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THE PIPE ROLL for LEICESTERSHIRE the English 846 LEICESTERSHIRE! ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. THE PIPE ROLL FOR LEICESTERSHIRE FOR THE FIRST YEAR OF KING JOHN (1199­1200), WITH SELECTED PLEAS FROM THE DE BANCO ROLLS FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE THIRTY­SEVENTH YEAR OF KING EDWARD III. (1338­1363). I. The English abstracts of documents in the Public Record Office which, follow have been made by Mr. W. K. Boyd, and have been presented to the Society by Mr. George Farnham. In spite of the amount of miscellaneous material collected by Nichols, the history of Leicestershire is still unwritten : its documentary material has hardly been touched, and a vast amount remains to be done before a scientific history of the county, as distinct from an antiquarian miscellany, can be compiled. It is only by the gradual publication of historical documents hitherto unprinted that the way can be paved for this task ; and with this view the present instalment of Leicestershire records is placed before the reader who is willing to give time to research among original sources. Of the extracts from the Pipe Roll of 1199­1200 only a general explanation need be given. A summary description of the contents of the Pipe Rolls or Great Rolls of the Exchequer will be found in Mr. Scargill­Bird's Guide to the Public Records, pp. 231­3. Once a year the sheriffs of the various counties returned to the Exchequer an account of the rents and payments due from their several areas to the Crown. The method of accounting is fully described in the famous treatise. Dialogue de Scaccario, the work of one who was thoroughly conversant with the business of the Exchequer. As a rule, the sheriff had a lease of the rents of the county for a fixed yearly sum, the firma or farm, for which he accounted in gross, mentioning deductions or special charges in detail. His account was entered by the clerk of the Exchequer upon a roll called the Pipe roll. The origin of this name is said to be metaphorical: the Pipe office, as this department of the Exchequer was called, was the pipe or conduit through which the stream of gold and silver fiom the various parts of the realm passed into the cistern of the royal treasury. Although other derivations have been given, this is the one generally accepted. A passage translated from the Dialogus de Scaecario, a dialogue between a learner and his master, explains the composition of the THE PIPE ROLL FOB LEICESTERSHIBE. 347 rolls. 1 " It is th^duty of the scribe who sits next to the treasurer to get ready the sheepskin rolls for writing, not without reason. Their length is to the extent of two parchments, not of any sort whatever, but of large size and specially procured for this purpose : their width is rather more than a hand's breadth and a half. The rolls then are ruled almost from the top downwards and on either side with lines at a seemly distance from one another, and at the top of the roll are written the names of the counties and bailiwicks, the account from which is rendered below. Then, leaving a short space of about three or four fingers' breadth, the name of the county which is dealt with in the first instance is written in the middle of the line. Next, at the beginning of the line following the sheriff's name is engrossed, followed by this form of words, ' So­and­so the sheriff renders his account of the farm of such and such a county.' Then a little after ' into the treasury' is written on the same line, nothing else being added until the account is completed, for the pressing reason which is explained in the description of the sheriff's duties. Then at the beginning of the next line are stated the charges upon the farm of the county arising from alms and settled tithes and also from liveries. After this at the beginning of the lower line under the title of ' lands given' note is made of the gifts granted by the bounty of kings to churches or to those who have served in them, as regards such of their estates as are appointed to the crown, some in blanc and some by tale." At this point the pupil asks the meaning of blanc. and tale, but the master proceeds . " Let us for the present pursue the question of the scribe's duties ; you may ask this, if you please, when we come to the sheriff's business. After ' lands given,' a break of a line is left to show that these form another separate department on their own account, and note is made of expenditures from the farm which are ordered by royal writs, because tbese are not fixed, but occasional. Some there are also of which mention will be made below, of which reckoning is made by custom of the Exchequer. So ends the account for the corpus of the county. After this, following a space of six or seven lines, comes the account of pur­ prestures and escheats beginning thus, ' The same sheriff renders his account of the farm of purprestures and escheats,' as well as of all the farms of manors and the estimate of woods which are due and paid yearly. Then the accounts are put together in their order, with the exception of those of certain cities, towns and bailiwicks, the accounts of which are larger, because they have settled alms or payments and lands given. Special summonses concerning the dues of the crown are addressed to the bailiffs of these lands, and they are accounted for after the reckoning for the counties in which they are is completely finished, as is the case with Lincoln, Win­ chester, Meons, Berkhampstead, Colchester and many others." • Dialogic de Scaccario, ap. Stubbs, Select Charters, 185­7. 348 LEICESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. What, asks the student, is the difference between the terms ' farm ' and ' cess,' as applied to certain fixed rents. " Farms," answers the master, •' apply to manors, cesses to woods only. For the revenues from manors are rightly called firm and immov­ able, because they are renewed and recur by tillage from year to year, and further there are certain rents fixed in the same by perpetual right of custom. Those, on the other hand that by yearly law are due from woods, which are cut down and destroyed daily, do not bring in so firm and immovable a profit, but go up and down, if not every year, at least constantly, and are called cesses (census) ; and so they say in the abstract that these rents are cessed. Some believe, however, that ' cess' is a name for payments from individuals, ' farm ' for the amount accruing from these. In this case 'farm,' like 'crowd,' is a collective designation ; and on this account the estimate is made on trust, so as to show that it is a yearly return and denote that it is not fixed." He then goes back to the main subject. " After this is settled, another space is left, and the account is given of the debts for which the sheriff is summoned, preceded by the names of the judges to whom they belong. Finally we come to the account of the chattels of fugitives, or of persons who have been mutilated for their trespasses ; at the end of which the account of the shrievalty is finished. The scribe must take care to write nothing which his own mind may prompt on the roll, apart from what he takes down at the treasurer's dictation. If haply by carelessness or any other chance he makes a mistake in writing the roll, as regards a name or a number or a reason, in which the true force of the writing consists, he must not take on himself to scratch it out, but should cancel it by drawing a thin line beneath it, and should write the correct words after it. For the writing of the roll has this in common with charters and other writings patent, that erasures must not be made ; and for this reason warning is given that the rolls should be of sheepskin, because they do not readily suffer erasure without disclosing the fault." We may now turn to the deferred explanation of the difference between payment in blanc and payment by tale. 3 " Farm is paid in blanc, when the coin is blanched by assay ... by tale, when it is paid merely by counting money without assaying it. When the king, then, gives an estate to anyone together with the hundred or the pleas accruing therefrom, the estate is said to be given to that person in blanc ; but when he makes a simple gift of the estate, keeping back for himself the hundred, by reason of which the farm is said to be blanched, and not defining it as given with the hundred or in blanc, it is said to be given by tale. Now," he proceeds, " as concerning the estate granted, the grantee must bring the king's writ or charter to the Exchequer at Michaelmas term, so that it may be charged to the sheriff's account: otherwise 1 Ibid. ±20­1. THE PIPE ROLL FOR LEICESTERSHIRE. 349 it will not be written in the great roll for the year, or charged to the sheriff. And it shall be written thus, after alms and tithes and fixed liveries of either kind, at the beginning of a line, ' in lands given to X. £20 blanc in such a place, and to N.
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