Carucage
Encyclopedia
Carucage was a medieval English land tax
introduced by King Richard I
in 1194, based on the size—variously calculated—of the estate owned by the taxpayer. It was a replacement for the danegeld
, last imposed in 1162, which had become difficult to collect because of an increasing number of exemptions. Carucage was levied just six times: by Richard in 1194 and 1198; John
, his brother and successor, in 1200; and John's son, Henry III
, in 1217, 1220, and 1224, after which it was replaced by taxes on income and personal property.
The taxable value of an estate was initially assessed from the Domesday Survey
, but other methods were later employed, such as valuations based on the sworn testimony of neighbours or on the number of plough-teams the taxpayer used. Carucage never raised as much as other taxes, but nevertheless helped to fund several projects. It paid the ransom for Richard's release in 1194, after he was taken prisoner by Leopold V, Duke of Austria
; it covered the tax John had to pay Philip II of France
in 1200 on land he inherited in that country; and it helped to finance Henry III's military campaigns in England and on continental Europe.
Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue in order to supplement and increase royal income in a time when new demands were being made on royal finances. Although derived from the older danegeld, carucage was an experiment in revenue collection, but it was only levied for specific purposes, rather than as a regularly assessed tax. Also new was the fact later collections were imposed with the consent of the barons. However, the main flow of royal income was from other sources, and carucage was not collected again after 1224.
(such as feudal aid
s or feudal relief
s, which derived from the king's position as a feudal overlord), taxation, and fees and other profits from the judicial courts. In 1130, the records of revenues paid into the treasury show that about 40% came from royal estates, 16% from feudal rights, 14% from taxes, and 12% from the judicial courts. By 1194 revenue from the land came to about 37% of the total, about 25% came from feudal rights, taxation raised about 15%, and income from judicial sources about 11%.
English taxation after the Norman Conquest
of 1066 was based on the geld or danegeld, a national tax paid by all free men, those who were not serfs
or slaves. The geld was based on the number of hides
of land owned by the taxpayer, and could be demanded by the king and assessed at varying levels without the need for consultation with the barons or other subjects. During King Henry I's
reign, an increasing number of exemptions, and the difficulties encountered in collecting the geld, lowered its importance to the Exchequer
—the treasury of England. It is unclear whether the geld was collected at all during the reign of Henry's successor, King Stephen. Stephen's successor, King Henry II
, collected the geld only twice, once in 1155 and again in 1161–1162. The geld was unpopular, and after 1162 Henry may have felt it politically expedient to stop collecting it.
Most information about the carucage comes from the financial records associated with its collection, but there is no detailed description of the way it was collected or assessed, unlike the account of the workings of the Exchequer given in the Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer
, written in about 1180. Government records such as the Pipe Rolls, the Memoranda Rolls, and other financial records, some of which are specific to the carucage, have survived, and include records of assessments and receipts for the sums collected. There are also occasional references to the tax in medieval chronicles, supplementing the information found in the financial records.
, the Justiciar
of England who was in charge of governing England while the king was gone. Like the geld, the carucage was based on the amount of land owned, thus targeting free men rather than serfs, who owned no land and were therefore exempt. First collected in 1194, and the first land tax collected in England since the geld, carucage was based on the size of the estate as measured in either hides or carucate
s (a unit of land that could be ploughed by an eight-ox plough-team in a year, which was normally considered equivalent to a hide). The original property assessment of the carucage was based on the Domesday Survey, a survey of land holdings in England that was completed by 1087.
Collected again in 1198, and usually called the "great carucage," it was initially assessed at a rate of 2 shilling
s per carucate (estimated at 100 acres (40.5 ha) or 120 acres (48.6 ha)), but later an additional 3 shillings per carucate was imposed. This 1198 collection was to provide the king with money for his military campaigns in France, and raised about £1,000. A number of fines were subsequently imposed on taxpayers for evading payment, suggesting that the 1198 tax was not very successful.
