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 1921 IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 63 of the queen founded a confraternity to find two chaplains to serve daily in the church of Boston and to hold lands to the yearly value of £10, the queen being nominated foundress. For this £40 was paid to the king. 1 Again, in 1396 Bell and five others founded a guild or fraternity consisting of themselves and others, men and women, with an endowment of lands to the value of 20 marks a year ; for this 100 marks was paid to the hanaper. 2 John Bell and three others of Boston lent the king £100 for the chastisement of the Welsh rebels and the safety of the realm. 3 Between 1398 and 1418 Bell's name constantly appears in commissions for his county, including the commissions of the peace, 4 of array, 5 of oyer and terminer, 6 de walliis et fossatis, 1 a commission to inquire into a complaint in the assess- ment of a fifteenth, 8 restrain shipping from leaving the port of Boston, 9 and to raise a loan for the king. 10 The poem is a description of all the stages through which an account — that is, a ' foreign account ' — passes in the exchequer, with a statement of the person who has to be bribed at each step. It opens with the entry into account and the solemn oath of the accountant sworn on the book * cum cruce Christi ' (1. 6). This evidently refers to the Black Book of the Exchequer of Receipt, now in the Record Office Museum, which contains a drawing of the crucifixion and emblems of the four evangelists accompanied by verses from the gospels. It has always been supposed that this book was used for administering oaths, 11 and the tradition is confirmed by the text (1. 12). Having been sworn the accountant is assigned to his auditor (1. 13). The assigna- tion of the accountant to his auditor in open court lest he should take an auditor of his own choice is described by Fanshawe 12 1 Cal. of Patent Rolls, 1391-6, p. 192. 2 Ibid. 1396-9, p. 19. 3 Ibid. 1401-5, p. 378 (order for repayment, 1404). 4 Ibid. 1399-1401, p. 210. 5 Ibid. 1401-5, pp. 289, 291. 6 Ibid. p. 505. ? Ibid. p. 378. 8 Ibid. 1399-1401, p. 520. 9 Ibid. p. 488. 10 Ibid. 1416-22, p. 252. 11 See the Guide to the Museum, p. 19 ; and Scargill Bird, Guide to the Public Records, pp. 222-3. 12 ' The Auditors of the Exchequer. . . never take accounts of any Sheriff, Escheator, customer, Collector of Subsidies or Fifteens or the cofferers accounts but by Assign- ment in open Court by the Marshall, and so entred in his Book to the intent no accompt- ant shall seeke an auditor of his choice ' : Fanshawe, Practice of the Exchequer Court, p. 95. ' He [the Marshall] assigneth in open court all Sheriffs Escheators Customers Collectors of Subsidies and Fifteens and such like Accountants, when they have taken their oath to the Auditor before whom every one of them shall account, whereof he keepeth an ordinary book and deviseth so by the Court that the Accountants should never choose his own Auditor to practise or help himself by it ' : ibid. pp. 104-5. This assignment of the accountant to his auditor was one of the differences between the method of passing the old compotus and that of the Declared Account which was made up by the two auditors of the prests. See Fanshawe, p. 83.