hands of the Crown,”[179] yet we find it here appurtenant to the chamberlainship, and in Domesday (47 b) it was a ‘manor’ held by William Malduith. The above charter, in my opinion, was one of those which Duke Henry granted without intending to fulfil.[180] Porchester had clearly been secured by the Crown, and Henry was not the man to part with such a fortress. Of William Mauduith’s Domesday fief, Hartley Mauditt (‘Herlege’) also was held by the later Mauduits; but they held it still “per serjanteriam camar[ariæ] Domini Regis”[181] or “per camerariam ad scaccarium.”[182]

It should be added that the other chamberlainship of the Exchequer was similarly a serjeanty associated with land. It cannot, however, be carried back beyond 1156, when Henry II. bestowed on Warin Fitz Gerold, chamberlain, lands in Wiltshire worth £34 a year, and in Berkshire to nearly the same amount.[183] The former was the chamberlainship estate, and reappears as Sevenhampton (near Highworth) in his brother’s carta (1166), where it is expressly stated to have been given to Warin by the king.[184] It was similarly held by his heir and namesake (with whom he is often confused), under John,[185] and by the latter’s heir, Margaret ‘de Ripariis,’ under Henry III.[186]

This estate must not be confused with that of Stratton, Wilts, which was bestowed by John (to whom it had escheated) on the later Warin Fitz Gerold, to hold at a fee-farm rent of £13 a year.[187] It is necessary to make this distinction, because Mr. Hall, in dealing with the subject, speaks of it as “held apparently by the Countess of Albemarle as pertaining to the (sic) chamberlainship of England” (sic).[188] On the same page he speaks of a deed, on page 1024 of the same volume, whereby she “secures to Adam de Strattone, clerk, an annuity of £13, charged on the farm of Stratton.” Reference to page 1024 shows that, on the contrary, what she did was to make herself and her heirs responsible to the Exchequer for the annual £13, which was “the farm” of Stratton (so that Adam might hold Stratton quit therefrom). This is a further instance of Mr. Hall’s unhappy inability to understand or describe accurately the documents with which he deals.[189]

I have now traced for the first time, so far as I can find, the origin of the two chamberlainships of the Exchequer. That of Mauduit can be traced, we see, to a chamberlainship of the ‘Treasury,’ existing certainly under Henry I., and possibly under the Conqueror. Of the other the existence is not proved before 1156. Both, I have shown, were associated with the tenure of certain estates.

It is very strange that, in his magnum opus,[190] Madox not only ignores, it would seem, this descent of the office with certain lands, but gives a most unsatisfactory account of those who held the office, confusing it, clearly, with the chamberlainship of England, and not distinguishing or tracing its holders.

For the different standards of payment in use at the Exchequer, our authority, of course, is the ‘Dialogus,’ but the subject, I venture to think, is still exceedingly obscure. Even Mr. Hall, who has studied so closely the ‘Dialogus,’ seems to leave it rather doubtful whether payment in ‘blank’ money meant a deduction of 6d. or of 12d. on the pound.[191] It will be best to leave the ‘Dialogus’ for the moment, and take an actual case where the charters and the rolls can be compared, and a definite result obtained.

In Lans. MS. 114, at fo. 55, there is a series of extracts transcribed from a Register of Holy Trinity (or Christchurch) Priory, London, in which are comprised the royal charters relating to Queen Maud’s gift of two-thirds of the revenues (ferm) of Exeter. First, Henry I. confirms it, late in his reign,[192] as “xxv libras ad scalam,” the charter being addressed to William bishop of Exeter, and Baldwin the sheriff (sic). Then we have another charter from him addressed “Rogero episcopo Sar[esbiriensi] et Baronibus Scaccarii,” and witnessed, at Winchester, by Geoffrey de Clinton, in which it is “xxv libras blancas.” Stephen’s charter follows, addressed to William bishop of Exeter, and Richard son of Baldwin, the sheriff, in which again we have “xxv lib. ad scalam.” Lastly, we come to an important entry that seems to have remained unknown:

Then follows a writ which clearly belongs not to 1180, but to an earlier period. It is addressed “prepositis et civibus Exonie,” and directs that the canons are to enjoy their rents as in his grandfather’s time (‘Teste Manessero Biset dapifero, apud Wirecestriam’). Next comes a passage so important that it must be quoted in the original words, although, like the whole of the transcript, it seems slightly corrupt.

