The computus of 1329–30 employs, as we have seen, two different systems for recording payments. One system was a street-by-street, house-by-house survey that noted the names of masters or scholars living alone or with other scholars whom they represented for purposes of financial assessment. The other system was a straight listing of names, usually with payment, without regard for residential location. These two systems coincide, for the most part, with the two quires as reconstructed. To make sense of that division as well as to understand the nature of the collection, those responsible for initiating it, the authority under which it was conducted, the composition of the committee that surveyed the university community and collected the payments, the timeframe for the collection, and what finally happened to the money, it is necessary to understand the procedures governing this event as they were developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Contrary to what has sometimes been stated, there is no evidence that the university of Paris as a corporate institution assessed its members annually to cover regular anticipated expenses. The cost of instruction was paid for in private collectae between a master and his students. The costs of rents and repairs of the schools were paid for by the masters and the nations from student fees. The expenses of the nations and of the faculties, including the payment of its officers and beadles as well as convivialities, were covered largely by funds derived from examinations and promotions