According to the late 12th century chronicler Roger of Howden, the main source for information on the 1198 carucage, assessments were carried out in county by a commission of two royal officials working in each hundred (a subdivision of a county). Each of these commissions included two local knights who would take sworn testimonies in each village from four villagers and the bailiff
s or estate officials of those barons holding land in the village. The resulting assessments were recorded, and the sheriff, or chief royal official of the county, would receive the money and forward it to the treasury. Estate holders in the area were responsible for the payments from their estates, and when they were handed to the Exchequer a special procedure was followed to record the payments, which were then deposited into a dedicated set of accounts. These elaborate procedures were probably meant to avoid misappropriation of funds, but may not have been successful, as justices were later sent out to inquire into the commissioners' activities. As a result of their investigations, 23 counties paid fines to secure an end to royal inquiries and any arrears in payments.
The lower clergy and bishops resisted Richard's attempt to impose the 1198 carucage on their estates. In response, Richard withdrew their access to his royal courts forcing them to buy it back for a sum greater than the carucage would have collected.
and his assistants as receptores carucagii—"receivers of the carucage"—suggest that the money raised was paid into a special commission in the Exchequer. Whether lands were assessed by the system used in 1198 is unknown. The contemporary chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall
noted that an "order went throughout England by the justices or the king" to collect the tax, which may imply that the King appointed justices to collect the tax instead of using the earlier system. The carucage was raised in order to pay John's feudal relief— the payment to an overlord on inheriting lands—for his 1199 inheritance of lands in France. The relief had been set by King Philip II of France, John's overlord, at 20,000 marks
. Estimates of the amount raised by this carucage—about £3,000—are based on later revenues raised during the following reign.
The Cistercian monasteries in the north of England resisted the tax, claiming that they were immune to taxation. John put pressure on them, as he was in the north when the tax was announced, but the various abbeys appealed to Hubert Walter, by then Chancellor. Walter secured from the abbeys the promise of a group payment of £1,000, but in June 1200 the King rejected the offer. In October, the King returned from Normandy and resumed pressure on the monasteries, ordering the confiscation of all Cistercian livestock on royal lands after two weeks if a settlement was not reached. At the end of November, through Walter's intercession, the King capitulated and agreed to a Cistercian immunity from this tax.
; the clergy
made a donation in lieu of being taxed. The money raised was intended to defray the expense of the war being fought against Prince Louis of France
, who had invaded England before the death of King John and was claiming the English throne.
The 1220 carucage, which was imposed on both laymen and clergy, was collected by a special commission, and was paid not into the Exchequer, but to the Templar Order church in London, the New Temple
. The Templars through their international organization functioned as bankers in and between countries. The three men appointed to the commission—William de Halliwell, a friar, William FitzBenedict, a London resident, and Alexander de Sawbridgeworth, an Exchequer clerk—were responsible for accounting for the money received, which amounted to £3,000. The time frame of the 1220 carucage collection was quite short; the orders for the assessments to be made were issued in August, but required the tax to be collected by Michaelmas
in late September. The 1220 tax attempted to allow for variation in land values, exempting barren land from taxation. The system for the 1220 assessments was simpler than the 1217 levy, as plough-teams were counted to determine the land size rather than requiring oaths from taxpayers. This tax gathered around £5,500. There was some difficulty in its collection however, as some counties did not pay, and a number of barons refused to pay, at least at first. The 1220 carucage was levied to pay for the defence of Henry's lands in Poitou
, southern France.
The 1224 carucage was a tax levied only on the clergy, and the revenues from it did not appear in that year's Pipe Roll. It is likely that the clergy who owed the carucage also collected the tax. Records indicate that the bulk of the money raised was paid into the Wardrobe
, the king's personal treasury, rather than the Exchequer. The 1224 assessment was based on ploughteams, and was imposed to pay for the restitution of the lost lands in France.
Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue to supplement existing sources of income. It was also intended to increase the royal revenues in the face of new demands placed upon them. Although derived from the older geld, carucage was an experiment in revenue collection, but it was only levied for specific purposes, rather than as a general tax regularly assessed. A novel feature was the consultation with the barons and other leading members of the ruling classes. Despite its intermittent use during the reigns of Richard I, John, and the early years of Henry III, the main source of royal income at that time remained scutage
, feudal dues such as feudal reliefs or feudal aids, and royal rights such as the profits from the justice system.
Land value tax
A land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...
introduced by King Richard I
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
in 1194, based on the size—variously calculated—of the estate owned by the taxpayer. It was a replacement for the danegeld
Danegeld
The Danegeld was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources; the term Danegeld did not appear until the early twelfth century...
