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1. The form of the rolls

The fine rolls had always acted as a financial record. Since their inception perhaps in the 1170s ¹ they had played a pivotal role in the administration of royal revenue, documenting promises of money or renders in kind to the king for all manner of concessions that lay in his gift. ² Equally, it was through the fine rolls that the Exchequer, based at Westminster, charged with levying and receiving sums due to the king, was kept informed about such promises. At various intervals throughout the year, parchment membranes bearing extracts from the current fine roll were drafted by Chancery clerks and delivered into the Exchequer. On the fine rolls these points of delivery are marked by the note ‘Hinc mittendum est ad scaccarium’, ‘From here it is to be sent to the Exchequer’. This signified that all material believed to be of import to the Exchequer in collecting debts and managing its accounting procedures had been sent there up to this time, and that what followed on the fine roll would be entered on subsequent membranes of extracts to be dispatched at a later date. Most commonly only one membrane would be sent at one time and would contain an individual batch of extracts, but it seems that in 1226–27 the first batch sent to the Exchequer was spread over two membranes, the end of membrane 8 – the second to be compiled – corresponding with the first ‘Hinc mittendum est ad scaccarium’ on the fine roll. ³ Once all extracts for the year of account had been assembled in the Exchequer they were united to form what became known as the ‘rotulus originalis’, the ‘originalia roll’.

From the beginning of the reign of Henry III one originalia roll would be drawn up each year. Only two annual rolls – those for 1226–27 and 1232–33 – now survive for his first eighteen regnal years in the series E 371 at The National Archives, although a much less broken run survives from his twentieth year (1235–36). ⁴ These survivors, moreover, belong to a series that can be traced back to the seventh year of the reign of Richard I (1195–96), of which only a handful remains. ⁵ Each Henrician originalia roll consists of a number of parchment membranes which varied according to the weight of material entered on the fine rolls that was deemed necessary to be sent to the Exchequer. That for 1232–33, for example, is six membranes in length compared with ten membranes on the corresponding fine roll (C 60/32), and that for 1226–27 consists of nine membranes compared to twelve in the fine roll (C 60/25). Five of the six membranes in the 1232–33 roll, furthermore, are of equal width (28 cm) but vary from 33–50 cm in length, ⁶ while one – membrane 4 – is considerably shorter and narrower (16 cm x 26 cm). The originalia rolls for 1236–37, 1237–38 and 1239–40 (E 371/4, 5 and 7) have, respectively, ten, four and six membranes, as well as a number of attached schedules, but no fine roll survives for those years from which a similar comparison can be made. ⁷ It appears that as a rule the originalia rolls covered the same period – the regnal year – as did the fine rolls, which is the case in the rolls for 1226–27 and 1236–37 (E 371/1B, 4). Although there are only 296 entries on the originalia roll for 1232–33, beginning in January 1233, in comparison with 386 on the corresponding fine roll, it is possible that an earlier membrane has now been lost, as was the case with the chronologically first membrane of the roll for 1239–40 (E 371/7) until its recent discovery in a packet of strays at The National Archives. ⁸ Certainly, the first originalia roll entry in the 1232–33 roll is that which follows directly from the first ‘Hinc mittendum est ad scaccarium’ entry in the fine roll. ⁹ Once all membranes for any account year had been submitted to the Exchequer they were gathered up and stitched together in the Chancery fashion, end over end, before being rolled up.

