In the second place, the ‘Dialogus’ we have seen, is by no means an infallible authority for the events of the Norman period. In the third place, its author was biassed by his eagerness to exalt bishop Roger, his relative and the founder of his family. Leaving that treatise aside for the moment, the evidence adduced in this paper points to the gradual development of the ‘Exchequer’ out of the ‘Treasury’ under Henry I. And this view is curiously confirmed by the remarkable, perhaps unique, narrative in the Abingdon Cartulary[199] of a plea held in the _curia regis_ “apud Wintoniam in thesauro.” This plea cannot be later than 1114, and it is difficult to resist the impression that “in thesauro” is purposely introduced, and represents the “ad scaccarium” of later days. That is to say, that the hearing of pleas was already connected with the financial administration,[200] probably because its records were, in certain cases, needed. I have suggested that the gradual change of name may have been a consequence of the introduction of the ‘chequered cloth’ (_scaccarium_). But this innovation, probably, was only one of those which marked the gradual transition to the final Exchequer system. Even under Henry II., for instance, Master Thomas Brown and his third roll were, says the ‘Dialogus,’ an utter innovation, and the place assigned to Richard of Ilchester seems to have been the same. Thus the system was by no means complete at bishop Roger’s death, nor, on the other hand, were its details, even then, his own work alone. He did but develop what he found. It is quite possible that further exploration of that most fertile field for discovery, the cartularies of monastic houses, may cast a clearer light on this institutional development. For it was a belated document transcribed in the cartulary of Merton that has enabled me[201] to prove the existence of the Exchequer _eo nomine_ in Normandy under Henry I. But it is not likely that such discovery will materially affect the views which I have enunciated above on the origin of the English Exchequer. For, after all, they are, in the main, the same as those which Dr. Stubbs, with his sound instinct, shadowed forth when the evidence was even less.