96 Before the valuation of Norwich in 1254 the clergy of the province of Canterbury paid one more aid to the pope. On this occasion the clergy took the initiative and the aid was offered in return for papal privileges granted at their request.95 The collectors were appointed by the pope, with instructions to distribute the burden among the contributors in proportion to their respective faculties. They ordered their agents to fix the value of the temporal goods of religious houses by estimation and the value of churches and ecclesiastical benefices "secundum taxationem antiquam." Both were to be ascertained by inquisition. The work was done during the autumn of 1252.98 97 Two aspects of this valuation are of especial significance. The first is the use of the " antiqua taxatio." The phrase could have been used loosely to denote any old valuation, but collectors giving instructions to their agents must have intended to designate a specific valuation. Since the valuation of 1229 had been employed to assess * the aid of 1247, it was the only one which could have been described in 1252 as "antiqua" without danger of confusion. The second noteworthy aspect is the different procedure with regard to the temporalities. They were not assessed like the churches at the values assigned to them in 1229, but at values estimated in 1252.99 The reason for the distinction is not made apparent in the instructions of the collectors, but two explanations may be suggested. It is possible that the returns from temporal goods had increased in value so much more rapidly than those from churches and benefices, that a new valuation was deemed advisable for the one and not for the other. Since the sources of both kinds of income were mainly of the same economic nature,100 this does not seem probable. It is a more plausible supposition that the temporalities had not been assessed in 1229. The directions given to the assessors in 1229,101 and such fragments of the valuation as we now possess 102 do not conflict with this hypothesis; and Wykes's description of the valuation as "antiqua beneficiorum taxatio " 108 assumes significance in this connection. It seems probable that the valuation of 1229 was confined to those classes of clerical income later known as spiritualities. This survey of the subject has necessarily been brief; it has been sufficiently thorough, perhaps, to demonstrate that the evidence is 25 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Wells, II, 563; Matthew Paris, V, 225; Ann. de Burton, pp. 300-3. 96 Matthew Paris, VI, 213–15. 97 Ibid., VI, 213-17. 98 Ibid; Ann. de Theokesberia. p. 150. 99 Matthew Paris, VI, 215, 216. " 100 Hudson, The "Norwich Taxation of 1254, p. 46 (reprinted from Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, vol. XVIII). 101 Above, pp. 272, 273. 102 British Museum, Cottonian MS., Tiberius B II, fo 235. 103 P. 225. 105 204 for the most part too fragmentary to admit other than tentative conclusions. Apparently the three valuations of 1201, 1217, and 1229 were the only assessments of English clerical incomes made for papal taxation previous to 1254. They probably included only the spiritualities and did not extend to the temporalities. The last of the three was the most thorough; it furnished the precedents for the 'methods followed in later valuations; it probably was used for the assessment of all papal taxes imposed upon the incomes of the English clergy between 1229 and 1254; and it was probably called "antiqua taxatio" before the valuation of Norwich acquired that appellation. 104 These seem to be the dates when the valuations ordered respectively in 1199 and 1215 were taken in England: Roger of Wendover, ed. Coxe, III, 167; Ann. de Dunstaplia, p. 52. 105 The temporalities probably would not have been omitted in 1229 if they had been included earlier. When the attempt was made to extend the valuation of Norwich to their temporalities, the clergy offered a strenuous opposition on the ground that ecclesiastical revenues, upon which the tax was ordered to be levied, did not include the profits derived from their lay tenements: Matthew Paris V, 524-7, 553; Ann. de Burton,* p. 361; Rymer, Foedera, I, 280, 342, 345, 346; Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum, p. 57; Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1247-1258, p. 396; P. R. O., Patent Rolls, 53 Henry III, m. 23 v. The three earlier assessments had applied to ecclesiastical revenues, and if they had included the temporalities of the clergy the contention made in 1254 would have lacked force. VIII. THE ASSESSMENT OF LAY SUBSIDIES, 1290-1332. By JAMES F. WILLARD, THE ASSESSMENT OF LAY SUBSIDIES, 1290–1332. By JAMES F. WILLARD. The dates selected as the limits of this paper, 1290 to 1332 inclusive, mark important stages in the history of the taxes upon personal property or movable goods. In 1290 the exchequer was placed in charge of all the transactions having to do with these subsidies.1 Henceforth it watched over their assessment and collection, received directly or indirectly all the money gathered by the collectors and kept a record of the partial and final accounts rendered by the same collectors. The change was therefore administrative in character. The later date, 1332, is that of the last tax of the type that was developed under Henry III, and levied so frequently under Edward I and his immediate successors. The methods of assessment and collection used for the next subsidy, that of 1334, were, in answer to charges of corrupt practice in the levy of the subsidy of 1332, especially devised to insure a just valuation of movables. The crisis passed, there was no return to the older way of doing things. A fifteenth and tenth, after 1334, meant something quite different from what it had ever meant before. During the years from 1290 to 1332, taxes were levied upon the personal property of the nation sixteen times. In every instance they were granted either originally or finally by a properly constituted national assembly. The grant took one of two forms: It was either a uniform proportion of the value of the personal property of all parts of the population, such as a thirtieth, a fifteenth or a tenth, or it recognized the economic and political distinctions between the rural districts and the boroughs, and imposed different rates upon each. Whenever there was a double rating, such as an eleventh and seventh, or a fifteenth and tenth, the men of the cities, boroughs and ancient demesne paid the higher rate, and the men living in the rural districts, the lower. The first plan, or uniform rating, was used five times during the period; the second, or double rating, eleven times. 1 The evidence of the changes that took place in 1290 and the following years is to be found on the receipt rolls, issue rolls, and memoranda of the exchequer. It is the purpose of the present writer to describe these changes at some time in the near future. 'See my papers in the English Historical Review, XXVIII, 517-521; XXIX, 317-321; XXX, 69-74. |