, last imposed in 1162, which had become difficult to collect because of an increasing number of exemptions. Carucage was levied just six times: by Richard in 1194 and 1198; John
John of England
John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
, his brother and successor, in 1200; and John's son, Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
, in 1217, 1220, and 1224, after which it was replaced by taxes on income and personal property.
The taxable value of an estate was initially assessed from the Domesday Survey
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
, but other methods were later employed, such as valuations based on the sworn testimony of neighbours or on the number of plough-teams the taxpayer used. Carucage never raised as much as other taxes, but nevertheless helped to fund several projects. It paid the ransom for Richard's release in 1194, after he was taken prisoner by Leopold V, Duke of Austria
Leopold V, Duke of Austria
Leopold V , the Virtuous, was a Babenberg duke of Austria from 1177 and of Styria from 1192 until his death...
; it covered the tax John had to pay Philip II of France
Philip II of France
Philip II Augustus was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne...
in 1200 on land he inherited in that country; and it helped to finance Henry III's military campaigns in England and on continental Europe.
Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue in order to supplement and increase royal income in a time when new demands were being made on royal finances. Although derived from the older danegeld, carucage was an experiment in revenue collection, but it was only levied for specific purposes, rather than as a regularly assessed tax. Also new was the fact later collections were imposed with the consent of the barons. However, the main flow of royal income was from other sources, and carucage was not collected again after 1224.
Background
In medieval England there was no clear separation between the king's household and the treasury. The main sources of royal income were the royal estates, feudal rightsFeudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
(such as feudal aid
Feudal aid
Feudal aid, or just plain aid is the legal term for one of the financial duties required of a tenant or vassal to his lord. Variations on the feudal aid were collected in England, France, Germany and Italy during the Middle Ages, although the exact circumstances varied.-Origin:The term originated...
s or feudal relief
Feudal relief
Feudal Relief was a one-off "fine" or form of taxation payable to an overlord by the heir of a feudal tenant to licence him to take possession of his fief, i.e. an estate-in-land, by inheritance...
s, which derived from the king's position as a feudal overlord), taxation, and fees and other profits from the judicial courts. In 1130, the records of revenues paid into the treasury show that about 40% came from royal estates, 16% from feudal rights, 14% from taxes, and 12% from the judicial courts. By 1194 revenue from the land came to about 37% of the total, about 25% came from feudal rights, taxation raised about 15%, and income from judicial sources about 11%.
English taxation after the Norman Conquest
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
of 1066 was based on the geld or danegeld, a national tax paid by all free men, those who were not serfs
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
or slaves. The geld was based on the number of hides
Hide (unit)
The hide was originally an amount of land sufficient to support a household, but later in Anglo-Saxon England became a unit used in assessing land for liability to "geld", or land tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide...
of land owned by the taxpayer, and could be demanded by the king and assessed at varying levels without the need for consultation with the barons or other subjects. During King Henry I's
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...
reign, an increasing number of exemptions, and the difficulties encountered in collecting the geld, lowered its importance to the Exchequer
Exchequer
The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...
—the treasury of England. It is unclear whether the geld was collected at all during the reign of Henry's successor, King Stephen. Stephen's successor, King Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
, collected the geld only twice, once in 1155 and again in 1161–1162. The geld was unpopular, and after 1162 Henry may have felt it politically expedient to stop collecting it.
Most information about the carucage comes from the financial records associated with its collection, but there is no detailed description of the way it was collected or assessed, unlike the account of the workings of the Exchequer given in the Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer
Dialogue concerning the Exchequer
The Dialogus de Scaccario, or Dialogue concerning the Exchequer, is a mediaeval treatise on the practice of the English Exchequer written in the late 12th century by Richard FitzNeal...
, written in about 1180. Government records such as the Pipe Rolls, the Memoranda Rolls, and other financial records, some of which are specific to the carucage, have survived, and include records of assessments and receipts for the sums collected. There are also occasional references to the tax in medieval chronicles, supplementing the information found in the financial records.
Under Richard I
Under Henry's son, King Richard I, a new land tax was collected, the first since 1162. It was organised by Hubert WalterHubert Walter
Hubert Walter was an influential royal adviser in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in the positions of Chief Justiciar of England, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor. As chancellor, Walter began the keeping of the Charter Roll, a record of all charters issued by the...
