The English Exechequer

How and how well did the English Exchequer function in the twelfth century? The English exchequer was the central board responsible for all in comings and out goings into the royal treasury. It arrived with the Normans and was the first system of centralized revenue extraction to appear that although crude was a direct predecessor to the modern one. The information on how the Exchequer functioned as a method of institutionalised revenue extraction is from …

…the chief justiciar and ultimately the King. The Exchequer functioned as a bureaucratic organization with records being written and taxes collected in an organised, literate way and was not only a sign of the development of a feudal system in England but as a precursor to the modern state. References Clanchy M. T, From Memory to Written Record, 2nd ed. Cambridge 1989 Richard son of Nigel, The Course of the Exchequer, trans. C. Johnson, London 1950. --------------------------------------------------------------