The origins of civic financial offices in medieval England: the cases of York and Norwich, <i>c</i> .1290–7

Abstract Financial officers were a common feature of medieval English urban administration. However, the limited survival of civic records has hindered scholarly attention to the timing and motivations behind their emergence. This study addresses these questions by drawing on royal archives and focusing on two provincial cities – York and Norwich. In the late thirteenth century a sharp increase in royal expenditure led the crown to both broaden its revenue base and intensify fiscal oversight. As part of this effort, the exchequer began enforcing the repayment of long-standing civic debts in York and Norwich. The new financial pressures prompted the civic governments to establish financial officers in order to improve the management of civic finances.