316 The Period of Constitution Making
consisting of the Chancery clerks—a well organised
professional group offering an attractive career. This
group did Its administrative and secretarial work little
disturbed by whether the Chancellor for the time repre-
sented royal or baronial preponderance In state affairs.
Chancery had definitely gone out of court.
When the Exchequer went out of court it took from the
court the receipt of money, though not of all money;
when Chancery was going out of court it was taking the
great seal and secretarial department. Their going meant
a growth in officialdom, a governmental maturing; it also
meant, or was coming to mean, more baronial control.
In either case it meant less primitive, personal govern-
ment by the king. But the king was powerful and the
time early; it was to be a long time before government in
England was to cease to be personal and the main motive
force to lie outside the king, whether with aristocracy or
with the people. Hence at this point the process of
reduplication began; the king must have a finance de-
partment personal to himself and a secretarial staff with
him, under his personal control, and we begin to hear of
theChamber, the personal core of thehousehold, becoming
a second treasury and of a small seal for the Chamber to
authenticate documents. New finance and secretarial
departments were beginning. Yet one must be cautious
In describing these changes. When we say that the
Exchequer and Chancery had gone out of court and that
the Chamber remained in the court or household, that is
not the same as to say sharply that Exchequer and Chan-
cery were public, belonged to the state, while the Cham-
ber was in the king's private establishment. Such dis-
tinctions pertain to modern times, not to the middle ages.
In a sense all features of government—courts, Parliament,
Council, organs of administration—even England itself,
were the king's in something of a personal way; while on
the other hand the growing Chamber organisation was
far from being what at present would seem personal and