hide re Domesday book of the the knight's fee, - products of the new system of military tenures. Leaving the old customary dues and the feudal incidents out of view, the two great burdens on land which stand prominently forth are the Old-English tax on the hide, - whether known as aid, hidage, carucage, or, in case of the towns, talliage,1-and the new feudal tax on the knight's fee known as scutage. These two taxes affected two distinct classes of landowners; the scutage was the tax assessed upon the lands of the tenants in chivalry, the hidage or carucage upon the lands of the freeholders. The tax last named, when applied to the towns, bore the name of talliage.2 On great occasions, under the general name of auxilium, both taxes were sometimes raised at once; but as a general rule a year marked by a scutage was not marked by a carucage. So while the long as taxation fell only on the land, and so long as the hide mained the continued to be the unit of assessment, the Domesday Sur- unit, vey, whose record generally begins with the number of hides the rate or carucates at which the whole manor was rated according kingdom. to ancient assessment, continued to be the rate-book of the kingdom. When disputes arose as to the assessment of towns, which could not be settled by the Survey, they were specially adjusted or permanently fixed by the sheriffs, or by the detachment of barons from the exchequer during their fiscal circuits of the shires. As soon, however, as the old system of rating the lands of the tenants in chivalry, based upon the hide, was superseded by the new system based upon the knight's fee, a departure from the ancient rate-book followed as a necessary consequence. The next expedient New expewhich Henry II. employed to ascertain the number of knights' dient for fees subject to taxation was to require by writ every tenant- ing the in-chief, lay or clerical, to report directly the number of knights' knights' fees for the service of which he was legally liable." Under this arrangement the assessment of each baron or knight depended chiefly upon his own report. After the Danegeld was superseded by the tax known as aid or hidage, 1 Cf. Madox, Hist. Exch., p. 480; Blackstone, vol. i. p. 310 (Sharswood ed.). 2 "The knights paid aid or scutage, the freeholders carucage, the towns talliage the whole and each part bore the name of auxilium."- Stubbs, English Village Community, p. 84. 7 Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 584. ascertain number of fees. Taxation of personal property. Assize of Arms, 1181. Saladin tithe of 1188 as sessed by local jurors. Lands as sessed in the same way in 1198. Henry intrusted its assessment upon the towns and the freeholders to the officers of the exchequer. Under this system the justices were compelled to accept the sum conceded by each town or individual freeholder, or the latter had to pay whatever the justices saw fit to put upon them.1 Not until personal property became subject to taxation was a new method of assessment employed just alike to the crown and to the tax-payer. The growth of national prosperity, and the consequent development of material wealth, which followed Henry's policy of order and reform, rapidly brought into existence a mass of personal property which presented to the Angevin financiers a new and tempting basis of taxation, — a basis capable of unlimited expansion.2 By the Assize of 1181, in which each freeman was required to equip himself with arms according to his means, and in which local jurors were required to determine on oath the liability of each, the first move was made towards the taxation of rent and chattels.3 Seven years later Henry took the final step, and brought taxation directly to bear upon personal property by decreeing, with the authority of a great council at Geddington, a tithe of a tenth of movables to aid the common host of Christendom in the retaking of the Holy City from Saladin. In order to fairly assess each man's liability to the tithe, Henry resorted to his favorite institution of inquest by the oaths of local jurors. Whenever any one was suspected of contributing less than his share, four or six lawful men of the parish were chosen to declare on oath what he should give. In the reign of Richard I., when the Danegeld was revived under the name of carucage, the new principle of jury assessment was applied in a general way to the assessment of all lands subject to the tax. In this way the representative principle - which first appears in the form of the reeve and four selectmen who represent the township in the courts of the shire and repre and hundred1-is brought into close contact with the system of taxation. In connection with that system the repre- Taxation sentative principle ascends, through three stages, from the sentation. lowest to the highest functions of government. It is first applied in a humble way, through the chosen jurors, to the assessment of the tax; it next becomes involved with the granting of the tax; and finally it determines the method of its expenditure. taxation, toms; In what has so far been said in regard to the direct taxation Indirect of real and personal property, no reference has been made to the cusindirect taxes, the duties, toll, tribute, or tariff payable upon. merchandise exported and imported, which are included under the general name of the customs.2 The origin of the tax on imduties on imports can be directly traced to the ancient cus- ports; tomary right of the Old-English kings to levy tolls in harbors, and upon transport by roads and navigable streams. Upon its entry into the harbor the toll or tax was imposed directly on the ship; and in the early charters several instances can be found of grants to individuals and monasteries of