pipe roll

plural pipe rolls

1. historicalAny of a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer and its successors, the earliest dating from the 12th century.

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   [Of Henry I, who reigned 1100–1135:] The king's overhaul of governmental administration also resulted in the establishment of the exchequer to control royal finances. This produced a kingdom-wide financial survey each year in the form of the pipe roll. Instituted in 1130, these accounts would continue to be taken for the next seven hundred years, and the pipe rolls form the oldest continuous series of records kept by the English government. Taken together, Henry I's reforms transformed medieval government from an itinerant and often poorly organised household into a highly sophisticated administrative kingship based on permanent, static departments.

   2021, Tracy Borman, Crown and Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy, from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II, Grove Atlantic, →ISBN, pages 27-28