While the lord of the house commanded the final say in all matters, the need to delegate certain tasks to the highest ranking servant of the house necessitated a specific location where records could be kept. Following the founding of both Oxford and Cambridge, an increasingly literate aristocracy replaced the largely uneducated peerage. As the power of England grew, so did the wealth of the elite as did the need of the great houses of England to bring in a better informed class of help. This better educated servant class permitted the person so designated to acquire supplies and obtain services to maintain and run large buildings with many servants.