The writ of the earl of Cornwall, in 1256, which follows, is obviously out of place for our period. Lastly, the canons record the triumph of their case thus:

So at length the prior received the full amount “numeratos, blancos, ad scalam, tales (eis) quorum xx solidi numerati fecerunt libram Regis.”

Corrupt though the text in places is, the outline of the story is clear enough, and is supported by such record evidence as survives. The local authorities, clearly, were directed to pay the canons £25 “ad scalam” annually, “hoc est,” says the ‘Dialogus,’ “propter quamlibet numeratam libram vi d.” This is fully borne out by the Pipe Rolls which both in 1130 and under Henry II. record the annual payment as £25 12s. 6d. “numero.” When the new coinage became current in 1180, the local authorities evidently claimed that as they had to pay in standard coin, they ought no longer to be liable for the 12s. 6d. excess which they paid under the old system. The case, however, was given against them, apparently on the ground that they were liable for 6d. additional on every “numbered” pound, irrespective of the quality of the coin.

The difficulty is created by the use of the term “blancos” throughout as equivalent to “ad scalam,” an equation which is certainly found in the text of the charters. It will, however, be better to discuss this point when dealing with the blanch system as a whole.

Before leaving the above case, we should notice, first, that the crown had a ‘roll,’ on which were recorded such charters as this of Henry I. I do not remember mention of such a roll elsewhere. The question irresistibly suggests itself whether we have not here the origin of those “Cartæ Antiquæ,” of which the existence, I am given to understand, has ever yet been accounted for. On turning to these most interesting records we find that Roll N commences with twenty-three charters to Holy Trinity Priory, all of them previous to the middle of Henry II.’s reign. They are transcribed in a hand of the period, those which follow being later additions. It seems to me, therefore, that in this “Roll N” we may have the actual “Rotulus Regis,” produced in court before Glanville, which contained, as does “Roll N,” the charter of Henry I.

It would seem probable that such charters were already kept in the Treasury, for reference, under Henry I., though not as yet enrolled. For a writ of the latter king, addressed to Richard son of Baldwin (sheriff of Devon) and G. ‘de Furnellis’ directs them to discharge the land of the canons of Plympton “de geldis et assisis et omnibus aliis rebus, quia episcopus Sarum recognovit per cartam de thesauro meo quod ipsa ex toto ita quieta est.”[193]

Secondly, we should note that, although the narrative assigns the issue of the new coinage to November 11 (1180), yet the sheriff’s deputy raised his claim at Michaelmas (for that half year’s term). That he did so is in harmony with the current Pipe Roll, which, as Eyton has shown, had numerous references to the change of coinage having been in progress. Lastly, we have here an Exchequer case, hitherto, I believe, unknown, and learn the names of the officials present, which harmonize with what we know aliunde of the judicial and financial personnel at the time.

Apart from the “rotulus Regis” discussed above, the Exchequer, it would seem, enrolled its decisions even under Henry II. We read in the chronicle of Jocelin de Brakelonde that Abbot Sampson, called upon to contribute, on behalf of St. Edmund’s Abbey, to a “communis misericordia” imposed on the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, went to the king at Clarendon [? February, 1187] and obtained from him a writ directing “ut sex milites de comitatu de Norfolchia et sex de Suffolchia summonerentur ad recognoscendum coram baronibus scaccarii utrum dominia Sancti Ædmundi deberent esse quieta de communi misericordia.”[194] When the knights had found their verdict, “justiciarii assidentes veredictum illorum inrollaverunt.”

We may now return to the reckonings in use at the early Exchequer.

