We may now return to the reckonings in use at the early Exchequer.
It may fairly be said that in 1130 the normal method of accounting for the ferm was the payment by the sheriff of silver “ad pensum,” the allowance to him of his outgoings “numero,” and the reckoning of the balance in “blanch” money. The counties of which the sheriffs paid in their silver “ad pensum” were Notts and Derby, Hampshire, Surrey with Cambridgeshire and Hunts, Essex and Herts, Gloucestershire, Northants and Leicestershire, Norfolk and Suffolk, Warwick, Lincolnshire, Berks and Devon, seventeen in all. Dorset and Wilts, Kent, and Bucks and Beds, that is five counties, had their silver paid partly “ad pensum” and partly “numero.” Northumberland, Carlisle, and Sussex, were accounted for “numero,” in accordance with the ‘Dialogus.’[195] For Yorkshire the silver was paid in “numero,” but the balance accounted for “blanch”; Cornwall seems to be accounted for “numero.” London and Staffordshire alone have sheriffs who pay in their silver “blanch.”
In this labyrinth of account one point at least is clear. The outgoings credited to the sheriff “numero” were “blanched,” exactly as described in the ‘Dialogus,’ by a uniform deduction of a shilling in the pound.[196] This is proved by the account for the outstanding ferm of Berkshire, rendered by Anselm vicomte of Rouen.[197] He has to account for £522 18s. “blanch.” For this he pays in £251 6s. 8d. “blanch,” claims £63 4s. 5d. “numero” for money disbursed by the king’s writ, and is left owing £211 10s. “blanch.” Now, if we deduct a shilling in the pound from £63 4s. 5d., we obtain £60 1s. 2½d. “blanch.” Adding up the three “blanch” amounts, we have £522 17s. 10½d., which is within a penny halfpenny of the sum he has to account for.
We may further say that this Pipe Roll reveals a tendency to reduce all the ferms to a “blanch” denomination; that is to say that the balance left outstanding is normally given in “blanch” money, and accounted for accordingly in a subsequent year. Moreover, when it is so accounted for, the sheriff pays in his money, not “ad pensum” but “blanch.” Examples of this are found in the cases of Wilts and Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey with Cambridge and Hunts, Essex and Herts, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire and Northants, etc. It seems to be only when a sheriff is rendering his account “de Nova Firma” that he pays in money “ad pensum.” The provoking practice of not recording the amount of the ferm to be accounted for makes it impossible to check these different methods of reckoning. In the case, however, of Bosham, we have the “veredictum” in the ‘Testa’ that its annual ferm was “xlii libras arsas et ponderatas”; and though this of itself might be slight evidence,[198] it is in harmony with the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. Now in that of 1130 the ferm is thus accounted for:
| £ | s. | d. | |
| 27 | 3 | 8 | ‘ad pensum.’ |
| 0 | 5 | 0 | ‘numero.’ |
| 0 | 8 | 0 | ‘ad pensum.’ |
| 16 | 0 | 10 | ‘blanch.’ |
This is equivalent to £16 5s. 7d. ‘blanch’ plus £27 11s. 8d. ‘ad pensum.’ If then the total ferm was £42 ‘blanch,’ we have an excess of £1 17s. 3d. ‘ad pensum.’ If this calculation is to be depended on, it would give us a deduction of about sixteenpence in the pound from the weighed money when subjected to assay.
In 1157, the ferm was accounted for as follows:
£31 13s. 8d. “blanch,” paid in by sheriff.
13s. 4d. “numero,” already to his credit.