This is equivalent to £16 5_s._ 7_d._ ‘blanch’ plus £27 11_s._ 8_d._ ‘ad pensum.’ If then the total ferm was £42 ‘blanch,’ we have an excess of £1 17_s._ 3_d._ ‘ad pensum.’ If this calculation is to be depended on, it would give us a deduction of about sixteenpence in the pound from the weighed money when subjected to assay. In 1157, the ferm was accounted for as follows: £31 13_s._ 8_d._ “blanch,” paid in by sheriff. 13_s._ 4_d._ “numero,” already to his credit. £12 7_s._ 4_d._ “numero,” paid out. Deducting, as before, a shilling in the pound from the sums reckoned “numero,” we find them amount to £12 7_s._ 8_d._ “blanch.” Adding this amount to the £31 13_s._ 8_d._ “blanch,” we have £44 1_s._ 4_d._ to the accountant’s credit. But the ferm was only £42 “blanch.” He had, therefore, a “superplus” of £2 1_s._ 4_d._ “blanch,” and that is precisely what the roll records that he had. We may then, from this comparison, conclude positively that the money paid in “ad pensum” was liable to a further deduction when the assay made it “blanch.” The case of Bosham certainly suggests that in the time of Henry I. the ferm on the “Rotulus exactorius” might be reckoned in ‘blanch’ money, even where the accountant paid in his cash by weight. But what is obscure is why the cash so paid should be merely entered ‘ad pensum,’ instead of its assayed value being recorded as under Henry II. For this value must have been ascertained in order to balance the account. It is noteworthy that, although the ‘Dialogus’ speaks of payment “ad scalam,” as entered on the rolls of Henry I., the phrase is not found on the roll of 1130. In the case of Exeter, as we have seen, the £25 “ad scalam” were entered on the roll as £25 12_s._ 6_d._ “numero.” Broadly speaking, the impression created by the Roll of 1130 is that the administration was endeavouring to systematize the ‘ferm’ payments, which, we may gather from the evidence of Domesday, had been almost chaotic in diversity. From the earliest rolls of Henry II. we find a uniform “blanch” system (with the trifling exceptions the ‘Dialogus’ mentions), which testifies probably to further reforms between 1130 and 1139 (when bishop Roger fell). There remained, however, the sad confusion caused by the several meanings of “blanch”; the true assay involving a deduction of variable amount; the fixed deduction of a shilling in the pound, to “blanch” the money paid out “numero”; and the fixed addition of sixpence in the pound (“numero”) to sums granted “blanch,” as in the Exeter case. * * * * * If, in conclusion, it be asked what was the origin of the Exchequer, the answer is not one that can be briefly given. In the first place, it must not be assumed that “the Exchequer” was bodily imported, as a new and complete institution, from Normandy to England or _vice versâ_.