English feudalism |
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Manorialism |
Feudal land tenure in England |
Feudal duties |
Feudalism |
Tallage or talliage (from the French tailler, i.e. a part cut out of the whole) may have signified at first any tax, but became in England and France a land use or land tenure tax. Later in England it was further limited to assessments by the crown upon cities, boroughs, and royal domains. In effect, tallage was a land tax.
Land taxes were not unknown in England, as the Anglo-Saxon kings had periodically levied a Danegeld on that basis, but tallage was brought to England by the Normans as a feudal duty. The word first appeared in the reign of Henry II as a synonym for the auxilium burgi, which was an occasional payment exacted by king and barons. [1] Under Henry's sons it became a common source of royal revenue. It was condemned in the Magna Carta of 1215, and its imposition practically ceased by 1283 in favour of a general grant made in Parliament. There were three further attempts to impose tallage, and it was formally abolished in England in 1340 (Taxation, etc. Act 1340) under Edward III, when Parliament's consent to the imposition of common charges became required. [1]
Like scutage, tallage was superseded by various property and trade taxes, and then the subsidy system in the 14th century, which involved poll taxes. The last occasion on which tallage was levied in England appears to be about the year 1332. [2]
Act of Parliament | |
Long title | Statutum de Tallagio non concedendo |
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Citation | 25 Edw. 1 |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 1297 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | |
Relates to | |
Status: Current legislation | |
Revised text of statute as amended | |
Text of the A Statute Concerning Tallage (1297) as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The famous statute of 25 Edw. 1 (34 Edw. 1. Stat. 4 in The Statutes at Large ), De Tallagio non Concedendo, though it is printed among the statutes of the realm, and was cited as a statute in the preamble to the Petition of Right in 1628, and by the judges in John Hampden's case in 1637, is probably an imperfect and unauthoritative abstract of the Confirmatio Cartarum . [2] [1] The first section enacts that no tallage for aid shall be imposed or levied by the king and his heirs without the will and assent of the archbishops, bishops, and other prelates, the earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other freemen in the kingdom. [2]
No Tallage or Aid shall be taken or levied by Us or our Heirs in our Realm, without the good will and Assent of the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Barons, Knights, Burgesses, and other Freemen of the Land.
Tallagium facere was the technical term for rendering accounts in the Exchequer, the accounts being kept by means of tallies or notched sticks. The tellers (a corruption of talliers ) of the Exchequer were at one time important financial officers.
The system of keeping the national accounts by tallies was abolished by the Receipt of the Exchequer Act 1783 (23 Geo. 3. c. 82) and the office of teller by the Offices of Exchequer Act 1817 (57 Geo. 3. c. 84). [2]
The tax was frequently levied on English Jews during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A tallage of £60,000, known as the "Saladin tallage", was levied at Guildford in 1189, the ostensible object being preparation for the Third Crusade. [3]
It was reported that John may have imposed a tallage upon Jews in 1210 to the extent of 60,000 marks (£40,000). There are likewise records of tallages under Henry III of 4,000 marks (1225) and 5,000 marks (1270). [3] Important tallages were made by Edward I in the second, third and fourth years (£1,000), and in the fifth year (25,000 marks), of his reign. [3] These taxes were in addition to the various claims which were made upon Jews for relief, wardship, marriage, fines, law-proceedings, debts, licenses, amercements etc. and which Jews paid to the English exchequer, like other English subjects. [3]
It has been claimed that after their expulsion from England in 1290, the loss of the income from Jews was a chief reason why Edward I was obliged to give up his right of tallage upon Englishmen. [3] [4]
Tallage lasted much longer in France, where it was a royal tax and one of estate owners with tenants. It came to be called 'taille' and was much used during the Hundred Years' War. It was not abolished in France until the French Revolution.
Tallage never became significantly developed in the German states. It remained a small tax owed to a feudal lord in lieu of other feudal duties, dying out along with other feudal duties.
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual, without reference to income or resources. Poll is an archaic term for "head" or "top of the head". The sense of "counting heads" is found in phrases like polling place and opinion poll.
In English history, praemunire or praemunire facias was the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, or any other foreign jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the monarch. The 14th-century law prohibiting this was enforced by the writ of praemunire facias, a writ of summons from which the law takes its name.
Danegeld was a tax raised to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources. It was characteristic of royal policy in both England and Francia during the ninth through eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary, to buy off the attackers, and as stipendiary, to pay the defensive forces. The term Danegeld did not appear until the late eleventh century. In Anglo-Saxon England tribute payments to the Danes was known as gafol and the levy raised to support the standing army, for the defence of the realm, was known as heregeld (army-tax).
Ship money was a tax of medieval origin levied intermittently in the Kingdom of England until the middle of the 17th century. Assessed typically on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England, it was one of several taxes that English monarchs could levy by prerogative without the approval of Parliament. The attempt of King Charles I from 1634 onwards to levy ship money during peacetime and extend it to the inland counties of England without parliamentary approval provoked fierce resistance, and was one of the grievances of the English propertied class in the lead-up to the English Civil War.
In the civil service of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's Exchequer, or just the Exchequer, is the accounting process of central government and the government's current account in the Consolidated Fund. The term is used in various financial documents, including the latest departmental and agency annual accounts.