We have minimal knowledge about exactly how fines were made. Proffers may, for example, have been the result of hard bargaining between those individuals making fine and the king and his ministers, ¹⁰ and, perhaps for one of the many writs to purchase and process legal cases, supplicants may also simply have promised an established sum to a royal clerk. ¹¹ However, the survival of the originalia roll permits us to trace some of the processes involved in administering, levying and collecting sums owed to the king. Principally, it allowed the Exchequer to know from whom debts should be collected, and at what terms; and, if surety had been taken, the names of those standing pledge for the debt; and, usually, the amount for which each individual stood pledge. ¹² Upon receipt of the originalia roll, the Exchequer clerks transferred the entries which recorded debts to the ‘summonses’, the county-by-county list of debts which were sent twice annually to the sheriff for him to collect and pay into the treasury at his account. Thereafter, they copied all outstanding debts onto the pipe roll (the annual record of the audit of all money owed to the crown), where they were entered under the relevant county or counties under the heading ‘new offerings, nova oblata’. In the following year these debts would be entered in the ‘de oblatis, concerning offerings’ section of each county account in the pipe rolls, and henceforth they would be entered among the mass of uncleared debts that increasingly cluttered up the pipe roll. When eventually they had either been settled or pardoned, they would be marked as ‘quit’ in the pipe roll for the year of payment and then disappear from subsequent rolls. However, as the fine rolls themselves developed to include material of relevance to the wider scope of business with which the Exchequer concerned itself, ¹³ the originalia roll increasingly served as a record for the Exchequer, amongst other things, of the terms granted by the king for repayment of fines or other debts, of lands taken into the king’s hand and their commitment to keepers, and of the award of lands and/or office to favoured individuals. The roll therefore supplied it with details about the farms that should be collected from those to whom land had been granted at farm (for which the sheriff would be bound to account), and to whom it should direct itself for the annual renders to be expected from new officers or custodians for their office, or the issues of lands while they were in the king’s custody.

The originalia rolls, then, were importants cog in the machinery of royal finance. But, while many fine roll entries appear heavily abridged on the originalia, the clerks often pruning entries to include only essential information about the money promised, the terms granted or the order given, ¹⁴ they still largely contained the same information and have unsurprisingly been overlooked by historians. Indeed, they have recently been consigned, with other relatively unused series of documents, to deep storage in a former salt mine in Cheshire. The aim of this introductory article is to discuss, through the originalia rolls which survive for the first eighteen years of Henry’s reign, what the originalia rolls constituted and to provide an impression of their content, thereby shedding more light on the workings of royal finance. ¹⁵

2. The content of the rolls

Because the originalia entries were taken from the fine rolls, they resemble both the fine rolls and, more particularly, the duplicate fine rolls for 1–11 Henry III. ¹⁶ The content is laid out entry after entry and, generally, in the same chronological order. The entries are written by fewer hands – in many cases one per membrane – and are more closely packed together than those on the fine roll. They also have fewer running corrections, as they were probably copied over a relatively short period in preparation for delivery to the Exchequer, although they do have occasional notes made by Exchequer clerks. ¹⁷ There is, however, a major difference in diplomatic between the originalia and fine rolls, which provides clues to the first stages of the progression of business through the Exchequer. In the former, marginal notes (besides the usual county headings) made by the Exchequer clerks are widespread. These attest to the actions they had taken after delivery of each batch of extracts. There are two main annotations – ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ (‘in the Roll’) and ‘S’’. The former means that the entry had been entered on the pipe roll and the latter, which defies expansion, probably means that the corresponding entry had either been placed in the summons or remained to be placed therein. It is likeliest that it was entered very soon after the originalia roll came in to the Exchequer and indicates that the debt had since been transferred to the summonses. ¹⁸ The ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ comes later, probably when the pipe roll itself is being drawn up. It is almost exclusively written with a thick-nibbed pen which may be the same thick nib actually used to write up the pipe roll. ¹⁹ But what can be deduced from this analysis? Which fine roll entries appeared on the originalia roll, which did not, which went into the summons and the pipe roll, which did not, and how does this inform us about Chancery and Exchequer practice in the early thirteenth century?

2.2. Not in the Roll

We begin with those fine roll entries which DO NOT feature on the originalia roll, because these are a manageable minority. Approximately one quarter to one third of fine roll entries do not appear in these two originalia rolls. For 1226–27 141 of 398 are absent (35%) – although eleven of these are simply ‘Eodem modo scribitur’ entries repeating the preceding order to other sheriffs – while in 1232–33 the figures are 78/296 (26%). This, of course, means that up to three quarters of the entries on the fine rolls could be deemed to be of importance to the Exchequer, reinforcing the fine rolls’ critical position in the management of royal revenue. An analysis of those fine roll entries which do not appear reveals four main categories into which they fall.

