Pipe Rolls - Composition

Composition

The Pipe rolls are named after the "pipe" shape formed by the rolled up parchments on which the records were originally written. There is no evidence to support the theory that they were named pipes for the fact that they "piped" the money into the Treasury, nor for the claim that they got their name from resembling a wine cask, or pipe of wine. They were occasionally referred to as the roll of the treasury, or the great roll of accounts, and the great roll of the pipe.

The Pipe rolls are the records of the audits of the sheriffs' accounts, usually conducted at Michaelmas by the Exchequer, or English treasury. Until the chancery records began in the reign of King John of England, they were the only continuous set of records kept by the English government. They are not a complete record of government and royal finances, however, as they do not record all sources of income, only the accounts of the sheriffs and a few other sources of income. Some of the payments that did not regularly fall under the Exchequer were occasionally recorded in a Pipe roll. Neither do the Pipe rolls record all payments made by the exchequer. They were not created as a budget, nor were they strictly speaking records of receipts, but rather they are records of the audit of the accounts rendered. Although the rolls use an accounting system, it is not one that would be familiar to modern accountants; for instance until the end of the 12th century, no record was made of the total amount taken in by the sheriff of each shire. In their early form, they record all debts owed to the Crown, whether from feudal dues or from other sources. Because many debts to the king were allowed to be paid off in installments, it is necessary to search more than one set of rolls for a complete history of a debt. If a debt was not paid off completely in one year, the remainder of the amount owed was transferred to the next year. They did not record the full amount of debts incurred in previous years, only what was paid that year and what was still owed. Besides the sheriffs, others who submitted accounts for the audit included some bailiffs of various honours, town officials, and the custodians of ecclesiastical and feudal estates.

The earliest surviving Pipe roll, already in a mature form, dates from 1129-30, and the continuous series begins in 1155–56, and continued for almost seven hundred years.

Combined with the Domesday Survey, the Pipe rolls contributed to the centralization of financial records by the Norman kings (reigned 1066–1154) of England that was ahead of contemporary Western European monarchies; the French, for instance, did not have an equivalent system of accounting until the 1190s. The exact form of the records, kept in a roll instead of a book, was also unique to England, although why England kept some of its administrative records in this form is unclear. A set of Norman rolls, drafted differently, are extant in a few years for the reigns of Kings Henry II (reigned 1154–1189) and Richard I (reigned 1189–1199), who also ruled the Duchy of Normandy in France. It is believed that the Norman rolls were started about the same time as the English, but due to lack of survival of the earlier Norman rolls, it is unclear exactly when they did start. An Irish Exchequer produced Irish Pipe rolls, and much like the English Pipe rolls, the earliest surviving Irish Pipe roll, that of 1212, does not appear to be the first produced.

The Dialogus de Scaccario or Dialogue concerning the Exchequer, written in about 1178, details the workings of the Exchequer and gives an early account of how the Pipe rolls were created. The Dialogue was written by Richard FitzNeal, the son of Nigel of Ely, who was Treasurer for both Henry I and Henry II of England. According to the Dialogue, the Pipe rolls were the responsibility of the clerk of the Treasurer, who was called the clerk of the pipe and later the clerk of the pells. FitzNeal wrote his work to explain the inner workings of the Exchequer, and in it he lists a number of different types of rolls used by the Treasury. He also describes the creation of the Pipe rolls and how they are used. The Dialogue also states that the Pipe rolls, along with Domesday Book and other records, were kept in the treasury, because they were required for daily use by the Exchequer clerks.

The main source of income recorded on the Pipe rolls was the county farm, or income derived from lands held by the king. Occasional sources of revenue, such as from vacant bishoprics or abbeys or other sources, were also recorded. The payments were made both in coin, or in objects, such as spurs, lands, spices, or livestock. The only surviving roll from Henry I's reign also records payments of geld, a form of land tax dating from Anglo-Saxon times, although after 1161 the Pipe rolls no longer record any payments of geld. By 1166, the fines and other monetary income of the Assizes, or royal courts, began to be recorded in the Pipe rolls. Scutage payments, made by knights in lieu of military service, were also recorded in the Pipe rolls from the reign of Henry II on.

Although they recorded all income that came through the Exchequer, not all sources of income went through that office, so the Pipe rolls are not a complete record of royal income. They did include both regular income from the royal lands and judicial profits, as well as more occasional income derived from feudal levies, wardships, and ecclesiastical vacancies. Another source of income recorded in the rolls was from feudal reliefs, the payment made by an heir when inheriting an estate. A major source of income in the roll of 1130 is from the forests, under the Forest Law, which was the royal law covering the restrictions imposed on non-royals hunting in areas of the country declared royal forest. However, royal income from taxation that was not annually assessed was not usually recorded in the Pipe rolls, nor were his receipts from lands outside England. Some payments went directly to the king's household, and because they did not pass through the Exchequer, they were not recorded in the Pipe rolls.

Expenditures were also subject to documentation in the Pipe rolls. Among the recorded expenditures are payments for carts and cart horses, wages for royal servants, payments for improvements to royal manors and houses, royal gifts to persons, hunting expenses, payments to acquire a governmental office, payments to mercenaries, and the costs of bags and casks to transport silver pennies about the kingdom.

Information about other subjects besides revenues also is contained in the rolls, including the movement of prisoners, which helps to identify which medieval castles were used as prisons. The Pipe rolls also allow the identification of the custodians of royal lands and castles. The clerks writing the rolls also used them as places to deride officials of the government, such as William Longchamp, who was the object of derision in the 1194 Pipe roll.

Certain areas did not report their income to the Exchequer, so they do not usually appear in the Pipe rolls, unless the lands were in the king's custody through a vacancy. These included the palatinates of Durham and Chester. The county of Cornwall also did not usually appear in the Pipe rolls, but it was not a palatinate. Another problem with using the Pipe rolls for historical study is the fact that the chronological limits for the financial year varied from roll to roll. In theory, they only recorded revenues from the previous Easter to Michaelmas of that financial year. However, the Pipe rolls often record payments made past Michaelmas, often up until the date the roll was actually compiled. Also, a few debts were not audited annually, but would instead have a number of consecutive years be investigated in one sitting and thus several years of payments would be recorded in one Pipe roll.