Abstract
In recent years, some of the most interesting and fruitful research into Tudor government and society has focused on the enforcement of Crown policies and interests. The prevailing concern for the themes of political stability, religious orthodoxy, and social-economic regulation has emphasised particular aspects, not least the relationships between the monarchy and the political and social élites. In consequence, our knowledge of the operation of the political system — its character, effectiveness and limitations — has been greatly enhanced through the study of Parliament, the Privy Council, the royal Court, and the county and borough communities. Rather less consideration has been devoted to the regular instruments of national administration: the institutions of the central bureaucracy. These agencies were central to some of the principal functions of the early modern state, not least justice, finance and defence, and their proceedings and management reveal much about the nature of Elizabethan government. This investigation is intended to introduce this topic from the perspective of one of the largest and most important of these institutions: the Exchequer.
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Bibliography
The essential introduction to Elizabethan government is P. Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford, 1979). The area of the central bureaucracy studied in greatest depth has been Chancery, most particularly in W. J. Jones, The Elizabethan Court of Chancery (Oxford, 1967). For financial administration the relevant portions of H. E. Bell, An Introduction to the History and Records of the Court of Wards and Liveries (Cambridge, 1953), J. Hurstfield, The Queen’s Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth (1958), and R. Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1265–1603 (1953) are all valuable, as is C. E. Challis, The Tudor Coinage (Manchester, 1978).
Elizabethan Exchequer administration has been a neglected topic. The following are useful in their respective areas, although not always totally reliable in detail or perspective: W. H. Bryson, The Equity Side of the Exchequer (Cambridge, 1975); G. R. Elton, ‘The Elizabethan Exchequer: War in the Receipt’, available both in Elizabethan Government and Society. Essays presented to Sir John Neale. ed. S. T. Bindoff, J. Hurstfield and C. H. Williams (1961) pp. 213–48, and in Elton, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government (Cambridge, 1974) I, 355–88
E. Green, ‘The Management of Exchequer Records in the 1560s’, Journal of the Society of Archivists. V (1974) 25–30
and J. C. Sainty, ‘The Tenure of Offices in the Exchequer’, EHR. LXXX (1965) 449–75.
Other studies are of less weight apart from basic administrative routine, the chief work in this category being W. C. Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations 1536–1554 (Baton Rouge, La, 1961) ch. 13. For valuable insights drawn from a later period see G. E. Aylmer, ‘The Officers of the Exchequer, 1625–1642’, in Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England. ed. F. J. Fisher (Cambridge, 1961). In terms of individual administrators, most important is the formative (but optimistic) biography by S. E. Lehmberg, Sir Walter Mildmay and Tudor Government (Austin, Tex., 1964).
With respect to finance itself, no attempt has yet been made to supersede the pioneering surveys by F. C. Dietz, ‘The Exchequer in Elizabeth’s Reign’, Smith College Studies in History (Northampton, Mass.), VIII, no. 2 (1923) 63–118
and English Public Finance, 1558–1641 (New York and London, 1932). These works cannot be ignored and are of continuing value, but they have long since shown their age and must be used with caution. The most important specialist studies directly relevant to the Elizabethan period are: J. D. Alsop, ‘The Theory and Practice of Tudor Taxation’, EHR. XCVII (1982) 1–30
F. Heal, ‘Clerical Tax Collection Under the Tudors: The Influence of the Reformation’, in Continuity and Change. ed. R. O’Day and F. Heal (Leicester, 1976) pp. 97–122
J. Hurstfield, ‘The Profits of Fiscal Feudalism, 1541–1602’, EcHR. 2nd ser., VIII (1955–6) 53–61
C. J. Kitching, ‘The Quest for Concealed Lands in the Reign of Elizabeth I’, TRHS. 5th ser., XXIV (1974) 65–78
H. Miller, ‘Subsidy Assessments of the Peerage in the Sixteenth Century’, BIHR. XXVIII (1955) 15–34
R. B. Outhwaite, ‘The Trials of Foreign Borrowing: The English Crown and the Antwerp Money Market in the Mid-Sixteenth Century’, EcHR. 2nd ser., XIX (1966) 289–305
G. D. Ramsey, The City of London in International Politics at the Accession of Elizabeth Tudor (Manchester, 1975); and D. Thomas, ‘Leases in Reversion on the Crown’s Lands, 1558–1603’, EcHR. 2nd ser., xxx (1977) 67–72.
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© 1984 J. D. Alsop
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Alsop, J.D. (1984). Government, Finance and the Community of the Exchequer. In: Haigh, C. (eds) The Reign of Elizabeth I. Problems in Focus Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17704-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17704-2_5
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