ABSTRACT
The person who rendered his account at the Exchequer I call for convenience the sheriff, because his account comprises by far the greater part of what is entered on the great roll of the year known as the pipe roll. But the sheriffs were not the only accountants, to use the technical expression, at the Exchequer. Besides them there were the stewards and bailiffs of honours, the bailiffs and reeves of towns. There were guardians (custodes) of the temporalities of vacant bishoprics and abbacies, and there were guardians of escheated baronies and other fiefs. Guilds of craftsmen too paid their yearly licence duty. Hence bishop Richard is careful to specify ‘the sheriff or guardian or whatever person sits at the account’. 1 It may however be presumed, even when it is not stated, that the sheriff acted on behalf of most of the smaller people from whom an account was due.
