ABSTRACT
In the two earliest examples that have been found of the use of the word Exchequer its barons appear as officers of the law. In one they are to constrain a sheriff to make a payment out of his farm: 1 in the other the bishop of London is commanded to do full right to the abbot of Westminster as touching the men who broke into a church of his by arms at night; otherwise the barons of the Exchequer should cause it to be done that the king might hear no complaint of it for default of right. 2 One might infer from these instances that there existed a Court of Exchequer which had cognizance both of civil and criminal pleas. But this inference would be premature: there is no mention yet of a Court. As soon as the Court is named, it is ‘the king’s Court at the Exchequer’, just as a few years before the Exchequer was established a suit was heard ‘in the king’s Court in the Treasury’. 3 The pleas which were held first in the Treasury and then at the Exchequer were alike held in the king’s Court. What is the meaning of the combination, ‘in the king’s Court at the Exchequer’ ?
