of the neighbourhood not related to them, and assigned on oath for the purpose by the commissioners; the goods of the commissioners, by the treasurer and barons of the exchequer. The tax was to be levied and collected as follows: A schedule of assessment was to be made in duplicate by the commissioners, containing the name of every one taxed, and the amount with which he was charged. One of these was to be retained by the commissioners; the other was forthwith to be sent, under the seals of the commissioners, to the treasurer and barons of the exchequer. The tax was to be collected by the commissioners according to the form delivered to them by the king. The commissioners and their clerks were not to take any recompense for anything appertaining to the business. If necessary, a good and lawful person was to be sent into every county sworn to the king to survey, see, inquire, and examine if the assessment had been made and levied well and faithfully in the form prescribed, and that the people have not been wrongfully grieved or in any other manner damaged by the sheriff or other officers of the king, except only in payment of the tax. The rolls of the fifteenth of 1290 as far as they applied to the particular county, a transcript of the ordinance, and a transcript of the form of oath they were to make, were to be delivered to the commissioners. A writ was issued to the sheriff directing him to assist and cause his bailiffs and officers to assist the commissioners and their clerks in the levy of the tax.1 . The Schedules of Assessment for the Taxes on Moveables. Two of these schedules of assessment, for the borough of Colchester, are printed in the parliamentary rolls; one, for the seventh of 1295; the other, for the general fifteenth of 1301.2 They show how comprehensive was this system of taxation when strictly applied. Every beast of the plough, ox, cow, calf, sheep, lamb, pig, and horse and cart; every quarter of wheat, barley, and oats, haystack, and woodstack; all the little stock-in-trade of the local sea-coal dealer, pepperer, mustarder, spicer, butcher, fisherman, brewer, and wine seller, tanner, skinner, shoemaker, fuller, weaver, dyer, linendraper, girdler, glover and taselerer, tiler, glazier (verrer), carpenter, cooper, ironmonger, smith, potter, and bowyer, are included. The money of the taxpayers, of which they seem to have very little, their valuables, in the shape of silver buckles, spoons and cups, their suits of clothing, linen, beds, tablecloths and towels, brass pots and pans, basons and andirons or fire-dogs, are put down and valued. The seventh of 1295 had been granted by the cities and boroughs as against an eleventh granted by ''Forma taxationis octave et quinte regi concessarum.'—Par. Rolls, i. 239. 26 'Optima istiusmodi Taxationum specimina.'-Par. Rolls, i. 228, 243. These are from Mr. Astle's collection; some of the most interesting particulars they contain are printed in the Appendix, p. 251. See also extracts from a taxation roll for the 15th granted 7 Edw. ii. 1313. Owen and Blakeney, Hist. Shrewsbury, i. 152. the baronage and knights, whereas the fifteenth granted in the parliament of Lincoln in 1301 was general. As might be expected, the assessment for the seventh was comparatively lighter than that for the fifteenth. Henceforth there was but little material alteration in the method of assessment and collection for this kind of A form of ordinance for the tenth and sixth granted to Edward II. at York in 1322, is printed in the Appendix.1 It is in effect similar to that for the eighth and fifth of 1297. The same form, almost verbatim, was used for the fifteenth and tenth of 1334; after which, this kind of tax was superseded by an arrangement which rendered a fifteenth and tenth a mere name for a sum, ascertained in amount, to be levied in the manner usual for these taxes on moveables. The grants made in the first four decades of the fourteenth century were as follows:-In 1301 a general fifteenth; in 1302 a fifteenth; in 1306 a thirtieth and twentieth; in 1307 a twentieth and fifteenth; in 1309 a general twenty-fifth; in 1313 a fifteenth; in 1315 a fifteenth from demesne; in 1318 a twelfth from demesne; in 1322 a tenth and sixth; in 1327 a general twentieth; in 1332 a fifteenth and tenth; in 1334 a fifteenth and tenth. CHAPTER V. THE CUSTOMS BEFORE 1334. Origin of the customs. Their confirmation and limitation by Magna Carta. Quasi-parliamentary grant of the customs on wool, woolfells, and leather in 1275. The maletoute. It is suppressed by Confirmatio Cartarum in 1297. The antiqua custuma of 1275 are recognised. Commutation of prisage on wine of the foreign merchants for butlerage and the nova custuma in 1302. Refusal of the native merchants to commute. ANOTHER ancient source of revenue in England consisted in exactions of toll at the ports from merchants importing or exporting goods. The origin of these exactions is unknown; but the reason for their existence is clear. The merchant in those predatory times, when every one was so ready and eager to fleece him that 'pillé comme un marchand' became subsequently a proverb, willingly paid, on entering the kingdom and on taking his merchandise out of it, toll to the king, for the necessary safeguard for himself and his merchandise, ineundo, morando et redeundo,' in port, on land, and on the seas. The toll was, in short, in the nature of a premium paid to the king for insurance. But in whatever manner these tolls may have commenced in England, they became subsequently definite in amount, acquired by continuance the validity allowed to that which has long existed, and came to be termed 'consuetudines' or customs. In the time of the Norman kings, the trade of England, insignificant in amount, was almost exclusively in the hands of foreigners, that is to say, the Easterlings, the men of Flanders, Holland, and the Baltic coasts, and the men of Normandy and Picardy. Their ships were mere coasters, as were all ships before the invention of the needle; the principal import was the wine of France, while wool, skins and leather formed the principal exports. Of wine, a toll in the strictest sense of the term was taken by the king's officer from every ship having in cargo ten casks or more, on the arrival of the ship at a port in England, viz., one cask from a cargo of ten up to twenty casks, and two casks from a cargo of twenty or more, unless the toll formed the subject of a composition in the way of a money payment.1 The original amount of the custom for wool is unknown. For merchandise of other kinds the payment exacted was probably a disme or quinzinne, a tenth or fifteenth on the value of the goods.2 Before Magna Carta the levies of toll at the ports had become customary at certain amounts or rates; but the merchant was liable to further exactions at the hands of the king's officers, until secured in his dealings by the 41st article of the charter, which suppressed the excessive tolls, while it recognised and therefore confirmed the ancient and just customs. 'Let all 1 Madox, p. 525. Liber Albus, pp. 247, 248. |