ce to its usefulness, even if the rules by which it was guided had
been much more complete and satisfactory than they actually were.

The routine of this system of administration, as well as the mass of
business to be done, effectually interfered with arbitrary action on the
king's part, and the regular and methodical work of the organized courts
gave to the people a fair measure of protection against the tyranny or
caprice of the sovereign. But the royal power which was given over to
justices and barons did not pass out of the hands of the king. He was
still in theory the fount of all authority and law, and could, whenever
he chose, resume the powers that he had granted. His control was never
relaxed; and in later days we find that while judges on circuit who gave
unjust judgment were summoned before the Curia Regis at Westminster, the
judges of the Curia Regis itself were called for trial before the king
himself in his council.

The reorganization of these courts was fast completed under Henry's great
justiciar, De Lucy, and the chancellor Thomas. The next few years show an
amount of work done in every department of government which is simply
astonishing. The clerks of the Exchequer took up the accounts and began
once more regular entries in the Pipe Roll; plans of taxation were
devised to fill the empty hoard, and to check the misery and tyranny
under which the tax payers groaned. The king ordered a new coinage which
should establish a uniform system of money over the whole land. As late
as the reign of Henry I. the dues were paid in kind, and the sheriffs
took their receipts for honey, fowls, eggs, corn, wax, wool, beer, oxen,
dogs, or hawks. When, by Henry's orders, all payments were first made in
coin to the Exchequer, the immediate convenience was great, but the state
of the coinage made the change tell heavily against the crown. It was
impossible to adulterate dues in kind; it was easy to debase the coin
when they were paid in money, and that money received by weight, whether
it were coin from the royal mints, or the local coinages that had
continued from the time of the early English kingdoms, or debased money
from the private mints of the barons. Roger of Salisbury, in fact, when
placed at the head of the Exchequer, found a great difference between the
weight and the actual value of the coin received. He fell back on a
simple expedient; in many places there had been a provision as old at
least as Doomsday, whi