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The Exchequer Year

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

From the earliest times and for many centuries the year of account in the Exchequer ended at Michaelmas. The great roll of the Exchequer, or Pipe Roll, was made up to that period and until the fourteenth century bore the date of the regnal year in which Michaelmas fell. Thus the roll which was composed of the accounts for the twelve months ending at Michaelmas 1189 covered the concluding part of the thirty-fourth year of Henry II's reign, the uncompleted thirty-fifth year, the interregnum between Henry's death and Richard's coronation, and less than a month of the first year of Richard's reign: yet the roll is dated I Richard I. This rule has been frequently expounded, but it is necessary to restate it since mistakes are constantly made, and even within the last few years a useful little handbook for students of history has been published which is, in this regard, certainly at fault.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1925

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References

page 171 note 1 See Poole, R. L., Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, pp. 152 f.Google Scholar; Round, J. H., The Dating of the Early Pipe Rolls in English Historical Review, xxxvi, 321 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 171 note 2 Wallis, J. E. W., English Time Books, i, 83Google Scholar, after stating the rule correctly makes the first “Exchequer year” of Henry II begin at Michaelmas 1155, that of Richard I at Michaelmas 1189, and so on, and does not get right until Edward II. Richard III's “Exchequer years” provide a trap into which he again falls.

page 172 note 1 See Madox, , History of Exchequer (Ed. 1769), ii, 174Google Scholar, note s, where the heading to the individual accounts is given.

page 173 note 1 Dr. Round, loc. cit., gives a number of instances where errors have arisen through ignorance or forgetfulness of this fact.

page 174 note 1 Dr. Poole states (op. cit., p. 153) that “the reckoning was always backward until the reign of John.” Madox seems not to have noticed a change of practice before Richard I (Hist, of Exchequer, ii, 466). Hunter, however, states (P. if. 31 Hen. I, p. xi) that the practice of citing the regnal year although not in use in 1130 was “soon afterwards adopted”: but he cites only an instance from the roll of 1201.

page 174 note 2 P.R. 7 Hen. II, p. 17 = P.R. 5 Hen. II, p. 2. A similar entry is to be found in P.R. 9 Hen. II, p. 72: “de veteri firma VIImi anni = P.R. 7 Hen. II, p. 19.

page 174 note 3 P.R. 7 Hen. II, p. 15. A mistake having been made in copying into the roll of 1159 (P.R. 5 Hen. II, p. 64) the entry “de firma quarti anni de Rotelanda” from the roll of 1158 (P.R. 4 Hen. II, p. 136), the reckoning was thereafter a year out.

page 174 note 4 Cf. Hunter ubi supra.

page 175 note 1 P.R. 1 Ric. I, pp. 130, 226.

page 175 note 2 P.R. 23 Hen. II, p. 1.

page 175 note 3 P.R. 27 Hen. II, p. 48; 31 Hen. II, p. 188.

page 175 note 4 Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 9, 10.

page 176 note 1 Printed, with facsimile, as appendix to P.R. 2 Ric. I. The P.R.O. reference is E.401/1: all similar references subsequently cited will be understood to be those of the present official classification.

page 176 note 2 Dialogus de Scaccario (Oxford edition), pp. 82, 107. Tallies for payments made without writ were presumably filed also (ibid., p. 88).

page 176 note 3 Exceptionally perhaps for other periods also: see next note.

page 177 note 1 A specimen was printed in translation by Devon: this consists of the Norfolk and Suffolk, and London and Middlesex, entries for Hilary term 17 Hen. III: Issues of the Exchequer, pp. 507 ff. The modern reference for the roll from which these extracts are taken is E.401/100. A roll for Hilary term appears to be quite exceptional.