It may fairly be said that in 1130 the normal method of accounting for the ferm was the payment by the sheriff of silver “ad pensum,” the allowance to him of his outgoings “numero,” and the reckoning of the balance in “blanch” money. The counties of which the sheriffs paid in their silver “ad pensum” were Notts and Derby, Hampshire, Surrey with Cambridgeshire and Hunts, Essex and Herts, Gloucestershire, Northants and Leicestershire, Norfolk and Suffolk, Warwick, Lincolnshire, Berks and Devon, seventeen in all. Dorset and Wilts, Kent, and Bucks and Beds, that is five counties, had their silver paid partly “ad pensum” and partly “numero.” Northumberland, Carlisle, and Sussex, were accounted for “numero,” in accordance with the ‘Dialogus.’[195] For Yorkshire the silver was paid in “numero,” but the balance accounted for “blanch”; Cornwall seems to be accounted for “numero.” London and Staffordshire alone have sheriffs who pay in their silver “blanch.”

In this labyrinth of account one point at least is clear. The outgoings credited to the sheriff “numero” were “blanched,” exactly as described in the ‘Dialogus,’ by a uniform deduction of a shilling in the pound.[196] This is proved by the account for the outstanding ferm of Berkshire, rendered by Anselm vicomte of Rouen.[197] He has to account for £522 18s. “blanch.” For this he pays in £251 6s. 8d. “blanch,” claims £63 4s. 5d. “numero” for money disbursed by the king’s writ, and is left owing £211 10s. “blanch.” Now, if we deduct a shilling in the pound from £63 4s. 5d., we obtain £60 1s. 2½d. “blanch.” Adding up the three “blanch” amounts, we have £522 17s. 10½d., which is within a penny halfpenny of the sum he has to account for.

We may further say that this Pipe Roll reveals a tendency to reduce all the ferms to a “blanch” denomination; that is to say that the balance left outstanding is normally given in “blanch” money, and accounted for accordingly in a subsequent year. Moreover, when it is so accounted for, the sheriff pays in his money, not “ad pensum” but “blanch.” Examples of this are found in the cases of Wilts and Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey with Cambridge and Hunts, Essex and Herts, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire and Northants, etc. It seems to be only when a sheriff is rendering his account “de Nova Firma” that he pays in money “ad pensum.” The provoking practice of not recording the amount of the ferm to be accounted for makes it impossible to check these different methods of reckoning. In the case, however, of Bosham, we have the “veredictum” in the ‘Testa’ that its annual ferm was “xlii libras arsas et ponderatas”; and though this of itself might be slight evidence,[198] it is in harmony with the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. Now in that of 1130 the ferm is thus accounted for:

This is equivalent to £16 5s. 7d. ‘blanch’ plus £27 11s. 8d. ‘ad pensum.’ If then the total ferm was £42 ‘blanch,’ we have an excess of £1 17s. 3d. ‘ad pensum.’ If this calculation is to be depended on, it would give us a deduction of about sixteenpence in the pound from the weighed money when subjected to assay.

In 1157, the ferm was accounted for as follows:

£31 13s. 8d. “blanch,” paid in by sheriff.

13s. 4d. “numero,” already to his credit.

£12 7s. 4d. “numero,” paid out.

Deducting, as before, a shilling in the pound from the sums reckoned “numero,” we find them amount to £12 7s. 8d. “blanch.” Adding this amount to the £31 13s. 8d. “blanch,” we have £44 1s. 4d. to the accountant’s credit. But the ferm was only £42 “blanch.” He had, therefore, a “superplus” of £2 1s. 4d. “blanch,” and that is precisely what the roll records that he had. We may then, from this comparison, conclude positively that the money paid in “ad pensum” was liable to a further deduction when the assay made it “blanch.”

The case of Bosham certainly suggests that in the time of Henry I. the ferm on the “Rotulus exactorius” might be reckoned in ‘blanch’ money, even where the accountant paid in his cash by weight. But what is obscure is why the cash so paid should be merely entered ‘ad pensum,’ instead of its assayed value being recorded as under Henry II. For this value must have been ascertained in order to balance the account.

