ABSTRACT

In considering the composition of the board of officials which was entrusted with the audit of the accounts of money paid in at the Treasury, we must not be tempted into supposing that the organization of administrative departments had far advanced at the time when the Exchequer was established. The king had his Court and his Council, but the persons who composed them were very nearly the same. He had his Chapel, the chaplains of which formed the writing staff of the chancellor; but it would be rash to speak of the Chancery as already existing as a department of administration, still more of judicature. He had his Chamber, which in course of time became the Wardrobe; and above all he had his Treasury: but the steps by which the Chamber, as a more personal depository, was differentiated from the Treasury are obscure.