, the Justiciar
Justiciar
In medieval England and Ireland the Chief Justiciar was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius In...
of England who was in charge of governing England while the king was gone. Like the geld, the carucage was based on the amount of land owned, thus targeting free men rather than serfs, who owned no land and were therefore exempt. First collected in 1194, and the first land tax collected in England since the geld, carucage was based on the size of the estate as measured in either hides or carucate
Carucate
The carucate or ploughland was a unit of assessment for tax used in most Danelaw counties of England, and is found for example in Domesday Book. The carucate was based on the area a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season...
s (a unit of land that could be ploughed by an eight-ox plough-team in a year, which was normally considered equivalent to a hide). The original property assessment of the carucage was based on the Domesday Survey, a survey of land holdings in England that was completed by 1087.
Collected again in 1198, and usually called the "great carucage," it was initially assessed at a rate of 2 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s per carucate (estimated at 100 acres (40.5 ha) or 120 acres (48.6 ha)), but later an additional 3 shillings per carucate was imposed. This 1198 collection was to provide the king with money for his military campaigns in France, and raised about £1,000. A number of fines were subsequently imposed on taxpayers for evading payment, suggesting that the 1198 tax was not very successful.
According to the late 12th century chronicler Roger of Howden, the main source for information on the 1198 carucage, assessments were carried out in county by a commission of two royal officials working in each hundred (a subdivision of a county). Each of these commissions included two local knights who would take sworn testimonies in each village from four villagers and the bailiff
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
s or estate officials of those barons holding land in the village. The resulting assessments were recorded, and the sheriff, or chief royal official of the county, would receive the money and forward it to the treasury. Estate holders in the area were responsible for the payments from their estates, and when they were handed to the Exchequer a special procedure was followed to record the payments, which were then deposited into a dedicated set of accounts. These elaborate procedures were probably meant to avoid misappropriation of funds, but may not have been successful, as justices were later sent out to inquire into the commissioners' activities. As a result of their investigations, 23 counties paid fines to secure an end to royal inquiries and any arrears in payments.
The lower clergy and bishops resisted Richard's attempt to impose the 1198 carucage on their estates. In response, Richard withdrew their access to his royal courts forcing them to buy it back for a sum greater than the carucage would have collected.
Under John
King John, Richard's brother and successor, collected the carucage only once, in 1200. John set the amount to be collected from each carucate at three shillings. Revenues from this taxation do not appear in the 1200 Pipe Roll, although the designation in official records of William of WrothamWilliam of Wrotham
William of Wrotham or William de Wrotham was a medieval English royal administrator and clergyman. Although a 13th-century source says that William held a royal office under King Henry II of England , the first contemporary reference to William is in 1197, when he was put in charge of the royal...
and his assistants as receptores carucagii—"receivers of the carucage"—suggest that the money raised was paid into a special commission in the Exchequer. Whether lands were assessed by the system used in 1198 is unknown. The contemporary chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall
Ralph of Coggeshall
Ralph of Coggeshall , English chronicler, was at first a monk and afterwards sixth abbot of Coggeshall, an Essex foundation of the Cistercian order....
noted that an "order went throughout England by the justices or the king" to collect the tax, which may imply that the King appointed justices to collect the tax instead of using the earlier system. The carucage was raised in order to pay John's feudal relief— the payment to an overlord on inheriting lands—for his 1199 inheritance of lands in France. The relief had been set by King Philip II of France, John's overlord, at 20,000 marks
Mark (money)
Mark was a measure of weight mainly for gold and silver, commonly used throughout western Europe and often equivalent to 8 ounces. Considerable variations, however, occurred throughout the Middle Ages Mark (from a merging of three Teutonic/Germanic languages words, Latinized in 9th century...
. Estimates of the amount raised by this carucage—about £3,000—are based on later revenues raised during the following reign.
The Cistercian monasteries in the north of England resisted the tax, claiming that they were immune to taxation. John put pressure on them, as he was in the north when the tax was announced, but the various abbeys appealed to Hubert Walter, by then Chancellor. Walter secured from the abbeys the promise of a group payment of £1,000, but in June 1200 the King rejected the offer. In October, the King returned from Normandy and resumed pressure on the monasteries, ordering the confiscation of all Cistercian livestock on royal lands after two weeks if a settlement was not reached. At the end of November, through Walter's intercession, the King capitulated and agreed to a Cistercian immunity from this tax.
