If I have gone further than himself, it has been in criticising more searchingly the authority of the ‘Dialogus de Scaccario’ for the reign of Henry I., in demonstrating the actual evolution of the “scaccarium” from the “thesaurus,” and in tracing the origin of the chamberlain’s office and its feudal, tenurial character. The alternative use of ‘blancæ’ and ‘ad scalam’ in the reign of Henry I. is, I believe, a new discovery, and so, it would seem, is that Treasury audit on which I have laid special stress. Petty details, it may be said, and of slight historical importance. So thought Richard the son of Nigel, pleading: “nec est vel esse potest in eis subtilium rerum descriptio, vel jocunda novitatis inventio.”[202] And yet he heard the student’s cry: “cur scientiam de scaccario quæ penes te plurima esse dicitur alios non doces, et, ne tibi commoriatur, scripto commendas?” For as we have been reminded by the publication of the ‘Red Book of the Exchequer, it may be true now as then, even of those who are steeped in its records, that “sicut qui in tenebris ambulant et manibus palpant, frequenter offendunt, sic illic multi resident qui videntes non vident, et audientes non intelligunt.”[203] V London Under Stephen The famous claim of the citizens of London at the death of Henry I., that the election of a king rested with themselves;[204] and the prominent part they actually took in placing Stephen on the throne, after making special terms with him,[205] impart peculiar interest to such glimpses as records afford us of the government, institutions, and leading citizens of London in Stephen’s days. Of these I have treated at some length in my work on Geoffrey de Mandeville,[206] but the information there given can now be supplemented by documents relating to the two ancient religious foundations of Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, and the collegiate church of St. Martin’s-le-Grand. The earliest of these with which I shall deal is assigned to the second year of Stephen, and is taken from the cartulary of Holy Trinity, now preserved at Glasgow, of which there is a modern collated transcript in the Guildhall Library. It has never yet, I believe, been printed. As Stephen was absent in Normandy from Midlent to the end of November, 1137, the episode must belong either to the early months of the year or to its close.[207] The text seems slightly corrupt in places, but is trustworthy enough for all purposes. The first points of interest to be noted are that Arnulf archdeacon of Séez, afterwards the well-known bishop of Lisieux, who here appears at Stephen’s court, had been, as I have shown, the year before, his spokesman before the Pope when his right was challenged by the Empress;[208] and that Andrew Buchuinte, a leading citizen, was clearly “Justiciar of London” at the time, in accordance with my theory that such an office was actually created by the well-known charter of Henry I.[209]