Definition
Camera Scaccari is a Latin term of medieval English legal origin meaning, literally, the Chamber of the Exchequer — the room or administrative space in which the business of the Exchequer was conducted. In historical English law, it refers to the physical and institutional seat of the Exchequer, the royal body responsible for receiving and auditing crown revenues and, in its judicial capacity, for resolving disputes touching the king's finances.
The term appears in historical sources as a formal designation for what is more commonly called the Exchequer Chamber, a designation that itself requires care, as it was applied to more than one distinct institution over the course of English legal history.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering Camera Scaccari in a medieval or early modern source should treat it as a synonym for the Exchequer Chamber in its broadest sense — the institutional home of Exchequer proceedings — rather than as a reference to any single well-defined court. The difficulty is that "Exchequer Chamber" was repurposed across centuries to describe at least three different bodies: an informal assembly of judges convened to advise on difficult questions of law, a formal appellate tribunal created by statute to hear error from the Court of Exchequer, and the administrative chamber of the Exchequer itself. Camera Scaccari most directly evokes the last of these, but the Latin form appears rarely enough in English legal sources that its precise referent depends heavily on context and date.
The term is unlikely to appear in common law reports after the sixteenth century. Its principal habitat is in medieval Latin administrative records, chronicle sources, and the kind of antiquarian glossaries that fed into early law dictionaries. Bouvier's entry, which cites only Spelman's Glossary, signals that this is a term reaching the reader through the antiquarian tradition rather than through living practice. Researchers working in post-medieval English or American materials who encounter this phrase are almost certainly reading a learned citation back to an older source.
Cross-corpus note: Because Camera Scaccari anchors firmly in English constitutional and fiscal history, researchers should trace it in connection with the broader history of the Exchequer, including its dual character as an administrative and judicial institution. The term does not carry over into American law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary gives a single-line entry: "The Exchequer Chamber. Spelman, Gloss." This is the entirety of the historical dictionary record in the available sources. The brevity is itself informative. Bouvier included the term for completeness and as a bridge to Latin sources, not because it carried active legal significance in nineteenth-century American practice. The citation to Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum places the term squarely in English legal antiquarianism — Spelman's work was a foundational reference for lawyers and historians seeking to decode Latin terminology in medieval records and instruments. No divergence among historical sources can be assessed from the available material, as only one source addresses the term.
Jurisdictional Note
Camera Scaccari is exclusively English in origin and reference. It has no American legal counterpart or application. Researchers working in English legal history before the nineteenth century may encounter it; American legal researchers will not.