Officers and accountability in medieval England 1170 1300 The later twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a pivotal period for the development of European government and governance. During this period a mentality took hold which trusted to procedures of accountability as a means of controlling officers conduct. The mentality was not inherently new but it became qualitatively more complex and quantitatively more widespread in this period across European countries and across different sorts of officer. The officers exposed to these methods were not just state ones but also seignorial ecclasistical and university college officers as well as urban communal ones. This comparative study surveys these officers and the practices used to regulate them in England. It places them not only within a British context but also a wide European one and explores how administration law politics and norms tried to control the insolence of office