Revue belge de philologie et

d'histoire

The Origin and Nature of the « Taille »

C. Stephenson

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Stephenson C. The Origin and Nature of the « Taille ». In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 5, fasc. 4, 1926. pp.
801-870;

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THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE " TAILLE

In 1186 Hugh, abbot of Saint-Denis issued a charter with a

remarkable preamble ; for it explains why the burgesses of
Saint-Denis had repeatedly come before him to beg relief from
taille. « For that custom, » he says, « seemed to the said
burgesses inordinately bad and hateful, in that it kept them in
constant fear ; and so, not daring to display their goods, they
made little gain. Wherefore, not only were outsiders afraid to
settle in the town, but even the natives were impelled to move
elsewhere. » The abbot accordigly abolishes forever all tailles
and forced exactions, on condition that the burgesses pay an
annual cens of 123 livres parisis, to be assessed by ten men of
good repute, jointly selected by him and the burgesses.And this
privilege is to be shared by all immigrants to the town (*),

O Gallia Christiana (Paris, 1716), VII, Instrumenta, p. 75 :

« notum fieri volumus quod burgenses villae nostrae, ubi sane-
tissimum corpus gloriosissimi martyris Dionysii requiescit,
praesentiam nostram saepius adeuntes, devota nos supplication
ne rogarunt quatinus ob amorem Dei et praefati martyris re-
verentiam eos a consuetudinibus talliae et toltae, neenon et
omnis rapinae liberos faceremus. Erat enim memorata consue-
tudo praefatis burgensibus molesta nimis et odiosa, eo quod
semper in timoré positi res suas exponere non audentes, minus
lucri intenderent ; eatenus ut non solum forenses ad hanc vil-
lam confugere formidarent, verum etiam indigenae ad alias
transfugere cogerentur. Nos igitur eorum preces honestas, et
tam nobis quam ipsis utiles judicantes, eos imperpetuum a tallia
et tolta, necnon et omni rapina, liberos facimus, ea tarnen con-
ditione, quod ejusdem villae burgenses et haeredes eorum, nobis
et successoribus nostris imperpetuum sex viginti et tres librae
Parisiensis monetae constitutis temporibus annuatim persol-
vant... Hujus etiam libertatis participes esse coiifcessimus omnes
qui, aliunde venientes, in terris nostris et in terris eorumdem
802 C. STEPHENSON

The taille is thus shown to have been an arbitrary tax taken

by the lord from all inhabitants of the town : a tax, moreover,
which on account of its capricious nature proved incompatible
with mercantile pursuits and prevented the growth and
prosperity the community.For his own advantage, as well as for that
of his burgesses, the abbot commutes the old exaction into an
annual fixed rent and leaves the raising of the money to the
citizens themselves.
By the time when this charter was granted, however, it was
not only men of bourgeois status who were able to force the
modification of the old taille ; groups of peasants had begun to
assert new claims and to secure liberties analogous to those of
the towns. Thus when, about the middle of the thirteenth
century, the chapter of Notre-Dame de Paris demanded the
customary taille à plaisir from the men of Rozoy, the latter
declined payment, alleging that they were not liable for it,
and on being summoned to court to answer for their conduct,
refused to appear. Instead, they offered eighteen livres a year as
cens — and the church saw fit to agree to a settlement on this
basis^). At Rozoy the taille was obviously like that enjoyed by the

burgensium ejusdem villae habitatores exstiterint... Praetaxa-

tus autem census hoc modo colligetur. Abbas qui pro tempore
fuerit, consilio praefatorum burgensium, decem viros eliget
boni testimonii,qui praestito jurejurando praedicti census assi-
siam fideliter facient. ·»
i1) B. Guérard, Car tulair e de l'église de Notre-Dame de
Paris (Paris, 1850), I, 389 : « Ideo ego Clemens, Dei gratia Pa-
risiensis ecclesie decanus, cum universis ejusdem ecclesie fra-
tribus, omnibus tam presentibus quam posteris notum fieri
volumus, qualis fuerit diffinitio querele quam Parisiensis
ecclesia in homines de Roseio cognoscitur habuisse. Exigebat siqui-
dem ecclesia nostra ab eis, jure consuetudinis, talliam secundum
voluntatem capituli nostri ; illi vero se talliam debere pernega-
verunt ; unde ad justitiam capituli, ordinario jure, submoniti
venire recusaverunt. Tandem vero nostre miserationi suppli-
cantes, ut se suosque posteros qui in territorio Roseii permane-
rent a taliis, interrogationibus, reiis, et quibusdam corveiis,
quas mense augusti illi debebant qui terre culturam absque ad-
jumento animalium exercent, penitus redderemus absolutos,
decem et octo libras Pruviniensium apud Roseium in festo Sancti
Remigii singulrs annis, census nomine, se suamque posterita-
tem Parisiensi ecclesie in perpetuum reddituros, sub juramento
constituerunt, »
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OP THE « TAILLE » 803

abbey of Saint-Denis — an impost resting on all inhabitants of

the village, arbitrary, and apparently annual. In both cases
its place was taken by a fixed rent ; and although we may
imagine that the churches lost no money by the transaction, their
tenants undoubtedly breathed more easily under an
arrangement that gave them a new feeling of dignity and security.
The abolition of the taille, therefore, was one phase of the
great social revolution that was already well under way in
France by the opening of the thirteenth century. Its progress
and results as affecting the fiscal responsibilities of the people
come to be well illustrated by an increasing wealth of sources,
some investigation of which has already been made (x). In the
other direction, however,all is dark ; and even the most
laborious research effects the collection of only a few scraps of
evidence which, though clear enough in themselves, leave a great
deal to be desired. Nevertheless, the student of mediaeval
institutions must feel amply rewarded if, by putting together his
stray fragments of information, he is able to show in a slightly
clearer light the way men thought and lived — organized their
state and society — in a world so different from our own as the
eleventh century. This, I think, the study of the taille will do,
for it is there that we find the nearest approach to regular
taxation known to the men of that age. Moreover, further interest is
given the question by the fact that, unlike the other familiar
obligations of the peasant, the taille suddenly appears in the
eleventh century with scarcely an indication of what its
previous history may have been ; and that down to the present
the most irreconcilable opinions have continued to be held as
to its original nature.
Now any valid solution of this problem must, I believe, be
based mainly on eleventh and twelfth century charters, for the
sources of the later period inevitably reflect the centralizing

(!) For literature on this subject, see « Les aides des villes
françaises au xiie et xine siècles, » Le Moyen Age, XXIV,
274 ff. ; and « La taille dans les villes d'Allemagne, » /Md., XXVI,
1 fi. The latter, in particular should be considered as
supplemented and corrected by the present study.
804 C. STEPHENSON

innovations of the kings and their princely rivals. In the

following pages, accordingly, a representative selection of such
documents will be presented from a fairly comprehensive region —
northern France and the Low Countries, — one which has the
added advantages of extending on both sides of the mediaeval
linguistic and political frontiers, and of embracing those
provinces where the economic forces that revolutionized
northwestern Europe first manifested themselves.* But even with
this restricted scope, the present study cannot lay claim to
completeness : it is the result of wide but not exhaustive reading
of cartularies, and pretends only to examine enough evidence
to warrant a few preliminary conclusions (x).
Such documents of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as
mention the taille — and they are comparatively rare — can
be roughly classified in two main groups : charters defining
the rights of churches, and charters of liberties to towns or
other communities. But since the latter do not begin till after
the year 1100, all our materials for the previous century must
be included in the former group ; and if we turn our
attention to these ecclesiastical charters, the great majority will
be found to deal with the privileges of such persons as may be
called avoués — either because they are so described in the docu*
ments, or because their relation to certain church properties
was much the same as that of the others. Consequently, although
much has already been written on the avoué, it will be necessary
to review the subject of his peculiar powers.
Whatever his rank, and whatever the origin of his functions,
the avoué of the eleventh century was very generally recognized
as being entitled, first, to share the profits of justice on the
lands that he protected ; secondly, to make various levies for

(*) Although reference will be made below to several of his

works,no amount of citation can properly acknowledge the debt
that I owe to M. Henri Pirenne, under whose personal guidance
the present bit of research has been undertaken and carried out.
Moreover, it is recognizing only an obvious fact when I state
that many of the fundamental ideas of this article, as well as
of those cited above, are the same as have been most recently
expressed by that genial scholar in his Mediaeval Cities
(Princeton, 1925).
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 805

military purposes ; and lastly, to collect certain special rents in

money or food. These payments seem always to have been well
defined ; over and over again the charters minutely specify
what the avoué may take and when and from whom he may
take it. This is part of his just due (servitium debitum), his
right (jus advocati) ; and the salvamentum or tensamenium of the
French sources was exactly the same sort of thing (x).
Sharply distinguished from such rents are the tailles or beden
when they first appear in the charters : instead of being fixed,
they were vague ; instead of being the acknowledged perquisites
of the avoué, they were the cause of endless recrimination and
controversy. Indeed, no uniform custom in this respect was ever
established. In a great many cases the levying of tailles was
strictly forbidden the avoué ; in many others it became part of
his regular income ; not infrequently the proceeds were shared
between the church and its official protector.
Thus in 1015 Balderic, bishop of Liege, declared that he had
absolved Lanbert, count of Louvain, and restored him as
avoué, since he had given back the lands of the church « absolu-
tum et liberum ab omni extranea potestate, ab omni placito,
exactione, precaria, et pernoçtatione, et omnibus violentis hos-
pitiis. » In return he was to have a third of the profits of justice,
certain definite corvées, together with two deniers, one fowl,
and four sexters of oats from each house (*). Nineteen years

(i) for examples of the iensamentum see immediately below

and further, pp. 810, 815, 817, 821-823, 841-842. References to
the literature on the avoué will be found in Le Moyen Age,
XXVI,34.In the second part of A. Waas, Vogtei und Bede in der
deutschen Kaiserzeit (Arbeiten zur deutschen Rechts-und
Verfassungsgeschichte, V, Berlin,1923), the author develops the thesis
that all mediaeval tailles were Vogteisteuern. In view of the
evidence cited below, I am unable to accept this conclusion.
(2.) C. Duvivier, Recherches sur le Hainaut ancien (Brussels,
1865), p. 372. Cf. the charter in L. Halphen, Le comté d'Anjou
au xie siècle (Paris, 1906), p. 346, by which Fuik Nerra announces
the rights of the avoué for Saint- Florent de Saumur : « nullus
ibi advocatus aliquam exactioneni inferre praesumeret nee sibi
quaestum aliquem adquirere. »
806 C. STEPHENSON

later Bishop Reginald, on founding a new abbey, provided that

the avoué should have no right of exaction over its territory ;
«nullum ibi obsonium, nullam precaturam habebit, nihil om-
nino praeter quod abbas sua manu ei dederit usurpabit. » (x)
And in 1067, when the same church gave a certain allod to
Notre-Dame de Huy, the bishop established that the prévôt could
name as avoué some one to hold office during good behavior,
« ceterum nee licitum*sit precariam facere nee quemquam exac-
tione gravare » (2). To the same effect was Henry Ill's well
known privilege for the abbey of Saint Maximin at Trêves in
1054, and the foundation charter of Laach, issued by Henry?
count palatine of the Rhine, in 1093 (3). Meanwhile, in 1079,
an agreement between the abbot of Saint-Remi de Sens and
Dreux, avoué of Sièges, had specified that the latter utterly
abandoned « captionem illam quam taliam vocant (4), » and
in 1094 the archbishop of Reims removed his excommunication
from Hugh, count of Rethel, who had renounced « exactiones
quas talias vulgo vocant, quas in villa S. Remigii exercebat. (5) »
Other examples from the following century could be citied by
the score (6).

(*) J. F. FojppENS, Auberti Miraei... opera diplomatica et

historica, 2nd Edition (Brussels, 1723-48), III, 301.
(2) Bulletin de la Commission royale d'histoire, 4e Série, I,
96. Compare the similar provisions in charters of 1091 and 1106
(pp. 100, 103) : « id tantummodo ibi exigeret quod in presentia
do mini episcopi tota congregatio ei determinaret » ; « interdic-
tum est ei ne quid ab aliquo rustico ibi violenter exigeret. »
Cf. also S. Bormans and E. Schoolmeesters, Cartulaire de
l'église de Saint-Lambert de Liege (Brussels, 1893), I, 52, 71 ;
C. DuviviER, Actes et documents anciens intéressant la Belgique
(Brussels, 1898-1903), I, 272 : « abjuravit itaque taliis et gistiis,
toltis et precibus, et omni exactione praeter rectam advocatio-
nem quam juste debet habere. »
(3) H. Beyer, Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der... miltelrhein-
ischen Territorien (Goblenz, 1860 ff.), I, 401-403 : « nullus
eorum per inscisiones -aut petitiones homines gravare...
présumât. » Ibid., I, 444 : « neque violentas exactiones quas precarias
vocant aliquando exigat. »
(4) M. Quantin, Cartulaire général de l' Yonne (Auxerre, 1854-
59), II, 13.
(5) Gall. Christ., X, Instr., 31.
(") For instance, the charter of the bishop of Utrecht (1105),
 TUK ORIGIN' AND NATURE OP THE « TAILLE )) 807

In these charters a variety of authorities, both lay and

ecclesiastical, are seen co-operating to check what they denounce
as iniquitous oppressions. But it by no means follows that all
tailles were thought unjust ; what was wrong for one avoué
might be right for another, or for the prince who frequently
acted as protector or avoué-en-chef cf many churches. The truth
of this statement will be at once apparent from an examination
of a series of acts issued by the counts of Flanders.
The oldest of these is the regulation of the avouerie of Mar-
chiennes by Baldwin IV in 1038 (1). The avoué is to have the
usual third of the profits of justice, certain amounts of food and

recognizing the count of Zutphen as sole avoué of Saint- Walbur-

gis, and cursing all who there occasion « vel rapinam, vel exac-
tionem, vel peticionem aliquam » : L. Sloet, Oorkondenboek
der Graafschappen Gelre en Zutfen (The Hague, 1872-76), I,
206. Of the bishop of Metz to Longueville (1121) : « Nullus etiam
advocatus ecclesiae vestrae exactiones vel violentas hospitali-
tates et precationes facere praesumat. » : Dom Calmet,
Histoire de Lorraine (Nancy, 1745-67), V, Preuves, cxli. Of the
archbishop of Cologne (1121) to Steinfeld, recognizing the sole
avouerie of the count of Ahr and prohibiting all exaclio and pre-
caria : T. J. Lacomblet, Urkundenbuch für die Geschichte des
'Niederrheins (Düsseldorf, 1840-58), I, 191. Of the bishop of Laon
(1129) : « Cum in Triniaco villa S. Theoderici praedicti comitis
vicecomes Levoldus novas exactiones agcre vellet, sub occasione
vicecomitatus sui, annua scilicet placita, et tallias de nummis,
de frumento, et vino, contradicente abbate Guillelmo, et rusticis
ejusdem villae, sicut rem novam et inauditam. » : J. Mabillon,
Annales ordinis S. Benedicti (Paris, 1703-39), VI, 654. Of Lo-
thair III to Stavelot (1131-39) : « non precarias vel inscisuras
facere. » : J. Halkin and C.-G. Roland, Recueil des chartes de
l'abbaye de Stavelot- M a Imédy (Brussels, l£09), I, 31 1, 329, 365.
Of Conrad III to Saint-Remi de Maestricht : « exactiones,
tallias, quas quidem precarias vel petitiones nominant, vel ac-
cubitus vastatorios, regia censura contradicit penitus advocato » :
Miraeus-Foppens, I, 105. Of the counts of Limburg, S.
P. Ernst, Histoire du Limbourg (Liege, 1837-48), VI, 136 ;
C. Piot, Cartulaire de Saint-Trond (Brussels, 1870), pp. 92, 128 ;
Lacomblet, II, 41.
(*) L. A. Warnkönig, Flandrische Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte,
(Tübingen, 1835-37) III, Urkunde clv. On the power of the count
of Flanders as avoué ; PiRENNE,iï/.stoire de Belgique, 3rd edition
(Brussels, 1909), I, 114, 124.
R. I'M. II. — 52.
808 C. STEPHENSON

drink, special payments in case of war, and eight palfreys for

service in the king's army C)·

Praeter haec, nihil debet habere advocatus in ecclesia, nee

ista accipere nisi per manus ministrorum abbatiae... Non ban-
num faciet, nee precarias, nee latronum accipiet, nee corveias,
nee palefridos ; nee ministri ejus aliquid accipient... Nee licet
ei nee alicui terrenae potestati in aliqua villa S. Rectrudis
contra voluntatem abbatis vel monachorum manere, vel con-
vivia praeparare, nee placita tenere, nee denariorum vel pecu-
niae collectionem ab incolis exiger e, nee ullam violentiam in-
ferre.

Here, then, the count as superior over the local avoués

prohibits to all lay authorities the taking of beden from the tenants
of the abbey. Acting in somewhat the same way, Baldwin V
in 1055 confirms an agreement between the abbot of Corbie and
a certain avoué, by which the latter is to make no rogatio on
any of the abbey's lands, (2). and in the next year he intervenes
to settle a dispute between the abbey of Saint-Bertin and
certain men who are pretending to be its defenders. The annual
bede which they have been claiming as their due is abolished,
and the gîte and other services allowed them are strictly
limited (3).The same count also issues a similar prohibition for
Douchy, a village of Saint-Pierre at Ghent, but various lords
are later found in possession of regular tailles on other lands
of the abbey (4). In fact, about the year 1070, Count Robert

(x) Cf. the charter of Count Thierry in 1137, A. Van Lokeren,

Chartes et documents de Saint-Pierre au Mont Β landin à Gand
(Ghent, 1868), I, 134 : « Volo igitur ut universa terra quam S.
Watenensis ecclesia sub tuitione meae advocationis iam possi-
det ab omni importuna rogatione et vexatione, talliis et exac-
tionibus tam castellanorum quam ceterorum virorum ab ho-
dierno die usque in sempiternum immunis sit et libéra, salvo
dumtaxat redditu meo, quem mini haereditario iure annuatim
ρ er solver e debet. »
(2) DuviviER, Actes, I, 132.
(3) B. Guérard, Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Bertin (Paris,
1841), p. 184 : « Insuper vero volebant petitionem annuatim,
quasi ex debito, f acere. »
(4) Van Lokeren, Chartes de Saint-Pierre, 1, 81 : « ut
nullus judex, nullus advocatus, licentiam habeat, ibi placitum
tenere, vel cuicquam per vim tollere, vel hospitare, vel pre-
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 809

already recognizes an avoué of Saint-Bavon as being entitled

to one bede every year ; which, neverthelss, shall be so levied
that no one shall be forced to pay more than he reasonably
can (x).
In these cases we have to do with abbeys of ancient
establishment, and no explicit evidence is forthcoming as to the origin,
either of the avoueries'in question, or of the count's regulative
authority. We have, however, two foundation charters of the
same Robert which give us decidedly interesting information
on these very points. The first of them, dated 1093, attests the
endowment of a new abbey at Ham by his vassal Enguerrand,
châtelain of Lille, who had for this purpose placed certain
manors in the count's possession (2).

