At that early period the income of the papal treasury came chiefly from many kinds of censuses, dues, and tributes paid in from the territory subject to the Pope, and from churches and monasteries immediately dependent on him.
Cencius Camerarius (later Pope Honorius III, r. 1216–1227) made in 1192 a new inventory of all these sources of papal revenue, known as the Liber Censuum.
To these were to be added the annates, taken in the narrower sense, especially the great universal reservations made since the time of Clement V and John XXII, the extraordinary subsidies, moreover, levied since the end of the thirteenth century, the census, and other assessments.
The two first-named formed with the clerics of the Camera its highest administrative council; they controlled and looked closely to both revenues and expenses.
The more absolute system of ruling the Church which developed after the beginning of the 16th century, as well as the gradual transformation in the financial administration, modified in many ways the duties of the Apostolic Camera.
The Camerarius (camerlengo, chamberlain) became one of the highest officers in the government of the Papal States, until the beginning of the 19th century, when new methods of administration called for other officials.