The first and most voluminous category concerns grants of respite or pardon, whether to debtors from rendering their dues (including simple debts and scutages, aids and tallages) or arrears, or to sheriffs, other royal officials or those farming land from the king, from rendering their accounts or annual farms and issues. Just over 50% (40/78) of fine roll entries not in the originalia roll for 1232–33 are of this type, and just under 50% (61/141) in 1226–27. Many are straightforward orders to sheriffs to place the demand they make by summons of the Exchequer in respite until a certain term: such as that to the sheriff of Gloucestershire in February 1233 for granting peace to Ralph fitz Nicholas from paying scutage for the lands he held in wardship; or the statement in September 1227 that the sheriff of Lancaster had respite from rendering his account until three weeks from Michaelmas. ²⁰ As a result, no debts were due to be collected or accounts rendered, and there would be no need for these orders to be placed in the summons or the pipe roll for the Exchequer officials to act upon.

More to the point, while it might be expected that information concerning such grants would have been embodied in writs to the Exchequer transmitted via the originalia roll, in some cases of respite or pardon the Exchequer might already have details of the grant by Chancery writ sent directly to the barons themselves. This would circumvent the originalia roll and, in a case of pardon, result in an annotation on the pipe roll that the sheriff was quit of the charge upon his account for collecting a particular sum. It is possible, too, that in cases where sheriffs or other royal officials are informed of the king’s grant and then ordered to take further action – accepting security from debtors to observe their new terms, releasing chattels and livestock distrained from debtors to meet their obligations or delivering livestock taken from debtors or those acting as pledge for debt ²¹ – the Exchequer, which itself would not be required to take action, could have been informed by writ. It seems unlikely, for example, that the barons would not have been told in June 1233 of the mainprise of William de Gamages before the king, then at Worcester, to answer for debt at the Exchequer, which produced an order to the sheriff of Herefordshire not to distrain him for this debt. ²² Occasionally, if a respite had been granted patently at the request of the favoured party, the sheriff might be ordered to ensure that the debtor enjoyed his or her respite while inquiries were made either by the sheriff himself with the assistance of local juries or by the king and his councillors. In May 1227, for example the keeper of the honour of Peverel in Nottinghamshire was to allow William de Vernun to have respite from the scutages of Montgomery and Bedford which, it must have been intimated to the king, the earl of Ferrers had received, until the king could have a colloquium with the earl to establish the truth. ²³ Conversely, in many cases it is most probable that commands to royal officials granting respites or pardons and demanding further action, missing from the originalia roll, would not have been transmitted to the Exchequer at all. Instead, when it came to the account, the Exchequer might demand an answer for a debt previously summoned from an individual, and the sheriff (or the individual concerned, were he accounting personally) would then produce the writ enrolled in the fine rolls in anticipation of being discharged. So, whether simple respites or more complex commands, there would often be little need to inform the barons of the Exchequer about actions of which they already had knowledge or which did not require direct action on their part pending the accounting process.

Equally, there are also several direct orders to the Exchequer barons recorded on the fine rolls, obviously not requiring entry on the originalia. A majority concern orders for enaction and, notably, enrolment in the Exchequer rolls of grants of pardon, attermination and respite of debts made by the king. ²⁴ Others concern matters that would directly affect the processing of individual accounts. In June 1227, for instance, the king informed the barons of the bargain he had made with the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, for the constitution of Richard d’Argentan and his wife to answer for Langton’s debt of £100 on account of the larger debt which they owed him and which they were now to pay to the king at certain terms, thereby providing the Exchequer with the precise change of details they needed to transact this business without it being funnelled through the originalia roll. ²⁵ Finally, occasional fine roll entries not in the originalia roll highlight the more regular channels of consultation between the king and the Exchequer, such as that in April 1233 by which Henry ordered the barons to acquit Godfrey of Crowcombe of the custody of the manor of Woodstock, which he held by bail of the king from his sixteenth regnal year (1231–32), by the ancient farm, and to allow him the usual allowance granted to keepers of that manor, both of which the barons had established by an examination of the rolls of the Exchequer and had previously informed him about. ²⁶