Et ego predictas possessiones et omne dominium, libertatem,

et omnem prorsus justiciam, et quidquid etiam juris habebam
vel habere poteram in praedictis quoquomodo, abbati et mona-
chis dicti loci ad opus dicti monasterii dedi, tradidi, et delibera-
vi perpetuo possidenda... Insuper volo et statuo ut nullus suc-
cessorum meorum, Flandrensium videlicet comitum, seu alio-
rum quorumcumque, exactionem, tailliam, expeditionem, equi-
tationem, aut servitium exercitus, seu manuperationem super
homines ecclesiae de cetero habeat ; sed tantummodo abbati et
ecclesiae Hamensi in omnibus, et non aliis subjecti erunt. Homi-

carios facere ; sed omnia in jure et pot est at e abbatis constituit. »

In 1070 the abbot paid 40 livres to Eustace, count of Saint-
Pol, to secure his abandonment of all injustices at Harnes (ibid.,
I, 100) : « precaria ibidem nulla habeat ; statutiones que ple-
beia lingua kerve vocantur super quoslibet S. Petro attinentes
non agat. » But see the settlement of 1163-77 with William,
seigneur d'Avelghem, wherein the latter renounces all iniurias at
Avelghem, « excepta tantummodo tallia, quam tarnen cum omni
discretione et mensura facere debebit » — Ibid., I, 165, and
cf. I, 232. Below, pp. 841-842.
(x) Warnkoenig, III, Urk. cxxxxii ; [C. P. Serrure], Car-
tulaire de Saint-Bavon à Gand (Ghent, 1836-40), p. 21. Ihis was
the settlement of an old quarrel (« intolerable retroactis diebus
litigium ») : « ipse vero advocatus unam tantum per annum pe-
titionem in abbatia faceret, ita duntaxat ut qui posset daret,
illi vero qui non posset nullam vim aut preceptum inferret. »
According to later confirmations (Ibid., pp. 27, 29, 36), this bedt
was taken in pigs.
(2) Miraeus-Foppens, II, 1142.
810 C. STEPHENSON

nes etiam extraneï undecumque advenerint, si alicujus advoca-

tionis exstiterint, quamdiu in terra ecclesiae commorati fue-
rint, praeter censum capitalem in omnibus abbati et monachis
subjacebunt.

By the second charter Robert makes known that certain no-

.
blemen of his county, some of whom are mentioned by name,
have built a church at Beuvrières near Béthune, and that they,
in his presence and with his assent, have established various
customs for the benefit of the monks who shall reside there.
Together with the lands and possessions granted, they surrender
all rights of justice and lordship ; and they specifically provide
that none of them, whatever his rank, shall have over the new
church or its properties any right of exaction., taille, corvée,
or ost. They offer the sole avouerie of the church to the count,
who accepts and promises not to alienate it (1).
Now, although these two charters are differently framed, their
effect was certainly the same. In each case lands belonging to
individuals were unconditionally bestowed upon a church
through the mediation of the count, and the avouerie, which
was often reserved by donors, was granted him alone. In each
case, also, the count gave not only what he had received for
that purpose from his vassals, but added franchises that only
he could grant — for instance, complete immunity for the ab-

(*) Ibid., IV, 187 : « Ego Robertus, Dei gratia Flandrensium

Comes, tarn futuris quam praesentibus notum facio, quod
quidam nobiles viri de comitatu nostro Onvard, scilicet Calinus de
Beuvraria, Walterus Li-Bornes ejusdem villae, et Heliphus
frater ejus, et Lambertus de Crohes, Radulphus de Marcele, et
alii quamplures, construxerunt quamdam ecclesiam apud Beu-
vrariam... Praefati autem nobiles viri in praesentia nostra vene-
runt, et devotiones suas nostro assensu confirmaverunt, et con-
stituerunt ut terras et possessiones et quaecumque beneficia eis
contulerunt libère et quiète et cum omni justitia et cum omni
prorsus dominio teneant et possideant... Constituerunt etiam
praefati nobiles ut nullus... ( lacune). ..dominorum vel militum
quamlibet exactionem vel talliam vel manoperacionem vel'
expeditionem super ecclesiam S. Christinae, vel super omnia
quae monaehorum sunt, habeat ; vel quidcumque hujusmodi
vel super omnem terram, vel super omnes homines, hospites,
monachos Beuvrariae possit exigere vel reclamare ; sed in
omnibus omnino rebus monachis subjecti erunt. »
 THE ORIGIN ANP NATURE OF THE '< TAILLE » 811

bey's men throughout his dominions or for all settlers on the

abbey's lands. The count might, of course, act on his own
initiative and concede whatever was his own to give ; as, when
Baldwin V endowed Saint-Winnoc-lez-Bergues in 1067, he
promised that men living on the estates of the monastery, whether
old or reclaimed from the ajoining waste, should be subject
only to the justice of the abbot, should serve in no army except
on his summons, and should be exempt « a tali is ac exactionibus
et edicto et servitio comitis (x). » And on other ecclesiastical
properties, where the rights had not been abandoned, the counts
continued to levy taille and military service for many years
to come (2). However, it is interesting to note that neither the
one nor the other was a monopoly of the count at the close of
the eleventh century, since what lesser lords might relinquish
they might also keep (3).
With these Flemish charters may be compared a host of
others, for in every region of feudal Europe the princes and
their vassals were founding and endowing churches after the
same fashion. Thus when Enguerrand, count of Ponthieu, gives
a village to Saint-Riquier in 1052, he forbids « ne aliquis amplius
in ilia villa neque per vim, neque per deprecaturam, neque per
advocaturam de omissis consuetudinibus amplius aliquid expe-
teret (4). » The foundation charter of Tréport issued by Robert,
count of Eu, seven years later contains the pledge that the count
and his heirs will take from the donated lands « nulla servitia,
nulla auxilia, nullas tallias sive collectas ; nullas omnino exac-
tiones exigant (5). » In 1077 the count of Aquitaine promises,
with considerable prolixity,that none of his family,relatives.offi-

(*) Miraeus-Foppens, I, 511.

(2) See in particular L. Devillers, Chartes de Sainte- Waudru
de Moris (Brussels, 1899), I, 30, 56, 58, 66, 95. Cf. H. F. Dela-
borde, Recueil des actes de Phi lippe- Auguste (Paris, 1916)
I, 292, and Duvivier, Actes, II, 322-23.
(3) For further discussion of the count's power to grant tailles
over hôtes, and the possession of such rights by the feudal
baronage, see below, pp. 23 ff.
(4) Hariulf, Chronique de l'abbaye de Saint-Riquier, ed. F;
Lot, (Paris, 1894), p. 230.
(5) Gall. Christ, XI, Instr., 15.
812 C. STEPHENSON

cials, or servants shall exact gîte or taille from the monks of

Moustier-Neuf at Poitiers or from their men, wherever located (x).
And in the same way Manasses, count of Guisnes, renounces
for himself and his successors the laying of any « coactivam peti-
tionem seu incisuram » upon the men of the abbey of Andres (2).
On the other hand, if we may believe the charters, the dukes
of Lorraine were guilty, not only of retaining, but also of
inventing tailles on monastic lands under their protection (3) ;
and the count of Champagne, while recognizing the immunity
of some ecclesiastical properties, maintains his right to tailles
on others (*).

0) Ibid., II, Instr. ,351.

(2) A. Duchesne, Histoire généalogique des maisons de Guisnes,
d'Ardres, de-Gand et de Coucy (Paris, 1631), p. 37.
(3) About 1150 the monks of Saint-Michel complained to
the pope of the usurpations of the duke (Gall. Christ., XIII,
Instr., 571) : « nostri quoque temporis comes Raynaldus, qui
quinto illis gradu successit, quod majores sui numquam fecerant,
pecuniarum rapinas, quas vulgus talliatas vocant, per terram
nostram primus agere coepit. »And in 1152 Duke Matthew
renounced, in favor of the abbess of Remiremont, (ibid., XIII,
instr., 507) « tallias autem quas ipse dux et advocati sui injuste
super homines ecclesiae facere consueverant. » Somewhat
earlier the duke of Lorraine had abandoned as a « prava exactio »
all taille on the lands of the monks of Saint- Dié, except a special
aid when he was summoned to the imperial army. — G. Waitz,
Urkunden zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte, 2nd edition
(Berlin, 1886), p. 8.
(4) D'Arbois de Jubainville, Histoire des ducs et des comtes
de Champagne (Paris, 1859-66), III, 442 : « Ego Henricus, Tre-
censium comes palatinus, presentibus et futuris notum fieri
volo, inter me et abbatem S. Medardi Suessionensis ecclesie
Ingrannum nomine discordiam habuisse propter talliam quam
in villis subscriptis feceram, videlicet... Sed servientes mei, qui
consuetudines meas recipere consueverunt, de prescriptis villis
nullam talliam me habere recognoverunt. Quapropter talliam
in villis prenominatis relinquo, atque in perpetuum dimitto...
In aliis vero villis, si quas in potestate mea habuerint, nee
talliam nee consuetudinem dimitto. » Cf. C. Lalore, Collection des
principaux cartulaires du diocèse de Troyes (Paris, 1875-83),
V, 36). For other examples from various regions see d'AcHERY,
Spicilegium (Paris, 1723), III, 459 ; J. Tardif, Monuments
historiques (Paris, 1866), p. 238 ; Delaborde, Actes de Philippe-
Auguste, I, 24 ; Gall. Christ., XI, Instr., 90 ; Miraeus-Foppens,
II, 1195; B. Guérard, Car tua lire de l'abbaye de Saint-Père de
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » ,813

Now it must be noticed that throughout all the wrangling

over tailles, which fills so many records of the eleventh, twelfth,
and thirteenth centuries, the aim of the church was always clear
and steadfast : to free its lands and its men of all lay control.
Since our sources deal almost exclusively with privileges issued
to churches or settlements of disputes to their advantage, the
evidence against secular tailles on ecclesiastical lands seems
greatly to outweigh that in its favor. We should remember,
however, that when a lord possessed the indisputable right to
such tailles, no record of it would need to be made, and it
would continue as a customary burden on the land until a
more generous heir saw fit to abolish or restrict it. Many nobles
unquestionably enjoyed perquisites of this sort as part of their
ancient property and, to judge from their actions, the unanimous
opinion of avoués was that tailles should normally accompany
such other rights as justice and ost. Whether there may not
have been good cause for this notion will be seen later ; but
with or without it, tailles were frequently established by force.
In this connection an interesting story is told by Roger
Guenchi, avoué of Romigny. for his charter of 1117 to the church
of Compiègne not only recites what concessions he has made,
but frankly tells why he has made them and why he has not
granted more. « I therefore », he says, « by the same right that
others have to customs within their avoueries, have annually
collected one measure of oats and three deniers from each
householder there ; which income, since I have held it by virtue of the
original establishment under my ancestors, and have continued
to enjoy it without contradition, I have determined to retain
for myself and my successors. Likewise I have yearly three
other deniers from each of the aforesaid householders,imposed
by my predecessors for gîte, which also I have not agreed to
give up. The taille, however, which my predecessors, though
by usurpation and lawlessness, annually levied from the
harvested crops, and which I myself, falling into their evil ways
and similarly undergoing excommunication, have also had, I

Chartres (Paris, 1840), II, 669 ; J. Flach, Les'origines de

l'ancienne France (Paris, 1886 ff.), I, 393, n. 1, 417, n. 2.
814 C. STEPHENSON

have seen fit to moderate. » In this magnanimous spirit,

accordingly, Roger promises henceforth to take as ''aille only five
measures of grain from all tenants belonging to the avouerie of
Romigny — and it was this settlement that, faule de mieux,
became the established custom of the locality (*).
What could be more explicit than this naïve account? The
primitive arrangement had given Roger's ancestors the usual
tensamentum, but they in the course of the eleventh century
had supplemented this income by exacting also gîte and taille,
which, in spite of the bitterest oppositions was levied year after
year. Finally, to avoid the pains of hell, Roger agreed to limit
the amount of the exaction, and it thus became a fixed charge
on the land. Altogether, this is a remarkable example of a
process that was everywhere taking place, but which in most cases
left but little trace in the records (2). Failing for some reason or

(') E. Morel, Carlulaire de l'abbaye de Saint- Corneille de

Compiègne (Compiègne, 1904), no. 39 ; also published in F. Senn,
L'institution des avoueries ecclésiastiques en France (Paris,
1903), p. 226 : « Ego igitur, jure quo ceteri suas in suis advocatio-
nibus habent consuetudines, de singulis mansionariis singulas
avene minas tresque denarios per singulos annos ibi colligebam.
Quod, quoniam a prima institucione a patribus meis habui et
absque ulla contradictione possedi, michi meisque successoribus
censui retinendum. Habeo quoque de singulis predictis
mansionariis tres alios quotannis denarios, predecessoribus meis pro
pastu a rusticis institutos, quos etiam dimittere non consensi.
Talliam vero, quam pro libitu suo antecessores mei, usurpative
tarnen et contra vetitum, collectis annuatim fecerant segetibus,
egoque, per vias eorum incedens et simile subjacens excommuni-
catione, tenueram, pro consilio temperavi. » It was this charter
of Roger Guenchi that, after further troubles with his
successors, was made the basis of a new settlement in 1144. — Ibid.,
pp. 231-232.
(-) Most of the evidence regarding the limitation of tailles
comes from the later twelfth or the thirteenth century. For
example, A. Luchaire, Étude sur les actes de Louis VII (Paris,
1885), p. 424 (1164-65) ; Senn, Avoueries, p. 234 (1170) ; GuÉ-
RARD, Cartul. de N.-D. de Paris, I, 233 (1193); G. Kurth,
Chartes de l'abbaye de Saint-Hubert en Ardenne (Brussels, 1903),
I, 225 (1216) ; Miraeus-FoppensJV, 539 (1226), II, 853 (1230).
But Flach (Origines de l'ancienne. France, I, 392, n. 1) cites an
interesting example from the early twelfth century. And see
below, pp. 841-842. In thirteenth-century extents the taille
usually appears as fixed ; see H. Pirenne, Le livre de l'abbé
Guil aume de Rycke.l (Brussels, 1896), p. 50.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 815

another to secure the complete relinquishment of tailles on

its property, a church would try to protect its tenants by
determining the maximum that they could be iorced to pay ; for
toward them the avoué wOuld naturally have none of the scruple
that selfish interest would prescribe in dealing with his ows
men i1). Often, too, the levy of lailles was restricted to specified
occasions or to such times as might be agreed on between the
two parties, when quile commonly both were to share the
proceeds.
So in 1067 the canons of Notre-Dame de Paris came to an
agreement with the avoué of Yiry by which he should have sal-
vamentum only from occupied houses and not moie than three
gîtes a year ; that pleas should be held jointly by a minister of
each party, and that no deprecatio should be made except by
their common consent (2). The same provision was made in
1080 by Richard Mansell in a grant to the abbey of Conches :
neither one should take an aid from the men of the land called
Baliol without the knowledge of the other, and whatever was
taken should be equally divided (3).

(x) Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, I, 143. But see below, n. 3.

(2) Guérard, Cartul. de N.-D. de Paris, I, 308.
(3) Gall. Christ., XI, Instr., 130 : « adjutorium seu forifac-
turam de aliquo homine ipsius terrae nullus capiet alio
ignorante, capta quoque per medium dividetur. » This grant is quoted in
a confirmation by Henry I of England. Cf. the agreement made
in 1120 between the chapter of Angoulême and certain brothers
over rights in L'Isle- d'Espagne (Bulletin et mémoires de la
Société archéologique et historique de la Charente, 6e Série, IX, 128) :
« Concessum est enim a fratribus Ulis... quod propriam terram
S. Pétri, quae est in predicta Insula et in circumadjacente ripe-
ria, et homines in ea manentes, libère et quiète possideant cano-
nici, ut nemo alius ibi aliquam consuetudinem habeat, neque per
vim, neque per quesitionem, neque aliquo alio modo. Communis
vero terra canonicorum et predictorum fratrum, ubi est habita-
tio hominum, communiter habeantur, ita ut redditus equaliter
inter canonicos et predictos fratres dividantur, tallede vel quesi-
tiones communi consilio fiant et simili modo equaliter dividantur.
De quesitione vero avenae, quae civada dicitur, retinuit Guilel-
mus et frater ejus ut in singulis rusticis, communis terrae unus-
quisque eminam querat, quod est sextarius, et canonici similiter
querant sextarium, » Similar settlements may be found in
D'Arbois de Jubainville, Comtes de Champagne, III, 456
816 G. STEPHENSON

Typical of quite a number of partages entered into by the

abbey of Saint-Père de Chartres was that sponsored before 1111
with Peter, mayor of Sainte-Croix, and his uncle.Certain lands
belonging to the latter, but now deserted, are henceforth to be
held in common and all income from them is to be shared (x).
Statutum est etiam ab utraque parte concessum quod nee ipsi
nee successores eorum ab habitatoribus terre illius aliqua
gravamina exigant, nisi forte eos vel aliquem eorum ab hostibus
capi contigerit ; tune enim facient exactionem illam que vulgo
tallia vocatur convenienter, secundum laudem nostram et
nostrum consilium ; et cum facta fuerit, nos mediatatem ejus
habebimus. Et nos similiter, pro nostra necessitate, eodem modo
eandem exactionem poterimus facere ; et cum facta fuerit, ipsi
mediatatem accipient.

The tailles foreseen in this charter were obviously in the

nature of more or less infrequent imposts, and the one specified
occasion, ransom from captivity, was of course one on wliicn
aids were customarily demanded of noble tenants also.
Alongside it appear in other documents, though somewhat irregularly,
the other familiar occasions. Thus in a charter of the early
twelfth century William « Goetus » grants to Saint-Père for
colonization (« ad hospitandum ») a certain portion of his fief.
He is to receive «pro defensione et protectione » various payments
in food and money from every hôte there settling; and
furthermore, if he marries his daughter (by his wife !), buys a castle,
or is taken prisoner, « talliam in hospitibus terre illius facere ei
licebit, per manum temen prioris S. Romani (2). »
With this may be compared a grant of about the same period
to the bishop of Angers. By it Robert Ivon cedes a ruined church
and a cemetery on the following conditions (3) :

(c. 1168) ; Mémoires de la Société de l'histoire de Paris, XXIX,

218 (1171) ; Lacomblet, I, 336 (1180) ; Gall. Christ., VIII. Instr.,
524 (1202).
i1) Guérard, Cartul. de Saint-Père, II, 432. With this
compare two other agreements of the same period : Ibid., II, 340,
530.
(«) Ibid., II, 483.
(3) Documents historiques sur l'Anjou publiés par la Société
d'agriculture, sciences, et arts d'Angers, V, 219.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 817

Hoc etiam dictum fuit, quod episcopus solveret dimidium

servitii debiti ipsis dominis a quibus habeo terrain illam :
videlicet, ad custodiendum castrum Segreii dum homines loci illius
essent in exercitu, et ad redimendos dominos terrae illius si
caperentur, et ad faciendos milites primogenitos filios domino-
rum, et ad maritandas primogenitas filias eorum, quod servi-
tium fiet secundum mensuram terrae illius. Nee quaereretur ab
ho minibus terrae illius vel hoc vel aliud, nisi per voluntatem et
manum episcopi. Si autem contigeret ipsum episcopum aliqua
causa quaerere ab ho minibus terrae illius, de hoc quod ipse ca-
peret dimidium sibi retineret et dimidium michi aut successori-
bus meis redderet. Similiter, si contigeret me aut meos haeredes
aliquid velle quaerere rationabiliter ab hominibus in cimiterio
illo habitantibus, per manum episcopi quaereretur, et de hoc quod
quaereretur dimidium sibi retineret et dimidium mihi redderet.

