Exchequer of Receipt: Original Receipts

E 402

c1150-1820

This series contains original receipts in the form of wooden tallies and parchment tellers' bills.

Tallies were notched wooden sticks, split in half, and indicating receipt of a sum in the Exchequer of Receipt as recorded by the writer of the tallies. The Exchequer of Receipt kept one half as a record of payment, and the accounting officer kept the other half until acquitted of his debt each year on the enrolment of his accounts. This procedure was in place from the mid-twelfth century, and the use of tallies seems to have preceded the existence of the Exchequer itself. There are some tallies relating to the medieval Jewish community.

Tellers' bills, a later development of the tally procedure, were narrow strips of parchment comprising an instruction from the writer of the tallies to the tellers of the department to create a tally containing the details on the bill. This procedure had begun by the reign of Edward II (1307-27). All the information on the bills and tallies, relating to the person paying in money, the amount, the date and the reason for the payment, were later recorded on the receipt rolls and books.

Some tallies relating to Cumberland are in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Some tallies relating to Southampton are in Southampton University Library. A collection of Lincolnshire tallies dating from 1553-1671 are held by the Lincolnshire Archives (HILL 23). Other tallies may be found in: C 47 SC 6

Public Record(s)

English

347 boxes, bundles and volumes

Topics

Religions

Debt

Surviving wooden tallies, whose use as an accounting document had survived until 1826, were ordered for destruction in 1834 and the subsequent fire destroyed the Palace of Westminster. Those involved in the fire were recent tallies, and it is likely that earlier tallies were being systematically disposed of long before 1834. The tallies in this series, therefore, have survived by accident and were found in the Chapel of the Pyx at Westminster in 1908. Some tellers' bills derive from the collections of Sir Thomas Phillipps, baronet, presented to the PRO in 1960. Strays from this collection were offered for sale in 1938 and recovered by the PRO.