9 of the college in a manner which facilitated its work. It was normal for the registrar and the archivist to be one and the same person." With the help of the registrar’s journals and catalogues it was possible to see whether the college’s business was being conducted in the prescribed manner, just as it was possible to discover with their help documents which one might have reason to consult. Thus, the registrar had a great deal of responsibility for the maintenance of a satisfactory level of operations in the college. The rise of the collegial system above all meant great progress when it came to fiscal administration. Regular bookkeeping and auditing were introduced, and the administration of the treasury was made uniform. The basic concept of accounting introduced into governmental administration at this time was the system of double-entry bookkeeping, which had been evolving in large commercial enterprises ever since the Middle Ages,-'* and which meant that revenues and expenditures were balanced against one another in a continual manner. The adoption of this more advanced bookkeeping technique made possible a more exact and efficient administration of state funds. Another very important aspect of fiscal administration was planning for future state revenues and expenditures. The medieval practice of meeting expenditures only when they arose, and of meeting them with whatever revenues were most readily available, was incompatible with the regularity and predictability now demanded of the fiscal administration. The revenues and expenditures for the coming fiscal year were to be balanced against one another as early as possible. One fundamental principlc in the formulation of the budget was to provide for the needs of the royal court, the military, and the administration from the most reliable state revenues, while providing less reliable funding—or no funding at all—for other expenditures. The principle of double-entry bookkeeping served as the basis for projecting the state budget.-'* In the medieval administration, administrative tasks had largely been performed by clerics as a subsidary function requiringnothing morethan the ability to read and write. This type of work brought rather uncertain compensation, which was often paid out in kind. The new and more complex administrative techniques coming into use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries meant that work in the chancelleries and offices -- Idem, Urkunden- und Aktefjlehre dcr Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1950), 55—56. -■* It is significant that merchants were consulted so that the accounts of the state administration could be drawn up according to the principles of double bookkeeping. This was also the case in Sweden and Denmark, where the first head bookkeepers were successful merchants; see Eden, 229—230 and Christi.\nsen, I, 46. Fredrik Lagerroth, Statsreglering och finansförvaltning i Sverige till och med frihetstidens ingång (Lund, 1928), 46—47.
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