Medieval France. An Encyclopedia

(Darren Dugan) #1

as Jean de Meun but also found inspiration in Vincent de Beauvais, Brunetto Latini, and
others.
Emanuel J.Mickel
[See also: JEAN DE MEUN]
Jones, Joan M., trans. The Chess of Love. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1969.
Badel, Pierre-Yves. Le roman de la Rose au XIVe siècle. Geneva: Droz, 1980.
Sieper, Ernst. Les échecs amoureux: Eine altfranzösische Nachahmung des Rosenromans und ihre
englische Übertragung. Weimar: Felber, 1898, pp. 97–113.


ÉCHIQUIER DE NORMANDIE


. Henry I, king of England and duke of Normandy (r. 1100/06–35), established the
Échiquier de Normandie, like its counterpart in England, as a central commision of royal
finances. Like the English exchequer, the Norman échiquier had two main branches: an
auditing board that balanced royal accounts and received revenue owed to the king-duke
and a court that sat in judgment of cases concerning royal finance. Under the Anglo-
Norman kings, the Norman exchequer generally met twice a year at Caen, although not
necessarily at the “hall of the exchequer” that still survives. During each session, royal
officials sat at a large table covered with a checkered cloth to reckon and collect the rent
owed from specific lands. The checkered cloth, which gave the institution its name (Lat.
scaccarium, Fr. échiquier ‘chessboard’), served as a sort of abacus, with counters that
were moved and stacked in different columns to demonstrate amounts owed and
received. As in England, the financial accounts of the exchequer were later recorded on
rolls of parchment, the earliest of which survives for Normandy from 1180, in
fragmentary form.
After the conquest of Normandy by Philip Augustus in 1204, the Norman exchequer
was moved first to Falaise and then to Rouen, where it remained, presided over by
commissioners from Paris instead of Anglo-Norman lords. The exchequer’s financial
duties diminished under the French kings, but it remained the chief administrative and
judicial body in Normandy.
Cassandra Potts
[See also: NORMANDY]
Stapleton, Thomas, ed. Magni rotuli scaccarii Normanniae sub regibus Angliae. 2 vols. London:
Nichols, 1840.
Bouard, Michel de. “La salle dite de l’échiquier, au château de Caen.” Medieval Archaeology
9(1965):64–81.
——, ed. Histoire de la Normandie. 2nd ed. Toulouse: Privat, 1987.
Haskins, Charles Homer. Norman Institutions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925.
Valin, Lucien. Le duc de Normandie et sa cour (912–1204): étude d’histoire juridique. Paris:
Larose et Tenin, 1910.


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