The chequered cloth: how were state accounts checked in medieval England?

The British finance minister is still called the "Chancellor of the Exchequer" today. The history of the word "Exchequer" goes back to the chessboard. This is no coincidence: in the Middle Ages state accounts were checked precisely on a chequered cloth.

Where does the name "Exchequer" come from?

In 12th-century England the office that checked the revenues due to the royal treasury was called the Exchequer. Information about how this office worked comes from "The Dialogue concerning the Exchequer" (Dialogus de Scaccario), written by Richard FitzNigel in 1179.

According to it, the name came from the rectangular board on which the accounts were calculated. The board was covered with a chequered cloth resembling a chessboard, and counters (pebbles) for calculating were laid out in the columns on the cloth.

The convenience of this method was that everyone around the table could see the counters in the columns with their own eyes: how much was due and how much had been paid.

How did a sheriff render his account?

In every county there was an official, the sheriff, who collected revenue in the king's name. Once a year, around Michaelmas, he came to the Exchequer to render his account.

The process went like this: - The sheriff sat on one side of the table covered with the chequered cloth, and the senior officials of the Exchequer sat opposite. - An official laid out counters in the columns, showing how much the sheriff owed and how much he had paid. - The result was written on parchment rolls, the pipe rolls. In them the royal revenues were recorded by county for each financial year.

The oldest surviving pipe roll dates from 1130. The series continued almost without interruption until the 19th century and today is kept at the British National Archives under reference E 372. In other words, these documents served as the state's "audit trail" for more than seven hundred years.

What has changed from the chequered cloth to today's audit?

The core idea at the Exchequer table is very familiar today too: both parties look at one table and agree who owes whom how much. In a modern company the closest counterpart is the statement of reconciliation of mutual settlements.

Example (prepared by the author, hypothetical): the "Qo'qon un" company and its customer reconciled their accounts at the end of the year.

Both columns matched, so the debt was confirmed. In the 12th century this result was shown by counters; today it is shown by a table signed by both parties.