Orders to royal officials with no immediate bearing on Exchequer business make up another category of entries not on the originalia roll. These tend to expand upon or restrict the duties of the official in pursuance of his office rather than involve business for which he would need to account. At the end of January 1227 Roger of Clifford, constable of St. Briavels, for instance, is commanded henceforth not to place his hand upon the wood of Penyard (Worcs.), or cause anything to be pulled down there, for the king has granted this wood to the abbot of Grace Dieu by a fine of 400 marks. ²⁷ Similarly, while the Exchequer was informed through the originalia roll of the fine of the abbot of Cockersand to have peace from the fortieth recently levied upon his moveable goods and those of his men, it did not necessarily need to know of the complementary orders to the assessors and collectors of the fortieth in Lancaster, Cumberland and Westmorland not to collect the sums due from the abbot and his men. ²⁸

The final category is rather more miscellaneous. Throughout the fine rolls there are many entries cancelled for a variety of reasons, none of which make their way onto the originalia, implying that they had been cancelled before the batch of entries in which they were contained was sent to the Exchequer. These can be as simple as the enrolment of an entry in a different form in another Chancery roll ²⁹ or the return of the writ with which the entry is concerned before it was executed. ³⁰ Sometimes the reason for omission is made clear in a marginal note, such as that attached to the fine of Acilia, widow of Richard of Week, to have custody of her late husband’s lands and heirs and to marry freely, stating that this fine should not be placed in the summons because the king had since ordered her to pay the money to the receiver of his brother, Richard, upon whom he had recently conferred the earldom of Cornwall. ³¹ Others, such as the handful of memoranda on the dorse of fine roll membranes, were probably entered some time after the extracts had been dispatched. On the dorse of a membrane containing entries from May–June 1233 is a statement that the bishop of Durham and the abbot of St. Mary’s, York, ‘offer the king 700 m.’ to disafforest all lands between the rivers Ouse and Derwent outside the king’s demesne wood of Langwith. ³² Perhaps the king declined this ‘offer’ or the bishop subsequently felt able to negotiate a more extensive agreement, for in July 1234 the same men made fine with the king by 800 marks for disafforesting all lands between Ouse and Derwent, providing that, in this, no prejudice was done to the liberties of the bishopric. ³³ Intriguingly, at the foot of this same dorse is a further memorandum detailing an offer by Richard and William de Gray to have an assize of mort d’ancestor before the itinerant justices under the name of a certain lady, which the king granted notwithstanding that the woman was a Norman. This is annotated that ‘it is not to be placed on the roll because no one has prosecuted the writ’. ³⁴ The ‘roll’ in question is surely the originalia, meaning this debt would not then be placed in the summons. Lastly, it is, of course, possible that some concessions of all kinds were prompted by fines to the king made cash down in his wardrobe or chamber, giving him a more personal and immediate stream of revenue. On the apparently rare occasions that these were noted in the fine roll a comment would be added stating that the fine in question should not be sent to the Exchequer and not thus placed on the originalia roll to be summoned. ³⁵