an exemption from toll for one ship of burden, and in the event of the destruction of the particular ship another was to receive the same privilege. The toll paid by the ship was the equivalent given by the merchant for the right to bring goods into the realm, and to trade under the king's protection. The duties on imports are thus much more ancient than the duties on tax on ex exports, which are said to have come into existence as a part of the general system of taxing personal property. In the reigns of Richard I. and John, the receipts from the customs seem to have been considerable. At the date of the Great Charter they were of sufficient importance to suggest the provision forbidding the levy of more than the ancient and ports. Exclusive right of parliament to author ize taxation. First formal dis cussion of a grant in of Oxford, lawful customs on merchants entering and leaving the realm.1 Not until the reign of Edward I., however, did the right to regulate the customs, together with the right to regulate direct taxation, finally pass under the exclusive control of the parliament. The confirmation of the charters by Edward at Ghent, in November, 1297, contained an express pledge from the king that "for no occasion from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, or prizes but by common assent of the realm and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prizes due and accustomed." It seems to be clear that under the Old-English system the right of the witan to join with the king in the imposition of taxes was full and authoritative. In the levying of the land-tax for the purpose of defence against the Danes, the right of participation upon the part of the witan is distinctly recognized. But from the dim fiscal annals of the Norman reigns it is hard to determine whether taxes were imposed by mere edict of the sovereign, or whether with the counsel and consent of the great council. The idea that the nation was in some form consulted is strengthened, however, by two records which belong to the reign of Henry I. in the one the king describes "the aid which my barons gave me;"5 in the otherthe charter ordering the restoration of the local courts he speaks of summoning the county courts in cases in which his royal necessities required it. Not until the latter part of the the Council reign of Richard I. can there be traced anything like a formal discussion and refusal of a grant in the national assembly.7 1197. - Fadera, i. p. 12. As to the bearing of these citations upon the question of parliamentary consent to taxation, see Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 371, and note 4, p. 398. Henry even forestalls the constitutional language of later times when he speaks, in words half feudal, half parliamentary, of the aid which his barons had granted to him."- Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. v. p. 280. As to the successful opposition of St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, to the king's demand for money to carry on a foreign war, see Hoveden, vol. iv. pp. 33, 34, 40; Magna Vita S. Hugonis, p. 248; Freeman, Norm. Cong., vol. v. p. 465. Although the provision contained in the twelfth article of the Great Charter-that no scutage or aid, other than the three customary feudal aids, should be imposed without the common counsel of the kingdom — was a clearer statement of the right of the nation to be consulted than had ever been made before, yet not until Edward's confirmation of the charters at Ghent was the exclusive right of parliament to authorize both direct and indirect taxation fully and finally recognized. zation of the curia 7. Perhaps the most important part of Henry's work in Reorgani the restoration of law and order was the reëstablishment of the system of central administration embodied in the curia regis. regis, which the policy of Henry I. had so successfully built up, but which the protracted anarchy of Stephen's reign had completely broken down. Under the organizing hand of Bishop Roger the curia was developed into a strong judicial and ministerial body, before which passed in review the whole fiscal and judicial business of the kingdom. Under the administration of Roger the financial department of the curiathen called for the first time the exchequer assumed such special importance that when the king was not personally present the judicial aspect of the curia seems to have been overshadowed by its fiscal character. As reorganized by Henry II. the unity of the curia was preserved, and its financial department restored as it had been in the days of his grandfather. But through the results of Henry's legal re- Its financial forms, which tended to centralize to the utmost the ad- shadowed ministration of justice, the financial aspect of the curia was by its judiovershadowed by its development as a judicial tribunal.1 From the Constitutions of Clarendon we learn that the system of recognitions was then in full force;2 that the curia regis was a court of regular resort, and that to it were reserved all questions of presentation and advowson. In the 1 "Whereas under Henry I. the financial character, under Henry II. the judicial aspect, of the board is the most prominent. In the former reign the curia regis, except when the king takes a personal share in the business, seems to be a judicial session of the exchequer, an adaptation of exchequer machinery to judicial purposes; under the latter the exchequer seems to be rather a financial session of the curia regis. The king is ostensibly the head of the one, the justiciar the principal 2 This is the earliest mention of the 66 8 De advocatione et præsentatione ecclesiarum . . . in curia domini regis tractetur vel termineter." Art. I. now over cial aspect. |