ECR 62 281 - 284

ECR 62 281 - 284

College Accounts: Receivers' accounts

Sub-series

1546 - 1600

This series of accounts was bound in the eighteenth century in the same style as The Bursars' Books (62/37-61) with the same hand marking the title “Visus computi Receptar etc. pro v. annis viz”, followed by the years, on the spine, (281A is called Receivers’ Accounts) A twentieth-century hand added pencil numbers. The first book was not rediscovered until numbering of ECR62 was complete so has been inserted as 281A. Patrick Strong referred to this series as White Vellum 2, after the binding, and these numbers have been noted here.

The first volume has accounts for each year, each with a new title page, but thereafter the accounts appear to have been made up, presumably from the rolls, at five year intervals. In 62/682-684 a single title page covers the whole book and in 62/681, although there is a separate title for each year they are together on two folios at the front of the book and the entries are not separated. These titles are identical apart from the dates: Visus Compi omnium Receptorum, formariorum, collectorum et aliorum officiariorum et ministrorum seu occupatorum a fasto Sancti Michaelis Archangelo in anna reginae... The titles in 62/281 make it clear that each year's account runs from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, and although in this volume the anno domini date given refers to the year in which the bulk of the account actual falls (e.g. the entry for 5 Eliz. I - 6 Eliz. I 1563-1564, is headed 1564) in subsequent volumes the year date given at the end of the title is that of the actual start.

The writer of the last three title pages has created some confusion saying it is the account for the start year “et pro quinque annis proxime sequentibus”. In fact only five complete accounting years are covered, reckoning Michaelmas to Michaelmas, but since Elizabeth’s regnal years begin on 17 November the final Michaelmas is in a sixth anno domini year (i.e. a volume beginning in Michaelmas 1579 closes with an account ending at Michaelmas 1584). The summary spine titles give only the starting dates. Betham (Bursar) transcribed these spine titles onto the title pages of 62/281-284.

The information is arranged by estate, and gives the name of the accountant, the arrears, the rent (subdivided into rent in money and in kind), allowances, expenditure, the amount actually paid over to the Bursar, and a note of the balance. 62/281A begins with a more general account summarising Collegiate receipts and expenditure 1546-1548, but this is not found again. After this volume, the standard layout is two double-page openings for each estate, the first spread having the income headings (down the left hand page with the figures entered on the right under their respective regnal years, written across the top) and the second the outgoings, (written in paragraph form across both pages).

Summarised bursars’ accounts and lists of arrears follow the receiver’s accounts in 281A only, although bound in at the rear of 62/284 is a “book of arrears” for 1595-1599.

The estates are arranged by county.