Dialogus de Scaccario

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Dialogus de Scaccario. The Dialogue of the Exchequer is the earliest administrative handbook in English history and a prime source for historians of royal finance. Written in the 1170s it gives an account of Exchequer practice in the form of a dialogue between pupil and master. Its main concern is with the procedures followed when sheriffs brought their accounts to be audited at the Court of the Upper Exchequer. Its author, Richard FitzNigel (c.1130–98), was, like his father Nigel, bishop of Ely, a long-serving treasurer of the Exchequer, rewarded in 1189 by being made bishop of London.

John Gillingham

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