Definition
A Latin term from old English exchequer practice meaning, literally, "money soldier" or "silver attendant." The argentarius miles was a functionary of the English Exchequer whose specific duty was to transport money physically from the lower Exchequer to the upper Exchequer, where it would be examined and tested for weight and purity. The role was essentially that of a trusted courier within the Exchequer's internal administrative process, ensuring that revenue received at the lower level reached the accounting officers above for formal verification.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical sources dealing with the medieval and early modern English Exchequer's internal organization. Researchers encountering it in primary sources — pipe rolls, Exchequer records, or treatises on English fiscal administration — should understand it as a procedural office, not a legal doctrine or cause of action. It carries no analytical weight in case law and will not appear in modern statutory or common law research.
The term is relevant primarily to legal historians and researchers working on the structure of the English Exchequer, the history of public finance, or the administrative law of the medieval Crown. It signals proximity to source material drawn from Spelman's Glossarium Archaeologicum or similar antiquarian compilations, which Black's and Burrill's both cite. Researchers tracing the Exchequer's internal hierarchy should treat this term as a piece of institutional vocabulary rather than operative legal terminology.
The truncated Burrill's entry — which breaks off mid-definition — is a known artifact of the digitization of that source and does not reflect a meaningful divergence from Black's. Both editions of Black's track Spelman's account closely.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the substance: the argentarius miles was a money porter in the English Exchequer, carrying funds upward through the institution's two-chamber structure for testing and examination. Black's (both editions) and Burrill's are effectively derivative of the same antiquarian source, Spelman's Glossarium Archaeologicum, and add no independent analysis.
The historical dictionaries do not address who appointed the argentarius miles, what qualifications or oaths were required, or what liability attached to losses in transit — gaps that reflect both the obscurity of the office and the limits of the lexicographical tradition drawing on Spelman. Researchers needing greater institutional detail should go directly to Spelman or to primary Exchequer records rather than relying on these secondary legal dictionary treatments.
No meaningful divergence exists among the three sources. Burrill's entry is incomplete as preserved, but the surviving text is consistent with Black's account.
Jurisdictional Note
Strictly English in origin and application. The office had no counterpart in colonial American legal institutions and does not appear in any American legal context.