( xi ) 



exchequer at Wolvesey ; ' but at the same time we find no trace amongst 

 these conventual muniments of a ceremonious audit or fiscal establishment. 

 On the other hand, we have a Rental or Customary dating back to 1221," 

 and other indications that the normal practice of the analysis of income 

 and expenditure in a monastic precedent book was resorted to in the 

 place of any independent attempt to follow the practice of the royal 

 Exchequer to its climax in the composition of a great revenue roll. 



This, then, is the real nature of the muniments with which we are 

 here concerned. They are the official inrolments of a long series of 

 accounts of manorial oflicers, specimens of which still survive in their 

 original form from the beginning of the 14th century. The system here 

 observed is, therefore, precisely similar to that employed for the official 

 inrolment of ministers' accounts in the Pipe Office of the Royal Exchequer,' 

 and this similarity of practice favours the hypothesis that besides these 

 inrolments of manorial accounts, actual Pipe Rolls recording the state of 

 the whole episcopal revenue were compiled in the exchequer at Wolvesey. 



Establishment of the Bishop's Exchequer. — Indeed, if this were not the 

 case it would seem difficult to explain the allusions made in this and 

 other accounts to an official who clearly acts as, and is elsewhere entitled, 

 the Bishop's Treasurer, to an Exchequer and Treasury, to the departments 

 of a Marshal,* and a Constable^ to a "scriptorium" or "camera cleri- 

 corum," to clerks, Serjeants, and messengers, and to the regular provision 

 of parchment at Wolvesey.* Moreover, we have notices in the text itself 

 of sessions of this episcopal Exchequer at which the Bishop presided on 

 certain occasions in person, whilst adjournments from term to term are 

 recorded in the precise form of King's Courts at Westminster. Finally, 

 we have a distinct reference in the present account to a further record 

 which is actually styled " Magnus Rotulus," this being the contemporary 

 designation of the so-called " Pipe Rolls " of the royal Exchequer.^ 



The Great Roll. - That the record here referred to was not a preceding 

 account roll of the same series,' nor even a mere Rotulus Redditualis 

 such as may be found in ecclesiastical and monastic registers from 

 the 13th century onwards is proved, not only from the marginalia of 

 this account, but to some extent also by the external evidence of the 

 Exchequer Pipe Rolls themselves. Here the Accounts of the custody of 

 the bishopric during vacancy have preserved several headings which 

 presumably occurred in the episcopal rolls which must have been used for 



' It will be remembered th»t the famous dispute between the Bishop and Convent in 1253 con- 

 cerned the jurisdiction claimed by the Wolvesey exchequer (^Ann. Winton. s. a.). 



* Crondal Manor Rolls, p. 83. 

 ' L.T.R. Foreign Accounts. 



* It was apparently his business, in addition possibly to the custody of tallies, writs and 

 prisoners, to supervise the collection of the Scutage and the service of the Bishop's knights. 



* The Constable in a slightly later period seems to have paid the liveries of the household just 

 as his namesake in the royal Curia is represented as doing in the reign of Henry II., and this would 

 imply that a " Liberate " Roll of some sort was in use. 



* cf. Dialogus de Scaccario (Clar. Press) p. 81, where the Sacristan of the cathedral church 

 of Winchester is represented as supplying parchment for the royal Exchequer. 



^ p. 56. " Praterea liberavit, anno prasterito, iijs. u]d. plusquam recepit ; et ei computatur per 

 Magnum Rotulum." In addition to this ■' Great Roll " there must evidently have been a " Rotulus 

 Receptarum " to check the Receipts allowed in these accounts under the heading " Liberatio " (cf. 

 "The Receipt Roll of the Exchequer, 31 Henry II." previously published in this series). 



' The technical reference to these seems to have been (as in the case of the Exchequer records) 

 to a " rotulus anni praeteriti, tertii," etc. 