It should be noticed that, according to the preceding charter,

the bishop might lay a taille on the lands in question for no less
than three purposes : first, for his own benefit ; secondly, for
the benefit of the donor ; and lastly, to contribute toward aids
owed by the latter to his suzerain. In the two former cases all
proceeds were to be equally divided, but in the third, of course,
neither party profited at all. The peasant thus helped to
support three sets of masters, and so far as he was concerned, the
taille was entirely arbitrary. Altogether, this is a splendid
example of the fundamental simplicity of all fiscal arrangements
during the agricultural age.
There were, however, benefactors more generous than Robert
Ivon, and their renunciations might tend indirectly to lighten
the burdens of ecclesiastical tenants. In 1140 a certain Odo
gave to Notre-Dame de Chartres twelve plowlands located in a
forest. The canons were to divide it into portions for settlers,
over whom the donor reserved only three specified rights. One
of these was a faille every fourth year. At the proper time Odo
says he will notify the canons, who shall then levy a suitable
taille, of which they are to keep one-half. « Nor shall they levy
any other taille for me or my heirs, unless they so desire ; not
even for the redemption of my body. As often, however, as they
shall levy a taille, one half shall belong to me. » (*) If the

(x) Guérard, Cartiil. de Saint-Père, Prolegomena, p. xxxvin,

n. 4 : « Talleia supramemorata sic fiet. Quarto anno submone-
818 C. ST E PH EN SON

inhabitants of this territory were oppressed by frequent

exactions, it would obviously be the fault of no one but the
canons themselves.
The preceding evidence has, I think, shown the futility of
trying to frame one uniform theory with regard to the powers
of the avoué. The lands of one church might have been donated
by a score of lords on as many conditions, and might be scattered
among regions where quite different customs prevailed. What
the proprietors could enforce in one place they could not in
another : everything depended on local usage. Thus in many
cases the abbot of Saint-Denis succeeded in taking from the
avoués exactions, that he claimed were usurped (*) ; but
sometimes, willingly or not, he saw fit to recognize their claims to the
taille.So, when Louis VI settled a dispute between the abbot
and his avoué at Argenteuil in 1110, the latter was allowed, not
only his regular rents of grain, but 100 sous for gîte and 100
■sous for taille (a). Later, in 1153; Baldwin IV of Hainaut arranged

bo canonicos per majorera ejusdem ville, et facient talleiam

convenientem, de qua habebo medietatem, et ipsi aliam. Aliam
talleiam non facient pro me nee pro heredibus meis, nisi volue-
rint, nee etiam pro redemptione corporis mei. Quocienscumque
vero ipsi talleiam fecerint, dimidia erit mea. » For other such
partages see Flach, Origines de l'ancienne France, II, 557, η. Ι,
555, η. 2 ; L. Merlet, Cartulaire de l'abbaye de la Sainte Trinité
de Tiron (Chartres, 1883), II, 94 ; Gall. Christ., X, Instr., 337.
By a compromise established about 1172 between the abbot of
Saint- Corneille de Compiègne and one of his avoués, the two
together were to levy one taille every year and equally divide
what was collected. The result was that the men of the three
vills thus concerned appealed to Pope Alexander III, who had
just excommunicated the avoué, complaining that the abbot
had violated the papal order and had extorted such a severe
taille that many of the villagers had been forced to move to
other homes. The pope commanded an investigation and the
punishment . of the abbot, if found guilty. - — Senn, Avoueries,
pp. 236-239.
(x) Tardif, Monuments, pp. 235, 259 (1123-37, 1145);
Flach, Origines de l'ancienne France, I, 392, η. 1, (1144) ;
A. Teulet, Layettes du Trésor des Chartes (Paris, 1863), I, 97
(1170). These charters regularly allow tensamentum at a fixed
rate to the avoué.
(2) A. Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros (Paris, 1890) n0 97.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 819

a similar agreement between the abbey and Vautiers, avoué

of Solesmes, who had been accused of building a castle there
against the will of the abbot, of usurping his rights of justice,
forest, and mainmorte, and of violently extorting taille from the
tenants three times a year. All this Vautiers agreed to surrender
except the taille ; on which score, « since the abbot was unwilling
to concede him anything certain, the said avoué provided that
he would only levy taille twice a year, and in such fashion that
the men should not complain of it i1). » By 1233, when Solesmes
received a charter of liberties, this taille had been fixed at
30 livres on the feast of Saint-Remi and 20 livres at Easter.
Beyond these sums the avoué could exact nothing — not even
for marrying his daughter, knighting his son, or ransom (2).
However, it was especially when the avoué had done much to
improve the value of the property that his claim to taille was
considered valid by the church. Thus, by the original
agreement between the abbot of Saint-Denis and the count of
Beaumont, the latter was to have one-half of all custom, exaction,
and taille from a new settlement that he was to establish on some
of the abbey's waste lands (3).And in 1156 the bishop of Cambrai
decided that, since Robais, a vill of Saint-Denis, would have
remained uncultivated and deserted except through the
faithful efforts of the avoué, who had attracted colonists from
Flanders, Brabant, and other regions, he should receive half of all
customs, tolls, and tailles, as well as « eorum denariorum assisa
quod advocatus ex prima constructione ejusdem ville sibi dare
constituit » — - i. e. the tensamentum (4).
We now logically come to the question of royal tailles, and
the best method for approaching it will perhaps be to enumerate
the provisions of some of the earlier charters and let them

(*) Duvivier, Mainaui, p. Ô77 : « De tallia vero. quia hichil

ei certum abbas statuer e volebat, pepigit idem advocatus quod
bis tantum in anno talliam faceret, eo modo quod homines de
eo non conquererentur. »
(2) Analectes pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique de la
Belgique (Louvain and Brussels, 1864 ff.), XIII, 108.
(3) Teulet, Layettes, I, 71.
(4) Tardif, Monuments, p. 284.
820 e.' STEPHENSON

tell their own story Q). For example, in 1085 Philip I gives
certain lands to the Maison-Dieu d'Ëtampes-les-Vieilles and
promises that the hôtes living there shall be free of all custom
toward him or any person save the representative of the church ;
nor shall on the said land any one presume « violentiam seu
toltam facere (2). » Five years later the same king bestows upon
the canons of Orléans all « viaria, justicia/et tolta » held by
him over certain lands at Dammartin (3).
Under Louis VI the evidence improves both in quantity and
quality. In 1114 he grants the petition of the prior of Saint-
Eloi, that all persons possessing homes on the church's land
outside the walls should have the same liberty as they had
enjoyed when that land was inside (4) :
ab omni videlicet viatura, banno, sanguine, corveia, prepositi
exactione, furis càptione, incendio, tallia, seu qualibet alia mala
consuetudine, quieti penitus et soluti essènt.
In the next year he issues a confirmation to Saint-Paterne
d'Orléans conceding (6)
totam vicariam, immo totam omnino justiciam: ita scilicet,
ut intra predictos viii. aripennos nullus regie potestatis minister
aliquam justiciam clamare présumât, non furem, non incendium,.
non raptum, non sanguinem, non rotagium, non foragium, non

(*) The following charters have all in one way or another

received the attention of Luchaire in his various books, but he
nowhere gives more than passing attention to the royal taille.
In Duchesne, Histoire généalogique de la maison de
Montmorency et de Laval (Paris, 1624), Preuves, 14, is to be found a
charter of Robert, king of France, confirming to the abbey of
Coulombs that town « cum tota vicaria, et bannis, et incendiis,
taleis, et omnibus legibus ceteris. » But the « taleis » of this
passage should be replaced by « tasceis », as I have been kindly
informed by M. Martin- Chabot, who is now engaged in editing the
acts of Robert for the Académie des Inscriptions.
O1) M. Prou, Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier (Paris, 1908),
p. 288. In later charters tolta appears as an occasional substitute
for tallia. See immediately below, and also the charter to Saint-
Denis, above, p. 1, n. 1.
(3) Ibid., p. 310.
(4) R. de Lasteyrie, Carlulaire general de Paris (Paris, 1887),
I, 190 ; Tardif, Monuments,]?. 206.
(6) Guérard, Cartul. de Saint-Père, II, 456.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 821

bannum, non talliam in hospitibus qui ibi hospitabuntur, non

corveiam, non ire in nostram caballationem neque in hostem,
non herbergamentum, non sasimentum, immo nichil ex toto,
quod ad nostram pertinet vicariam sive justiciam.

From the same king Notre-Dame de Paris obtains a charter

in 1118, relinquishing (x)
quasdam exactiones quas in terra Beate Marie apud Balneo-
lum villam diu habueram, scilicet talliam super hospites, ammo-
nitiones hospitum in exercitu quibus predicta terra plus justo
vexabatur.

But the king reserves the annual tensamentum, as anciently

paid by the same hôtes in money, wine, and grain. About the
same time he also promises not to levy on any lands of Saint-
Spire de Corbeil, wherever situated, « tallias, toltas et demandas
vel exactiones aliquas (2) » ; and in the next year he entirely
remits a certain taille that he had been exacting at Sceaux-en-
Gâtinais and gives it to be enjoyed forever by the church (3).
In 1133 he frees of taille a certain vill of the abbey of Saint-
Magloire (4), and in 1136 one of the priory of Juvisi, but on
condition that he receive a sexter of oats annually from each
colonist (5). Finally, a charter of 1137 exempts Frenay-1'Ëvêque
of tolte, taille, and exaction, so that no one can henceforth take
anything from the inhabitants except the bishop of Chartres (β).
Recounting the acts of Louis VII and Philip Augustus
similar to the foregoing would add but little to our information
on the subject (7). Like their predecessors and their vassals,

(1) GuêrarD, Cartül. de N.-D. de Paris, I, 256 ; Tardif,

Monuments, p. 210.
(2) Mémoires et documents publiés par la Société ' archéologique
de Rambouillet, VI, 4.
(3) Luchaire, Louis VI, p. 342 : « quamdam talliam quam
exigebamus et accipiebamus... ex toto dimittimus atque eidem
ecclesie imperpetuum habendam concedimus. »
(*) Tardif, Monuments, p. 226.
(5) Luchaire, Louis VI, p. 342.
(e) Recueil des ordonnances des rois de France{Pans, 1723 ff)
V, 22.
(7) See Luchaire, Louis VII, pp. 357, 368, 370, 410, 589 ;
Delaborde, I, 155, 174, etc.
822 C. SIE PH EN SON

they grant lands with or without justice and other customs ;

they reserve tensamentum and taille or issue more or less
sweeping exemptions. Such documents constitute the great majority
of royal charters mentioning taille, but there are a few minor
groups that deserve passing attention. In the first place, we find
occasional privileges bestowed upon an individual — usually
the so-called liber hospes of a church. who lived in a community
where tailles might be collected, and acted as its agent in
business matters. A grant of this sort was made by Louis VI for the
abbey of Tiron c. 1125 (*), and for that of Montmartre in 1134 (2).
Secondly, there are acts of partage, by which the king assumes
protection of certain monastic property in return for a share of
the income, including tailles(3) And lastly, there are the charters
dealing with the perquisite known as régale, by which the king
limits his right to taille from ecclesiatical tenants during a
vacancy in the office of abbot or bishop (4).

(!) Merlet, Cartul. de Tiron, I, 95 : « hospitem ilium quem-

cumque in domo sua de Maudonta posuerint ab omni talliata
et exactione... liberum. »
(2) Gall. Christ, VII, Instr., 55. Cf. Delaborde, I, 6. Similar
privileges were also frequently granted by barons.
(3) For example, the association of Louis VI by the bishop of
Paris in certain property at Champeaux (Guérard, Cartul. de
N.-D. de Paris, I, 269) ; the former was to receive two- thirds « de
censa illius terre^ de taliis, de forisfactis, » etc.
(4) So Louis VII to the bishop of Orléans (Gall. Christ., VIII,
Instr., 513) : « quod quando episcopatus Aurelianensis in ma-
nus regias devenerit, nullam prorsus exactionem vel talliam in
terra ejusdem episcopatus vel nos vel successores nostri de cete-
ro faciemus, nisi earn quae statuto tempore debetur episcopo
scilicet ad festum S. Remigii...Ac ne etiam talliae illius summa
supra modum ad gravamen ecclesiae ullis occasionibus augeatur,
certa sub assignatione statuimus, ac modis omnibus inhibemus,
ne numerum lx librarum excédât. » Also to the bishop of Sens
Luchaire, Louis VII, no. 773) and to the bishop of Paris
(Guérard, Cartul. de N.-D. de Paris, I, 37). Cf. the confirmation of
this charter by Philip Augustus in 1206 (Ordonnances, XI,292),
together with assurance of no prejudice because he has just
taken 240 livres or more, in addition to the said 60 livres. See
the renunciation of the same right at Chartres by Henry, count
of Blois, about 1105 (Gall. Christ., VIII, Instr., 308), and compare
the grant of the count of Champagne to Troy es in 1181 (Lalore,
Çartulaires de Troyes, V, 45).
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE «TAILLE» 823

At this point it might be well to make some slight summary

of the evidence thus far examined, which, though dealing for
the most part with secular rights on church property, has
incidentally afforded other information as well. First, as to the
nature of the taille, it must be noticed that the word, along
with its many substitutes, is used very loosely in the records : it
may mean a regular or an irregular impost, a bit of violence or
an unquestioned right, a limited or an unlimited obligation. We
thus seem to be dealing with an institution so vague that as yet
scarcely any. generalizations can be made about it. This, how-
ever,can be said : whether authorized or not,it almost invariably
appears in the earliest sources alongside judicial and military
rights.
Secondly, with regard to the persons enjoying the exaction,
we have seen in possession of it before the middle of the twelfth
century kings, prelates, dukes, counts, and châtelains, as well
as simple knights and seigneurs. And in respect at least to the
characteristics mentioned above, the taille of one very much
resembles the taille of another. One of these persons, in the
capacity of avoué, might claim the privilege of tallaging
ecclesiastical tenants within a given region. Whether the avouerie
had been given him, whether he had reserved it over donated
lands, or whether it was his by virtue of political office, he
might or might not have the right to taille : that depended on
the terms of his commission, the provisions of his grant, or the
custom of the country. Some tailles were based on usurpation
but many were not. In any case,the exaction was only incidental
to the institution of avouerie, and not at all its creation (^
Thirdly, as concerns the persons liable, one cannot fail to
remark that there has been little talk of serfs, though time and
again the taille has been said to bear upon men styled hospites
This last point challenges our attention, and to explain it, as.
well as to secure further information on the previous two, it
will be necessary to examine another set of charters — those
dealing with tailles levied by the churches themselves.

(x) For the views in this respect of Karl Zeumer see Le Moyen,
Age, XXVI, 36 ; and for the argument of A.WAAS,above, p. 807 ,
n. 1.
R. Ph. H. — 53.
 824 C. STEPHENSON

Such acts, like those already studied, were issued as the

result of controversy, for quarrels arose, not only between .
churches and avoués, but also between churches, and between rival
authorities within a church. Thus in 1120 Notre-Dame de Paris
and Saint-Martin-des-Champs ended a dispute over rights in
Aulnay by agreeing that all rents and pecunie questus should
be equally divided, and that no such exaction or taille should
be made without the consent of both parties (*). Then, about
seven years later, a settlement was made between the bishop
and canons of the former church, by which the chapter was
accorded full disposition of its property (2) —

et in eisdem possessionibus, sive in ecclesiis, sive in hospitibus

et servis, sive in domibus, sive in vineis et terris, et in ceteris,
tallie et rogationes et cetera auxilia, quotienscunque opus fuerit,
libère et absolute, et sine impedimento alicujus persone, a com-
muni capitulo ubique accipiantur.

Here there is no indication of what exactions the chapter was

in the habit of making, but we know from other records that
in many villages it took annual tailles (3).
Not long afterwards the bishop of Orléans issued a charter
to define the rights of the dean. The latter, he says, has been
claiming, against the will of the canons, one-third « de omnibus
taliis quae in terra de majoria Petri'S. Crucis fierint... sive fie-
rint pro papa, sive pro rege, sive pro terrarum emptione, immo
quacunque fierint causa. » The dean, however, has been
prevailed upon to admit that his claim is unjust, since from the
tailles mentioned the canons get nothing for their own use (4).

