The scírgeréfa was also the principal fiscal officer in the county. It was undoubtedly his duty to levy all fines that accrued to the king from offenders, and to collect such taxes as the land paid for public purposes. We have unhappily no _pipe-rolls_ of the Anglosaxon period, which would have thrown the greatest light upon the social condition of England; but we have a precept of Cnut, addressed to Æðelríc the sheriff of Kent, and the other principal officers and thanes of the county, commanding that archbishop Æðelnóð shall account only as far as he had done before Æðelríc became sheriff, and ordering that in future no sheriff shall demand more of him[384]. From this it appears that even the lands of the archbishop himself were not exempt from the sheriff’s authority in fiscal matters, although there can be little doubt that at this period the prelate had a grant of sacu and sócn, or complete immunity from the sheriff’s power in judicial questions. And we shall have little difficulty in admitting that, if he possessed this authority in the case of the archbishop, he exercised it in that of other less distinguished landowners. It has been already shown that the king possessed certain profitable rights in, and received contributions from, the estates of folcland in private hands: these were exercised and collected by the scírgeréfa. It is probable that the zeal of this officer had sometimes overstepped the bounds of the law, and induced him to burthen the free landowner for the benefit of the crown; for we find Cnut enacting[385]: “This is the alleviation which it is my pleasure to secure to all the people, of that which hath heretofore too much oppressed them. First, I command all my reeves that they justly provide for me on my own, and maintain me therewith; and that no man need give them anything, as farm-aid, unless he choose. And if after this any one demand a fine, let him be liable in his wergyld to the king.” ----- Footnote 384: Cod. Dipl. No. 1323. This writ is directed in the usual form, to the archbishop, the bishop of Rochester, the abbot of St. Augustine’s, the sheriff and the thanes of Kent. Footnote 385: Cnut. ii. § 70. Thorpe, i. 412. _Feorm_ is the king’s farm or support: and _feormfultum_ a benevolence in aid of the same. It had become compulsory in some cases, and this is what Cnut forbids. -----