heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

252 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
"
e.g.
at the corner of the Strada Fallorina, they are painted lozengewise,
" red, white, and yellow, and on various other houses in that ancient city
" similar decorations may
still be observed."
Dr. Lardner, in his Arithmetic, p. 44, says that "during the Middle
"Ages it was usual for merchants, accountants, &c., to appear on a covered
"bane" (i.e.
an old English word meaning seat).
"Before them was placed
" a plain surface, divided into squares. This latter was called an exchequer
"
. . . . and the calculations were made by counters placed upon its
" several divisions. A money-changer's office was generally indicated by a
" sign of the chequered board suspended. This sign afterwards came to
" indicate an inn, probably from the circumstance of the innkeeper also
" following the trade of money changer, a coincidence still very common
" in seaport towns."
But the chequered shields represent, probably,
that the founders
of the family were members of the Court of Exchequer, " called," says
Madox, in his History of the Exchequer, "scaccarium, from scaccus or
" scaccum, a chess-board, because a chequered cloth was anciently wont
" to be laid on the table in the court or place of that name. From the
" Latin cometh the French word exchequier, and the English from the
" French." The original object of the chequered cloth being to assist
calculation, like the ancient abacus, which, in some form or another, seems
to have been used from time immemorial. The Greeks and Romans certainly
used it ; the Russians use something of the sort still ; while in
China (where the whole system of measures, weights, &c., is decimal), the
" shawnpah," as they call it, is used with marvellous rapidity.
" The King's Exchequer," says Theodore, " was anciently a member
" of his Court, and was wont to be held in his palace. It was a sort of
" subaltern court, partly resembling (in its model) that which was called
" Curia Regis, for (in it) the King's barons and great men (who used to
" be in his palace, near his royal person) ordinarily presided, but sometimes
"the King himself. In it the King's chief justices, his chancellor, his
" treasurer, his constable, his marshal, and his chamberlain, performed
"some part of their several offices."
Madox divides the business of the Exchequer (during the period
between the Conqueror and the reign of King John) under the head of
revenues, causes, non-litigious business, and matters of public policy.
members were called the Barons of the Exchequer. Lysons says that
" this court," which he calls ' the Upper Exchequer,' " is
supposed to have
"been in existence in the time of the A.nglo-Saxon kings, but was not
"established at Westminster until after the Conquest. Previously
it was
" itinerant, or accompanying the King's Court and progresses and this
;
"continued until the reign of Henry III., when the expense and
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