C1) Guérard, Cartul. de N.-D. de Paris, I, 40. Cf. Beyer,

Mittelrheinisches Urkundenbuch, I, 706 (1167) : « Statuinuis etiam
ut in omnibus curiis nostris in quibus nos vel successores nostri
pro aliqua necessitate exactiones et precarias poterimus facere,
tu et ecclesia tua de omnibus que ibidem possidetis liberi sitis
ab omni precaria et exactione tam nostra quam successorum
nostrorum aut etiam ministeralium Treverensis ecclesie. »
(2) Guérard, Cartul. de N.-D. de Paris, I, 338.
(3) Above, pp. 804-805 ; and for other examples, Guérard,
Cartul. de N.-D. de Paris, II, 3-36.
(4) Mémoires de la Société archéologique et historique de l'Or-
léannais, XXX, 5. Compare the agreement of 1127 between the
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 825

Presumably, though the record does not say so, he should have
his third of tailles levied by the chapter for its own profit.
Another fruitful source of trouble was usurpation by one of
the church's domanial agents. Thus the abbot of Saint-Amand
repeatedly condemned his prévôt for levying violent beden in
one of the abbey's villages^). And in 1107 the abbot of Saint-Ber-
tin restored to power his minister at Poeperinge only on
condition that he should not, as his father had done, levy coactas
petitiones (2). In this same connection, one of the most
interesting accounts is contained in an act of 1153 attesting a
settlement between the dean of Sainte-Croix d'Angers and one of his
mayors. « On our land he shall make no quête, except that of
grain, which has been accustomed to be made at harvest time,
and which he shall make in this way : he shall not assess it by
taille, but shall, if he please, ask it of the men, without naming
any certain amount. It shall remain in their discretion, however,
either to give or not to give ; and if they give nothing, or decline
to give as much as he wants, he shall not on this account be
permitted to use force against them, nor to summon them to
court (3). »

bishop and archdeacon of Paris (Guérard, Cartul. de Ν -D.

dt Paris, I, 28) : « Collectas vero episcopus, absque archidiacono,
per parrochiam ipsius non faciet, nisi aut Romam veniat, aut
concilium in provincia celebretur, aut forte dominum papam
in ecclesia sua suscipiat ; quod tarnen, consulto archidiacono,
faciet: in quibus quidem collectis, quia expense o nines erunt
episcopi, archidiaconus nullam habet portionem. In ceteris vero
communibus collectis archidiaconus, ut moris est, tertiam partem
obtineat. Archidiacono autem in tota parrochia collectas sine
episcopo ffacere] non licebit. Quod si quis archidiacono de suo,
precibus aut ultro, donare voluerit, nequaquam debebit
episcopus contradicere. » And see Gall. Christ., X, Instr., 214.
(*) Between 1063 and 1076 the prévôt had agreed to levy no
« violentem precem » on the land in question (Waitz,
Urkunden, 13), but in 1082 the abbot was forced to decree a second time
(Duvivier, Actes, I, 47) : « Violentem precem quam vulgo vo-
cant tolpri nullo modo faciet. » And this decision was confirmed
in 1154 by Thierri, count of Flanders (ibid., I, 71).
(2) Warnkoenig, IP, Urk. clxxviii. The same prohibition
was put in the municipal charter of 1218 (z'&zd., II2, Urk. clxxxviii).
(3) Mémoires de la Société archéologique et historique de l'Or-
826 C. STEPHENSON

We therefore have abundant evidence of tailles levied by

ecclesiastics, not only in the charters just cited, but in the
implications of a great many others : such as the partages between
a church and an avoué or an act dealing with régale, where it is
stipulated that the lord shall take taille only on such occasions
as it had been owed the defunct prelate. Indeed, the documents
regularly show that a grant to a church of exemption from
secular tailles was equivalent to conceding the right on its part to
collect the exaction (x).
From every point of view, however, the most remarkable
information on the subject is contained in the records of various
controversies over tailles that occurred at the opening of the
twelfth century. Some time before 1105 it appears that the abbot
of Saint-Mesmin de Micy had had trouble with certain men of
the king who were resident on his property, for in that year
he requests Philip I to relieve the abbey of the injurious effects
of their presumptuous action (2). The king therefore grants
that:

lêannais, XXX, 21 : « Questam nullam in terra nostra faciet,

nisi earn quae tempore messis fieri solita est de frumento, quam
etiam hoc modo faciet : non talliabit earn, sed quaeret ab ho
minibus si voluerit, non nominando eis aliqam summam. In bene-
placito autem eorum erit dare vel non dare. Quod si non dederint,
vel non quantum ipse voluerit dederint, nee vim facere, nee eos
ad justitiam propter hoc submonere licebit. »
(*) See above, pp. 821-823. C/.Delaborde, Actes de Philippe-
Auguste, I, 51, 68. Churches sometimes granted exemption to
individuals : Ibid., 1, 143 ; P. H. Goffinet, Cartulaire de
l'abbaye d'Orval (Brussels, 1879), p. 119.
(*) Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p. 382 : « Ubicumque locorum
homines nostri in terris videlicet praefati S. Maximini habitarent
seu coloni essent, ipsa loca vel terras illas ab eorum injuriosa
praesumptione alleviare deberemus. » A charter of Robert to
Saint-Mesmin in 1022 (Historiens, X, 606) includes the following
clause : « Concedimus etiam eis ut homines nostri liberi et servi,
qui manserint vel domos habuerint in terris eorum, omnes peni-
tus consuetudines et ex nomine taliam quemadmodum proprii,
homines eorum perpetuo reddant. » But this provision is tacked
on to a grant of a totally different sort, and there is no context
to explain it, as in the act of Philip, where the request of the
abbot first appears. Furthermore, a quarrel over hôtes fits the
early twelfth better than the early eleventh century — see im-
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 827

ubicumque manserint homines nostri, liberi vel servi, in prae-

fatis terris sive locis S.- Maximini, terrarum débitas consuetu-
dines, scilicet in taliis, in censu, in ceteris redditibus, quemad-
modum proprii homines S. Maximini perpetuo reddant et red-
dendo persolvant.
Thus we are told that some of the king's men, both free
and serf, had settled as hôtes on the lands of Saint-Mesmin ;
that they had objected to paying the customary tailles imposed
by the monks on their own men, but that by the king's order
they were henceforth to do so. The principle here laid down is
certainly interesting, but before attempting to analyze its
consequences, we should examine the extraordinary report of
a trial held in the very next year before the king's court and in
the presence of the future Louis VI (^,
In confirming the sentence, Philip first relates the facts in
the case. Some little time before, the church of Compiègne
had summoned its hôtes to justice and had then exercized its
own proper authority by taking from them for the good of the
church « petitiones quasdam publicas, quas vulgo talliam vo-
cant. » Whereupon, one Nevelon de Pierrefonds, thinking to
protect certain of his own men and to remove them from the
law that bound other hôtes of the church, demanded that the
money collected from such men of his be turned over to him (2).
On the other hand, the churchmen claimed that his action was
entirely wrong ; since on their lands he had no power, right, or
justice. Then, when Nevelon had refused to submit, a day was
set for trying the case at Senlis in the presence of Prince Louis.
At the trial Nevelon repeated his arguments : that whatever
the church had taken as taille from men who, though hôtes
of the church, were his own, should be paid to him.For this,

mediately below. Altogether, therefore, the sentence in the

confirmation of Robert looks decidely like an interpolation in the
original charter, which in the opinion of M. Martin- Chabot
(see above, p. 822), was reshaped in the twelfth century.
C1) Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p. 398.
(2) « Domnus Nevelo,quosdam clientele sue suo nomine pro-
tegere nisus et ab aliorum lege segregare laborans, pecuniam
que pro tallia sumpta erat sibi suisque, ut aiebat, servientibus
reddi postulavit. »
828 . C. STEPHENSON

he said, was a liberty held by him on the land of the church

as if in fee of the king O.To all of which the churchmen entered
a general denial, repeating what they had asserted before and
producing their charters of immunity, by which they had secured
all royal rights within their territories. It was therefore obvious,
says the king, that when even his own servants settled on those
lands were not free of such customs, he could have no power of
granting to another the special privilege claimed by Nevel on(2).
At this point the latter, seeing the hopelessness of his case,left
the court-room, and judgment was formally rendered in favor
of the church : that, according to its own interest and volition,
it was- entitled to levy taille, administer justice, and exercise all
power within the territories under its jurisdiction (3).
Now in spite of the fact that the decision went against him,
Nevelon must have had some grounds for acting as he did ;
without some honest conviction or plausible argument he would
hardly have allowed the case to go before the king's court. We
must at least believe that he had good title to tailles from his
men so long as they did not live within an immunity ; his
mistake lay in believing, or pretending, that such personal rights
should not yield to the territorial rights of the church. The latter
had from the first claimed the taille as sole justiciary within its
lands : since Nevelon had no power of jurisdiction there, he had
no power of taking taille. In the trial Nevelon seems to have lost
confidence in his original argument and to have fallen back on
the weak assertion that he really had such jurisdictional power

(*) « Clamavit namque domnus Nevelo quicquid clerici ab

hospitibus ecclesie, hominibus autem ipsius Nevelonis, pro
talia sumserant, sibi suisque debere reddi, hanc se in terra
ecclesie libertatem habere, hoc quasi feodum a rege se tenere pro-
mulgans. »
(2) « Unde cum nee etiam nostri servientes, terre illius hospi-
tes, ab hac consuetudine queant esse liberi, nos nee habere,
nee alieni dare vel concedere, nee aliquem a nobis posse tenere
recognovimus. »
(3) « Ut sancte Compendiensis ecclesie clericis in omni terra
ilia... et in omnibus ejusdem terre hospitibus pro sua et ecclesie
utilitate liceat talliam facere omnemque justitiam et potestatem..
pro sua voluntate et libito liceat exercere. »
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » · 829

as part of the fief held of the king — which was easily proved
specious by showing that the king himself had reserved no such
right within the district in question. Thus the church of Compiè-
gne, like the abbey of Saint-Mesmin, was recognized in
unmistakable terms as being entitled to tax settlers on its territory,
even if they were serfs of a secular lord.
Not long afterward, in 1128, a somewhat similar case was
brought before the same court, as we know from an attestation
issued by John, bishop of Térouanne. « When, » runs his account,
« the clergy of Lille, impelled by the paramount need of their
church, had demanded aid, after the fashion of other lords,
from the hôtes of the church, the latter, with hearts hardened
by the sin of avarice, went before William the Norman, count
of Flanders, and by prayer or price obtained from him absolute
prohibition to the clergy that they should exact anything, and·
to the hôtes that they should pay anything. Whereupon, the
clergy, fearing that by this unprecedented affront the ancient
liberty of their church might be impaired, sought out Louis,
king of the Franks, and Renaud, archbishop of Reims,
presenting privileges from the church of Rome and from the royal
authority, and beseeching them to relieve the church of such
threatened injury Q). » After the usual preliminaries, therefore,
a trial was held before the barons of France, and eventually
judgment was rendered to the following effect : « that the said
clergy should have the same right and power over their hôtes
as the other princes of the land had over theirs,nor should on

(x) E. Hautcoeur, Cartulaire de l'église collégiale de Saint-

Pierre de Lille (Paris, 1894), I, 28: «Cum Insulani clerici,
summa ecclesie sue necessitate constricti, ab hospitibus ecclesie,
more aliorum dominorum, auxilium postulassent, illi vicio ava-
ritie obdurati comité m FI an drie Guillelmum Nor mann um a die-
runt, et ut ipse clericis ne exigèrent, et hospitibus ne clericis
quicquam darent, modis omnibus prohiberet, seu prece seu
precio, effecerunt ; unde clerici antiquam ecclesie sue libertatem
hac insolentia imminui posse formidantes, Francorum regem
Ludovicum et Remorum archiepiscopum Rainaudum, privilégia
Romane ecclesie et auctoritatis regie secum déférentes, expe-
tierunt, et ut hanc injuriam ab ecclesia depellerent implora-
verunt. »
 830 C. STEPHEN S ON

this account any violence be done them by any prince

whomsoever (*). » The count then acknowledged his wrong and
received absolution.
Our record thus gives no good explanation of the count's
interference with the action of the church, but in the light of
the other sources just examined, it seems very probable that
the hôtes in question were men of the count or of his vassals,
and his pretext was perhaps similar to that of Nevelon de
Pierrefonds. However that may be, there can be no doubt as to the
position taken by the church. Saint-Pierre de Lille had been
established only some seventy-three years earlier ; the
muniments that the clergy laid before the court must have been the
charter of Baldwin V and the confirmations of it by Popes
Alexander II and Gregory VII. all of which merely affirm a
• general immunity from secular authority (2). Such indirect
acquisition of regalian rights plainly sufficed to establish the
title of the church to levy contributions from all tenants on its
property — a power claimed and formally recognized, not as
something unusual, but as one common to the lords of the land.
As early as the eleventh century, accordingly, the taille might
be a territorial exaction which a lord imposed, not merely on his
bondmen, but on all residents under his jurisdiction ; and with
the certainty of this fact established, we are in position to inquire
how a person might or might not become subject to such a
territorial taille, and eventually whether there may not have been
at the same time a personal obligation for taille as well. In other
words, we now have to do with what the sources call hospites
and hostisiae, the importance of which for the social history of
Europe can hardly be overestimated, for therein lies the key
to such problems as the rise of the towns and the breakdown of
the manorial system (3).

(*) « Communi baronum terre consénsu et judicio diffinitum

est, clericos illos idem potestatis jus super hospites suos quod
alii principes terre super suos habere, nee ullam eis super hoc
a quoquam principe violentiam inferri debere. »
(2) Ibid., Préface, and pp. 2-9.
(3) On the class of hôtes see in particular L. Verriest, Le
servage dans le comté de Hainaut (Brussels, 1910), pp. 40 ff. ;
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILL1 » 831

In the first place, there is no doubt that the hôte of whom we

have heard so frequently was a settler, a colonisé on somebody's
land. He might be either serf or free, his place of origin might
be known, or he might be a wanderer from nobody knew where.
In any case he was made welcome by the owner of waste lands ;
he received a plot for his house and fields for his crops ; the lord
specified in advance his rent and other agricultural services ;
and he became liable for the common customs of the territory
in which he resided. Having freely entered into this arrangement,
he was presumably free to leave it when he chose to seek fortune
elsewhere. Thus, with regard to the lord on whose land he settled
the hôte was normally free, though with regard to some other lord
he might still be legally a serf. In fact, the rights of this old
master sometimes had to be respected and the hôte would
be under obligation to two men at the same time. Furthermore
there were the claims of the king, count, or other suzerain to be
considered — as a large number of charters bear witness.
Thus, as we learn from a confirmation by Philip I in 1065,
the abbey of Saint-Pierre de Hasnon had asked, and the count
of Flanders had granted (x)
ut praecinctum parrochiae totius villae Hasnoniensis, quam ipsi
concambio mutaverunt, ab his quorum erat beneficium, libe-
rum et ab omni exactione absolutum firmaremus, tarn in cam-
pis quam in aqua et in silvis vel hominibus potestatis ipsius
cenobii vel advenis quos albanos vocant vel servis tam sanctorum
quam hominum infra praecinctum commanentibus, nulla oc-
casione vel advocature vel fiscalis debiti ab aliqua seu magna seu
parva persona nisi ab abbate supVamemorati loci distringendis.

The effect of this grant was of course to establish within a

certain region an immunity for the abbot of Hasnon ·— in that
the act was nothing unusual. What distinguishes it from
hundreds of earlier charters is the specific provision that it makes
regarding immigrants on the abbey's land. It subjects to the
abbot's authority, first, aubains, and secondly, serfs of outside

H. See, Les classes rurales et le régime domanial en France au

Moyen-Age (Paris, 1901), pp. 212 ff. ; Pirenne, Med. Cities,
pp. 117, 130.
(*) Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p. 64.
832 C. STEPHEN.SON

lords, ecclesiastic or lay. The former, lordless wanderers from

nowhere in particular, were everywhere considered the special
protégés of the king or the holder of regalian rights (x) ; except
for this privilege at Hasnon, they would have been claimed by
the count. But the abbot's immunity also gave him complete
control over other men's serfs, who, as we learn from another
charter of the same year (2), were to be quit of all obligation
to their masters on payment of capitation. This head-tax had
long been and long remained an important mark of servile
status, especially for men who were permitted to reside away
from their birthplace ; but it was also regularly paid by men who,
though born free, had commended themselves for life to the
personal protection of an influential patron. So, in the charter

i1) Glasson, Histoire du droit et des institutions de France

(Paris, 1887.), VII, 62. Quarrels over aubains were very
frequent. For instance, Mabillon, Ann. ord. S. Benedicti, V,
649 (1090) : « Contra donnum abbatem Godefridum ecclesiae
Montis S. Qu'intini quamdam litem promovit do minus Odo cas-
tri Peronensis, abbatiae scilicet auferre volens omnes albanos,
qui se se martyri praelibato pro tutela et advocatione dederant,
antequam praeventi essent a suis ministris, prohibendo ne ad
praedictae ecclesiae do minium ex more confugerent, neve census
capitalitios exsolverent. » Odo finally yielded and granted the
men in question to the church, «ea videlicet conditione, ut si
prius martyri manciparentur quam a suis procuratoribus prae-
venirentur, nullum deinceps eis jugum servitutis legaliter posset
imponere. » About the same time a dispute between the church
of Saint- Vincent du Mans and a local lord ended in this
decision (R. Charles et Menjot d'ELBENNE, Cartulaire de l'abbaye
de Saint- Vincent du Mans (Mamers, 1886-1913), p. 182 ; : « Ju-
dicavit igitur omnis curia quod nullus alius albanius esset di-
cendus nisi is qui per terram ibat, et in ea nee parentem nee
amicum nee hospicium ullo modo habebat, nee in ilia terra
aliter nisi transeundo habitabat. De talibus, ut in suo fevo, habere
consuetudines sepedictus do minus debebat... ceteri omnes mo-
nachorum essent. » Cf. Archives historiques du Maine, VI, 34
(c. 1100) ; and d'HERBOMEz, Chartes dé l'abbaye de Saint-
Martin de Tournai (Brussels, 1898), I, 25 (1100).
(2) Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p. 61 : « Recuperata Hasnonia
tota in terra et silvis et aqua, ut terminatur praecinctus in
parochia, libéra et sine advocatura et ab omni exactione remota ;
habitatores vero quicunque habitaverint infra praecinctum do-
.minis suis censum tantum solvent capitum et post perpetuo sine
advocato manebunt. »
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 833

of Robert, quoted above, the same reservation was made in

favor of the lords of such homines advocatii (*). In other cases,
as will be seen from what immediately follows, chevage might
be paid to the church by an aubain, as the formal sign of his
commendation to a new superior.
Accordingly, although the institution of territorial immunity
had long been a familiar one, no hard and fast rules existed to
define the status of the hôte within it; and there were many
delicate points that demanded special treatment, For instance,
how soon could that status be secured by the newcomer ? About
the time when William of Normandy was preparing his famous
expedition to England, this question was causing trouble
between the abbot of Saint-Médard and the count of Soissons.
For in 1066 the barons of France rendered a decision to the
following effect : (2)
Item de commendatione hominum S. Medardi, de advenis
etiam quos albanos vocant, quod idem clamabat comes, ita
adjudicatum est, ut si infra annum quo idem advena ad terram
S. Medardi applicuerit capitale suum S. Medardo dederit, per-
petualiter S. Medardus eum tenebit ; si vero infra annum
capitale suum S. Medardo non dederit, comes perpetualiter absque
contradictione tenebit.

(*) Above, p. 811. On the homines advocati see especially Ver-

Riest, Le servage dans le comté de Hainaut, pp. 266 ff. With the
foregoing charters compare the following. Philip I to Cluny in
1080 (Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p. 256) : « Concedo etiam pre-
dicte ecclesie ho spites o"mnes quicumque inibi hospitari voluerint
necnon omnia quecunque nunc habet et adquirere poterit ίμβΐβ. »
Enguerrand d'Hesdin to the abbey of Anchin in 1094 (Duvivier,
Actes, I, 295) : « Omnes vero qui in terra eorum manserint, Vel
mansuri venerint, liberos ab omni teloneo vel redditu vel
exactione facio. » Robert, count of Flanders, to Saint-Donat de
Bruges in 1101 (Miraeus-Foppens, II, 1148) : « Ecclesiam S. Dona-
tiani Brugensis ad statum meliorem promovens, eandem ei
quam Insulana ecclesia obtinet libertatem donavi... ut subman-
sores eiusdem ecclesie ab omni publica exactione liberi omnique
jugo, etiam nostre dominationis, absoluti... nullus excepto pre-
posito ecclesie super eos potestatem habeat. » Henry, count of
Champagne, to the church of Provins in 1176 (Gall. Christ.,
XII, Instr., 54) : « Adjiciens ut quicumque fuerit ecclesiae ves-
trae matricularius cum uxore sua et liberis ab omni talia, jus-
titia, exactione, consuetudine, et violentia liber existât. »
(2) Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p. 85.
834 C. STEPHENSON

Essentially the same answer, but put in the form that was
to become famous throughout western Europe, appears
seventeen years later in the foundation charter of Anselm, count of
Ribemont to the local abbey, providing (x)
quod si quis utriusque sexus advena supervenerit,infra unum
annum et diem praedictae ecclesiae se do nare sine contradic-
tione vel mei vel meorum successorum poterit.

