A point of great importance awaits us in the reference which, in this charter, is made to the Exchequer. I expressed a doubt, when dealing with the first charter of the Empress,[486] as to the supposed total extinction of the working of the Exchequer under Stephen. The author of the _Dialogus_, though anxious to emphasize its re-establishment under Henry II., goes no further than to speak of its system being "_pene_ prorsus abolitam" in the terrible time of the Anarchy (I. viii.). Now here, in 1141, at the very height, one might say, of the Anarchy, we not only find the Exchequer spoken of as in full existence, but, which is most important to observe, we have the precise Exchequer _formulæ_ which we find under Henry II. The "Terræ datæ," or alienated Crown demesnes, are represented here by the "dominia que de predictis comitatibus data sunt," and the provision that they should be subtracted from the fixed ferm ("a firma subtrahantur") is a formula found in use subsequently, as is, even more, the phrase "ad scaccarium computabuntur."[487] The next clause deals with castles, that great feature of the time. Here again the accepted view as to Stephen's laxity on the subject is greatly modified by this evidence that even Geoffrey de Mandeville, great as was his power, deemed it needful to secure the royal permission before erecting a castle, and that this permission was limited to a single fortress.[488] In the next clause we return to the system of counter-bids. As the king had trebled the grants of Crown demesne made to Geoffrey by the Empress, and trebled also the counties which had been placed in his charge by her, so now he trebled the number of enfeoffed knights ("milites feudatos"). The Empress had granted twenty; Stephen grants sixty. Of these sixty, ten were to be held of Geoffrey by his son Ernulf. Here, as before,[489] the question arises: what was the nature of the benefits thus conferred on the grantee? They were, I think, of two kinds. In the first place, Geoffrey became entitled to what may be termed the feudal profits, such as reliefs, accruing from these sixty fees. In the second, he secured sixty knights to serve beneath his banner in war. This, in a normal state of affairs, would have been of no consequence, as he would only have led them to serve the Crown. But in the then abnormal condition of affairs, and utter weakness of the crown, such a grant would be equivalent to strengthening _pro tanto_ the power of the earl as arbiter between the two rivals for the throne. Independently, however, of its bearing at the time, this grant has a special interest, as placing at our disposal a list of sixty knights' fees, a quarter of a century older than the "cartæ" of the _Liber Niger_.[490] At the close of all these specified grants comes a general confirmation of the lost charter of the Queen ("Carta Regine").