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Pipe Rolls
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The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rolls, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or Treasury. The earliest date from the 12th century, and the series extends, mostly complete, from then until 1833. They form the oldest continuous series of records kept by the English government, covering a span of about 700 years. The early medieval ones are especially useful for historical study, as they are some of the earliest financial records available from the middle ages.
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The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rolls, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or Treasury. The earliest date from the 12th century, and the series extends, mostly complete, from then until 1833. They form the oldest continuous series of records kept by the English government, covering a span of about 700 years. The early medieval ones are especially useful for historical study, as they are some of the earliest financial records available from the middle ages. A similar set of records was developed for Normandy, which was ruled by the English kings from 1066 to 1205, but the Norman pipe rolls have not survived in a continuous series like the English.
They were the records of the yearly audits performed by the Exchequer of the accounts and payments presented to the Treasury by the sheriffs and other royal officials; and owed their name to the shape they took, as the various sheets were affixed to each other and then rolled into a tight roll, resembling a pipe, for storage. They record not only payments made to the government, but debts owned to the crown and disbursements made by royal officials. Although they recorded much of the royal income, they did not record all types of income, nor did they record all expenditures, so they are not strictly speaking a budget. The Pipe Roll Society, formed in 1883, has published the pipe rolls up until 1223.
History
, now The National Archives, where the pipe rolls are currently kept]]
Although the earliest pipe roll dates from 1130, the 31st year of King Henry I's reign, it is clear that they were being produced by the Exchequer before then, as the 1130 roll is not an experiment. It shows no hesitancy in its use of accounts, or lack of continuity from previous years. Exactly when the pipe rolls began to be produced is debated amongst historians. Some hold that they date from Henry I's reign, whether early or late in the reign, but others feel that they were introduced by King William I (reigned 1066–1087). The precursors of the records probably date to the Anglo-Saxon period, as the historian Pauline Stafford argues that financial records must have been kept in some form during the reigns of Cnut (reigned 1018–1035), Æthelred II (reigned 978–1016), and Edgar the Peaceable (reigned 959–975). There is a reference to the king's "rolls" in a writ from 1110, which purports to be a grant from Henry I to the abbot of Westminster of ten shillings, but the writ may be a forgery, or parts of it may be genuine with some interpolations. As the writ only exists in a copy in a later cartulary, and the Abbey of Westminster is also known to have forged a number of other writs or charters, the writ is not a solid source for royal rolls being kept as early as 1110.
After the one surviving roll from Henry I's reign, no further pipe rolls survived from his reign, nor are any preserved from the reign of his successor, King Stephen (reigned 1135–1154). But by the second year of King Henry II's reign, or 1155, they once more survive. It is unclear if pipe rolls were actually created during Stephen's reign and they did not survive, or if the conditions during Stephen's reign precluded the creation of pipe rolls. Continuously from the early years of King Henry II's reign, most pipe rolls survive, with only a break in the last years of King John's reign (reigned 1199–1216).
The surviving pipe roll from 1130 records an income of £24,500. This figure is dwarfed by the amount recorded on the pipe roll that was actually owed to the king, which totals £68,850. The income that they record in the early years of Henry II is much smaller than that of the one surviving year for Henry I. Those early pipe rolls of Henry I record an income about £10,000 to £15,000. By the end of Henry II's reign, royal income recorded in the pipe rolls had risen to £20,000. The end of John's reign saw a recorded income of about £30,000, but Henry III's reign recorded only £8,000 in the early years, rising to £16,500 by 1225. Not only do the rolls from the early years of Henry II's reign show less income reaching the Exchequer than during Henry I's reign, those early rolls were haphazard and not as accurate and detailed as rolls dating from the later part of the reign. Nor are they as carefully produced as either the later rolls or the roll of 1130.
By the time of King John, the pipe rolls were growing unwieldy, as too many fines and fees were being recorded, making the finding of information in the rolls difficult. Eventually, after some experimentation, by 1206 a system whereby the actual detailed receipts were recorded in a set of receipt rolls and only aggregates were entered in the pipe rolls was settled on. A further reform in 1236 resulted in debts being recorded in separate Estreat rolls, and only the totals entered into the pipe rolls. In 1284 the Statutes of Rhuddlan were issued, which further reformed the accounting systems, and further reduced the detail contained on the pipe rolls. At this time, a large number of unrecoverable debts were also removed from the rolls, a process that had also been attempted in 1270. The attempt in 1270 had marked old debts with a "d" and stipulated that they were not to be re-entered into future pipe rolls unless they were paid off. But this had not worked, and so in 1284 old debts were to be recorded on a separate roll. The statutes in 1284 also laid out a procedure where debtors whose documentation of payment of debt that hadn't been accepted in the past would have that documentation accepted, thus helping to clear out some of the backlogged debts on the books.
