Exchequer

In the civil service of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Exchequer, or just the Exchequer, is the accounting process of central government and the government's current account i.e. money held from taxation and other government revenues in the Consolidated Fund. It can be found used in various financial documents including the latest departmental and agency annual accounts. It was the name of a British government department originating in the Anglo-Saxon period of England and responsible for the collection and the management of taxes and revenues; of making payments on behalf of the sovereign and auditing official accounts. It also developed a judicial role along with its accountancy responsibilities and tried legal cases relating to revenue. Similar offices were later created in Scotland around 1200 and in Ireland in 1210. The Exchequer was named after a table used to perform calculations for taxes and goods in the medieval period. According to the Dialogue concerning the Exchequer, an early medieval work describing the practice of the Exchequer, the table was large, 10 feet by 5 feet with a raised edge or 'lip' on all sides of about the height of four fingers to ensure that nothing fell off it, upon which counters were placed representing various values. The name Exchequer referred to the resemblance of the table to a chess board (French: échiquier) as it was covered by a black cloth bearing green stripes of about the breadth of a human hand, in a chequer-pattern. The spaces represented pounds, shillings and pence. The term 'Exchequer' then came to refer to the twice yearly meetings held at Easter and Michaelmas, at which government financial business was transacted and an audit held of sheriffs' returns. According to the Dialogue concerning the Exchequer, in the late twelfth century there were competing views as to the origins of the English Exchequer, with some arguing that it was an Anglo-Saxon institution and other that it post-dated the Norman conquest, but none arguing that it originated in Normandy. By the time of the Dialogue, however, there was an exchequer in Normandy. It is unknown exactly when the Exchequer was established, however it is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is recorded that £132,000 left the Exchequer between the years 991–1012 as payment to the Scandinavian attackers. It survived the Norman conquest of England as William the Conqueror consolidated control of his new Kingdom.:149 The earliest surviving record of the Exchequer is from 1130, in the reign of King Henry I, in the first surviving Pipe Roll for that year, which also shows continuity from previous years.:p.159 Pipe Rolls form a mostly continuous record of royal revenues and taxation; however, not all revenue went into the Exchequer, and some taxes and levies were never recorded in the Pipe Rolls.:p.219