It is noteworthy that, although the ‘Dialogus’ speaks of payment “ad scalam,” as entered on the rolls of Henry I., the phrase is not found on the roll of 1130. In the case of Exeter, as we have seen, the £25 “ad scalam” were entered on the roll as £25 12s. 6d. “numero.” Broadly speaking, the impression created by the Roll of 1130 is that the administration was endeavouring to systematize the ‘ferm’ payments, which, we may gather from the evidence of Domesday, had been almost chaotic in diversity. From the earliest rolls of Henry II. we find a uniform “blanch” system (with the trifling exceptions the ‘Dialogus’ mentions), which testifies probably to further reforms between 1130 and 1139 (when bishop Roger fell). There remained, however, the sad confusion caused by the several meanings of “blanch”; the true assay involving a deduction of variable amount; the fixed deduction of a shilling in the pound, to “blanch” the money paid out “numero”; and the fixed addition of sixpence in the pound (“numero”) to sums granted “blanch,” as in the Exeter case.

If, in conclusion, it be asked what was the origin of the Exchequer, the answer is not one that can be briefly given. In the first place, it must not be assumed that “the Exchequer” was bodily imported, as a new and complete institution, from Normandy to England or vice versâ.

In the second place, the ‘Dialogus’ we have seen, is by no means an infallible authority for the events of the Norman period. In the third place, its author was biassed by his eagerness to exalt bishop Roger, his relative and the founder of his family.

Leaving that treatise aside for the moment, the evidence adduced in this paper points to the gradual development of the ‘Exchequer’ out of the ‘Treasury’ under Henry I. And this view is curiously confirmed by the remarkable, perhaps unique, narrative in the Abingdon Cartulary[199] of a plea held in the curia regis “apud Wintoniam in thesauro.” This plea cannot be later than 1114, and it is difficult to resist the impression that “in thesauro” is purposely introduced, and represents the “ad scaccarium” of later days. That is to say, that the hearing of pleas was already connected with the financial administration,[200] probably because its records were, in certain cases, needed.

I have suggested that the gradual change of name may have been a consequence of the introduction of the ‘chequered cloth’ (scaccarium). But this innovation, probably, was only one of those which marked the gradual transition to the final Exchequer system. Even under Henry II., for instance, Master Thomas Brown and his third roll were, says the ‘Dialogus,’ an utter innovation, and the place assigned to Richard of Ilchester seems to have been the same. Thus the system was by no means complete at bishop Roger’s death, nor, on the other hand, were its details, even then, his own work alone. He did but develop what he found.

It is quite possible that further exploration of that most fertile field for discovery, the cartularies of monastic houses, may cast a clearer light on this institutional development. For it was a belated document transcribed in the cartulary of Merton that has enabled me[201] to prove the existence of the Exchequer eo nomine in Normandy under Henry I. But it is not likely that such discovery will materially affect the views which I have enunciated above on the origin of the English Exchequer. For, after all, they are, in the main, the same as those which Dr. Stubbs, with his sound instinct, shadowed forth when the evidence was even less.

If I have gone further than himself, it has been in criticising more searchingly the authority of the ‘Dialogus de Scaccario’ for the reign of Henry I., in demonstrating the actual evolution of the “scaccarium” from the “thesaurus,” and in tracing the origin of the chamberlain’s office and its feudal, tenurial character. The alternative use of ‘blancæ’ and ‘ad scalam’ in the reign of Henry I. is, I believe, a new discovery, and so, it would seem, is that Treasury audit on which I have laid special stress. Petty details, it may be said, and of slight historical importance. So thought Richard the son of Nigel, pleading: “nec est vel esse potest in eis subtilium rerum descriptio, vel jocunda novitatis inventio.”[202] And yet he heard the student’s cry: “cur scientiam de scaccario quæ penes te plurima esse dicitur alios non doces, et, ne tibi commoriatur, scripto commendas?” For as we have been reminded by the publication of the ‘Red Book of the Exchequer, it may be true now as then, even of those who are steeped in its records, that “sicut qui in tenebris ambulant et manibus palpant, frequenter offendunt, sic illic multi resident qui videntes non vident, et audientes non intelligunt.”[203]