2.3. In the Roll/Summoned

Overall, then, the absence of distinct strands of information from the originalia rolls tell us that, in the main, the Chancery was selective in the information it sent to the Exchequer, usually only omitting entries which did not require further action or knowledge from the barons of the Exchequer. The earliest surviving originalia roll, that for 1195–96, contains only entries where individuals are said either to owe (‘debet’) or give (‘dat’) money to the king. It had essentially one basic function of informing the Exchequer from whom debts should be collected, and the amount. Take, for example, the gift of one mark of gold by Walter Durand for his relief of one carucate of land with appurtenances in Faukell’ in Westmorland. This is accompanied by an order to Hugh Bardolf to take security and is annotated ‘i[n] R[otulo], in the Roll’, indicating its enrolment on the corresponding pipe roll. ³⁶ At that stage there does not appear to have been any annotation regarding the summons. However, by 1232–33, the system of annotation concerning actions taken by the Exchequer clerks and the variety of material on the originalia had developed considerably. ³⁷ Out of 296 entries in the 1232–33 originalia roll 141 (48%) are annotated ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ and 87 (29%) ‘S’’. A total of 81 entries (27%) share both annotations. ³⁸ These are, as one might expect, overwhelmingly fine roll entries concerning promises of money to the king for favours of all types. It was, of course, crucial to the Exchequer to have full details of expected income for its accounting process and this remained the business for which the originalia roll would be most appropriate. As evidence of the transmission of information from the fine to the originalia to the pipe rolls, on the Norfolk and Suffolk account in the pipe roll for 1232–33 at least two fines are recorded as having been acquitted, while others note payments already made and sums still outstanding. ³⁹

It is clear, though, that far from all of the entries on the originalia roll simply detail, via a combination of these annotations, the amounts of money promised to the king and the terms at which they were to be paid. Indeed, 54 entries in 1232–33 are annotated ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ only, some 18% of the total and 38% of all ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ entries. Here, no fines are involved, and the point is generally that the sheriff or another royal official is required to answer for issues of some kind – rents due from the property during its custody in the king’s hand, for example, or chattels and corn received following the escheat of properties upon death or forfeiture – for which answer had to be made to the king. The ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ annotation is not linked with ‘S’’ here because it was not known at the time that the information was extracted from the originalia how much exactly those issues would be, so there could be no immediate summons, but note had to be made on the pipe roll in order for it to be included in the relevant sheriff’s account. An analysis of a couple of random pipe roll entries demonstrates the progress of information from Chancery to Exchequer. An entry dated to c. 23 August 1233, in which the sheriff of Warwickshire is ordered to take Richard Marshal’s manor of Long Compton into the king’s hand and keep his chattels safely until the king orders him otherwise, makes its way onto the originalia where it is annotated ‘i[n] R[otulo]’. ⁴⁰ This produces an entry in the pipe roll, under ‘Warwickshire’ for the following year of account (1233–34) where we find ‘idem vic’ […] de exitibus eiusdem manerii [of Long Compton] in eo inventis dum habuit custodiam sicut continetur in orig’ xvij°. ⁴¹ Likewise, entries dated c. 15 July 1233, in which the sheriffs of Hampshire and Surrey are commanded to sell wine in the castles respectively of Winchester and Guildford, correspond to entries in the pipe roll. ⁴² On the reverse side of this coin are commitments of lands or property to individuals and the concomitant royal orders for security to be taken and seisin to be made over to the recipients. The purpose of the enrolment on the originalia, and annotation with ‘i[n] R[otulo]’, in these cases could, firstly, be to inform the Exchequer of the identity of new custodians of lands formerly in the king’s hand for which farms or accounts for issues might be demanded, ⁴³ and, secondly, where royal demesne land is farmed out, to establish by inquisition how much the livestock and crops there were worth and with what crops, and how much, the lands were sown, so that the Exchequer would have full details thereof before account had to be made for them. ⁴⁴ So, while the Exchequer could not expect to receive details of income or matters of account when no seizures or inquiries had yet been made, it was, through entries on the originalia roll, kept up to date with the particular issues it should expect account to be made for when the sheriff came before the barons.

