Catalogue description Records of the Pipe Office

From a date certainly well before the earliest surviving exemplar from 1130, and possibly very early in that century, virtually until the abolition of the Pipe Office in 1833, the 'great roll of the pipe' (rotulus magnus pipe or 'Pipe roll') was the central record of the whole process of Exchequer audit. At the Exchequer sessions the audit of the sheriffs' accounts, and those of some other accountants, was orally conducted at the Exchequer board, taking written evidences as required. The sheriff presented his account for the county, and against these revenues the sheriff could set allowances for expenditures incurred. When any given item was passed, or action upon it was agreed, it was engrossed or enrolled by the Treasurer's clerk, and another copy made by the Chancellor's scribe.

The Treasurer's clerk became important in the Exchequer, and the work became increasingly laborious, not only in the quantity of enrolment required but in the time required to sift the mass of financial information. The Treasurer's clerk, to whom the extra work (and additional clerical staff) was assigned, was described in the ordinances as the 'ingrosser' of the Exchequer, but the post came to be known as the Clerk of the Pipe, and the Pipe Office was recognised by that name until its abolition in 1833 under the Fines Act 1833 c99.

A reformed system survived, in its broad structure, as long as the Exchequer existed as a financial institution, but the cumbersome procedure was not equal to all aspects of government business. Just as some financial institutions were created which bypassed the Exchequer's control completely, so accounting systems were developed which, even within the general ambit of the Exchequer's jurisdiction, bypassed the most complex of the audit procedures. From late in the reign of Henry VI onwards, it became acceptable to 'declare' accounts orally before the Treasurer, or before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and two other appropriate officers, and this procedure came to be used by many accountants as a more expeditious means of transacting business; from 1640 onwards it came to be the means of submitting accounts of direct taxation.

The procedures became more formal and complex as the declared accounts became more popular, and in 1560, with the appointment of two 'auditors of the prests', an elaborate process of audit was established which was continued until 1833. Two copies of each account - one paper, one parchment - were prepared in the Audit Office, and sent to the Treasury to be declared.

In addition to duties associated directly with the enrolments of accounts, the Clerk of the Pipe inherited some of the responsibilities for the financial administration of Crown lands which, under Henry VIII, had been executed by the Court of General Surveyors and the Courts of Augmentations. The granting of leases came to be a matter for the Treasurer, advised by a Surveyor General of Crown Lands and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but the business aspects - the drafting, circulation, and enrolment of the leases - fell to the Clerk of the Pipe until the procedures were transferred to the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land revenues in 1821.

A number of additional clerks were effectively, if not always formally, members of the Pipe Office staff:

The Comptroller of the Pipe was closely associated with the Clerk of the Pipe. In the twelfth century this officer was the scribe to the Chancellor, responsible primarily for attending the sessions of the Exchequer and there making an exact copy of the Pipe roll, for the Chancellor's use. From this roll the Comptroller prepared and issued the 'summons of the pipe' in respect of debts already in the Pipe roll. The duplication of enrolment was never wholly exact, but the system persisted throughout the currency of the Pipe roll process of record.

The Foreign Apposer examined the Sheriff at audit to establish what of his 'foreign' or extraordinary revenue had not been collected, and recorded the answers for further process.

The Clerk of the Nichils recorded, and initiated action upon, cases in which the Foreign Apposer established that nothing had been collected.