tallage - England, France, Germany

A manorial obligation in the form of a tax, paid by villeins in Britain in return for protection; also a tax paid on the ancient demesne lands of the crown (ie recorded in the Domesday Book as royal lands in 1066), even if subsequently granted away as fiefs. Included within the royal demesne were the chartered towns, which resisted the collection of tallage. London especially resisted the collection of the tax, and in 1332 Parliament protested the imposition of a tallage. It was frequently levied to pay for military campaigns before 1340, when Parliament abolished it, and substituted subsidies and aids.

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 landuse or land tenure tax. In effect, tallage was a land tax.

England

Danegeld is a similar type of land tax, but tallage was brought to England by the Normans as a feudal duty.

Like scutage, tallage was superseded by the subsidy system in the 14th century. The last occasion on which tallage was levied in England appears to be about the year 1332. 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.

Tallage and the Jews

The tax was frequently levied on the English Jews during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A tallage of £60,000, known as the "Saladin tallage," was levied on them, for example, at Guildford in 1189, the ostensible object being preparation for the Third Crusade. It is reported that John tallaged the 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). 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. These taxes were in addition to the various claims which were made upon the Jews for relief, wardship, marriage, fines, law-proceedings, debts, licenses, amercements, etc., and which they paid to the English exchequer like their fellow subjects, though probably on a larger scale. It has been claimed that the loss of the income from the Jews was a chief reason why Edward I was obliged to give up his right of tallaging Englishmen in general.

France

Tallage lasted much longer in France, where it was not just a royal perogative, but that of every estate owner with tenants.

Germany

Tallage never became significantly developed in the German states.