3. Other information of interest to the Exchequer

Conversely, it is not true to say simply that only entries on the fine roll that would result in entries on the pipe roll are included on the originalia roll. The originalia, it appears, were employed to transmit other information of value and interest to the Exchequer. It is noticeable, for example, that when orders similar in wording to those in 1232–33 were issued in 1226–27 for seizures of escheated land, few of these were entered on the originalia roll. Some do not involve receipt of corn or chattels, it is true, ⁴⁵ but others are almost identical in content to those in 1232–33, a discrepancy which is not easy to explain. ⁴⁶ It is possible, in these examples, that there was no immediate expectation that the sheriffs should account for the lands at the Exchequer, although, equally, Chancery practice may have varied. Nevertheless, up to a quarter of entries listed in either originalia roll are annotated neither ‘i[n] R[otulo]’ nor ‘S’’, many of which are equally difficult to interpret and perhaps amount to little more than keeping the Exchequer informed of recent decisions which might later impact on the accounting process. ⁴⁷ Most striking is the omission from the pipe roll of a great number of commands issued during the Marshal’s rebellion for sheriffs to seize rebels’ lands together with the corn growing in their estates and any sequestrated chattels. ⁴⁸ The harvest would be being gathered and the king, in accompanying commands for delivery of the captured corn to a royal castle, presumably intended to swell his own stocks and might have expected to make some profit from sales of excess corn, but, of course, these profits should have been accounted for. The crown certainly wished to establish the worth of any sequestrated chattels, sheriffs being told to value what they had seized perhaps in anticipation of their sale or delivery to heirs, successors or royal custodians who would thus pay a competent fine for possession. It is perhaps for this reason that they are mentioned on the originalia roll, as well as providing the Exchequer with information about exactly who had forfeited what and to whom what had been committed. Alternatively, there would have been an initial expectation of revenue which should have been accounted for, but these seizures were brief or ultimately not carried through. Other unannotated entries on the originalia rolls, however, such as the fine by Sampson of Canterbury and Benedict Crespin, which they had paid in cash, to attermine debts and the king’s order to the justices assigned to the custody of the Jews to cause this to be done and enrolled, highlight the continued importance and durability of the originalia rolls as working documents. ⁴⁹ It is to this that we finally turn.

4. The originalia as working documents

Written in the thick nib of the pipe roll beside the entry concerning the debts of Sampson and Benedict in the originalia roll of 1232–33 is the note ‘in Judaismo’, referring those searching the roll to the muniments of the Exchequer of the Jews to find further details of this fine. A miscellany of such marginal comments is littered throughout the originalia roll, though they do not appear in the fine roll, and provides prime evidence that the originalia were considered repositories of information in the Exchequer for processing its business; they were, in short, useful tools of reference over long periods. Despite their ephemeral origins when their role was principally to transfer information from the fine rolls to the summonses sent out by the Exchequer, and from there into the pipe and memoranda rolls as accounts were rendered and recorded, they survive because the Exchequer often needed the details of individual debts and/or sureties included on the rolls until every debt was paid off, which might take several generations, and thus the Exchequer retained the rolls for many years after their creation. ⁵⁰ So, far from remaining ephemera, the originalia became to some extent working documents.

This was apparently even true from their earliest days and encompassed additions and subtractions made by Exchequer clerks. In his introduction to the originalia roll for 1195–96 H.G. Richardson argues that fresh entries had been inserted at the Exchequer, such as the 500 m. fine made by Hubert Walter for the wardship and marriage of the heir of Simon of Odell. ⁵¹ Certainly, by the reign of Henry III information not in the fine roll makes its way onto the originalia roll. Perhaps the most obvious cases are the pardon of the tallage obligations of numerous urban communities in 1227 and a list of amercements from an assize held at King’s Lynn shortly after Easter 1233. ⁵² How these items made their way only onto the originalia roll is something of a mystery. The tallage list spans three membranes – the bottom half of the fifth membrane, a whole short membrane, and the very top of the following – and it is written in a hand different from that which drafts surrounding entries. Since material from the fine roll is written at the top of the fifth and on most of the third membranes, it is probable that it was entered in Chancery and the three membranes were delivered together into the Exchequer on the eve of St. Margaret the Virgin, 17 Henry III [19 July 1233], no corresponding record of the pardons having been required on the fine roll. ⁵³ However, the tallage list follows an entry in the middle of the fifth membrane of the originalia roll situated immediately prior to ‘Hinc mittendum est ad scaccarium’ on the fine roll, ⁵⁴ and it is a possibility, albeit remote, that the entry had been made in the Exchequer where the collection of tallage fell among its responsibilities, the clerks having space enough to insert the text on the membranes already sent to them.

