Page:Select historical documents of the Middle Ages.djvu/75

Rh have writs for them. The knight silverer, moreover, has the "recauta" of these, i.e., the counter-talies. Likewise he and the melter—when it becomes necessary, and the great quantity of money brought in burdens the tellers — may, on being requested by the chamberlains, aid them in counting; it is, however, optional on their parts, not compulsory. Thus thou hast the offices of the knight silverer and the melter.

D. What are the signs of a test completed or of one not completed?

M. I do not sufficiently know; nor have I troubled myself about these things. But so long as over the already liquid silver a sort of little black cloud is seen to hover, it is called incomplete. But when, as it were, certain minute grains ascend from the bottom to the top and there dissolve, it is a sign that the test is done.

VII. By whom, or for what purpose, the testing of silver was instituted.

D. By whom, and on what account, was this testing or combustion instituted?

M. In order that it may be clear to thee concerning these things, I must begin a little further back. In the primitive state of the kingdom after the Conquest, as we have learned from our fathers, not weights of gold or silver, but solely victuals were paid to the kings from their lands; from which the necessaries for the daily use of the royal household were furnished. And those who had been appointed for this purpose knew how much came from the separate estates. But from the pleas of the kingdom and from feudal reliefs, and from the cities or castles by which agriculture was not practised, cash money for the stipends or gifts of the soldiers, and for other necessary things came in. This arrangement, however, continued during the whole time of king William I., and up to the time of king Henry, his son; so that I myself saw some people who had seen victuals carried at stated times from the estates of the crown to the court: and the officials of the royal household knew from which counties corn and from which different kinds of meat, or fodder for horses,