Note 262 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

Mr Hall, indeed, has gradually modified his original position that 'Ingulphus saw the Domesday register, as it now exists, at Westminster', and that it was sent there for good from Winchester 'early in the reign of Henry I',262 but he still places the establishment of 'the' Treasury at Westminster, in my opinion, too early. It is the gradual decay of Winchester as the capital and seat of administration that makes it difficult to say positively when or how the national records, Domesday Books among them, were transferred to Westminster. We have seen at least that, in its early days, the 'Liber de Wintonia', as it styles itself, had its home within the walls of the Royal castle of Winchester; and I cannot but think, now as at first, that it began by visiting Westminster for Exchequer sessions only.263