Note 662 — MAGNA CARTA. (continued 3)

Cf. Miss Norgate (John Lackland, p. 214) who explains that the Crown claimed a share of the sheriffs’ ever-increasing surplus, and "this was done, not by putting the ferm at a higher figure, but by charging the sheriff with an additional lump sum under the title of crementum, or, in John’s time, proficuum.“ But this practice was by no means an innovation invented by John. Henry II. often exacted such extra payments under the name of ”gersuma." Thus in Pipe Roll Henry II. (p. 11) the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk paid 200 marks under that name. The method adopted was practically to set up the office of sheriff to auction. The highest suitable bidder obtained the post, and the amount of the successful bid was entered at the exchequer as a gersuma.