pipe rolls

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pipe rolls,

ancient records of the crown revenue and expenditures of England, so called, probably, because of the pipelike form of the rolled parchments on which these records were kept. The oldest extant pipe roll dates from the 31st year of the reign of Henry I (1130), and from 1156 they are almost completely intact. The earliest of these records have been published and are an invaluable source for social and administrative history. The pipe rolls were not completely abandoned for modern accounting methods until 1833.