These analytical rolls appear to have been known as County Rolls, Rotuli Comitatuum, Rotuli de diversibus Comitatibus: cf. E.401/67, E.401/81, rolls of Michaelmas 1273 and 1277.

page 177 note 2 E.401/12: Michaelmas 21 Hen. III.

page 177 note 3 E.403/1: Michaelmas 25 Hen. III. As to the date of this roll see below, p. 179.

page 177 note 4 Mr. Hilary Jenkinson's forthcoming paper in Archæologia will shed much light on the early Receipt Rolls.

page 178 note 1 This Receipt Roll shows that the procedure was for the items to be totalled and audited; subsequent entries were then made under the heading “Et post predictas summas factas coram baronibus.” In this instance, after the first summation had been made, a considerable number of items were enrolled: an opportunity, however, presented itself for a fresh audit of the whole and the first summation was therefore cancelled, new totals being entered on the roll. The heading “Et post predictas summas factas coram baronibus” was rewritten: three entries follow: one is without date and has not been identified on a Pipe Roll; the other two are dated “In Purificatione sequenti apud Templum” and appear in the Pipe Roll of 32 Hen. II. Hall, H., Receipt Roll 31Hen. II, pp. 30, 31Google Scholar.

page 178 note 2 Cf. Round, , The Dating of Early Pipe Rolls, p. 333Google Scholar, and see below, p. 186.

page 179 note 1 As, for example, in Devon's Issues of the Exchequer and Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham: see Sir Ramsay, James, Expenditure of Edward III in Antiquary, i, 156Google Scholar, and Tout, T. F., Chapters in Mediceval Administrative History, i, 4041Google Scholar.

page 179 note 2 E.403/1.

page 180 note 1 E.401/64.

page 180 note 2 History of the Exchequer, II, 174.

page 180 note 3 E.401/267.

page 181 note 1 Already by the sixteenth century this was so: see the Calendar printed by Devon, , Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham, pp. lxxxvGoogle Scholar. ff.

page 181 note 2 Antiquary, i, 156.

page 182 note 1 Facsimiles of National MSS., Pt. I, No. xxviii.; Devon, , Issues of the Exchequer, p. 168Google Scholar.

page 182 note 2 For reasons quite apart from the Exchequer system there are no rolls for the last years of John and the first year of Henry III (see Miss Mill/s paper read 14 May 1925).

page 182 note 3 No Receipt or Issue Roll appears to have survived for 23 Edward IV, but this is a mere accident.

page 183 note 1 Dr. Hubert Hall has drawn my attention to the calendar of regnal years from Henry III onwards entered in the Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 1067 ff. This presents difficulties of its own, but in any case it supports the view that the Exchequer reckoned by the regnal year.

page 184 note 1 Poole, R. L., The Beginning of the Year in the Middle Ages, pp. 7 ff.Google Scholar, 19 ff.

page 185 note 1 I use this example because it is convenient and well known: but I understand that this does not represent Dr. Poole's present view. I suspect that Stubbs originated the theory of dating by the “Exchequer year”; cf. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II, Ixx.: “The itinerant justices went their circuits in 1176 and apparently n 77, unless indeed it may have been that their visitation fell partly in the 22nd and partly in the 23rd year [Note.—The 22nd fiscal year would end at Michaelmas 1176.] of the reign, and so appears on the roll for both years.”

page 2 note 185 The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, p. 8.

page 186 note 1 The Dating of the Early Pipe Rolls, p. 333.

page 187 note 1 Book of Fees, i, 73: “anno xiii” must in any case be a mistake: this mistake is repeated on p. 99.

page 187 note 2 ibid., pp. 244–5. A reference on p. 285 to St. Margaret's day 3 Henry III implies that the justices were sitting in Lincolnshire shortly before that date, 20 July 1219.

page 188 note 1 Book of Fees, i, 263.

page 188 note 2 ibid., p. 245.

page 189 note 1 ibid., pp. 253, 256, 260.

page 189 note 2 ibid., pp. 52, 141.

page 190 note 1 Book of Fees, i, 78.

page 190 note 2 The editor equates the date with July 2, 1212 (p. 56), but this is due to a mistake in reading Evangeliste as Baptiste. If the date were the morrow of the octave of St. John the Baptist it would of course be July 2, 1212, by either reckoning. It may be suggested that other dates are equated inexactly, e.g. “in crastino Decollations Sancti Iohannis Bapthiste” (p. 139) is rendered July 2 (p. 60) instead of August 29; “die Sabbati proxima post octabas apostollorum Petri et Pauli” (p. 153) is rendered July 6 (p. 61) instead of July 7; “die Iovis proxima ante festum Sancte Margarete virginis” (pp. 253, 256, 260) is rendered July 25 (p. 245) instead of July 18.