The 1259 Pipe Roll Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London by Richard Cassidy King’s College London 2012 2 Abstract The 1259 pipe roll contains accounts for most of the counties of England, covering the first full year of government by the reforming council set up by the baronial coup of 1258. The transcript of the roll makes up the bulk of this thesis. An unusually wide range of financial records, also mostly unpublished, survives from the years around 1259. These records are used together with the pipe roll to describe government finances and to show that the machinery of government continued to function successfully in the early years of the reform period. The thesis begins with a description of the editorial conventions used, and a discussion of the value of such transcripts. The financial information contained in the roll is extracted and analysed, to show the sources of government revenue, and how it was spent in the counties. The relationship between the central government and the sheriffs who administered the counties was changed radically in 1258, with the new sheriffs appointed by the reforming council as custodians, who were to account for the traditional income from the counties. These sheriffs’ accounts provide information about the customary payments and local courts in the counties which is not usually available. The income produced by the sheriffs and by the manors of the royal demesne over the period from 1241 to 1259 is compared, to show how the sheriffs squeezed additional revenue from the counties in the 1250s, and how the demesne continued to make a significant contribution to royal resources. The efforts of the reformers to control the financial administration and to reform Exchequer procedures had some success between 1258 and 1261. The financial collapse of the mid-1260s accompanied the struggle for control of the government and the drift towards civil war. 3 Contents Abstract 3 Contents 4 Tables 6 Charts 8 Abbreviations 8 1. Introduction 9 2. The roll and the transcript 19 Pipe roll and Chancellor’s roll 20 Contents of the roll 22 Editorial principles 23 Why transcribe? 32 3. The financial results 34 The headline numbers 34 Some comparisons 37 Methodology 40 The problem of timing 42 The economic background 48 Sources of revenue 53 Profits of justice 62 Foreign accounts 66 Application of revenue 67 Debts and debtors 74 4. Sheriffs, counties and Exchequer in 1258-59 77 The Exchequer year 77 The farm and profit: the example of Northamptonshire 86 The sheriffs’ particule 94 County farm and profit 103 The sheriffs’ expenditure 112 Exploiting the demesne – the experience of fifteen manors 113 The farm and the demesne 120 4 Contents 5. The reforms at the Exchequer 1258-61 123 The reform agenda 124 Personnel 126 Pruning the pipe rolls 128 Pipe roll coverage 132 The exchanges 136 Wardrobe 147 Tallage 155 Application of Exchequer cash 158 Maintaining the flow of cash 164 Collecting debts: the example of Kent 174 Income from the counties 178 6. Conclusion 181 Appendix 1: Accounts tables 183 Appendix 2: Latin texts 214 References 218 Volume 2 (on CD) Transcript Photographs of the roll 5 Tables 1. 1259 pipe roll revenue, by county 35 2. Adjusted county revenues for 1259 36 3. Builders’ wage-rates, southern England 50 4. Sources of 1259 pipe roll revenue 54 5. Pipe roll and Surrey eyre roll 61 6. Income from the eyres of 1252-58 64 7. Lump sum amercements, 1258-59 65 8. Foreign accounts contributing to revenue for 1258-59 66 9. Application of 1259 pipe roll revenue 67 10. Exchequer accounting calendar, 1258-59 80 11. Exchequer accounting calendar, 1259-60 83 12. Revenues in sheriffs’ accounts 95 13. Allocation of sheriffs’ revenue 101 14. Sheriffs’ liability for farm and profit, 1241-42 104 15. Sheriffs’ liability for farm and profit, 1250-51 105 16. Sheriffs’ liability for farm and profit, 1256-57 106 17. Sheriffs’ liability for farm and profit, 1258-59 108 18. Fixed profits for farmer sheriffs in originalia rolls 111 19. Profit and increment from 1241 to 1261 112 20. Farms of fifteen manors, 1240-41 114 21. Fifteen manors in the 1242 pipe roll 115 22. Fifteen manors in the 1257 pipe roll 116 23. Fifteen manors in the 1259 pipe roll 118 24. Exchange output and revenues 146 25. Sources of Wardrobe income, 1255-56 and 1258-61 148 26. Wardrobe cash revenue by regnal year 149 27. Issue roll payments to Wardrobe and Queen 150 28. County revenue and payments to Wardrobe 152 29. Tallage of leading cities 157 30. Tallage from counties in both pipe rolls 157 31. Issues by category, 1256-59 – £ 159 32. Payments of papal census 162 33. Chancery liberate writs and Exchequer issue rolls 165 34. Half-yearly Adventus and receipts, 1256-60 170 6 Tables 35. Sources of Exchequer receipts, 1258-60 171 36. Pipe roll county revenues (adjusted) 178 37. Pipe roll total 1258-59 – Source of funds 184 38. Pipe roll total 1258-59 – Application of funds 186 39. Berkshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 188 40. Cambs. & Hunts. 