Note 256 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

But what was the 'Liber de Thesauro'? I contend that it was Domesday Book, and can have been nothing else. For, passing now to the Dialogus de Scaccario (circa 1177), we there read in reply to an inquiry as to the nature of Domesday Book (which 'in thesauro servatur et inde non recedit'): 'liber ille de quo quæris sigilli regii comes est individuus in thesauro' (I. XV.). The connection of the Book with the Treasury is brought out strongly in the Dialogus, and leads to the presumption, as Mr Hall perceived, that the Treasury being originally at Winchester, the Book was there also—as indeed we see it was under Henry I.256 On the date of its removal to Westminster, there has been much discussion between my friend Mr Hall and myself.257 Mr Hall relies mainly on the Dialogus de Scaccario, and on the inferences he draws from it, for the early removal of Domesday to Westminster, and the establishment there of the royal Treasury. For myself, I claim for the Winchester Treasury greater importance and continuity than he is willing to admit. The leading records, of course, were stored there as well as treasure. We find William Rufus speaking of 'meis brevibus ... qui sunt in thesauro mea Wyntoniæ';258 and we read that, on his father's death, 'pergens apud Wincestre thesaurum patris sui ... divisit: erant autem in thesauro illo lx. m[ille] libræ argenti excepto auro et gemmis et vasis et palliis.'259 Heming's Cartulary describes the Domesday returns as stored 'in thesauro regali', and Henry of Huntingdon states that 'inter thesauros reposita usque hodie servantur'.260 Now, as the Treasury was in Winchester Castle at the time of the above suit, and as it had been in 1100261 and 1087, so it was still at the accession of Stephen in 1135, and at the triumph of Matilda in 1141. This is absolutely certain from the Chronicles, nor do they ever mention any other Treasury. Moreover, the contents of this Treasury in 1135—'erant et vasa tam aurea quam argentea'—correspond with those described by the Dialogus forty years later: 'vasa diversi generis aurea et argentea'. Lastly, there is a piece of evidence which has not yet been adduced, namely, that in his Expugnatio Hibernica (1188), Giraldus, speaking of that ring and letters which John of Salisbury declared had been brought by him from the Pope, and were 'still stored in the Royal Treasury', writes of