Source.—Richard, son of Nigel, Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. Hughes, Crump, and Johnson, p. 60.

What the Exchequer34 is, and what is the reason of this term?

Disciple. What is the Exchequer?

Master. The Exchequer is a rectangular board about ten feet in length and five in breadth, set like a table for those who sit round it, and on every side it has an edge about four fingers high, that nothing set thereon may fall off. Over the top of the Exchequer is placed a cloth, bought in the Easter term, not any sort of cloth, but black marked with stripes, which are separated from each other by the space either of a foot or of a hand’s breadth. And in the spaces there are counters placed according to their value.... Now, though such a board is called the Exchequer, yet this term is transferred also to the court itself, when the Exchequer is sitting; so that if any man obtain aught by an award, or anything be decreed by common counsel, it is said to have been done at the Exchequer of this or that year. And where men say to-day “at the Exchequer,” they used to say “at the tallies.”

D. What is the reason of this term?

M. No better one occurs to me at present than that its shape is like that of a chessboard.

D. Would the wisdom of the ancients ever have so called it for its shape only, when for a like reason it might have been called “the Board?”

M. I was right in calling you particular. There is another but a less obvious reason. As in a game of chess there are certain ranks of combatants, which advance or stand still by certain rules or limitations, some presiding and others preceding: so here some preside and others assist by reason of their office, and none is free to transgress the established rules.... Moreover, as in chess the battle is fought between kings, so here it is mainly between two that the war is waged and the battle fought, to wit, the treasurer, and the sheriff who sits there to render account; the others sitting by as judges, to look on and give judgment.