Again, in 1104, this rule was applied when Aimery, viscount

of Thouars, founded a church at Chaise-le Vicomte, but now it
was made to work in favor of both parties (2) :

Burgensis necnon ruricola quispiam vicecomitis seu monacho-

rum si ad alter utrum migrare voluerit, anno uno ac die exul
factus liberum iter deinceps habebit.

So, although it was not universal, the law of a year and a day
became the normal standard for determining a legal residence
within an immunity (3).
It will also be noted that in such cases it was the hôte himself
who decided his condition ; he could commend himself to whom
he chose, and apparently any lord was at liberty to receive
him. For that reason rivalry between neighboring barons was
keen, and an endless number of agreements were framed to
avoid unprofitable complications. Sometimes two parties con-

0) Gall. Christ., X, Instr. 189.

(2) P. Marchegay, Cartulaires du Bas-Poitou (Les Roches-
Barit'aud, 1877), p. 24. See the curious story told by Lambert
d'Ardres (Monum. Germ. Hist., SS., XXIV, 579) of the col-
vekerli of Guisnes during the eleventh century, who had to
pay capitation, foremariage, and mainmorte : « Concessit enim
eis (Hamensibus) et in feodum confirmavit, quod quisque
advena in terra Ghisnensi aliunde advolaret et annum unum et
diem unum in terra sua perendinaret, vel morosius et diucius
inhabitaret, simile obprobrium simul et pensionem obprobrio-
sam incurreret et quasi de iure persolveret. » On the antiquity
of the law of a year and a day see Glasson, Histoire du droit,
VII, 62.
(3) Aubains coming within the bourg of Saint-Michel de
Tonnerre had to give themselves to the church inside a month or
else they belonged to the count of Nevers. — Quantin, Cartul.
général de V Yonne, I, 298.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE Of THE « TAILLE » 835

sented to abandon all men who left the land of one to settle on
that of the other ; sometimes not to harbor each other's men at
all (*). Indeed, all sorts of conditions might be laid down with
regard to migrations from territory to territory, or with regard
to hôtes already resident on donated lands.
So in 1095, when the cathedral of Angers received the new
church of Saint-Nicolas/ together with two arpents free of all
custom, it was stipulated by the donor, a certain viscount, that
the canons should not admit as hôtes his consuetudinarii ; but
if other foreigners came, the church should have all their
customs except the tolls paid in his market. (2) With this act may
be compared the foundation charter for the church of Saint-
Ëtienne de Nevers, issued by Count William II in 1097 (3)
Dono et concedö... totum burgum sicuti modo pro burgo ha-
betur, aut unquam melius habebitur, qui jam ex re nomen
habens Burgus S. Stephani appellatur, cum terra et hominibus
inibi hospitatis seu hospitaturis, omnibusque consuetudinibus
quas inibi habebam, nihil mini penitus in ea retinens... Nisi
quod si forte homines de terra mea pro tollenda consuetudine meas
se mihi subtrahendo, hanc terrain ad habitandam delegerint,prior
qui dem habebit in eis consuetüdines et justitiam suam sicut in
caeteris hominibus suis ejusdem burgi, mihi tamen serviant sicut
homines mei. De alia vero terra vel provincia quicunque adve-

(*) See another clause of the act of Louis VI cited above

(p. 822) : « Diffinitum est etiam quod hospites regis apud Balneo-
lum stationarii et commanentes in supradicta canonicorum terra
nunquam hospites fient ; et similiter canonicorum hospites regis
hospites nullatenus existent.» See also the privileges of the
chapter of Reims sworn by the archbishop (Gall, christ., X, Instr.,
33) : « Ut servientes nostri quos in commune seu privatim in
domibus nostris habemus, etiamsi vestri capite censi fuerint, ab
omni exactione tamen praeter capitalitium suum, liberi habean-
tur ; eadem vobis de hominibus nostris servata conditione si
vestri fuerint servientes. » For examples of other reciprocal
arrangements involving taille see J. Garnier> Chartes de
communes et d' af franchissements en Bourgogne (Dijon, 1867), I,
335; Delaborde, Actes de Philippe- Auguste, I, 430; M. J.
Wolters, Codex diplomaticus Lossensis (Ghent, 1849), p. 70 ;
Miraeus-Foppens, I, 413.
(ή Documents historiques sur l'Anjou (Société d'agriculture,
sciences et arts d'Angers), V, 123.
(3) Gall. Christ, XII, Instr., 334.
836 C. STEPHENSON

niens hanc terrain ad habitandum elegerit, liber sit ab omni mea

meorumque hominum justitia et consuetudine, monachisque
tantum serviat et respondeat.

Within their 6our<7,therefore,the monks were to enjoy full and

exclusive rights over all settlers except such as came from the
count's own lands ; they, it would seem, were to have double
obligations, for they were to continue to serve the count as
before, besides rendering all customs owed the priory. Indeed,
taille on all hôtes within a village might be specifically reserved
by a donor, as was done by Roger de Thony in a grant to the
abbey of Conches c. 1150 (x).
In these documents, as in most, no concern is expressed over
loss of income by any lord except the princely benefactor.
Nevertheless, when in 1142 Baldwin IV of Hainaut restored
Broqueroie to the abbey of Saint-Denis as originally given by
his father, he stipulated (a)
ut nullus deinceps comitum, principum, castellanorum, vel
aliqua quelibet persona mortuam manum, vel talliam, vel
aliam aliquam exactionem ab ejusdem viîle incolis vel possit
vel debeat exigere, salvo dumtaxat jure ecclesiarum vel quorum-
libet in servis suis do minor um, si tarnen jus suum perserequi-
runt, remota importunitate advocatorum. '

(*) Ibid., XI, Instr., 134 : « eandem libertatem et dominatio-

nem et consuetudinem habeat abbas super nostros omnes
homines et aivenas in terra sua habitantes quas et ego habeo super
omnes nostros homines et advenas in terra mea manentes ; ... et
de auxiliis mihi vel domino Normanniae pertinentibus omnes
homines abl>atiae insimul per manum abbatis respondeant, si-
cuti faciunt homines de Romeliaco vel Uli de Portis per manum
dominorum suorum. » Cf. the charter of Jeanne, countess of
Flanders, to Sainte-Pharaïlde of Ghent in 1219 (Miraeus-Fop-
pens, II, 987) : « Et sciendum quod si aliqui hospites venirent
manere super Wastinam illam, ego super eos hospites näherem
altam justitiam, et exercitum meum, et talliam mean), nisi
per voluntatem meam remanerent. Totum aliud dominùim ipsis
decano et canonicis remanebit. »
(2) Duvivier, Hainaut, II, 558. Cf. d'HERBOMEZ, Chartes
de Saint- Martin, I, 47 : « Si qui vero vel hominum Clarembaldi
vel aliorum in ipsa villa manserint, in justitia quidom et distric-
to monachorum erunt ; sed et silvagium et paisnagium et alias
consuetudines quas dominis suis debent persolvent. »
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 837

In this instance, therefore, the immunity of the church was

even less absolute, for any serf who became the hôte of the
monks might still be forced to pay mainmorte and taille to his
old master.
Nor is this an isolated case of the retention of such purely
personal obligations. An agreement between Nicolas d'Avesnes
and the abbot of Maroilles in 1151, after recognizing the former
as being entitled to share the mainmortes of most of the abbey's
men, provided that in five villages of the church (*)
nihil habet juris prorsus Nicholaus prêter talliam et servi-
tium et mortuam manum in suis propriis ho minibus ; et hec
eadem jura, temporibus quibus requirere volet Nicholaus aut
ejus minister, per abbatem aut ejus ministrum repetere debent.
Homines vero S. Huberti in prefatis villis omnino liberi sunt
a Nicholao et ejus ministro, et in eis nichil penitus juris habent.

And shortly afterwards, in 1157, a similar right was allowed by

the bishop of Auxerre to the count of Nevers, who recognized
that he could levy no taille or quête in the bishop's vills, except
on his own bondmen. (2).
The very next year Henry I, count of Champagne, gave a
bake-oven to the church of Saint-Loup, in such liberty that
the six hôtes who should inhabit the six houses attached to it,
together with their families, should henceforth owe the count
no custom and be subject only to the justice and governement
of the church. Even if one of them were the count's man, the
count's ministers should not touch him or his within the said
liberty ; providing always that the count should not lose, through
such residence, taille from any man of his ; and that, when found
outside the liberty, the hôte should be liable for the count's
justice as well (3).And in another charter of Henry I to the same

(i) JDuviviER, Hainaut, IÎ, 568.

(*) Gall. Christ., XII, Instr., 125 : « Cognitum insuper fuit
quod in burgo S. Aniani, nee etiam in aliqua terra episcopi quae
sit extra munitionem Conadae, consuetudinem aliquam, nee
justitiam habeo ; infra munitionem nee extra t alii a m vel ques-
tum licet mini facere, nisi in meis hominibus de corpore. » Cf.
Ibid., XII, Instr., 124.
(3) D'Arbois de Jubainville, Comtes de Champagne, III,
449 ; Lalore, Cartulaires de Troyes, I, 53 : « Sciendum tarnen
838 G. STEPHENSON

church, certain land is granted, along with the hôtes living on it

free « ab omni servicio, sive justicia, sive consuetudine michi
débita, duntaxat homines mei non sint (x). »
We have now seen that in the case of many ecclesiastical
properties the church enjoyed the exclusive right to all so-called
justiciary rights, including taille, over the inhabitants. If,
however, the king or holder of regalia could grant such immunity,
he could also restrict it. On occasion, a count might reserve to
himself tailles over all aubains, or only over those hôtes who
emigrated from his own lands. By his stipulation, also, a lesser
lord might be allowed to recover tailles taken from his serfs
on ecclesiastical territory ; but such exceptions seem to have
been rare, and where they were not made — as on the lands of
Saint-Corneille de Compiègne — the church's authority was
paramount. Without, for the moment, pushing this inquiry far-

quod exactionem, que vulgo tallia dicitur, propter libertatem

furni de homine meo non perdani, et quociens extra furnum
invent us fuerit, libère de eo meam exercebo justiciam. »
i1) Ibid., I, 59. See the charter of 1153 (Tardif, Monuments,
p. 274), by which Louis VII frees his serf, Jean du Viel-Étampes :
« Hic Johannes hospes est canonicorum S. Yictoris, habitans in
terra illa quam Thomas presbyter predictis canonicis dédit ;
quam terram idem Johannes in duas hostisias divisit et duas
do mos in ea sibi et heredibus suis extruxit, et se ipsum et heredes
suos eorumdem canonicorum servientes in perpetuum esse con-
cessit, voluntati ipsorum relinquens quern ex his ad suum
servicium eligere placuerit. Quia igitur hospites et servientes
canonicorum sunt, precibus domini Gelduini abbatis hoc con-
cessimus et statuimus, ut nullus prefectorum, nullus officialium
nostrorum, nec oxnnino aliquis in eundem Johannem aut in
heredes ejus, qui in eadem terra manserint, vel in bona eorum,
ubicumque fuerint, pro aliqua occasione manum mittere possit,
quamdiu per predictos canonicos Stamp enses in eadem terra
justiciam exequi voluerint... Volumus etiam ut eadem terra sit
de cetero imperpetuum libéra ab exercitu et tallia, viaria, the-
lonio, et rotagio, et omni exactionis consuetudine... sed eccle-
sie Beati Victoris jus nostrum omne et justiciam donamus. »
Also the grant of the lord of Ter mon de to the abbey of Afflighem
in 1176 (E. de Marneffe, Cartulaire d'Afflighem (Louvain,
1894), I, 238) : « Colonos ecclesie ab omni exactione liberos red-
didi, ita tarnen si nec servi mei nec advcatie mee subditi, nec
de alia mee terre possessione ad exhibendum servitium michi
fuerint obnoxij. » Cf. Warnkoenig, II2, Urk. ccxxxvi.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TA1LI.E » 830

ther, we may now consider the converse side of the problem :

if serfs of the church came to reside on lay property, what
obligations might they have to bear ?
In this connection a charter of the bishop of Cambrai lifting
excommunication from Gossuin, sire d'Avesnes, gives us
valuable information O· For he, we are told, has now — in 1111 —
submitted to the monks of Liessies guaranteeing them their
village of the same name « ab omni advocatia liberam :
videlicet tallia, exactione, hospitalitate, heribanno, fossato, equi-
tatione, et omni prorsus inquietatione vel forisfacto. » He agrees
to respect the allodial holdings of the abbey and promises that
serfs of the church living on them shall be free towards him of
all avouerie, exaction, and taille; on their death all mainmortes
shall be enjoyed exclusively by the church. If, however, they
live at Avesnes or anywhere on his allodial properties, the lord
of Avesnes is to have one-third of their mainmortes, and
presumably — though the document does not say so — taille from
them also.
With this somewhat obscure regulation may be compared a
charter of Charles the Good of Flanders, issued in 1122 to settle
a dispute between Baldwin of Alost and the abbey of Saint-Pierre
at Ghent (2). It too presents its difficulties, but the substance
of the agreement is as follows Serfs of the church were to be
free of all custom wherever they lived, and likewise all men of
Meirelbeke so long as they remained there. If,however,they moved
into any portion of Baldwin's avouerie outside that parish, they
had to pay him two deniers each. Inhabitants of other monastic
villages were to pay each a pig or sixteen deniers, together with

(*) Duvivier, Hainaut, II, 496.

(2) Van Lokeren, Chartes de Saint-Pierre, I, 123 ; Warn-
koenig, III, Urk. xxiv : « Nullam rogationem in ea habere de-
bet Baldwinus vel sui de his qui pertinent ad Merlebecam ubi-
cumque habitaverint in advocatia sua ; in coeteris locis habebit
advocatus de homine uxorato singulis annis xn denarios, de
uxore vi, de ceteris nichil usque ad copulatam... De servis ec-
clesie ubicumque habitaverint nichil habebit advocatus. ..Si vero
aliquis liberorum sive servorum servum suum; sive liber se ipsum
sive allodium suum S. Petro dederit, talis in aecclesia permaneat
qualem se dédit. »
R. Ph. H. — 54
 84Ö C. STEPHENSON

castle-guard for one week every year or six deniers, as Baldwin

should choose. Furthermore, the men of Meirelbeke were not
liable for any taille, no matter where they resided ; and the men
of other places only fixed sums — a married man twelve deniers
and his wife six. Unmarried persons paid nothing. If a man gave
himself or his serf to the church, the status of the person given
should remain as specified in the grant.
This document possesses many remarkable features. The
tensamentum, as usual, is sharply distinguished from the taille,
though the latter, like the former, had become a fixed cens.
Most interesting, however, is the classification of the abbey's
tenants into three categories, each with its carefully stipulated
obligations ; and especially the information with regard to the
abbey's bondmen who enjoyed to its fullest extent the privilege
of extraterritoriality. That is to say, the personal right of the
church to its serfs superseded all rights of the lord on whose
property they might reside, and this exceptional status is
specifically guaranteed to all sainteurs,or: men who give themselves in
bondage to the church. If accordingly, as occurred so
frequently at this time, the sainteur obliged himself only for capitation,
foremariage, and mainmorte at fixed rates, he was absolutely
free of all further obligations. As serf of the church he enjoyed
a greater immunity than if he merely commended himself to
its protection and retained his personal freedom. And this
deduction is confirmed by all the other information that I have
encountered regarding this peculiar group of men (x)·

(*) On the sainteurs, or more properly homines sancti, see

Verriest, Servage, pp. 171 ff., and Pirenne, Histoire de
Belgique, I, 140. There are of course scores of acts dealing with such
persons, but they usually do not mention taille, merely stating
a general exemption from all exactions except those specified.
See, however, the charter of Nicholas, bishop of Cambrai,
attesting (1137-45) the self-donation of a certain Oda under his
predecessor (Duvivier, Actes, I, 310). After stipulating the
ordinary payments de capite, pro licentia nubendi, and
pro mortua manu, it adds : « De petitione vero quam laica
dominatio a familia ecclesiarum injuste accepit, se et suos
[ ?quittos] et liberos, libéra traditione liberoque arbitrio, prout
justum et possibile erat statuit. » Cf . Guérard, Cartul. de N.-
 The origin and nature of the « taille » 841

In its strict sense, therefore, extraterritorial jurisdiction was

recognized primarily in the case of serfs residing on another's
property. So far as freemen were concerned, change of residence
normally implied change of obligations. However, when an
hole held land of two lords at the same time, he was naturally
liable for all customary services that bore upon his holdings,
and so might owe territorial taille to both men. For example,
we find the report of a case tried before the count of Champagne
in 1171 over this very question f1). Miles de Vendeuil claimed
that men removing from the estates of Saint-Médard de Sois-
sons to cultivate lands of his should be exempt from all tailles
of that church. To which the clerics replied that, if they wanted
to retain the lands held of the church, such emigrants must

