The 307
accotmting was had
results. The exchequer, the was a
of the abacus, and introduced
France, probably from Laon a
school. Treatises upon
written at Laon and the by Eng-
lishmen.1 Undoubtedly the founding of the
method in England was the work of Henry L's
justiciar, Roger of Salisbury, his kin. It
a revolution in the method of auditing accounts; it means
the introduction of a precise system of calculation worked
out by counters on a chequered table and recorded on rolls.
Thenceforward the Treasury was limited to the payment
and storage of money; the business of accouat the
higher work of judicature to the Exchequer.2
How highly trained and an
there was in Henry I/s reign it is impossible to say.
The whole Exchequer institution in the king's
hold, in his court, and that court substantially
feudal; but it is hard to think of the Exchequer as having
been wholly or largely in the hands of the king's
vassals.
Through its great reorganisation in Henry IL's reign,
after practical non-existence during much of the reign of
Stephen, the Exchequer reached a high of technical
development and efficiency. Our knowledge of it for
time is very full owing to one of the most remarkable
of the English middle ages, the the
Exchequer written by Richard Fitz-Neal, grand-nephew
of Roger of Salisbury, a member of "the most characteris-
tic official family of Ms time."3 This account tells of the
1 The word scaccanum, exchequer, meant a chess board, a board divided
Into squares. The exchequer system was introduced Into Normandy from
England, Henry I. being also Duke of Normandy after 1106.
3 Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, pp. 40, 41,
s "The Dialogus, which was completed in 1178 or 1179, was written by
Richard Pitz-Neal, treasurer of England, 1158-98, and bishop of London,
1189-98. It is in the form of a dialogue between a master and his disciple,
and consists of two books. The first book describes the organisation of