But the latter part of the entry (which is duly quoted by Eyton[169]) is also of much importance. For in Mr. Hall’s work, under 1187, we only read, ‘Treasure conveyed abroad from Winchester.’[170]
It is an essential part of Mr. Hall’s theory, which makes the “Westminster Treasury ... the principal Treasury of the kingdom,”[171] that the Winchester Treasury was merely “an emporium in connection with the transport of bullion (and especially of the regalia and plate), as well as other supplies, viâ Southampton, or other seaports, to the Continent.”[172] But the above passage shows us, on the contrary, treasure sent thence to Salisbury, Oxford, and Guildford. It is manifest that treasure, despatched from Westminster to Oxford or Guildford would not be sent viâ Winchester. From this it follows that Winchester was still a central Treasury, and not a mere ‘emporium’ en route to the south. It is certain that under Henry I., some sixty years before, the session at Westminster of the Barons of the Exchequer did not, as Stapleton observed, affect the position of the national Treasury at Winchester. It is, then, equally certain that the money received at that session must have been duly transmitted to the Winchester Treasury. For that was where the treasure (in coined money) was kept when Stephen succeeded at the close of 1135.
The whole difficulty has arisen from Mr. Hall’s inability to distinguish between the ‘Receipt’ at Westminster, where the money was paid in, and the national Treasury at Winchester in which it was permanently stored. This is, roughly speaking, like confusing a man’s investments with his balance at his bankers. The steadily growing importance of Westminster and the concurrent decadence of Winchester led, of course, eventually, to the shifting of the central Treasury, but at the time of the ‘Dialogus,’ in the days of Henry II., it is clear that the Exchequer was not looked on as the seat of a permanent Treasury. For the storage of treasure is always implied by the payment for the light of the night watchman; and as to the watchman and his light, the evidence of the ‘Dialogue’ is clear:
Vigilis officium idem est ibi quod alibi; diligentissima scilicet de nocte custodia, thesauri principaliter, et omnium eorum quæ in domo thesauri reponuntur.... Sunt et hiis liberationes constitutæ dum scaccarium est, hoc est a die qua convocantur usque ad diem qua generalis secessio.... Vigil unum denarium. Ad lumen cujusque noctis circa thesaurum, obolum (i. 3).
There is absolutely no escaping from these words: a watchman is only provided for the treasure “while the Exchequer is in session”; its treasury is temporary, not permanent. The whole passage, as it seems to me, is absolutely destructive of Mr. Hall’s hypothesis of “the existence of a permanent financial staff under the Treasurer and chamberlains of the Exchequer at Westminster.”[173]
The change from the “Treasury” to the “Exchequer” was, I hold, a gradual process. Careful study of the annual revenues bestowed by our sovereigns on the foreign houses of Tiron, Fontevrault, and Cluny[174] proves clearly how insensibly the “Treasury at Winchester” was superseded by the “Exchequer at London” as the place of payment. This is especially the case with Tiron, where Henry I.’s original grant, made about the middle of his reign, provides for payment “de thesauro meo, in festo Sancti Michaelis, Wintonie.”[175] Under Richard I. this becomes payable “at Michaelmas from his exchequer at London.”[176] Documents between the two show us intermediate stages.
Precisely the same gradual process is seen in the parallel development of the chamberlainship of the “Exchequer” from that of the “Treasury.” Just as Henry II., shortly before his accession, confirmed the grant to Tiron as “de thesauro Wintonie,”[177] so he restored to William Mauduit, at about the same time, “camerariam meam thesauri,” which office was held by his descendants as a chamberlainship of the Exchequer.
The ‘Dialogus’ shows us the Treasurer and the two chamberlains of the Exchequer as the three inseparable Treasury officers. Domesday connects the first with Winchester by showing us Henry “thesaurarius” as a tenant-in-chief in Hampshire. I propose to show that it also connects one of the chamberlains with that county. In that same invaluable but unprinted charter of which I have spoken above, which was granted at Leicester (1153) to William Mauduit, Duke Henry says:
Insuper etiam reddidi eidem camerariam meam thesauri cum liberatione[178] et cum omnibus pertinentibus, castellum scilicet de Porcestra ut supradiximus, et omnes terras ad predictum camerariam et ad predictum castellum pertinentes, sive sint in Anglia sive Normannia, sicut pater suus illam camerariam cum pertinentibus melius habuit et sicut Robertus Maledoctus frater suus eam habebat die quo vivus fuit et mortuus.
This carries back the ‘cameraria thesauri’ (‘illam camerariam’) to the Domesday tenant, whose son Robert occurs in the earlier Winchester Survey, and, though dead in 1130, is mentioned on the Roll of that year (p. 37), in connection with the Treasury in Normandy.