D. de Paris, I, 145 : « Hii sunt homines Parisiensis episcopi com-

morantes prope Sezanniam... Talliam non debent. » However,
each owes yearly one denariatam cere and all must marry within
the familia of the bishop. — The donor of serfs might, of course
reserve whatever payments he chose. Thus in 1238 the lady of
Boulâere freed and gave to the church of Saint- Adrien de Gram-
mo nt all serfs resident at Boulaere, exempt from all taille and
exaction, except the best chattel for mainmorte and aids for
the marriage or knighting of her children. — Miraeus-Foppens,
I, 755.
(*) D'Arbois de Jubainville, Comtes de Champagne, III,
459. Cf. the charter of Henry I in 1177 (ibid., Ill, 467) : « Notum
facio presentibus et futuris ecclesiam Beati Marie de Ulcheio
talem ab antiquo optinere libertatem quod in terra ecclesie illius
ubicumque sit, sive in hospites nemo manum mittere debeat
absque consensu et licentia prioris vel canonicórum vel ministri
ejusdem ecclesie... Qui si terras meas colunt, consuetudines
quas terre ille debent eos reddere oportebit... Omnes autem
ho mines et hospites predicte ecclesie... nullam etiam talliam
debent, exceptis illis quos prenotavi et ea causa qua predixi. »
Also A. Wauters, De l'origine... des libertés communales :
Preuves (Brussels, 1869), p. 73 : « consuetudinem tallie quam habe-
bat apud Vilars super homines et habitatores totius teritorii et
universos qui terras in eadem villa tenent, cum alibi sint manen-
tes...» Furthermore, we are told in 1232 (Garnier, Chartes de
communes, II, 132) that it was the general custom throughout
Burgundy that homines talliabiles, no matter where they were
or whose they were,might recede from the justice and dominion
of the Lord who enjoyed their tailles, but that all property held
of him remained entirely subject to his pleasure.
842 C. STEPHENSON

continue to pay the church's taille wherever they went. And it

was this argument that was sustained by the court, which
ordained that the said men must pay taille to Saint-Médard twice
a year, but at each time no more than four sous. In the same way
burgesses, who were otherwise exempt from tailles, might have
to pay them on lands held outside the town (x).
It is therefore quite evident that the eleventh century noble,
cleric or lay, possessed an odd jumble of rights, some territorial
and some personal ; and in particular that alongside tailles
which bore upon freemen as a consequence of their residence
within a jurisdictional immunity, there were tailles which bore
upon serfs because their bodies belonged to a master. Moreover,
as the preceding evidence shows, it was the hôte who first brought
these two sets of powers into conflict and thereby occasioned the
scores of acts dealing with his peculiar status and the rival
claims of 1 jrds and princes to share the proceeds of h's labor.
For the elucidation A such problems there remains, however
one large group of documents to demand our attention —
namely, charters of liberties. And in this connection we should
logically begin with Flanders.
When William Clito, in his famous charter of 1127 to Saint-
Omer, says that he wishes the men of that town, « like the better
and freer burgesses of Flanders, to be quit of all custom, » and
promises to exact from them no taille, scot or bede (*), he is
obviously confirming an established fact, rather than granting
a new immunity. He implies that the greater Flemish towns,
such as Saint-Omer, Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, had already

(x) Thus in 1136 Louis VI complains that the commune of

Soissons has been doing violence to the neighbouring landlords
because the citizens have been refusing to pay,in outside villages.
« taillias, corvadas, quas terra debebat et ceteri accolae persol-
vebant..» - — E. Martène et A. Durand, Veterum scriptorum...
amplissima collection (Paris, 1724), I, 748. Cf. the charter to
Laon, below, n. 847.
(2) A. Giry, Histoire de la ville de Saint-Omer (Paris, 1877),
p. 371 ; Warnkoenig, I, 27 : « Et sicut meliores et liberiores bur-
genses Flandriae ab omni consuetudine liberos deinceps esse volo ;
nullum scoth, nullam taliam, nullam pecunië sue petitionem ab
eis requiro. »
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 843

secured exemption from tailles, whereas his lesser subjects

remained liable. But it is not till 1161 that we obtain any direct
testimony as to the obligations of this latter class. In that year
Count Thierry grants a special privilege for all settlers in the
waste of Reninghelst, which is to be specially devoted to
supplying food for his own use. Any person wishing to live there,
if already held under the lordship of another, must first ask
the count's permission to come ; but, having that, should be
admitted to complete equality with the previous inhabitants.
All then, on payment of a certain annual cens, should enjoy
the following remarkable franchise (J) :
quod legibus sive justitiis, seu etiam causis communie Fur-
nensis, que vulgo chora dicitur, nullatenus subjacebunt ; sed
ab omnibus servitiis, petitionibus, talliis sive quibuslibet aliis
exactionibus quibus alii incole terre nostre obligati tenentur,
liberi et absoluti perpetuo habeantur, nisi forte pro communi
terre defensione in exercitum evocentur.

What could be plainer? The inhabitants, immigrant and

native, of this new community of Reninghelst are endowed with
some of the more elementary liberties long ago obtained by the
burgesses of Saint-Omer : they can be summoned to the count's
army only for the defense of their patrie, and shall be forced to
pay no tailles, beden, or other exactions. These obligations, it
should be noted, had not been altered by the so-called keure of
Furnes, the law or peace which had been promulgated by the
count for the government of that region, but had there as in
other rural districts, remained entirely arbitrary. Indeed, as
late as 1240, when the oldest extant keure of Furnes was issued,
the only provision made regarding the taille was the following (2) :
Nullus debet facere assisiam vel precariam in terra, privatam
vel generalem, nisi comes ; et qui inde protractus fuerit reddet
quod accepit, et emendabit comiti χ libras.

(!) Gilliodts-Van Severen, Coutumes delà ville etchâtellenie

de Furnes (Brussels, 1897), III, 20 ; Warnkoenig, II2, Urk.
CL VII.
(2) Ibid., II2, Urk. glx ; Gilliodts-Van Severen, III, 27.
Cf. the charter to Poeperinghe (above, p. 827), which received
the law of Furnes in 1147.
844 C:. STEPHENSON

The count was still able to levy tailles at his pleasure,either from
individuals or whole communities, -— but only he. If therefore,
this statement reflects the primitive arrangement — and I
think it does, — we may see the count claiming as complete
a monopoly of tailles within his demesnes as that enjoyed by
a church within its territorial immunity (x).
If now we turn back to the charter of Saint-Omer, we may
be in better position to answer a question that immediately
presents itself to the student of mun icipal liberties : when
the count abandoned his right to taille in a town, did his act
constitute entire exemption for the burgesses? It must have
done so. The count's right to take or forego tailles in his
communes, as in his villages, was an exclusive right. The hôte who
settled either at Saint-Omer or at Reninghelst was exempt
through residence on privileged soil, and whatever personal rights
his original lord may have had were thereby put in abeyance (2).
Now, as is well known, there was nothing peculiar in this
freedom from tailles of the Flemish towns ; it was a privilege
enjoyed very generally by burgess communities, and one that
appears quite early in Picardy. Indeed, one of the original claims
set up by the communes of that region seems to have been the
abolition of all tailles and forced exactions. Thus it was an ancient
custom of Saint-Quentin,as stated in 1150, that the citizens owed

(*) Compare the charter of Thierry to Berkin and Steenwerk in

1160 (Warnkoenig, II2, Urk., cxcix) : « Sint igitur, sicut fuerunt
tempore comitis Roberti, ab omni servitii opere liberrimi :
videlicet, ut non eant in exercitum ; ut nullus ministrorum nostro-
rum ab eis aliquid ρ état, sive sit praeco, sive forestarius, vel
etiam castellanus. »To judge from special exemptions granted
certain groups of settlers, the men of Courtrai still owed taille to
the count in the .thirteenth century. — Ibid., II2, Urk. ecu ;
cf. ccxxx, cc, ccxxxii. However, the ordinance of Count
Philip (ibid., I, Urk. xm), which Zeumer (Die deutschen Städte-
teuern in G. Schmoller, Staats- und socialwissenschaf fliehen
Forschungen, I, 10) understood to deal with general imposts in
Flanders, plainly has to do only with municipal tailles levied
by the local échevins.
(*) It should be observed that all inhabitants of Saint-Omer
were free (art. 9) even from capitation, the charge so generally
reserved to masters of serfs on privileged soil (above, p. 834).
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE <( TAILLE » 845

no tailles, but gave only voluntary aids to their lord ; and we

have ample proof that, through direct or indirect influence, this
liberty became part of the unwritten law of many other towns.
The charter of Lorris forbade the exaction of tailles by the king
or any other person. At Soissons and its filiales the communal
oath seems to have included the pledge that the members of the
association should mutually aid each other in resisting all
attempts to tallage them (*). Interesting as are these sweeping
prohibitions, however, they tell us little of the nature of the
exactions that caused such universal opposition, and for fuller
information on the subject we must look to the neighboring
region of the Laonnais.
Without entering into the oft-repeated history of that
troubled community, it will be worth while to recall some of the
provisions of Louis VI's famous Institutio Pads of 1128.
According to this document, it was settled that any serf, except
one of the church or of a noble who had joined in
establishing the peace, should have free entrance into the new
commune, and should thereby become exempt from foremariage,
mainmorte,and all payments to this master except his capitation
or whatever other sums he might choose to give of his own free
will. Thus it is evident that the ordinary lord whose men became
residents of Laon could have no possible right to tallage them
arbitrarily. What then of the official lords of the town ? Though
somewhat obscurely, it is apparently with their rights that
Article 18 is intended to deal (2).
The king there says that he has so modified the customary
tailles that each man owing them shall pay .only four deniers

(*) On this and what follows see Le Moyen Age, XXIV

278 ff.
(*) Ordonnances, XI, 185 : « Statuimus etiam ut homines ca-
pite censi dominis suis censum capitis sui tantum persolvant...
nee nisi spontanei a dominis requisiti aliquid eis tribuant...
Consuetudinarias autem t alii as ita reparavimus, ut unusquisque
hominum ipsas tallias debentium singulisterminis quibus tallias
debet quatuor denarios solvat, ultra autem nullam aliam persol-
vet, nisi forte extra terminos pacis aliquam terrain talliam deben-
tem tenuerit, quam ita caram nab eat ut pro ea talliam solvat. »
846 c. s te pu en s on

at each time when they are due, and nothing more, unless he
chance to hold outside the town land subject to taille which
he desires on that penalty to keep. From this scant notice it
appears that there had been tailles at Laon levied at well
known periods, as well as similar exactions bearing upon
certain properties outside the city, but no further details are
forthcoming. Fortunately, however, this same charter was
subsequently issued with various amendments to several rural communities
of the Laonnais and a comparison of the new articles
considerably adds to our information.
By the first of these grants, to Bruyères in 1129, Louis VI
provides that the commune shall pay 20 livres annually, one-
third to him, one-third to the bishop, and one-third to Clairem-
baud du Marché. And the same arrangement shall hold good (*)
de placitis sive taliis que, vel ad presens ab hominibus qui in
terris tallias debentibus manent persolventur,vel ab illis persol-
solventur qui in hanc pacem venient et in terms tallias
debentibus manebunt ; terciam partem nobis vendicamus et terciam
episcopo et terciam Clarembaldo annuimus.

It would thus appear that the customary tailles owed from lands
in the Laonnais were also called placita, and whatever the
previous arrangement had been, the king was thenceforth to receive
a share.
Later, when Philip Augustus confirmed this establishment,
he repeated Article 18 of the original paix, amended as follows :
Consuetudinarie autem tallie ita temperate sunt ut unusquis-
que hominum qui manet super terras tallias debentes, et qui ad-
venerint et in terris tallias debentibus mansiones habebunt,
tria placita per annum solvent, et per singula placita quatuor
denarios bone monete reddent.

At last, therefore, we learn that the men of the Laonnais had

been nable for three placita a year, and that the liberties of Laon
had restricted each of these assessments to four deniers per
man.
In the meantime, however, Louis VII had also bestowed the

(!) Luchaire, Louis VI, p. 337.

(2) Delaborde, Actes de Philippe- Auguste, I, 235.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE )' 847

same law upon another group of villages in the

neighborhood 0) ; but in this case the commune was short-lived. Losing
their privileged status, the inhabitants again became subject
to the arbitrary tailles of the bishop and again trouble broke
out. Finally, in 1185, Philip Augustus, finding the opportunity
for intervention again favorable, imposed a complicated
settlement, which may be summarized as follows. In the first place,
the men of the Laonnais shall pay annually to the bishop 700
livres parisis « pro taJliis super homines illos quas tribus de
causis facere poterat, videlicet pro exercitus nostri servitio,
pro domino papa, pro guerra Laudunensis ecclesie manifesta » ;
and 1000 measures of wine « pro tallia vini. » Secondly, they
shall render to the vidame and the prévôt 200 livres and 500
measures of wine, which form part of the fiefs held of the bishop
by those officials. Thirdly, one-half of the bishop's .ailles are
owed the king, but he has forgiven these sums in return for
the service of Raoul de Coucy, which the bishop has granted him.
Lastly, a commission of twelve échevins is established to levy
the said tailles and to settle all disputes arising therefrom (2).
By piecing together all the information now at our disposal,
we may conclude that, at the opening of the twelfth century,
the bishop of Laon had the acknowledged right to tax at
pleasure all inhabitants of his lands ; but that, as was often the
case elsewhere, part of the proceeds may have been claimed by
various nobles of the vicinity. Customarily the taille was assessed
at each of the three annual assemblies of the people, and as a
result the levies were locally known as plaids. But in addition
to them, the bishop presumably exacted also a portion of the
yearly wine-crop as his tallia vini — an impost that sometimes
appears in other regions alongside the more ordinary tailles (3).

(*) On this and the following acts see Luchaire, Les communes
françaises (Paris, 1911), pp. 79 ff.
(2) Delaborde, Actes de Philippe- Auguste, I, 175.
(3) Above, p. 808, n. 6. At Orléans, by the charter of Philip
Augustus in 1183 (Delaborde, I, 108) a payment of two deniers
on every measure of wine or grain, « que qui dem collectio vulgo
nuncupatur tallia panis et vini, » was perpetuated in return
for exemption from all other taille and tolte. Cf. ibid., I, 320.
848 C. STEPHENSON

On special occasions, furthermore, — such as private war, a

royal campaign, or a trip to Rome — he increased the
customary dues. All this the Paix changed throughout the regions
that it embraced ; for, compared with the obligations of the
unprivileged peasantry, the taille allowed by that charter
appears as a merely nominal survival — a sort of capitation
that permitted no extension and needed no assessment. The
settlement of 1185 for theLaonnais was by no means so generous ;
and yet, through the specification of the amounts of all tailles
and the creation of a non-episcopal body of assessors, it did
prevent capricious taxation by the bishop ; and the help of the king,
though as usual not disinterested, was decidedly favorable to
the vexed tenants of the church.
Laon, however, was not the only scene of royal intervention.
At Saint-Riquier Louis VI also settled a dispute by granting
a communal charter, the original terms of which have not
come down to us, but concerning which we may infer a few facts
from a supplementary act of 1126. The men of the new
commune had not, it appears, been satisfied with the exemptions
that they had lawfully secured, but had again revolted,
refusing to acquit various just obligations including « tallionem
de exercitu regis et pastum ejusdem. »In support of the abbot
Louis consequently decreed that the burgesses should pay the
said dues, and that no one should be free from them except
military tenants and famuli of the church, or peasants who
lived outside the town (*).
With these provisions should be compared a similar
compromise imposed in 1171 by Louis VII at Tournus. The church,
it was then established, should continue to enjoy mainmorte
from the burgesses, but the annual taille was abolished ; so

(*) Ordonnances, XI, 184. Cf. Guérard, Cartul. de N.-D.

de Paris, II, 3, 7, 31, 34, etc., where it appears that « t alii a pro
exercitu regis » was levied alongside the regular annual tailles
in the villages of the chapter. On the lands of Saint- Germain-
des-Prés gîte and taille for the king were taken in addition to
annual tailles. — Guérard, Polyptique de l'abbé Irminon (Paris,
1844), II, 383-91.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 849

that the abbot could thenceforth tallage his men only on stated
occasions. He might make such a levy for the aid or
entertainment of the king, or for the entertainment of the pope or a
cardinal ; and he should also be entitled to a reasonable aid —
i. e. one in proportion to the expense of the undertaking ■ — if
the interests of the church demanded his presence before the
pope or the king. For a like journey undertaken on private
business, such as a quarrel with the monks, nothing should be
demanded (*).
Thus, although the statement cannot be made with certainty,
it seems extremely probable that both at Saint-Riquier and
Tournus, as in the Laonnais, occasional aids were first
specified as a substitute for an annual arbitrary taille previously
enjoyed by the church in question. At any rate, reservations
of this kind become increasingly common in favor of secular
lords and seem to have been tacitly understood in many cases
where the charters themselves make no such stipulation (2).
Extraordinary subsidies might also exist alongside an annual

i1) Ordonnances, XI, 205.

(2) See Le Moyen Age, XXIV, 285, 290. In many cases the
charters left a loophole for special requisitions by implying
that the burgesses might still be called on for voluntary
contributions. Indeed, no immunity was proof against this method of
approach, as a host of later documents bear witnesse. In this
connection, also, may be cited an interesting sequel to the
foundation charter of the bourg of Saint- Etienne de Nevers, quoted
above (p. 837). In 1171 Guy,Count of Nevers stated (Gall.Christ.,
XII, Instr., 343) that, although his grandfather had granted the
bourg to the church free of all custom and exaction, his brother
William, « qui ultra mare obiit, et requiescit in Bethléem, in
burgensibus contra prefatam libertatem novas exactiones et
impositiones facere coepit, reclamantibus et egre ferentibus
monachis hoc pacto dimisit : videlicet, quod pro tribus causis
tantummodo ; si captus se redimeret, si filiam suam nupciis
traderet, si Hierosolymam pergeret ; tria millia solidorum per
manum prioris a burgensibus haberet. » Accordingly, Guy
confirms the ancient liberties of the church, saving the three
aforesaid aids I And the only concession that could be got from his
successor was the relinquishment of the aid for ransom and the
allowance of forty days' grace on the other two. — Delaborde,
Actes de Philippe-Auguste, I, 220.
850 C. STEPHENSON

taille which custom or enactment had rendered inelastic (*)·

Indeed, all the evidence at our disposal tends to show that the
aim of the newly enfranchised bourgeoisie was not so much to
escape taxation, which they felt was in some fashion inevitable,
as to gain control of the determination and assessment of
whatever imposts they might have to pay — a project that of
course called for the creation of a more or less autonomous
municipal administration.
In the great communes, naturally, magistrates or councils
had the power of laying rates, to cover the cost of all local
governement (2). The prince dealt, not with the individual
citizens directly, but with their constituted authorities. When
in sore need of money, he presented a request for a subsidy,
which the town as a legal entity considered, granted, and
financed by the imposition of a municipal taille (3). Such an
advanced type of constitution, however, could hardly be secured
all at once, and many communities had to be satisfied with
lesser liberties, the most rudimentary of which was the admission
by the lord of certain selected burgesses to a share of the
financial administration.
It is in this connection that the claims of the men of Vézelay
in 1137 are worthy of special attention. Along with other
grievances, they complained of the taille which the abbot had been
accustomed annually to impose on rustics and townsmen alike.
« For they said that four men, whom they should elect from
among themselves, ought to be present with the dean and

O Le Moyen Age, XXVI,, 27. Cf. Gall. Christ., XII, Instr.,

493 : an agreement of 1181 by which the burgesses of Sens are
said to owe the bishop « tailliam annuatim et auxilium urgente
necessitate, diligenti tarnen adhibita moderatione. » Cf. Dela-
borde, I, 34.
(2) Above, p. 846, n. 1. See also the charters of Philip
Augustus to Château-Neuf and to Tournai (Delaborde, I, 41, 268), and
of Philip of Flanders to Aire (Warnkoenig, III, Urk. clxiv.)
(3) Detailed evidence of such procedure comes only from the
thirteenth century, but there can be no doubt that it had been
followed from an early time. See the article already cited in
Le Moyen-Age, XXIV, passim.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 851

the prévôt when the said taille was levied, and that with their
advice it should be levied and the quota of each person
considered. » This suggestion, however, was spurned by the abbot,
who declared that he alone had the right to lay tailles through
the agency of the dean, the prévôt, and other ministers of his,
and without the advice or presence of the burgesses. « For so
it was anciently accustomed to be done,nor could it be proved
that the procedure had ever been different. » Furthermore,
such tailles bore not merely, as alleged, on burgesses and rustics
who owned their own homes, but also on those who rented their
houses, whosesoever the latter might be, after they had lived
one year in the town and met its other common obligations (*).
With this last clause we are brought back to the point with
which our consideration of the towns began : the burgess was
from every point of view a kind of hôte. His status as
participant of a peculiar immunity was secured by residence for a
given term on privileged soil ; and this status, when enjoyed to
its fullest degree, made him responsible to only one superior —
the patron of the community to which he belonged. In town as
in country, however, quarrels arising out of conflict between
personal and territorial rights were chronic, and occasionally
exceptions were made in favor of outside lords — particularly
of ecclesiastics. Nevertheless,the general rule remains that one
chief lord enjoyed,unless he choose to relax it,a complete
monopoly of all rights and profits within a town.

