not only gave him the information that he required as to the
proper maintenance of the _debitum servitium_ due under the
‘old enfeoffment’ of the Conqueror, but showed him how many more
knights had been planted out (_sic_) since that assessment
(p. 363).
Again, on page 364 we read of “the ‘old enfeoffment’ of the eleventh
century,” and the phrase (which Mr. Oman quite properly places within
quotation marks) occurs in at least three other passages.
It is quite evident that Mr. Oman imagines the _vetus feoffamentum_
to be (1) the original distribution by the Conqueror (2) among the
tenants-in-chief. Both ideas are absolutely wrong. For (1) it had
nothing to do with “William’s arrangement”--which determined the
_servitium debitum_, a very different matter; and (2) it referred to
the _sub_-enfeoffment of knights by tenants-in-chief. The dividing
line between the “old” and the “new” feoffments, was the death of
Henry I. in 1135. All fees existing at that date were of the _antiquum
feoffamentum_; all fees created subsequently were of the _novum
feoffamentum_. This essential date is nowhere given by Mr. Oman,
who evidently imagined that the latter were those “of more recent
establishment” than “the old enfeoffment of William I.”
The frightful confusion into which Mr. Oman has been led by his double
blunder is shown by his own selected instance, the _carta_ of Roger de
Berkeley in 1166. According to him, “Roger de Berkeley owed (_sic_) two
knights and a half on the old enfeoffment.”[130] Two distinct things
are here hopelessly confused.
(1) Roger “owed” a _servitium debitum_ (not of 2½, but) of 7½
knights to the Crown; and his fief paid scutage[131] accordingly in
1168, 1172, and 1190.
(2) Roger “has” two and a half knights enfeoffed under the old
feoffment[132] (that is, whose fiefs existed in 1135), the balance
of his _servitium debitum_ being, therefore, chargeable on his
demesne,[133] as no knights had been enfeoffed since 1135.
It is difficult to understand how the writer can have erred so
grievously, for it was fully recognised by Dr. Stubbs and by myself
(‘Feudal England,’ pp. 237–239) that 1135 was the dividing point.[134]
It may be as well to impress on antiquaries that fees “de antiquo
feoffamento” were fees which had been in existence in 1135, at the
death of Henry I., just as tenures, in Domesday Book, ‘T.R.E.,’ were
those which had existed in 1066, at the death of Edward; for with these
two formulas they will frequently meet. It is the “servitium debitum,”
not the “antiquum feoffamentum,” which “runs back,” as Mr. Oman
expresses it, to the Conquest.
The result of his confusion is that his account of the origins (in
England) of knight service is not only gravely erroneous, but curiously
topsy-turvy. This is scarcely wonderful when we find on page 365 that
he is hopelessly confused about knights and serjeants, not having
grasped the elementary distinction between tenure by serjeanty and
tenure by knight service. From what I have seen of the author’s
account of the battle of Bannockburn, his errors, I imagine, are by
no means restricted to the subjects I have here discussed. A curious
combination of confidence and unwillingness to admit his mistakes, with
a haste or confusion of thought that leads him into grievous error,
is responsible, it would seem, for those misconceptions which render
untrustworthy, as it stands, his ‘History of the Art of War.’
IV
The Origin of the Exchequer
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
for half a century after the Conquest there could have been very
little need of a central treasury at all, since the greater part
of these provisions formed an intrinsic portion of the revenue
itself ... which was still payable in kind. This point is both
important and interesting, and has been hitherto somewhat
overlooked by economic writers. The fact (which is probable
enough in itself) rests on high authority--that of the famous
treasurer of the first two Plantagenet kings (p. 4).
Again, he writes on p. 161:
We have seen that in the earliest times--previously, that is, to
the reorganization of the Exchequer under Henry I.--the revenue
of the sovereign was answered in two forms, namely, in specie
and in kind, the former drawn from judicial fines and farms of
towns, and the latter rendered, at an arbitrary assessment, by
the cultivators of the royal demensne.[143]
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.:
Destinavit [rex] per regnum quos ad id prudentiores et
discretiores cognoverat, qui circueuntes et oculata fide fundos
singulos perlustrantes, habita æstimatione victualium, quæ de
hiis solvebantur, redegerunt in summam denariorum.
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.:
Bertune. De firma regis E. Edlinges. Hoc manerium reddidit
fuit, et dimidiam diem firmæ dimidiam diem firmæ
reddidit in omnibus rebus ... T.R.E ... T.R.E. valebat
T.R.E. valebat xxxviii lib. et xxxviii lib. et viii sol. et iiii
viii sol. et iiii den. den.
That is, I take it that the half-day’s ferm “rendered” T.R.E. was
worth £38 8_s._ 4_d._, so that the two other manors, for each of which
the sum was £76 16_s._ 8_d._, 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:
De hoc Manerio tenet Giso episcopus unum membrum
WETMORE quod ipse tenuit de rege E. Pro eo computat
Willelmus vicecomes in firma regis xii lib. unoquoque anno.
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):
Ita tamen quod dominica quæ de prædictis comitatibus data
sunt ... a firma prædicta subtrahantur et ... ad scaccarium
computabuntur.[159]
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):
There is every reason for believing that the audit machinery
of the ancient Treasury at Winchester was sufficient for the
purpose.... It is true, indeed, that the earliest germ of the
Exchequer is perceptible in these accounts, which were, however,
audited not ‘ad scaccarium,’ but ‘ad taleas,’ _i.e._ in the
Treasury or Receipt at Winchester.... We find in the Pipe Rolls
the old Treasury at Winchester used as a permanent storehouse
for the reserve of treasure, regalia, and records, and we even
find Exchequer business transacted there by way of audit of
accounts, which formed a special office or ‘ministerium’ as late
as 1130 (Pipe Roll 31 Hen. I).[163]
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:
Et in præterito anno quando comes Gloecestriæ et Brientius
filius Comitis audierunt compotum de thesauro apud Wintoniam.
De istis habuit Willelmus de Pontearc’ xxx li., de quibus
reddidit compotum quando comes Gloecestriæ et Brientius
audierunt compotum de thesauro apud Wintoniam.
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.