Scutage was a medieval English tax levied on holders of a knight's fee under the feudal land tenure of knight-service. Under feudalism the king, through his vassals, provided land to knights for their support. The knights owed the king military service in return. The knights were allowed to "buy out" of the military service by paying scutage.
The Statute of Westminster of 1275, also known as the Statute of Westminster I, codified the existing law in England, into 51 chapters. Chapter 5 is still in force in the United Kingdom and the Australian state of Victoria whilst part of Chapter 1 remains in force in New Zealand. It was repealed in Ireland in 1983.
The first Jews in England arrived after the Norman Conquest of the country by William the Conqueror in 1066, and the first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070. Jews suffered massacres in 1189–90, and after a period of rising persecution, all Jews were expelled from England after the Edict of Expulsion in 1290.
The Saladin tithe, or the Aid of 1188, was a tax levied in England and, to some extent, France, in 1188, in response to the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187.
The Leibzoll was a special toll that Jews had to pay in most European states from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.
The history of the English fiscal system affords the best known example of continuous financial development in terms of both institutions and methods. Although periods of great upheaval occurred from the time of the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the 20th century, the line of connection is almost entirely unbroken. Perhaps, the most revolutionary changes occurred in the 17th century as a result of the Civil War and, later, the Glorious Revolution of 1688; though even then there was no real breach of continuity.
Elias of London also known as Elijah ben Moses or Elias le Evesque, was Presbyter Judaeorum in 13th-century England.
Carucage was a medieval English land tax enacted by King Richard I in 1194, based on the size—variously calculated—of the taxpayer's estate. It was a replacement for the danegeld, last imposed in 1162, which had become difficult to collect because of an increasing number of exemptions. Carucage was levied just six times: by Richard in 1194 and 1198; by John, his brother and successor, in 1200; and by John's son, Henry III, in 1217, 1220, and 1224, after which it was replaced by taxes on income and personal property.
Jewish disabilities were legal restrictions, limitations and obligations placed on European Jews in the Middle Ages. In Europe, the disabilities imposed on Jews included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as the Jewish hat and the yellow badge, paying special taxes, swearing special oaths, living in certain neighbourhoods, and forbidding Jews to enter certain trades. In Sweden, for example, Jews were forbidden to sell new pieces of clothing. Disabilities also included special taxes levied on Jews, exclusion from public life, restraints on the performance of religious ceremonies, and linguistic censorship. Some countries went even further and outright expelled Jews, for example England in 1290 and Spain in 1492.
The history of English land law can be traced back to Roman times. Throughout the Early Middle Ages, where England came under rule of post-Roman chieftains and Anglo-Saxon monarchs, land was the dominant source of personal wealth. English land law transformed further from the Anglo-Saxon days, particularly during the post-Norman Invasion feudal encastellation and the Industrial Revolution. As the political power of the landed aristocracy diminished and modern legislation increasingly made land a social form of wealth, subject to extensive social regulation such as for housing, national parks and agriculture.
The Exchequer of the Jews was a division of the Court of Exchequer at Westminster which recorded and regulated the taxes and the law-cases of the Jews in England and Wales. It operated from the late 1190s until the eventual expulsion of the Jews in 1290.
Taxation in medieval England was the system of raising money for royal and governmental expenses. During the Anglo-Saxon period, the main forms of taxation were land taxes, although custom duties and fees to mint coins were also imposed. The most important tax of the late Anglo-Saxon period was the geld, a land tax first regularly collected in 1012 to pay for mercenaries. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the geld continued to be collected until 1162, but it was eventually replaced with taxes on personal property and income.
The economics of English towns and trade in the Middle Ages is the economic history of English towns and trade from the Norman invasion in 1066, to the death of Henry VII in 1509. Although England's economy was fundamentally agricultural throughout the period, even before the invasion the market economy was important to producers. Norman institutions, including serfdom, were superimposed on a mature network of well-established towns involved in international trade. Over the next five centuries the English economy would at first grow and then suffer an acute crisis, resulting in significant political and economic change. Despite economic dislocation in urban areas, including shifts in the holders of wealth and the location of these economies, the economic output of towns developed and intensified over the period. By the end of the period, England would have a weak early modern government overseeing an economy involving a thriving community of indigenous English merchants and corporations.
A tally stick was an ancient memory aid used to record and document numbers, quantities, and messages. Tally sticks first appear as animal bones carved with notches during the Upper Palaeolithic; a notable example is the Ishango Bone. Historical reference is made by Pliny the Elder about the best wood to use for tallies, and by Marco Polo (1254–1324) who mentions the use of the tally in China. Tallies have been used for numerous purposes such as messaging and scheduling, and especially in financial and legal transactions, to the point of being currency.
Feudal duties were the set of reciprocal financial, military and legal obligations among the warrior nobility in a feudal system. These duties developed in both Europe and Japan with the decentralisation of empire and due to lack of monetary liquidity, as groups of warriors took over the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres of the territory they controlled. While many feudal duties were based upon control of a parcel of land and its productive resources, even landless knights owed feudal duties such as direct military service in their lord's behest. Feudal duties were not uniform over time or across political boundaries, and in their later development also included duties from and to the peasant population, such as abergement.