0) Quantin, Cartul. général de V Yonne, I, 319 : « Item con-

questi sunt de tallia que consuetudinaliter annuatim, post Natale
Domini, tarn de burgensibus quam de rusticis solet fieri. Dice-
bant enim quod quatuor, quod ipsi de se ipsis eligerent, debe-
bant esse cum decano et preposito, quando predicta tallia fiebat
et per consilium eorum debebat fieri, et mensura de unoquoque
considerare... Item de facienda tallia in burgenses et rusticos
dictum est abbatem earn licite, sine consilio et presentia burgen-
sium, facere posse .per decanum et prepositum et per alios mi-
nistros suos, quia antiquitus ita solet fieri, nee aliter factam
fuisse potuit compróbari ; nee tantum in burgenses et rusticos
qui proprias domos habent fieri poterit tallia, sicut dictum est,
sed etiam in eos qui aliorum domos conducunt, quorumcumque
sint domus, postquam per annum in villa manserint, qui etiam
ceteras ville consuetudines persolvent. »
852 C. STEPHENSON

In most communities this fact becomes apparent only on

the promulgation of a charter of liberties, but we are fortunate
in having one explicit statement of such customs from as early
a year as 1047 — the declaration of the rights of the count of
Namur at Dinant (x). Therein it is affirmed :
Quicumque extraneus in ville voluerit.transire coloniam et ibi
morari voluerit, cujuscumque antea fuerit, ad comitem pertine-
bit ; ministeriali suo de omni forisfacto respondebit, nisi forte
fuerit S. Marie aut S. Lamberti aut S. Hugberti.

Nothing is said in this document of the taille, but it is obvious

that only the count could have had such a right over the
bulk of the. population, for all hôtes except the men of the
local churches were subject to him exclusively. And when, as
actually happened at Dinant, the powers of the count passed
to the bishop, even a greater centralization of authority would
result.
As previously remarked (2), however, the greater episcopal
communes, when we first gain detailed knowledge of their
customs, seem already to have become exempt from taille, and so
little or no information on the subject is to be gleaned from
their charters. It is rather in the acts issued for more rustic
communities that we find the most interesting provisions
regarding privileged hôtes on ecclesiastical territory. For instance,
when the abbot of Stavelot reconstructed the castle of Logne
in 1138,he decided to move the village of that name to the
immediate neighborhood, and to provide for its colonization made the
following promises. Any of the abbey's men who should come
there to live was to be free, so that he should pay no capitation,
mainmorte, foremariage, toll, pannage, gîte, or taille to abbot,

(*) Wauters, Libertés communales, Preuves, p. 249 ; Waitz,

Urkunden, p. 20. On this document see H. Pirenne, Histoire de
la constitution de la ville de Dinant au Moyen Age (Ghent, 1889),
p. 3. Cf. the statement of the rights of the count in Toul (Waitz,
Urkunden, p. 15) : « Alienigenae, id est warganei, qui manserint
in banno, dabunt comiti iv. denarios singulis annis festo S. Re-
migii. »
(8) Le Moyen Age, XXIV, 281 ff.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 853

avoué, viscount, or royal emissary. But if the serf of another

wanted to reside in the said place, he would still have to pay
his master all custom and justice (*). That the region here
concerned was a very backward one is attested by the fact that the
abbot plainly expected no settlers who were not serfs, and that
he extended no immunity to those of other lords. Neverthless,
exemption from arbitrary taille was here as elsewhere becoming
the mark of the free colonist.
Indeed, evidence to the same effect meets us on all sides. In
1 141 Louis VII confirmed a grant to the churches of Saint-Martin
and Notre-Dame d'Étampes of certain property formerly held
by Salomon, physician to Philip I. On petition of the canons
and « voto hospitum terre, » furthermore, these lands were to
continue to enjoy the various liberties that they had earlier
had : namely, limitation of all forfeitures, restricted military
service, fixed cens, and immunity from all taille by the canons (2).
It is also interesting to note that the church of Laon, which was
so reluctant to emancipate its own men, was quite willing to
make concessions in order to colonize its vacant lands. In 1167
the dean and chapter issued a notice to this effect : that whereas
certain strangers, lacking homes of their own, had come to the
church, it had been decided to settle them in the territory of
Tavaux and PoHtséricourt. Each should accordingly pay one
denier for his head and another for his wife,should he have one,
every year at the feast of Saint-Remi, and at the same time
twelve deniers « de assisia » in order to be free of all tailles and
exactions. If he built a house, he should further be liable for
cens and salvamentum (3). And similar substitution for vague
impositions of a fixed charge per capita is found likewise in the
charters of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the men of the bourg in
1174-75, of Ferneres to the inhabitants of that banlieue in 1186,
and of the bishop of Paris to a new town in 1199 (*).

(x) Halkin et Roland, Chartes de Stavelot-Malmédy, I, 338.

(*) Ordonnances, XI, 192.
(8) Tardif, Monuments, p. 304.
(*) Respectively in R. Poupardin, Recueil des chartes de
l'abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Paris, 1909), I, 231 ; Dela-
borde, Actes de Philippe- Auguste, I, 187 ; Guérard, Cartul.
de N.-D. de Paris, I, 78.
854 C. STEPHENSON

In the meantime the kings of France, though fostering

autonomous municipalities chiefly on lands not properly their own,
had shown themselves quite generous in the grant of lesser
privileges to agricultural communities. Thus, in the hope of
attracting colonists, the customs of Lorris and Soissons were
widely distributed on the royal demesnes and exemption from
taille and ost was separately accorded many obscure villages (*).
It is only in the case of Étampes, however, that particulars
deserving special attention are given us.
In 1120, when Louis VI took the abbey of Morigny under his
protection, he decreed that the monks and their hôtes residing
on lands surrounding the monastery should be quit of all
custom toward him ; but that, if they were given any hôtes at
Ëtampes, the latter should continue to owe whatever
obligations they had borne when in lay· hands (2). That these
obligations included taille and ost clearly appears from an act
thirteen years later, when the same king granted all settlers in
his new market at Étampes exemption from the said burdens
for a period of ten years (3). At some subsequent time a
commune was set up in the town and like immunity was indefinitely
extended to all citizens ; for when Philip Augustus quashed the
commune in 1199, he asserted for himself the exclusive right to
military service and taille à plaisir from all residents (4).This, I
think, is the clearest case of such royal monopoly that we possess.
With, now, the example of the king, the count of Flanders
and various prelates before us, it will not be hard to see that
other lords, great and small, all founded towns and treated
the inhabitants in much the same way. According to the
liberties of Namur, any serf who resided there for a year and a day
became free of all mainmorte and exaction toward his old mas-

(!) For example, Ordonnances, III, 303 ; VI, 703 ; VII, 275,
444, 684 ; Lughaibe, Louis VI, 341.
(2) Ordonnances, XI, 179.
(3) Ibid., XI, 183.
(4) Ibid., XI, 277. A sequel to this act in 1204 (ibid:, XI,
286) freed the weavers of Etampes of all custom, including taille
for twenty livres annually.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 855

ter and was thenceforth subject only to the count (x). The latter,
moreover, had commuted his right of taille, and so the immigrant
became liable only for certain fixed sums. Thus when the law
of Namur was extended to Floreffe in 1151, the count provided
that, in return for exemption from all tailles and exactions,
every cultivator of the soil should pay him two sous annually,
but a landless artisan only twelve deniers (2). This is much the
same institution as was established by the family of Avesnes
in many outlying villages. According to the customs of Prissche
every householder was yearly obliged for twelve deniers, a
measure of oats, two loaves, and two cocks, whereas the unprop-
ertied man paid only the money. Beyond his fixed rents the
citizen owed no exaction to the lord, unless he chose to give
something of his own free will (3). At Hirson, by its charter
of 1156, every head of a family rendered two sous to be free of
all other contribution for one year, except when the lord was
captured or when he married his daughter (4).At Hereignies, a town
of Saint-Amand, the avoué commuted his taille for sixteen and a
half livres annually, a sum which was to be doubled if he married
his daughter or knighted his son (5).But as we reach the close

(x) Martène et Durand, Amplissima collectio, I, 709 (1131) :

« omnis servus et ancilla capitagiarii per annum et diem Bro-
nium et S. Laurentium commorantes ab anteriore domini sui
exactione et mortimanu, sicut ceteri ejusdem comitis burgenses
in Namurco, penitus absolvantur, et tam in matrimoniis quam
in quibuslibet occasionibus nonnisi ab abbate Broniensi amplius
coerceantur. » With this compare the custom of Liège, Le Moyen
Age, XXVI, 7.
(2) Analectes, XI, 181 : « Verumtamen illi qui terram possi-
dentes carrucis suis arabunt duos solidos tantum, sed et alii
manu operarii, ut pannifices et pellifices et sutores et hujus-
modi, duodecim denarios in fcsto S. Remigii persolvent, et sic
ab omni exactione et precariis et, ut breviter concludam, sicut
burgenses Namurcenses, et a coniungiis in omnibus liberi per-
manebunt, salvis redditibus meis, qui me jure contingunt. »
(3) See L. V anderkindere, La loi de Prisches in Mélanges
Paul Frédéricq (Brussels, 1904), pp. 213 ff. ; Verriest, Servage,
pp. 41 ff. ; Duvivier, Actes, I, 364.
(4) Ibid., I, 361.
(5) Wauters, Libertés communales, Preuves, p. 55. This
collection includes a characteristic set of privileges by prelates,
Bvoués, and lesser lords of the thirteenth century.
R. Ph. H. 55.
856 C. STEPHENSON

of the twelfth century examples become too numerous to recount,

and it will be more profitable to attempt some general
conclusions as to the nature of the taille in the eleventh century —
on which up to the present there has been no consensus of
opinion.
Starting with the dicta of lawyers in the thirteenth and later
centuries, French scholars have continued to regard the taille,
as an essentially servile obligation,and this view has reached its
logical culmination in the works of M. Henri See, who endeavours
to trace its origin back to Roman slavery^). On the other hand
leading German authorities have insisted, with no slight
exhibition of petulance at their French contemporaries, that the
taille was always a matter of öffentliches Recht, an institution
derived from the public taxes of the Carolingian counts (2).
And yet, as earlier pointed out, there is no appreciable
difference in this respect between the Western and Eastern sources.
If the .'aille was in one region what it was in the other, which of
these irreconcilable opinions is right?
To this question, following certain suggestions made by M.
Leo Verriest in his excellent work on serfdom in Hainaut (3),
I think it should be answered that both,in so far as each lays
claim to universal validity, are wrong ; but that, consequently,
each is in part correct. As to the first, it utterly fails — as has
surely been seen in the foregoing pages — to explain the taille
within the mediaeval town, which was never a community of
serfs belonging to one master. As to the second, it not only
ignores the very real fact that there was a servile taille in the Middle
Ages, but fails to explain the universal antipathy in which the
alleged public tax of the same name was held. Furthermore,

O) Les clasess rurales, pp. 177 ff., 308 f f., 323 ff. The oldest
bit of evidence on the servile taille that he cites is a charter of
1205 (p. 240).
(2) Primarly Georg von Below, who gives an extensive
bibliography on the subject. — Probleme der Wirtschaftsgeschichte
(Tübingen, 1920), p. 623. For further discussion of the German
views and the evidence involved, see Le Moyen Age, XXVI,
21 ff.
(3) Le servage dans le comté de Hainaut, pp. 32, 120.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 857

labelling an institution of the feudal age public or private

tells us extremely little as to its actual nature. Before any
intelligent classification can be made, terms must be defined.
Now when a German historian speaks of a public right in
the eleventh century, he evidently means one that originally
formed part of, or was somehow derived from, the imperial
authority. When a French scholar calls the same right seignor-
ial, he merely implies that it was one held by the majority of
feudal nobles. But since such persons regularly possessed many
powers — judicial, military, and administrative— that might
accurately be described as public under the preceding definitions
it is obvious that the terms are not mutually exclusive. One
refers to the original character of the thing ; the other, to its
actual nature in the eleventh century ; and of these two matters
it is the latter that demands prior determination.
First, as to the names. Taille, throughout the period under
discussion, denoted primarily a method of taxation, and only
secondarily the taxe themselves. This term, with its crude
translation incisio, of course arose from the practice of keeping
accounts by notched sticks, or tallies ; but in French-speaking
lands came to be applied specifically to the requisitions made
by a superior, which more directly were often called demandes
quêtes, or prières. In German dialects the same exactions were
known as beden or rufen, and in Latin charters often appear
disguised as petiliones, precariae, depröcationes, rogationes, etc.
The substance of such a « prayer » was pecuniary
assistance; and so we find as ν ariants aide in France and Steuer
in Germany, which likewise were latinized in various. mo re or
less fanciful ways (*).
Beneath this multiplicity of epithets the only stable idea that
we may detect is therefore the request of a powerful

(!) See Le Moyen Age, XXVI, 10, 34, and the references there
given. It will be noted that none of these expressions necessarily
implied either a voluntary or a compulsory nature in the
contribution — that depended entirely on local circumstances (see
above, p. 811, η 1 ; p. 827, n. 3). What the names do seem to
indicate is that at one time or another the exactions had been
somewhat informal.
858 C. STEPHENSON

person, and that obviously might vary from the dictatorial

command of an absolute master to the politest expression of
desire on the part of an influential friend. And if in our own day
the distinction between gift and tax occasionally seems obscure,
how must it have been in the Middle Ages, when one's landlord
was likely to be king in fact, if not in name? If these general
considerations are kept in mind, it will, I think, be easy to
perceive why we have been dealing rather with a variable habit
than with a definite institution of the eleventh century. Instead
of the taille we have found tailles.
Indeed, at first sight, the diversity is decidedly puzzling,
for at one time and another we have observed territorial and
personal tailles, ordinary and extraordinary tailles, limited and
unlimited tailles. However, it is plain that these distinctions
were not of equal significance or antiquity. The last, in
particular, was not fundamental, but arose only as the consequence
of changes from primitive usage. Thus, when we first hear of
fixed tailles, they are always compromises between the retention
of an unrestrained system of exactions and its entire abolition (x).
The original taille, therefore, was undoubtedly arbitrary ; that
is to say, the amount of the imposition depended solely on the
lord's will, although we may imagine that in this respect, as in
so many others, custom tended to impose limits long before they
were officially recognized.
In the same way. the recurrance of the taille would be
determined in the first place by the frequency of the lord's demands,
but the evidence at hand shows that, from a time to which our
records scarcely reach, quite regular practices had come to be
established, and that the requisition was an annual affair (2).

(!) Above, p. 816, n. 1 ;'p. 820, n. 1.

(■·) For annual tailles by avoués in the eleventh century, see
above, p. 810, n. 3 ; p. 811, n. 1. That of the abbot of Yézelay was
old in 1137 (above, ρ 853, n.l). But an even more interesting case
appears among the charters of La Trinité de Mauléon (Archives
historiques du Poitou, XX, 14). When, about 1120, a certain R.
Gabardus departed for Jerusalem, he borrowed ten livres from
his brother, and in return ceded him all custom from certain
lands« et unam questuram convenientem in anno et pro captio-
ne corporis rectam talliatam, in borderia n solidos et dimidium.»
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 859

At harvest time, in spring and autumn, or at the three « general

pleas » rustic dependents would be expected to make their
contributions of money, wine, grain, or livestock. Of course
there was no reason why a less importunate lord should not
make his levies at rarer intervals, such as every second or third
year, or restrict them to occasions of special need ('), but the
sources*tend to convince us that most lords were not so kind.
Extraordinary tailles more often appear as special obligations
which rustics might have to meet in addition to their more regular
payments, and which might be perpetuated after the latter had
been abolished (2). Therefore, ignoring such accidental varieties
for the moment, we may concentrate our attention on the one
remaining distinction, that between personal and territorial
tailles.
For reasons explained above, I think there can be no doubt
that both existed in the eleventh century. On the lands of the
church, whether exercized by prelate or avoué, on the demesnes
of king, count, châtelain, or plain seigneur, the taille was
regularly territorial — or, if it be preferred, public ; for it fell upon
all inhabitants, native or immigrant, landed or landless. In other
words, it was a power that mere ownership of the soil could not

0) See above, pp 818 ff. Extraordinary aids and tailles are

particularly prominent in Normandy and the ajoining regions,
where they were often retained by the duke on lands given to
churches in the eleventh century : see, for instance, the
confirmations of Henry I to Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, Lessay, and Saint-
Evroul (Gall. Christ., XI, Instr., 156, 205, 2â5). In the same way
vassals might reserve tailles to acquit the exactions of the
suzerain. — Marchegay, Archives d'Anjou,lll, 100 ; Bertrand de
Broussillon, Cartiilaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Aubin d'Angers
(Angers, 1903), II, pp. 284-87. Cf. L. Delisle, Études sur la
classe agriole en Normandie (Paris, 1851), pp. 93-94. On the
antiquity of feudal aids in Normandy, C. H. Haskins, Norman
Institutions, p. 21. In Flanders custom in this respect seems to
have remained vague somewhat longer. As late as 1176 the
échevins of Haspres were unable to decide whether or not the
count was entitled to anything for the marriage of his daughter,
his ransom, or the purchase of a castle. — Miraeus-Foppens
III, 347.
(2) Above, pp. 850 ff.
860 G. STEPHENSON

convey, but which was contingent upon the possession by the

landlord of regalian rights, such as were everywhere claimed
by immunists and feudataries. For neither the king of France
within his kingdom, nor the count of Flanders within his
county, enjoyed a monopoly of taxation at the opening of the
twelfth century ('). With respect to taille, as with respect to
justice and ost, the feudal state was not a unity, but a mosaic ;
the pattern of which depended upon centuries of privilege
and usurpation.
On certain ecclesiastical properties, it is true, men sometimes
retained or secured the same right of taking tailles as they had
on lands under their immediate jurisdiction. It is conceivable,
also, that on some lay fiefs the prince may have enjoyed a
similar prerogative, but if that had been the general usage, another
well known institution of the Middle Ages could hardly have
arisen — · that of the feudal aids. For it seems undeniable that
feudal custom required the lord to demand contributions, not
from the tenants of the vassal, but from the vassal himself,
leaving it to the discretion of the latter to raise the sums by
subsidiary aids or tailles of his own (2). Thus, so far as the rela-

