The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Forty-Third Year of the Reign of King Henry III Michaelmas 1259: (Pipe Roll 103)

This new edition of the 1259 pipe roll sees the Pipe Roll Society returning to its roots by publishing the financial records of the English crown. The decision to publish this particular roll reflects the importance of the year 1259 in English constitutional and political history, at a critical juncture in the period of baronial reform and rebellion in England (1258-67) and the evolution of parliament. In 1258, a group of baronial reformers had imposed a council of fifteen on the king and attempted to regulate the workings of royal government and correct the misgovernment of both the centre and the localities. The contents of this pipe roll cover the first full year of the operation of this baronial government. It contains accounts for most of the counties of England and offers valuable insights into government finance and how royal administration productively functioned during this period. In particular, it provides detailed information about the sources of royal revenues and how these revenues were spent in the counties. The information within the roll, and within its ancillary records, sheds new light on the relationship between the central government and the sheriffs, the crown's chief local agents, which had been radically altered in 1258,with the appointment of new sheriffs by the reforming council as custodians, who were expected to account for the traditional income from the counties. Dr Cassidy's analysis of the pipe roll, analysed in the introduction to his new edition, demonstrates that the reformers' efforts to control the financial administration and reform Exchequer procedures met with success, in the beginning.