ECR 62 239 - 262

ECR 62 239 - 262

College Accounts: Rentals and disbursements

Sub-series

1717 - 1780

These annual volumes contain the first three tituli of the full audit books (remains, arrears and rental) and separate accounts for each fellow. These show the amount due to him and the disbursements, in kind or in cash, by which he received it. These are usually followed by his receipt, which may be a separate paper pasted in (eg 62/244). Sometimes a table of sizings is included after the rental, showing the bread and beer allowed to each fellow during the year.

Some of the draft audit books (62/62- 238) also contain receipted disbursements, but not for fellows alone, and they also list other headings of expenditure. Books of dues (62/ 342- 343) appear to be a later stage in the accounting process because although they too contain details of disbursements made for fellows, and their signatures, they also include the money received from fines on renewal of leases and then divided among the fellows. This was never entered into the audit and was the most substantial part of their income.

These volumes are not as neatly written as the draft books, though still reasonably fair, and the credit entries are usually initialled by a bursar as if in a checking process. The low survival rate suggests that they were an earlier version of the account not regarded as particularly worth keeping. There are many torn or cut leaves and later volumes in particular have often lost the bottom halves of their pages, suggesting a quest for scrap paper rather than an autograph hunter's zeal. However, they were sufficiently important at some stage in the accounting procedure to be sewn in paper wrappers (though these have not always survived). 62/250 and 62/253 have wrappers made of old deeds, and are labelled Bursar's Book 1755 and 1767 respectively.