New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-11-22
MEDIAEvAL FINANCE.
CURIOUS DETAILS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH ExCHEQUER.

When a Teutonic tribe set forth to seize new
domain. il seems TO have been understood, just
as it is among party Of emigrants that
common expenses should be met, share and share
alike, but that special responsibility like that Oh
the chieftain. should be rewarded. Conquest en-
abled the chief to return the substantial contrlou
TONS of his followers in proportion to their utii'y
to him, without cost to himself in dividing the
new lands upon which they settled. AS a matter
of course, these fierce warriors could take ana
guard with their swords more territory than they
could use. Over undistributed lands the chieftain
and his successor retained the right OF diVision'
This right as the tribe expanded TO Kingdom, was
gradually converted into che of direct ownership,
and so in the Domesday Book the public lands
were already known before the Norman Conquest
as the lands of the King. The effect OF the Con-
quest was to vacate all previous titles ana 10
place unequivocally in the hands OF the Ming
vast demcsne Thus arose an Important source Oh the
RIVAL revenue Another more precariOus income
was derived from treasure trove and wreckage
There was also the prerogative of prisage on pur-
veyance the admitted right TO purchase material
for the Kings own use at an official discretion
respecting quality; and price; and this included
in a rude form duty on imports, as when for ex-
ample, the officers of the King were empowered to
seize at nominal price one cask in every ten of
III
all these forms Of revenue-rents that had been
payable in kind, personal service Of feudal
vassal, prisage on imports and exports-to an
equivalent in money There were also fees to be
accounted for, which were taken by the Crown
from applicants for Office or sutors for favor or
for Justice, and amercements paid by offenders
who were thus saved from total confiscatiOn, as in
the fine imposed hundred in which politi-
cal murder had been committed. Sometimes
fees when given before the trial of suit to the
King looked exactly like what would now he
called brides. Thus Walter de Lacy, abbot of
battle when threatened with the loss of his
charter at the hands of the Bishop of Chichester.
appealed to Henry H. and-as the chronicler sig
niIicantly remarks" ut in tall deceit negotlo,
muneribus suis honoravit.'
The responsibility for collecting the sums which
arose from all the farms in given county rested
with the sheriff of the county, while the business of
collecting the certain uncertain toll from domestic
commodities and foreign imports seems in the
opinion of Mr.. Hall, to have been connected with
the office of chamberlain of the Kings household
or chamberlain of the cities of London and Sand
WITCH. With regard to this appointment II is i'm
portant 10 note that the office OF chamberlain
was in immediate contact with the department of
the Kings wardrobe, which department had the
administration of all that revenue amongst others
which accrued from the royal prerogative of
prisage in every form, and which with the rest
was chiefly spent upon the pay of retainers and
troops. and the supply of household provisions or
mutations of war.
Having thus traced the money Of the people to
the possession of the King, the next point to
interest is what the latter dld
to keep his treasure safe. The old writer's
used the word treasure" to designate both
4l.o .1o l-opf nd
this ambiguity makes confusion but at @ very
early time it appears that there was at some
official centre, as Westminster Winchester, the
State Treasury, with less permanent
subordinate treasures in several provincial towns
More primitive than these, but not displaced by
them, was the chamber hoard" the precursor
of the modern privy purse, which was kept in o
strong box in the Kings sleeping room. in the
legend of the thief in the treasury, found in the
Life of Edward the Confeesor," it is related
how Hugo the Chamberlain, after taking out
the sum Necessary TO pay his officers went away
without locking the chest The King lay on the
bed apparently asleep, and a scullion proiited
by the chamberlan's negligence to carry of what
money he could lie returned second and
even a third time, but at last the King, who had
been watching the robber from first to last, ex-
claimed: Fly, fellow for we'll / know that
of God, assuredy he will not leave YOU even a
halfpenny" And sure enough Hugo did come
back In haste, remembering that he had failed
TO lock me chest: but the King would not per-
NIT him to pursue the thief. This strong box was
carried about with the King from one hunting
palace TO another, and even when he went abroad
But it was not drawn upon rashly. To prevent
the possibility of meeting sudden emergency
with an empty chest an elaborate system was con-
trived, by which the provincial officers supplied
the wants of the King and his court during
progress and were allowed to make a correspond
ing reduction in their accounts for the year Yet,
with all this payment in kind-in PROVISIONS ana
clothing and armor and weapons-the revenue in
money became important that even under the
Saxon Kings there seems to have been Royal
Treasury organized as a Department of the State,
with justices and the necessary official machinery
for keeping account of receipts and expenditures.
Otherwise the monksh description Of Harold
amassing money like a Insurer, and sitting to count
IL like Justice at the treasury, would lave no
meaning. This central treasury appears to have
been in Westminster Abbey, rather than in the
Palace at Westminster. Perhaps the Norman
Kings neglected the abbey for the palace, after
they had kept the money regalia and records
for at least half a century in the Castle
at Winchester The tradition which has
fixed the site Of the treasury at west
minister equally with Winchester. connects
with the former the beginnings of an audit of
the revenue, and in 1855 we find that the
Exchequer houses at Westminster had already
been so long in existence that they required 10
be put IN repair
But even vet the department could not be
called a permanent one As was the with
the primitive chest, the treasury, though part
NOW Of an organized, or recognized, Exchequer,
,ras carried about with the King its chief con-
tents-bullion, plate or regalia and records-being
moved on several occasions, not merely to some
temporary residence of the court in England but
even BEYOND the sea. Beginning with. the year
i1hf nntices of these removals from place 10