( ^ ) 



At the same time it might certainly appear somewhat improbable thnt 

 a whole series of such records compiled in the veritable form of the Ex- 

 chequer Pipe Rolls should have entirely disappeared. Moreover, we have 

 good reasons for believing that a simpler method of account was practised 

 in the case of other seignorial establishments/ and this we know, from 

 later accounts of the bishopric of Winchester itself, took the form of a 

 periodical audit of the manorial accounts by experts employed for the 

 occasion.^ 



The real explanation of the matter probably is that the bishopric of 

 Winchester occupied an exceptional position in respect of its clerical estab- 

 lishment during the whole of the 12th and the early part of the 13th 

 century. The proximity of the administrative centre at Wolvesey to the 

 ancient royal Treasury and the official position of the great prelates who 

 flourished during the whole of this period," would have facihtated if it 

 did not actually induce an assimilation of clerical practice to that of the 

 royal Exchequer. 



Subsidiary Documents. — From an examination of the few isolated and 

 fragmentary account rolls preserved in the archives of the Dean and 

 Chapter of Winchester, and amongst the Records of the Court of Ex- 

 chequer, we might conclude that the Roll before us represented a certain 

 stage in the preparation of the manorial accounts of the bishopric for 

 the purpose of the annual audit. In the first place there was the 

 Compotus RoU, or " particulars " of the account presented by the local 

 Serjeants and the bailiff for every manor. This Compotus Roll* in turn 

 was compiled from several distinct manorial accounts, of which specimens 

 of the grange and stock accounts during the 13th century have survived,' 

 whilst the separate existence of others, such as a Rotulus Redditualis 

 and an estreat roll of fines of court, is fairly certain.* 



Conventual JRecords. — It is interesting to find that this first draft of 

 the account was made in precisely the same form as the inrolments with 

 which we are concerned, and, curiously enough, the whole of this evidence 

 is confirmed by the survival of certain muniments relating to the estates 

 of the Prior and Convent of Winchester.^ From the almost identical 

 methods employed by the clerical establishment of the Prior's exchequer 

 we may fairly conjecture that they used the style of the Bishop's 



1 The Palatinates of Durham, Lancaster, and Ely, which afford no trace of anj sessions of an 

 Exchequer for fiscal purposes. 



^ The expenses of these audits are given in 15th century accounts of the bishopric of Win- 

 chester and the Duchy of Lancaster. 



' In the case of Richard of llchester, cf . Dialogus de Scaccario, p. 77, " Datus est el 

 (Episcopo Wintoniensi) locus ad latus Thesaurarii, ut, scilicet, scripturae rotulorum et hiis omnibus 

 cum eo intenderet." 



* Ministers' Accts. Gen. Series, 1141, and Eccles. Comm. "Various." 



' Amongst the fragments of the accounts of Bishops' Temporalities connected with the See of 

 Winchester, specimens of the following subsidiary accounts, dated for the most part in the 

 13th century, can be identified, viz. rolls setting out sales of stock, loss of stock by murrain, flock- 

 masters' accounts, sales of forage, wages of manorial officers, grange and stock accounts, rough drafts 

 of bailiffs' accounts. — (Ministers' Accounts, General Series, 1141-1143.) 



6 In the later period a roll of arrears seems to have been compiled every year by a clerk specially 

 employed at Wolvesey for that purpose. No trace of this, however, survives. 



' This can easily be verified by an examination of the Compotus Roll of 1248, still preserved 

 at WincheiAer, and of other manorial records of the church which are so well described in 

 Mr. Baigent's edition of the Crondal Manor Rolls for the Hampshire Record Society. 