Under Henry III
John's son, King Henry III, assessed the carucage on three occasions, in 1217, 1220, and 1224. A new approach in 1217 and 1220 was to secure the consent of leading noblemen for the tax to be levied. The 1217 tax was once again assessed at 3 shillings per carucate. The assessment of the amount of lands held by each taxpayer involved having each landowner provide the information and swear an oath that it was correct. Like the 1200 tax, the 1217 tax was not recorded in that year's Pipe Roll, lending support to the possibility that the revenue from the tax was sent to a separate branch of the Exchequer. The 1217 carucage was only paid by laymenLaity
In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...
; the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
made a donation in lieu of being taxed. The money raised was intended to defray the expense of the war being fought against Prince Louis of France
Louis VIII of France
Louis VIII the Lion reigned as King of France from 1223 to 1226. He was a member of the House of Capet. Louis VIII was born in Paris, France, the son of Philip II Augustus and Isabelle of Hainaut. He was also Count of Artois, inheriting the county from his mother, from 1190–1226...
, who had invaded England before the death of King John and was claiming the English throne.
The 1220 carucage, which was imposed on both laymen and clergy, was collected by a special commission, and was paid not into the Exchequer, but to the Templar Order church in London, the New Temple
Temple Church
The Temple Church is a late-12th-century church in London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built for and by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. In modern times, two Inns of Court both use the church. It is famous for its effigy tombs and for being a round church...
. The Templars through their international organization functioned as bankers in and between countries. The three men appointed to the commission—William de Halliwell, a friar, William FitzBenedict, a London resident, and Alexander de Sawbridgeworth, an Exchequer clerk—were responsible for accounting for the money received, which amounted to £3,000. The time frame of the 1220 carucage collection was quite short; the orders for the assessments to be made were issued in August, but required the tax to be collected by Michaelmas
Michaelmas
Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel is a day in the Western Christian calendar which occurs on 29 September...
in late September. The 1220 tax attempted to allow for variation in land values, exempting barren land from taxation. The system for the 1220 assessments was simpler than the 1217 levy, as plough-teams were counted to determine the land size rather than requiring oaths from taxpayers. This tax gathered around £5,500. There was some difficulty in its collection however, as some counties did not pay, and a number of barons refused to pay, at least at first. The 1220 carucage was levied to pay for the defence of Henry's lands in Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
, southern France.
The 1224 carucage was a tax levied only on the clergy, and the revenues from it did not appear in that year's Pipe Roll. It is likely that the clergy who owed the carucage also collected the tax. Records indicate that the bulk of the money raised was paid into the Wardrobe
Wardrobe (government)
The wardrobe, along with the chamber, made up the personal part of medieval English government known as the king's household. Its chief officer went under the title of Master or Keeper of the Great Wardrobe. As a result, the wardrobe often appropriated large funds from the exchequer, the main...
, the king's personal treasury, rather than the Exchequer. The 1224 assessment was based on ploughteams, and was imposed to pay for the restitution of the lost lands in France.
Legacy
The last carucage was imposed in 1224, after which most of the medieval government's revenue was raised by levying taxes on moveable or personal property, instead of on land; taxes on moveable property were first assessed in 1207. A probable reason for the abandonment of land taxes was the greater revenues raised by taxes on property and income.Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue to supplement existing sources of income. It was also intended to increase the royal revenues in the face of new demands placed upon them. Although derived from the older geld, carucage was an experiment in revenue collection, but it was only levied for specific purposes, rather than as a general tax regularly assessed. A novel feature was the consultation with the barons and other leading members of the ruling classes. Despite its intermittent use during the reigns of Richard I, John, and the early years of Henry III, the main source of royal income at that time remained scutage
Scutage
The form of taxation known as scutage, in the law of England under the feudal system, allowed a knight to "buy out" of the military service due to the Crown as a holder of a knight's fee held under the feudal land tenure of knight-service. Its name derived from shield...
, feudal dues such as feudal reliefs or feudal aids, and royal rights such as the profits from the justice system.