Catalogue description COUNCIL: WAGES AND DIET.

Wages

The payment of wages to councillors was determined by parliament, by the council in parliament, or by the council itself. The arrangements varied over time. The level of remuneration was in general determined by rank and, throughout the period, was often made in the form of an annuity granted under letters patent rather than at a set rate for each day of attendance at the council board; in other instances, both were held concurrently. The more comprehensive record of actual payments to councillors is provided by the Issue Rolls of the Exchequer of Receipt, as well as the surviving records of the council itself. The particulars of account, where they survive, and some of the accounts also, indicate the actual days, or the number of days, of attendance of the individual councillor submitting the account. Documents described only as accounts, that is, the audited account which would be enrolled on the pipe rolls (E 372) until the end, of the reign of Edward III, and on the rolls of foreign accounts (E 364) thereafter, and for which the particulars provided warranty and detail, vary in both detail and function. Documents of the fourteenth century described as accounts appear to be drafts, with or without indications of audit, of the enrolled accounts; those of the fifteenth century are the fair copy audited accounts, with marks of filing and a record of enrolment. The particulars, certainly, and probably the accounts also, are records of the King's Remembrancer.

Under the arrangements made in 1424 councillors were to receive a set amount, depending on rank, but were then to forfeit pro rata for each day that they failed to attend. In consequence, in several instances the Exchequer was ordered to accept the statements of the councillors themselves when rendering their accounts: some such statements are preserved in the present series. That the render of a formal account was the exception rather than the rule is confirmed by the small number of enrolled accounts (in E 372 and (E 364); and several of those accounts made under Henry VI seems to have been the direct result of a penal Exchequer process which treated the payments as if they were prests on which account was to be rendered. By the later fifteenth century payment of wages seems to have become uncommon, although a few councillors without major office might receive an annuity or other special grant in reward for their services. Payment to the chancellor for his attendance in Star Chamber continued to be recorded in the accounts of the Hanaper and their related subsidiary documents (E 101).

Diet

The accounts for formal repasts of the council are itemised accounts of food and drink and miscellaneous and related expenses, including carriage of wine and victuals, and wages of a cook. The customary meeting place of the king's council was Star Chamber, situated adjacent to the Receipt of the Exchequer within the palace of Westminster. Provision for the formal breakfast of the council and for incidental expenses was the responsibility of its steward. In the sixteenth century this office appears to have been held by one of the ushers of the Exchequer: and accounts for breakfasts Henry VIII-Charles I thus survive among the records of the Receipt of the Exchequer, with strays in the so-called State Papers of Henry VII. In the reign of Henry VIII the judicial court of Star Chamber separated out from the undivided king's council of the middle ages, and the accounts for diet become those for Star Chamber dinners.

The Court of Star Chamber was abolished in 1641 by the Long Parliament, and the accounts for formal dinners (in E 407) therefore end in the reign of Charles I. The accounts provide evidence for days of meeting, and some indication of conciliar membership, either in their headings or in the form of signatures authenticating the accounts, but do not give the presence. All the accounts are records of either the council itself or of the Exchequer of Receipt, and are thus misplaced among the records of the King's Remembrancer's Office.