be next to the treasurer and may diligently give his attention to the writing of the roll. After him, at the head of the third seat, on the right, sits the treasurer, who has to attend most carefully to everything which is done there, being bound to give an account, as it were, of all these things, if there shall be need of it. After him sits his clerk, the scribe of the roll of the treasury: after him, another scribe, of the roll of the chancery: after him, the clerk of the chancellor, who with his own eyes always sees to it that his roll corresponds to the other in every point, so that not one jot is lacking and that the order of writing does not differ: after him, almost at the end of that bench, sits the clerk of the constable, great, indeed, and busy at the court of the lord king, and having, indeed, here an office which he performs in person or, if the king shall seem to have more use for him elsewhere, through a discreet clerk. This, then, is the description of the third bench. On the fourth bench, which is opposite the Justice, Master Thomas, who is called Brunus, sits at the head with a third roll which has been added as a new institution, that is, by our lord king; for it is written, " and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." After him the sheriffs and their clerks, who sit there to render account with tallies and other necessaries. This then is the arrangement of the fourth bench.
D. Has then the scribe of Master Thomas his seat in the same range with the other scribes, and not rather above the others?
M. He does indeed have his seat not with the others but above the others.
D. Why is this so?
M. Inasmuch as, from the beginning, the seats were so arranged that the scribe of the treasurer should sit at his side lest anything should be written which should escape his eye; and in like manner the scribe of the chancery at the side of the scribe of the treasurer, that he might faithfully take down what the latter wrote; and likewise the clerk of the chancery was of necessity next to that scribe, lest he might err: there was no place left in the order of the bench where Master Thomas's scribe might sit, but a raised place was given him that he might be above and
