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64 king, to him or him, this or that," when, nevertheless, he has obtained no writ of remission from the king. For how it can happen that such writing of the roll is not found to be false, I do not see.

M. It gives thee concern not without cause; for it has long concerned me; and, as I believe, the reason of thus writing is not yet clear to all; wherefore, although it is no great matter that thou askest about, nevertheless it is unusual and does seem absurd that that is said to be remitted by writ of the king, which is always to be remitted without a writ. For which reason I once attacked on this very matter the bishop of Ely, as the man most skilled in this branch—blessed be his memory for ever. He, the illustrious treasurer of that king of the English, Henry I., and the nephew of him of Salisbury whom we mentioned above, had a knowledge of the exchequer incomparable in his time: for being supreme in those things which pertained to the dignity of his standing, he made the fame of his name wide-spread; so that almost alone in the kingdom he so lived and died that no envious tongue dares to blacken his glory. He, moreover, being frequently requested by the illustrious king, Henry the Second, reformed the knowledge of the exchequer which, the time of warfare having lasted for many years, had almost entirely died out; and, like another Esdras, sedulous restorer of the Bible, renewed the form of its whole arrangement. The prudent man, indeed, thought it better to mark down for posterity the laws constituted by the ancients, rather than, by his silence, to bring it about that new ones should be made. For modern times, in the matter of gaining money, have scarcely dictated laws gentler than the former ones. From him, therefore, in this matter, this is the kind of answer I received; " brother, he who has ears eager to hear, easily finds the tongue of a detractor; even he who has them not, will not easily escape the same. It was thus that there came to king Henry I. a certain man having the tongue of a sequent, saying to him: ' your barons who sit at the exchequer, why do they not pay the dues that arise from their lands? For some have fixed payments at the exchequer for sitting there; some also, on account of their office, have estates and their fruits; hence, therefore, a