CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
king found it necessary to put in place a system that
allowed him to govern his subjects in Ireland and pre-
serve and develop his rights there from a distance.
While recent research has identified considerable con-
tinuity in many features of settlement, economy, and
society in Ireland before and after the conquest, in the
sphere of government there was little recognizable
administration with which the Anglo-Normans could
link. Therefore, in most respects, the machinery of
government had to be modeled on that found in
England, where by the end of the twelfth century an
organized administrative system was taking shape,
which could be imposed on the newly conquered lands.
The system developed gradually in Ireland, proba-
bly originating in the lord John’s visit of 1185. The
king’s place was taken by a chief governor who had
the title of justiciar, or king’s lieutenant. He was assisted
by a number of professional administrators: the trea-
surer, chancellor, and escheator. The two principal
departments or offices of the administration were the
exchequer and the chancery.
The Exchequer
The exchequer was the first specialized department of
government to appear in Ireland. This development
mirrored events in England, where the exchequer had
been the first branch of government to become
detached from the king’s itinerant household. From the
time John became lord of Ireland, financial arrange-
ments were put in place to collect revenue and pay
expenses, and by 1200 this organization was being
described as the exchequer. In its early days it appears
that the justiciar was primarily responsible for render-
ing the accounts of the exchequer, but from at least
1217 the title of treasurer emerged as the designation
of the chief clerk in charge of the exchequer. During
the early thirteenth century the treasurer was second
in importance only to the justiciar, but lost this position
with the increase in the powers of the chancellor.
The treasurer was assisted by first one and later two
chamberlains, and during the course of the thirteenth
century a range of other minor officials appear that cor-
respond to those of the English exchequer, such as the
chancellor of the exchequer who was responsible for the
exchequer seal, the chancellor’s clerk, and the remem-
brancers who kept the records. The exchequer had its
own court, which could determine financial disputes.
The judges of this court were called barons of the exche-
quer and they are mentioned as early as 1207. They
appear at this stage to have been prominent members of
the administration. The emergence of professional bar-
ons, whose sole job it was to determine actions in the
exchequer court, dates from the later thirteenth century.
The primary function of the exchequer was to receive
and disburse the Irish revenues and to bring royal offi-
cials, particularly the sheriffs, to account. Each account-
able minister was required to appear at Dublin twice a
year, at Easter and Michaelmas. The exchequer was
composed of two departments, which between them
kept four main series of rolls. The receipt and issue rolls
were produced by the lower exchequer and were records
of income and expenditure. The upper exchequer pro-
duced the pipe rolls, which contained the audited
accounts of the various officials who received and spent
money on behalf of the crown. The memoranda rolls
were also produced by the upper exchequer and con-
tained records of correspondence, proceedings regard-
ing accounts, and other miscellaneous material.
Very few original rolls now exist, and the workings
of the exchequer must be reconstructed by means of
calendars and transcripts.
Exchequer revenues were mainly derived from the
profits of justice, the royal demesne (including the
towns), escheats (see below), and royal service or
scutage. They varied considerably throughout the
medieval period, reaching their peak in the 1290s
when, for a time, exchequer income was more than
£9,000 annually. The revenues declined drastically in
the early fourteenth century to an annual average of
only £1,200 in the early years of the reign of Edward III.
They rose slightly during the later fourteenth century,
averaging about £2,000 per annum. However, in the
fifteenth century, when the area under the control of
the central government severely contracted, they shrank
even more.
In contrast to England, where by the fourteenth cen-
tury all government departments had ceased to move
about with the royal household, in Ireland much more
of the government remained itinerant. The exchequer
was the only completely sedentary part of the adminis-
tration. It sat in Dublin until 1361, when it was briefly
and unsuccessfully moved to Carlow in an attempt to
bring it closer to the towns and shires of the south.The Chancery
The chancery was the secretariat of the Dublin gov-
ernment, which issued letters bearing the Irish great
seal in the name of the king. These included writs of
summons to parliament and copies of English statutes
for circulation in Ireland. The chancery also drafted
reports on the state of Ireland and messages to the king
from the council or parliament. In Ireland, as in
England, the chancery developed rather more slowly
than some of the other departments. During the first
fifty years of the lordship it appears that chancery
business was conducted by the justiciar’s household