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 189 41. Cumberland 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 190 42. Devon 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 191 43. Essex & Herts. 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 192 44. Gloucestershire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 193 45. Hampshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 194 46. Herefordshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 195 47. Kent & Milton 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 196 48. Lincolnshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 197 49. London & Middlesex 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 198 50. Norfolk 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 199 51. Northamptonshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 200 52. Northumberland 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 201 53. Notts. & Derby 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 202 54. Oxfordshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 203 55. Shropshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 204 56. Somerset & Dorset 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 205 57. Staffordshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 206 58. Surrey 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 207 59. Sussex 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 208 60. Warks. & Leics. 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 209 61. Worcestershire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 210 62. Yorkshire 1258-59 - Source & application of funds 211 63. Milton manorial cash account 212 64. Milton manorial crop account 213 7 Charts 1. Simplified pipe roll production flow-chart 11 2. Ramsay: pipe roll revenue 38 3. Collingwood: total actual revenue 39 4. Prices and wages by decade 50 5. Net farm and profit, from 1242 to 1259 109 6. Number of counties in pipe rolls 132 7. Exchange output and revenue 145 8. Issues from Exchequer to Wardrobe keepers 151 9. Receipts and issues, 1256-60 166 10. Weekly receipts, 1256-60 168 11. Adventus payments 173 12. Pipe roll county revenue and the Adventus 180 Abbreviations CFR Calendar of the Fine Rolls CLR Calendar of the Liberate Rolls CPR Calendar of the Patent Rolls DBM Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion 1258-1267 EHR English Historical Review PR entry number in the transcript of the 1259 pipe roll, also shown on the photographs of the roll on the CD enclosed with the transcript PRS Pipe Roll Society All references to manuscript material are to catalogue numbers of documents in The National Archives, London. 8 1. Introduction ‘The broad lines of late medieval finance reveal themselves with difficulty to those who perforce must study them in vast and unwieldy manuscript rolls.’ T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, I, 13 he 1259 pipe roll is certainly a vast and unwieldy manuscript roll, taking 23 rotulets and over 200,000 words to set out the accounts of 24 counties or pairs of counties. In principle, these are the accounts for the year ending at Michaelmas 1259. The Troll was compiled as these accounts were audited over the course of the following year. The bulk of this thesis, at least in terms of word-count, is a transcript of that pipe roll. The rest of the thesis could be seen as an answer to three simple questions: Why transcribe? Why a pipe roll? Why 1259? Chapter 2 describes the conventions and editorial approach adopted for the transcript, largely following the practices established by the Pipe Roll Society. These need explanation, and it is worth stressing that the transcript is the product of a good deal of editorial activity. The generation of a transcript is not an automatic process, in which the input of a manuscript leads to the output of a typescript, while the editor simply turns the handle of the transcribing machine. Each word in the manuscript requires a decision by the editor, and in many cases different editors would reach different decisions. The pipe roll is a very abbreviated text, following conventions that are not self-evident, whose form is governed by recondite rules. The publications of the Pipe Roll Society are similar: they follow a set of editorial practices, which are not stated explicitly or applied consistently, to generate a text which is as much the product of the editor as of the thirteenth-century Exchequer clerks. The artificiality of these modern conventions, for expanding abbreviations and applying punctuation and capitalization, is only apparent when one compares transcript and original. The pipe roll is, for the most part, as interesting to read as a telephone directory (another obsolete form, of course).