Chapter IV.

Taxation in the middle ages.

With the termination of the Roman Empire of the West, which is regarded as having taken place a. d. 476, when Odoacer, chief of the Germanic tribe Heruli, cap­tured the city and assumed the title of King of Italy, a new and great element was introduced into European life, through the intermingling of the northern barbarians with the civilized, Christianized, and degraded Romans of the south. The following period, for at least five hundred years, was characterized, to an extent never before sur­passed in the world's history, by bloodshed, license, licen­tiousness, turmoil, robbery, and woe. Franks, Burgun-dians, Visigoths, Saxons, Slavs, Huns, Danes, and Nor­mans crowded upon and warred with each other. From such a period, when neither the agriculturist nor the ar­tificer could control to any great extent the fruits of his labour, and when the merchant " stole along the hedges, shrank from the eye of the passer, and stepped into rivers cautiously, seeking a ford, lest the man at the bridge should rob him," but little in the way of economic or fiscal principle could be deduced. In short, a new society, the foundation and precursor of what now exists, was in the process of evolution; but in order that evolution might commence, it would seem to have been necessary that all the elements of the old should be completely dissolved, in prder that its atoms might move freely—a condition like that to which the chemist is compelled to bring earthy min­eral substances in order to effect their purification and crys­tallization.

The period when the molecules of society seem to have begun to combine anew, is generally assigned by historians to the eleventh century, when feudalism had become sys­tematized into something analogous to general government, 100

GOD'S TRUCE. 101

and the power of the Church was especially manifesting itself; and was recognised to such an extent that it waa able to establish throughout nearly all Europe a period known as " God's Truce," when warfare, plunder, and bloodshed were forbidden from sunset on Wednesday to sunrise on Monday; and " during the Christmas holy days and Lent no new defences were to be erected, nor old ones repaired. But this was not all. The provisions made for the protection of the labourer and for the produce of labour were far more characteristic of the dawning of a new era. Peasants in hostile territories were not to be injured or confined; the tools of agriculture, the hay and the grain stacks and the cattle, were all taken under the protection of the Church; and if seized, it must be for use and not for destruction. He that violated this truce was placed under censure of ecclesiastical power." From this period, therefore, it is only practicable to take up anew the thread of history, and attempt to resume the relation of some of the most instructive incidents that have since character­ized the attempts of governments to defray their expendi­tures by levies upon the persons and property of their sub­jects or citizens. Before, however, so doing, the following historical facts may properly find a place.

How the Druids collected Revenue.—An annual payment in the nature of a tax waa exacted by the ancient Druids from every family for the benefit of the prieste of the temple in the district in which the family lived. The families were obliged, under penalty of an ecclesiastical curse, to extinguish their fires on the last evening of Octo­ber, and attend at the temple with a prescribed annual payment. This being made, they were entitled to receive, on the first day of November, some of the sacred fire from the altar, to rekindle the fires of their houses; and their neighbours were also forbidden, under a similar penalty, in any way to assist them. The result was, that delinquent taxpayers found themselves not only interdicted from the society of their fellow-men and from justice, the usual sequence of ecclesiastical excommunication, but also from the use of fire during the approaching winter.* This

* Toland's Critical History of the Celtic Religion and Learning, containing an Account of the Druids, p. 105.

THE THEORY AND PHACTICE OP TAXATION.

expedient for collecting a revenue was referred to by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech in Par­liament in 1871, in connection with a proposal to tax matches; and the motto, Ex luce lucellum> was proposed to be inscribed on match boxes in case the tax was enacted.*

Medieval System of Land Tenttre.—Among the nations that succeeded to the sovereignty of Rome, the title and ownership of land were regarded, as they are to-day in China, and in England and other European countries, as inhering primarily to the sovereign or chief of the state; and when partitioned among his nobles or chiefs, were held by them as it was termed on " tenure "; that is, on condi­tion of performing certain services—mainly military, or the payment of a tribute—in the nature of rent. These conditions were ratified by oath; and the chiefs could only sublet, to their serfs or inferiors, on terms consistent with their own tenure.

Large domains were also set apart for the exclusive use of the sovereign f—both in his public and private ca­pacity—the state and the sovereign being one and the same; and from the revenues thus accruing, and various fees and feudal incidents, the monarch, or feudal lord, was expected to defray all the expenses of the state, both public and private. Thus, the annual revenue of William the Conqueror is estimated to have been £400,000; which, tak­ing into consideration that the pound at that time con­tained three times the weight of silver that it now does, and that silver had a comparatively great purchasing power, must have been equivalent to at least four or five millions of present money; and of the public expenditures of these ages it is important to note that there were very few that

• Dowell, History of Taxation in England, vol. ii, p. 367.

t The royal demesne (right of ownership) under the Norman kings was at one time of vast extent, comprising, according to Domesday Book, no leas than fourteen hundred and twenty-two manors or lordships, besides farms and lands. It waa divided into (1) forest: (2) land held by rural tenants; (3) royal cities, burghs, and towns. The first formed the king's hunting ground, and afforded supplies of venison, etc., for the royal table; the second supplied the king's table in other respects; the third was mainly the source of contributions for the discharge of the king's debts.

REVENUE PROM DOMAINS. ЮЗ

represented the bulk of the expenditures of modern govern­ments.

Thus, for example, education was mainly confined to the clergy and the Church; and was efficiently supported by the produce of their own estates, or by tithes levied on the estates of others. There were few roads, and the labour of the serfs or peasants for a few days, before or after harvest, sufficed to keep in passable condition such as were needed to meet the demands of a very limited intercourse and commerce between different sections of the country. The administration of justice was held to be the perquisite of the lords or chiefs holding their estates direct from the crown, and, in place of being an expense, became through abuse and corruption a source of emolument. The stand­ing army, which, more than any one agency has tended to the impoverishment of modern Europe, could hardly be said to have then existed; the tenants in chief of the crown supporting the sovereign whenever he took the field with a body of retainers, armed and maintained in a large degree at their own expense. The necessity of taxes in the ordinary sense was, therefore, by these conditions entirely superseded; and if at any time there was a deficiency of revenue from the crown estates and fees, other sources of revenue were resorted to in prefer­ence to anything that could by any possibility be regarded as taxes.

Numerous old-time writers of authority—Montesquieu among the number—might be cited in support of what was then regarded as an eminently sound principle, that gov­ernments ought to be supported from revenues derived from the public domains, and that taxation should be re­sorted to as rarely as possible; because, as one of them expressed it, " one enters into civil society to protect one's property, and not to have it taken away from him." It is also interesting to note in this connection the tendency at the present time to go back to this old doctrine, and for states and municipalities to derive their revenues from other sources than taxation—as from the granting of franchises for railways, telegraphs, telephones, gas supply, lotteries, etc., on condition of participation in profits on gross receipts. Thus, the present net profit on the German etate railways is understood to pay one third of the interest