4 - FINANCE

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Henry I was an extremely wealthy king, leaving at his death large stores of treasure at Falaise in Normandy and at Winchester in England. His drive for wealth is to be explained in part through avarice, but also through the exigencies of war and diplomacy. He had the resources of England and, after 1106, of Normandy on which to call; both were wealthy countries in the twelfth century. Comparatively little is known about ducal finance until the end of the twelfth century, whereas for England there is the series of pipe rolls, virtually continuous from 1155 and with a precious solitary survival from Henry I's reign for the exchequer year from Michaelmas 1129 to Michaelmas 1130. Pipe rolls record the accounts presented at the exchequer by sheriffs and other financial officials. They are not truly comprehensive records of royal finance, in that some revenue could have bypassed the process of audit altogether; pipe rolls have nothing to say about revenue from Normandy; nor do they say anything about any borrowing the king may have done. We do not know if Henry raised loans and from whom. Nevertheless it is possible to discover from the 1130 roll a great deal about royal finance in and around 1130, and, although less is known about the rest of the regin, there is sufficient to allow the pipe roll to be set in a longer perspective.