With regard to the 1233 membrane of amercements, it is true that most eyre or assize estreats usually reached the Exchequer directly and did not find their way onto the originalia: on 25 September 1231, the fine rolls record an order to the sheriff of Yorkshire to deliver a roll of amercements taken before Stephen of Seagrave in his county into the Exchequer on the morrow of All Souls, perhaps with his account. ⁵⁵ But occasionally, if more frequently as Henry’s reign progressed, lists of amercements from assizes appear on the fine rolls. Perhaps, because the judicial commission came from the Chancery, certain justices thought it politic to return the estreats there, the fine rolls and originalia rolls being recognised as a conduit into the Exchequer record in any case. ⁵⁶ It could well be that the 1233 list of assize estreats also did not arrive in time to be sent with the latest extracts, and the membrane was sent intact to the Exchequer as if it were a membrane of an originalia roll. Certainly, the membrane is of notably different dimensions to the others in the 1232–33 originalia roll; it is about 10 cm narrower than the others and is the shortest of all in that roll. ⁵⁷ Intriguingly, too, it bears a different series of annotations which was common on such estreats. ⁵⁸ Beside the amercements of twelve of the sixteen individuals, all of which are for disseisin, is the note ‘t’, which stands for ‘totum’, or ‘[he has paid] all’. This actually meant that the sheriff had admitted receiving the due amercement after it had been summoned, and all so annotated would be charged to his account as a lump sum; in the corresponding pipe roll account for Norfolk the sheriff is noted as being quit of accounting for the whole amount for which all these individuals were amerced. ⁵⁹ Three of the four remaining entries are marked ‘i[n] R[otulo], d[ebet]’, signifying that these sums were still outstanding and search should be made for them in the pipe roll. The final individual, one Hubert de Burgh, formerly justiciar of England, is marked as answering ‘at the Exchequer’. This once more reinforces the point that not all income from promises made to the king can be found on the fine rolls.

There are also other annotations relating to the processing of debts and actions taken upon individual fines which are found only on the originalia rolls. The fine of Ralph fitz Nicholas for having a hide of land formerly of Roger of Hyde, one of the Marshal’s adherents, is marked ‘S’’ in the originalia but has been subsequently crossed through ‘because he did not have that for which he made fine’. ⁶⁰ This suggests, then, that once extracts had been sent from the Chancery, the Exchequer occasionally employed the originalia to record decisions or actions that would affect the forthcoming compilation of the pipe roll and the collection of revenues. These did not then filter back to the Chancery for cancellation in the fine roll which, by that time, had served its purpose. Another tantalising annotation is ‘fcm’’ – ‘factum’ – which is written beside thirty-one entries in the 1226–27 originalia roll. ⁶¹ Literally, of course, ‘factum’ means ‘done’, and it probably implies here that something necessary had been undertaken of which the Exchequer had direct knowledge. Often, such entries, none of which are marked with other notes in the originalia, involve mandates to sheriffs with some import to the Exchequer. Late in December 1226, the sheriff of Devon, for example, is ordered to permit the abbot of Dunkeswell to have peace from a demand for scutage, pending the abbot giving security at the Exchequer on the day the sheriff makes his account, and in the meantime the sheriff is to establish how much scutage is owed and to inform the king. ⁶² It is difficult to know what exactly had been ‘done’ here, whether it simply be the issue of the order, the abbot having appeared to give surety – the most likely solution – or the sheriff having carried out his instructions and returned his findings into the Exchequer, although presumably it must involve something of direct relevance to Exchequer business and the sheriff’s account. In the case of the (named) pledges of Matthew of Torrington, who promised to give the king surety for Matthew’s fine for relief, it seems much more likely to have been the taking of surety from pledges that is meant, probably for being present at the Exchequer, rather than the order to the sheriff to deliver their livestock, implying that ‘factum’ sometimes relates directly to action taken within the Exchequer. ⁶³ This does not always follow, however, because some of the entries ‘factum’ is next to have no obvious immediate relevance to the Exchequer. Following the forfeiture of Count Robert de Dreux in 1227, the king committed his lands to Ralph Hareng to keep during his pleasure and ordered various sheriffs to deliver the count’s lands in their bailiwick to Ralph, restoring any property they had seized during their period of custody. ⁶⁴ Interestingly, in this example, the annotation in the originalia roll beside these entries reads ‘Factum in Oxon’’ – ‘done in Oxfordshire’ – which might be taken to imply that the sheriff of Oxfordshire had executed this order and that the sheriffs of Sussex, Middlesex and Berkshire had not. However, while the Exchequer might need to be informed of the new keeper, hence the entries’ appearance on the originalia roll, it did not need necessarily to know about actions taken regarding seisin of the custody. The same would apparently also apply concerning the order to the sheriff of Essex to inquire what lands the king’s men of Havering held of the will and surrender of the king’s bailiffs and their predecessors and what without warrant, then to take any purprestures (encroachments upon the king’s rights) into the king’s hand and commit them to keepers. ⁶⁵ However, in this case, the entry is annotated ‘non adhuc factum’ – ‘still not done’. This must surely relate to the accompanying order to the sheriff to inquire what stock the men received in the manor, which presumably required an account from him.

