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title-deeds at Paris when he went on a military expedition. We must not be surprised to find that the principal common element in Henry's empire was Henry himself, supplemented by his most immediate household officers, and that many of these officers, such as the seneschals and the justiciars, were limited in their functions to England or Normandy or Anjou, and usually remained in their particular country to look after affairs in the king's absence. There was, however, one notable exception, the chancellor, or royal secretary. Regularly an ecclesiastic, so that there was no chance of his turning the office into an hereditary fief, the nature of the chancellor's duties attached him continuously to the person of the sovereign and made him the natural companion of the royal journeys. He was far, however, from being a mere private secretary or amanuensis, but stood at the head of a regular secretarial bureau, which had its clerks and chaplains and its well-organized system of looking after the king's business. The study of the history of institutions goes to show that, on the whole, there is no better test of the strength or weakness of a mediaeval government than its chancery. If it had no chancery, as was the case under the early Norman dukes, or if its methods, as seen in its formal acts, were irregular and unbusinesslike, as under Robert Curthose, there was sure to be a lack of organization and continuity in its general conduct of affairs. If, on the other hand, the chancery was well organized, its rules and practices