Red Book of the Exchequer

Red Book of the Exchequer
The National Archives, London
Material	Parchment

The Red Book of the Exchequer (Liber Rubeus or Liber ruber Scaccarii) is a 13th-century manuscript compilation of precedents and office memoranda of the English Exchequer. It contains additional entries and annotations down to the 18th century. It takes its name from its red leather binding, which distinguishes it from the related and contemporary, but smaller, Black Book of the Exchequer.

J. Horace Round wrote in 1898 that "second only in honour to Domesday Book itself, the "Liber Rubeus de Scaccario" has, for more than six centuries, held a foremost place among our national records. Prized by officials for its precedents, by antiquaries for its vast store of topographical and genealogical information, its well-thumbed pages have been scanned by twenty generations of students".

The early part of the Red Book was compiled in about 1230 by Alexander de Swereford (d. 1246), a senior Exchequer clerk until about 1220 and a Baron of the Exchequer from 1234. However, entries continued to be added to it throughout the later Middle Ages, and even down to the 18th century.

The Book contains nearly 300 separate records and texts, including "Charters, Statutes of the Realm, Placita, or other public acts, with private Deeds and Ordinances, Correspondence, Chronicles or Annals, religious, physical or legal Treatises, Topographies, Genealogies or Successions, Surveys and Accounts, precedents and Facetiae". Among them are texts of the 1166 Cartae Baronum, a survey of feudal tenure; the Leges Henrici Primi, an early compilation of legal information dating from the reign of Henry I; the Constitutio domus regis, a handbook on the running of the royal household of about 1136; the Dialogus de Scaccario, a late 12th-century treatise on the practice of the Exchequer; the Book of Fees of c.1302; a 14th-century treatise on the Royal Mint; 12th-century pipe rolls; deeds and grants of William I and Henry I; a text of Magna Carta; records of serjeanties; and forms of oaths of Exchequer officers and of the king's councillors.

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