How long after the initial order such an annotation might have been made or remain accurate is difficult to say. Nonetheless, it is perfectly clear that any debt due to the king could remain in force until it was paid or cleared, which may have taken several generations. Ultimately, as the originalia rolls demonstrate, unpaid debts had to be written off. Repeatedly throughout the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries the Exchequer, faced with mounting ‘dead’ debts which took up precious space on the pipe roll primarily preserved for the nova oblata, had attempted to restrict the number of unpaid debts which were recorded upon the main rolls for the audit of the king’s account. ⁶⁶ During the 1310s and, especially, the 1320s, though, as part of the attempt to increase vastly the disposable income available to Edward II partly by rationalising record keeping and revenue management under the then-Treasurer, Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter, the Exchequer systematically wrote off many old judicial amercements and fines which had not been paid for decades. ⁶⁷ On the dorse of the earliest membrane of the originalia roll for 1226–27 is written ‘Fines and other debts which were owed according to this roll were extracted in the seventeenth year of King E[dward], son of King E[dward], in September of the same year (1323)’. ⁶⁸ In practice, the seems to have meant that, following an exhaustive search of Exchequer documentation stretching back for at least a century under the supervision of William de Everdon, engrosser of the pipe roll, those debts which had not been cleared were copied from the pipe roll and entered in one of the new compendium rolls devised to record ancient debts. ⁶⁹ Presumably, debts of this nature had been identified in the pipe roll during the search and, once they had then been traced to the originalia, note was made there. From the 1226–27 roll, the uncleared debts included the half-mark gift by Hugh Peverel for a writ of pone, a one-mark proffer from the men of Carmarthen for a charter, and another one-mark proffer for a writ of attainder by Ralph son of Osmund, all of which were annotated ‘in R[otulo] compend’’. ⁷⁰ Not all ancient debts appear to have been written off in this way, however. In the same roll is a fine of 30 marks made by Adam son of Hervey so that he and his wife might have confirmation of their possession of the manor of Ormesby in Norfolk to him and his wife’s heirs. This entry is annotated ‘In Roll 16 of King E[dward], son of King E[dward] [1322–23] in Norfolk’, indicating perhaps that the couple’s heirs were still to be held liable in the pipe roll for payment over 100 years from the date of the promise. ⁷¹ Such retention and rationalisation of debts had, of course, long been a secondary function of the originalia rolls, and that debts could still be levied a century after their enrolment in Chancery is testament to the relative strength and durability of record keeping in Chancery and Exchequer.