Excerpt from The Red Book of the Exchequer, Vol. 3 Establishment, which had endured for nearly seven centuries, shorn of the excrescences with which it had been encumbered during the Stuart period. Whether this Establishment is as old as the Conquest itself, or whether it took its sh ape in even earlier times, is a question which can scarcely be decided, for want of sufficient evidence. Considerable light is, however, thrown on the subject by the Constitution of the King's House preserved in the earlier portion of the Red Book. This remarkable document is also entered in the small Black Book of the same Court. There is no mention of the date of its composition in either ms., and it has been commonly assigned to the time of Henry II., although it is actually dated in the reign of Henry I. By the scribe who copied it into the Red Book of the Exchequer.1 Mr. Stapleton, however, clearly proved long since that this Establishment refers to the reign of Henry I., and he also attempted to prove that it applies exclusively to the Ducal household of N or mandy.2 This view of the matter has never yet been challenged, but the great importance of its bearing on the doubtful origin of certain fiscal and judicial institu tions has perhaps scarcely been sufficiently realised. This recorded existence of a Roman Establishment bearing unmistakable traces of a considerable antiquity at this early date, would almost seem to justify the derivation of the English Curia and Exchequer from a foreign source, according to the positive statement of the author of the Dialogue. Strange to say, this important evidence has been actually used in support of the oppo site theory of a native origin of the above institutions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.