=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 89.
_By whom and for what cause the testing of silver was instituted?_
_D._ By whom and for what cause was the testing or combustion
instituted?
_M._ In order that this may be clear to you, we must go back a little
further. In the original condition of the realm after the Conquest,
as we have learned from our fathers, only victuals were paid to the
kings from their lands, and not gold or silver by weight, and from
such payments were supplied the necessaries for the daily use of the
royal household; and those who had been appointed for this purpose
knew certainly how much came from each estate. But for the payments or
gifts to the knights and for other necessary things, money by tale[35]
accrued from the pleas of the realm and from covenants,[36] and from
the cities or castles where agriculture was not pursued. This practice,
then, continued during the whole time of king William I., and as late
as the times of king Henry his son; in fact, I myself have seen people
who saw victuals brought at stated times from the royal estates to
the court; and the officials of the royal household knew precisely
from which counties wheat, and from which different kinds of meat or
fodder for horses or any other necessaries, were due. Upon payment of
these supplies according to the established amount of each, the royal
officials put them to the sheriff’s account, reducing them to a sum
of money; to wit, for a measure of wheat sufficient to make bread for
a hundred men, 1_s._; for the carcase of a fattened ox, 1_s._; for a
ram or a sheep, 4_d._; and for the fodder of twenty horses, also 4_d._
But as time went on, when the same king was occupied beyond seas and
in remote parts, repressing the tumult of war, it came to pass that
the sum necessary to meet these operations was paid to him in money by
tale. Meanwhile a grumbling multitude of husbandmen used to flock to
the king’s court, or, what he thought worse, often used to press about
him as he passed by, offering their ploughs as a sign of the decay
of agriculture, for they were oppressed by innumerable hardships on
account of the victuals, which they brought from their homes through
all parts of the realm. The king listened to their complaints, and
after taking counsel with the nobles, sent throughout the realm the
wisest and most discreet men whom he knew for the purpose. They went
about surveying the several estates with their own eyes, and, valuing
the victuals paid from them, reduced the same to a sum of money. They
decreed, further, that for the sum total of the amounts arising from
all the estates in one county the sheriff of that county should be
holden at the Exchequer; adding that he should pay by scale, that is,
6_d._ on each pound by tale. For they thought that in course of time
it might well happen that the money, then good, might deteriorate. In
this opinion they proved right. So they were forced to decree that the
farm of manors should be paid not only by scale but by weight, which
could only be done by making considerable additions. This rule of
payment was observed for many years at the Exchequer, and so in the old
yearly rolls of that king you will often find written “in the treasury
100_l._ by scale,” or, “in the treasury 100_l._ by weight.” Meanwhile
an able man arose, farseeing in counsel, eloquent in speech, and by
God’s grace preeminent in his immediate grasp of the deepest matters;
you would say that he fulfilled what is written, “the grace of the
Holy Ghost knows not slow movements.” He was summoned to the court by
the king, obscure but not without nobility, and taught by his example
“how extreme poverty is the school of men.” Increasing in favour with
the king, the clergy and the people, he was made bishop of Salisbury,
enjoyed the highest offices and honours in the realm, and possessed
a consummate knowledge of the Exchequer. As to this there is no room
for doubt, for the rolls themselves prove clearly that the Exchequer
prospered exceedingly under him. And it is from his stores that the
little knowledge we possess has trickled down. On this subject I
refrain at present from speaking at length, since owing to the position
which he filled, he has left behind him a lasting memorial of his high
genius. Afterwards by the king’s order he came to the Exchequer; and
after having sat there for some years, he found that the method of
payment described above failed to satisfy the treasury to the full; for
though it appeared to obtain its dues by tale and by weight, it was
defrauded in actual substance. For it did not follow that if a man had
paid for a pound 20_s._ by tale, even if the shillings corresponded to
a pound in weight, he had therefore paid a pound of silver; for the
money paid by him might have been mixed with copper or any ore, since
no test was applied. In order, therefore, that the royal and the public
advantage might at the same time be provided for, it was decreed, after
consultation with the king himself, that the combustion or testing of
the farm should be made in the aforesaid manner.
_D._ Why do you say “the public advantage?”
_M._ Because the sheriff, feeling aggrieved by the combustion of the
debased money, when he is about to pay his farm, takes careful heed
that the moneyers set under him do not transgress the established law;
and when offenders are caught, they are so punished that others may be
deterred by the example made of them.
THE OATH OF THE BARONS TO SUPPORT THE SUCCESSION OF MATILDA THE EMPRESS
(1126).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 528. (Rolls Series.)
In the twenty-seventh year of his reign, king Henry came to England
in the month of September, bringing his daughter with him; and at
Christmas following he summoned to London a large number of the clergy
and the barons, and there gave the county of Salop to his wife, the
daughter of the Count of Louvain, whom he had wedded after Matilda’s
death; grieved that she had no issue, and fearing that she would remain
childless, he was meditating, with well-founded anxiety, the question
of his successor to the throne. This matter had already been debated at
length, and at this council he constrained and bound with an oath all
the barons of the whole realm, and bishops and abbots also, to accept
as their lady his daughter Matilda, formerly empress, without any delay
or hesitation, if he should die without heir male. He pointed out how
disastrous to the country had been the loss of his son, William, to
whom the realm of right belonged; now there survived his daughter,
in whom alone inhered the lawful succession, from her grandfather,
her uncle and her father, all kings, and on her mother’s side, for
centuries past....
So all who were thought to be of weight in this council, took the oath;
first, William, archbishop of Canterbury, then the rest of the bishops,
and the abbots also. The first of the laity to take the oath was David,
king of Scotland, the empress’s uncle; then Stephen, count of Mortain
and Boulogne, nephew of king Henry by his sister Adela; then Robert,
the king’s son, born before he came to the throne, whom he had created
earl of Gloucester.... There was, it is said, a remarkable dispute
between Robert and Stephen, who strove in generous rivalry to be the
first to take the oath, the one alleging the son’s privilege, the other
the nephew’s rank. Thus all the barons were bound by fealty and oath,
whereupon each departed to his own home. After Whitsuntide, however,
the king sent his daughter to Normandy, ordering the archbishop of
Rouen to betroth her to the son of Fulk (count of Anjou), a prince of
great nobility and famous courage; the king himself made no delay in
taking ship to Normandy and uniting them in marriage. Whereupon all
men foretold prophetically that after his death they would break their
oath. I have myself often heard Roger, bishop of Salisbury, say that
he was loosed from the oath made to the empress, for he had sworn it
on condition that the king would not give his daughter in marriage out
of the realm without the advice of him and the rest of the baronage;
and that no one authorized, no one had knowledge of the marriage
except Robert, earl of Gloucester, Brian Fitz Count, and the bishop
of Louviers. I do not relate this because I believe to be true the
words of a man who knew how to adapt himself to every change of fickle
fortune, but as a credible historian I set in writing common opinion.