Yet more extraneous details were removed from the pipe rolls under the Cowick Ordinance of June 1323, along with further ordinances in 1324 and 1326, all of which were done during the time that Walter de Stapledon held the office of Treasurer. Prior to this reform the rolls had become clogged with debts, and clauses 2 through 8 of the Cowick Ordinance attempted to return the rolls to an exposition of accounts. Another attempted reform at this time was the removal of customs receipts, as well as military accounts, from the rolls. New offices in the Exchequer were also created, in an attempt to speed up the auditing process and lessen the time it took to prepare the pipe rolls and other financial records. The attempt to remove non-Exchequer accounts did completely remove those types of records from the pipe rolls, and further reforms in 1368 created a set of foreign rolls, and all extraneous records in the pipe rolls were transferred to those rolls.
In 1462, the exchequer was told to no longer summon for audit any farms or feefarms worth over 40 shillings per year, as these would be supervised by a newly appointed board of receivers or approvers.
The pipe rolls series ended in 1834 when the office that was in charge of their creation, the Pipe Office, was abolished.
Creation
They were created by taking the Shire, or other governmental districts, accounts and writing them on two strips of parchment, usually about wide. The two pieces were then attached end to end to form one long sheet. Then, the various sheets from all the shires were piled together and affixed together at the top, and the resulting document would be rolled into a tight roll resembling a pipe. They were not formed into one long continous roll, as the Patent rolls were, however. The sheets for each county have a heading at the top giving the name of the county the account is for, in Latin. If more than one sheet was required for a county, they the county name would be amended on secondary sheets to indicate the order the sheets were in.
Sometimes they are referred to, in Latin, as magnus rotulus pipae. Several sources for the actual idea of making the rolls as rolls have been suggested, including Jews, Adelard of Bath, who was a royal clerk and was familiar with Arabic practices of using rolls, or the royal clerk Thurkil, who studied under a mathematician who may have been from Sicily.
The rolls were written in Latin until 1733, except for a short time around 1650. During the reign of Henry II, a duplicate copy of the year's pipe roll was made for the Chancellor, and was called the Chancellor's roll. This was created at the same time as the regular pipe roll, and was written by a clerk of the Chancellor. The Chancellor rolls survive from 1163 to 1832, but are basically duplicates of the corresponding pipe rolls, except for the occasional addition of a private charter or other material.
Influence on other records
The example of the royal exchequer's records eventually influenced others to keep similar records. The earliest surviving non-royal pipe rolls are those of the Bishop of Winchester, which are extant from 1208, and form a continuous series from that date. They started under Peter des Roches, who was also a royal clerk and administrator. They record monies coming in as well as expenses and payments made, in detail, but like the royal records, they do not show profits or losses as a sum total. Most private rolls resembling the pipe rolls are from monasteries. The household rolls, which closely resemble the pipe rolls, for Eleanor of England, wife of Simon de Montfort, survive for part of the year 1265.
Studies by historians
A number of historians have studied the surviving pipe rolls, using them as the basis for study of financial and governmental history, especially of the medieval era. A study from 1925 compiled the royal income that passed through the Exchequer for each year of Henry II and Richard I, as well as a sample of some years from John's reign, attempting to compare how the royal revenues compared in the various reigns. Historian David Carpenter has carried out further studies on the early years of King Henry III's reign. The pipe rolls have also been used to identify royal officials, especially those that were involved in local government and were not high ranking. Because they recorded judicial fines, the pipe rolls also can be used to shed light on how the judicial system in medieval England worked, as well as identifying royal judges.
The lone surviving pipe roll from Henry I's reign, that of 1130, has been a popular subject of study. Recent investigations include Judith Green's search for evidence of Henry's financial system. Another historian, Stephanie Mooers Christelow, has studied the roll along with those from the reign of Henry II, looking for the exemptions and grants made by both kings to various royal favourites. Christelow has also studied the 1130 roll to see what light it can shine on Henry I's judicial system, as well as on the growth of royal courts during Henry's reign. The historian C. Warren Hollister used the 1130 pipe roll to study the rewards of royal service during Henry's reign.
The pipe rolls from the 13th century onwards are less important for historical study because there are other surviving financial records. Some, such as the receipt rolls, were also kept by the exchequer, and were used by the treasury clerks to prepare the pipe rolls. Other surviving records were kept by the sheriffs for their own use in submitting accounts to the pipe rolls.
Publication
The Pipe Roll Society, founded by the Public Record Office in 1883, has published the pipe rolls up to the year 1223. The Pipe Roll Society publications started in 1884 and have continued to the present day. Besides the continuous series to 1223, they have also published the roll for 1230. The Chancellor's roll for 1196 has also been published by the Pipe Roll Society, along with other related works.
The pipe rolls have also been published by the Public Records Commission, which published in four volumes in 1833 and 1844, that covered the earliest pipe rolls until the first year of Richard I's reign. The Pipe rolls for 1241 were published in 1918 by the Yale University Press. Various county record societies have published parts of the pipe rolls for various years that relate to the particular county. Rolls for the Irish Exchequer and the Norman Exchequer have also been published.
Citations
Sources
Retrieved on 17 January 2009
Retrieved on 17 January 2009
Retrieved on 20 January 2009
Further reading
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