(') Above, pp. 812-814, 832. The clearest statement regarding

tailles by lesser nobles that I have encountered is contained in a
charter of a certain knight, Samson de Passavant,to Saint- Aubin
d'Angers in 1138 (Bertrand de Broussillon, Chartes deSaint-
Aubin,!, 248). By it Samson gives in free alms land for a church
and cemetery, adding the following provision : « Hanc autem ele-
mosinam cum tota dominicatione quam habebam in locis deno-
minatis dedi et concessi liberam et quietam ab omni costuma et
ab omni penitus exactione, talliadico videlicet, corvatis pariter
et bidamnis et hujusmodi violentiis, que solent milites a pau-
peribus extorquere. » Cf. the attestation by Louis VII in 1178
(Luchaire, Louis VII, p. 459) that Dr eu de Mello has given to
Sainte-Marie de Chaage « centum solidos de roga sua in villa
Mintriaci annuatim accipiendos, vel de aliis redditibus suis
ibidem si roga non sufficerit. »
(2) Above, p. 859, n.l. Even on ecclesiastical territory a secular
lord usually had no power of directly taxing the tenants ; the
aids or tailles due him, as may be seen from numerous acts cited
above, were normally collected by officials of the church. Cf.
the charter of Hugh III of Burgundy to Notre-Dame de Châ-
tillon ( Garnier, Char tes de communes, I, 332) : « Quod si dux Hie-
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 861

tions of secular lords are concerned, the taille passes unnoticed

in the records ; even when, rarely, charters were issued to deal
with such matters as knight-service and reliefs, there was no need
for it to be mentioned. Indeed, if it had not been for the
exceptional position of the avoué and the chronic rivalry thereby
engendered, we should scarcely have heard of the taille before the
twelfth century, when the new charters of liberties show it as
a common custom on countless seigneuries.
In the same way, we first gain a hint of such a thing as a
servile taille after it had probably existed for centuries. So
long as serfs stayed at home, no complications would arise in
connection with their peculiar status : it is only when they
became hôtes on the soil of another that disputes called forth the
settlements through which we gain our first information on
the subject. Then formulated custom came to declare that, if
a lord permitted his bondmen to complete a legal residence on
alien territory, he must take the consequences and lose whatever
revenue their new superior refused to allow him (x). With this

rosolymam adeat, vel filiam suara maritet, vel captus sit et

redemptus, vel terram emat, unrde universa terra agravetur,
ipse ab abbate ecclesie beate Marie de Castellione auxilium debet
petere, aut per se aut per honestas personas ;et si forte abbas et
canonici in auxilium denegaverint, trecentis solidis tantummodo
terram ecclesie agravare poterit. »
(f1) The evidence cited above (pp. 839 ff.) clearly shows,I think,
that the perpetuation of private rights, such as the servile
taille, in favor of the personal lords of hôtes was the exception
rather than the rule — and one made more often for the benefit of
the church than for that of laymen. M. Verriest seems to hold
the contrary view when he affirms (Servage dans le comté de
Hainaut, p. 125) that serfs were not freed by the charters to the
villes neuves. In fact, such an exception was made in the case of
Soignies, the charter to which from the count of Hainaut in 1142
contained the following article (Wauters, Libertés communales :
Preuves, p. 17) : « Quicumqùe allodium Sonegiarum infra liber-
tatem inhabitare venerint ab omni injusta exactione, exceptis
servis, liberos esse concedimus. » However, the same charter
also provided that serfs who refused to serve their masters could,
on complaint of the latter to the minister of the church — for
the town was an avouerie of the count — only be forced to pay
a fine : « Si per eos emendaverint, sint in pace ; sin autem,infra
octo dies ab eorum consortio recédant. Et qui spe libertatis vene-
w

862 C. STEPHENSON

the established rule touching hôtes on rural estates, there was

nothing revolutionary in the universal practice of granting,
on similar conditions, immunity to settlers in towns. But such
arrangements were characteristic rather of the twelfth than of
the eleventh century. In its original environment the taille
bore upon a population that was normally stable ; and it is not
hard to conjecture what, under such conditions, happened on the
great estate.
By the agricultural system that everywhere prevailed, the
chief items in any lord's income were, first, the produce of the
lands that he farmed himself, and secondly, the rents from lands
let out to peasant cultivators. These multifarious dues, however,
had long been fixed by usage or agreement, and so the thrifty
peasant, after meeting his annual charges, was able to put by
quite a little surplus for his own consumption or for sale in the
local market. It was natural that, to supplement his income,
the lord should wish to dip into this surplus, and to do so was
not at all difficult.
At the appropriate season domanial agents,, whose
particular business it was to know each man's obligations and
resources, would make the rounds of the villages, probably
meeting the peasantry at one of their general courts. Perhaps
clerks would be at hand with parchment rolls showing assesss-
ments of previous years ; at any rate, wooden tallies would
provide a rough and ready system of accounting, and each
tenant would be notified of what he ought to contribute at

rint et habitaverint, lege ville et institutionis teneantur. » And

of course, refusal of admission to the serfs of the town's founder,
or to those of the church, was a very common feature of
municipal charters ; but the door was usually left wide for the serfs
of everybody else. Thus the charter of Favril, granted in 1174
by Jacques d'Avesnes and the abbot of Saint- Humbert
(Mémoires de la Société archéologique de l' arrondissement d'Avesnes,
I, 105) decreed that every immigrant should be free, but that
none from the lands of the abbey or of Avesnes should be given
entrance without special permission. If any ordinary lord
pursued his man to the town, no heed was to be padi him, for that
would disturb the burgessess in the enjoyment of their franchise ;
and if he became angry and caused trouble, he should be held
in peace by the avoué.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 863

that time toward the needs of his lord. In the case of a

serf, his property was legally his master's ; in the case of a
roturier, he was subject to the lord's justice and protection.
Should he refuse payment, the officials would seize his
grain or drive off his pig ; and against such action he had
absolutely no recourse. Even when the imposition was made by sheer
force, as by some rapacious châtelain who had usurped the
functions of avoué on monastic property, the peasant was powerless
to resist.And while the abbot was appealing to a far-away king,
or imploring the bishop to launch the bolt of excommunication,
the offender redoubled his pillagings. Toward his own men, of
course, the prudent lord would use discretion, but he probably
felt that profits over and above a bare living better befitted his
estate than theirs.
Later, when marshes were being drained, forests cut down,
and wastes reclaimed ; when mercantile centers were springing
up on every river ; when lords were outbidding each other for
colonists, the peasant's lot improved. He could turn his back
on the penurious existence to which he had once been forced to
cling, and find a new home where, thanks to immunity from
arbitrary failles, he could live at greater ease and perhaps lay
the foundations for a tidy fortune. To every man subjection to
the capricious will of a master — of which the old taille was a
prominent feature —· reeked of bondage. He bore it only until,
lawfully or unlawfully, he could make his escape. So, with the
increasing mobility of the population, more and more lords were
compelled to meet the competition of the new centers of
immunity, to emancipate their serfs and abolish or fix the
tailles that had borne upon their territories for generations.
At last, by the close of the thirteenth century, the old arbitrary
taille had disappeared except as a vestige of serfdom in isolated
regions — and as such its memory was perpetuated by the
lawyers of that age.
Consequently, if the foregoing conclusions are justified, the
original tailles were exceedingly vague — the result of a
practice developed when public and private rights were indistin-
guishably merged in the hands of the powerful. To the men of
the eleventh «entury there was no necessity of meticulous legal
 8(54 C. STEPHENSON

theorizing. The mediaeval baron was a practical man, who knew

what he wanted and took what he could get. With what we
should call powers of taxation concentrated in his hands, he
demanded and obtained regular subsidies which to him were
all aides, tailles, or beden ; but which to our eyes were of diverse
nature, according to the status of the persons who paid. In
ordinary years he could expect nothing from his noble tenants
beyond their specified service and had to limit his requisitions
to his peasants. On special occasions, however, custom might
permit him to demand assistance from all his men. For
example, when he had been captured, knights, roturiers, and serfs
alike had to contribute toward his ransom ; but, according to
strict definition, the first paid feudal aids, the second public
tailles, and the last servile tailles.
And was not this the case with many other rights in the
Middle Ages? The same three classes might all be summoned
for justice to the same hall. All three very commonly paid
succession dues, whether called relief or mainmorte. The knights
garrisoned the castle while the peasants dug the moats. Castle-
guard, we may say, . was a matter of contract ; was the corvée
a private right held by the lord as the master of serfs, or a
fragment of one-time imperial authority exercized over the des-
cendents of free Roman citizens? To my mind it was both.
There has been some little controversy over the origin of what
mediaeval sources call ost et chevauchée. M. Prou has contended
that the military service owed by the roturier of the twelfth
century was derived from that owed Charlemagne by the able-
bodied freeman (x). To which it has been replied that ost must
have been rather a sort of corvée, since it was also rendered by
serfs to their masters (2). That, to be sure, is an undeniable fact ;
but the argument of M. Prou nevertheless remains sound, for
it is quite impossible to explain all the popular institutions of
feudal Europe as relics of bondage. Ost and taille appear side

(') « De la nature du service militaire dû par les roturiers

aux xie et xiie siècles », Revue historique, XLIV, 313 ff.
(2) Luchaibe, Manuel des institutions françaises (Paris, 1892),
p. 347, n. 2 ; Sée, Les classes rurales, p. 368.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 865

by side in scores of documents, and this juxtaposition is more

than coincidence ; it is testimony that the two obligations had
to a certain extent evolved along parallel courses.
With the dual nature of the taille now pretty well determined
for the eleventh century, it should be possible in much briefer
scope, and with some degree of certainty, to indicate its origins.
First of all, the servile taille may be easily disposed off. As a
phase of the personal subjection of the bondman to his master,
it was potentially as old as human slavery, and further inquiry
in that quarter resolves itself into a search for more or less
instructive precedents reaching far back into antiquity.
This task I shall leave to a more competent investigator, and
turn rather to what the Prankish sources may directly or
indirectly tell about that somewhat more obscure institution, the
territorial taille.
As remarked above, when we describe this taille as a public
impost, we imply that it was somehow founded in what had
once been the imperium,but we do not commit ourselves to the
idea that Diocletian or Charlemagne had levied such exactions.
Nor do we necessarily affirm that the taille had ever been the
monopoly of public officials in the modern sense. We merely
classify it among those vague political powers that the
mediaeval baron held along with, and intermingled with, such private
rights as ownership of the soil or control of his familia. Precisely
what legal title he or his ancestors had to these powers we usually
cannot say, but we do know that they were wreckage of the
Carolingian kingship, and it may be possible to gain some very
general ideas as to when and how fragments of fiscal authority
may have been picked up.
In the first place, it seems perfectly certain that the taille
was a product of the dark age that stretched from Louis the
Pious to Robert le Pieux. Between it and the taxes of the
Roman Empire there was no continuity; for all authorities
agree that the latter, while persisting under the
Merovingians, lapsed into irreparable ruin under the house of
Pippin ('). Nor was any general system of taxation developed in

(J) Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte (Berlin, 1880-96),

pr-

866 <·'■· STEPHEN S ON

place of the old ; the task that lay beyond the powers of a
Charlemagne naturally proved too much for his successors (x).
Indeed, by the ninth century even the tradition of a universal
impost had quite faded : census had become the ordinary name
for rent ; capitatio already denoted the chevage of the Middle
Ages ; and tributum was a word that might mean any kind of
revenue.
The nearest approach that the age offers to a royal power of
general taxation consciously exercized is the coniectum levied
throughout considerable sections of the country to buy off the
invading Northmen (2). But although in England similar
practices led to the development of a permanent Danegeld, there
was no such result on the Continent. There the impost served
rather to advertize the weakness of a moribund monarchy,
for its efficacy depended from the first on a semi-feudal
aristocracy (3). Thus the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that
the territorial tailles of the eleventh century could not have
been vestiges of a regular governmental tax, and it remains
for us to seek possible precedents among the less formal
exactions of the Carolingian age.
Unfortunately, the sources of the ninth century give us little

IV, 113 ; Brunnek, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1892),

II, 234 ; A. Dopsch, Die Wirtschaftsentwicklung der Karolinger
zeit (Weimar, 1921-22), I, 192 ff. The capitularies have been
so exhaustively studied by these and other scholars that there
is no necessity of my citing them individually. Independent
examination has convinced me that Dopsch is right in
interpreting census in most of the passages to mean rents rather
than taxes.
(*) Without necessarily subscribing to the doctrine of a
victorious German liberty, I prefer the views of Waitz and Brunner
to those of Dopsch (op. cit., II, 272 ff.), who seems to me, like
Fustel de Coulanges (Les transformations de la royauté, Paris,
1907, pp. 501 ff.) to exaggerate the quality and extent of late
Carolingian taxation. See E. Joranson, The Danegeld in France
(Rock Island, 111., 1924), pp. 198 ff.
(2) A. Boretius, Capitularia Regum Francorum (Monum.
Germ. Hist., Legum Sectio II), II, 301, 354. On the coniectum
see Waitz, IV, 22 ff .
(8) Joranson, Danegeld in France, pp. 72, 84, 99, etc.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 867

in this connection beyond a list of names, which are either so

vague as to be almost meaningless or so technical as to be
practically unintelligible. We hear of tributa paid by peoples along
the Slavic border, presumably as the result of conquest. A few
documents mention stuofa as annual payments of produce in,
German regions, but whether they were relics of military
subjection, of agricultural arrangements, or of tribal offerings to
the chieftain, who can say? Then too, there are the equally
obscure inferenda of Gaul Q-). However, when we come to the
annual dona owed the emperor by certain leading prelates,
we again reach solid fact, for no less a person than Hincmar,
archibishop of Reims, tells us that in his day they were really
state taxes, though called gifts. And the frequent abolition or
restriction of such payments by royal charter tends to
confirm his statement (2). That is the extent of our information,
and we are left to guess that probably pseudo-voluntary
contributions had also been taken by the kings from the secular
nobility. Indeed, such a practice would fit well into the economic
and political arrangements of an age when military, judicial,
and administrative powers were rapidly falling into the hands
of the great landlords. There is certainly no evidence that the
king took such subsidies from the population at large and we
do get hints that, with or without authorization, many
powerful lords were taking them.
In 787 the king writes to his missi in Italy that, according
to what he has heard, various junior counts, public officials,
and even the more influential vassals of the counts, have been
in the habit of exacting contributions and collections, either
for entertainment or for other purposes, under the guise of
making requests. All this must stop. The king, however, by no
means wishes to forbid the acceptance of presents from the
more powerful and wealthy, if offered of their own free will as
signs of affection (3). Nevertheless, such abuses by royal agents

C) Waitz, IV, 111-116 ; Brunner, II, 236.

(2) Waitz, IV, 107 ; G. von Maurer, Geschichte der Fronhöfe...
(Erlangen, 1862-63), I, 417 ff.
(8) Boretius, Capitularia, I, 197 ; Gf. ibid., I, 144.
868 G. STEPHENSON

apparently continued, not only in outlying districts, but on the

king's own demesnes.
In the Capitulare de Villis Charlemagne strictly orders that
his ministers shall not vex his familia with corvées and requisi
tions : « nor shall they accept any gifts from the said men —
neither horse nor ox nor cow, neither hog nor sheep, neither
pig nor lamb ; nor any other thing except drinks, fruits, fowls,
or eggs (x). » Again, half a century later, various bishops,
in a letter to Louis the German, beg him not to let his officials
oppress the people (2) :

Et servos regios judices non opprimant, nee ultra quod soliti

fuerunt reddere tempore patris vestri ab eis exigant ; neque per
angarias in tempore incongruo illos affligant ; neque per dolos
aut per mala ingénia sive inconvenientes precationes colonos
condemnent.

In these cases the taking of forced gifts was plainly a matter

of usurpation, but it would be rash to conclude that it was
always so. If the king could take dona from his followers, might
not they, the holders of extensive immunities, take them from
their tenants (3) ? Would they not in fact be expected to do so ?
When Charles the Bald needed tribute money for the Northmen,
he deliberately abandoned the rustic population to the
mercies of rapacious vassals, and there is some evidence to show
that they not only passed on their own responsibilities, but
made a profit for themselves as well (4). And with the
progressive enfeeblement of the monarchy, there were hundreds of
state officials, lay and clerical immunists, volunteer generals

(') Ibid., I, 83. Waitz, IV, 171.

(*) T. Gousset, Les actes de la province ecclésiastique de Reims
(Reims, 1842), I, 259.
(8) Waitz, IV, 106 ; von Maurer, Fronhöfe, I, 423.
(4) JoRANsoN, Danegeld in France, pp. 84, 102, 193. The
evidence consists of a single letter of Hincmar, but we should be
thankful to have so much. Mr. Joranson expresses the opinion
that these coniecta may have had a great deal to do with the
development of the taille. Nothing will be found in this article
to contradict such a supposition, but I think the latter would
probably have arisen if no « Danegelds » had ever been levied.
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE « TAILLE » 869

and upstart princes, to make the most of whatever precedents

had been given them. Under the leadership of such potentiores
the peasantry was assembled and organized for justice and
police, for war and for the construction of common defenses.
Round each of them grew up a territory, inherited, bought, or
stolen, to whose inhabitants he issued orders for the preceding
services and — it is submitted — his customary requests for
assistance. In all likelihood he bore a sword instead of a royal
commission, but his was the truest governement of the age.
This, frankly, is two-thirds conjecture, but the miserable
sources of the ninth and tenth centuries will hardly, I believe,
permit any other interpretation (*). Mercenary « prayers » of
the powerful may seem a decidedly indistinct notion, but it is
all that the records in question bear witness to ; and that, after
all, was the very essence of the later tailles. If in the days of Louis
the Fat no universal test of the legality of the exaction could
possibly be formulated, what must the situation have been
five generations earlier? Surely conditions then were such as
could be controlled by no conceivable set of theories. Perhaps
a Baldwin of Flanders wished to pose as the fountain of all
political authority within his county, as the French king later
claimed to be within his realm ; bus as a matter of historical

(x) Aside from various words, such as questonaria and rogatus,

which seem to refer to such exactions as are later called talliae,
the tenth century charters have little to offer us. For other
possible instances see Von Maurer, Fronhöfe, I, 423 ; Waitz,
VIII, 398 ; Flach, Origines de l'ancienne France, 1,385, η. 2. This
latter author (op. cit., II, 555, η. 2) has, I think, though with
considerable vagueness, rightly explained the connection between
feudal aids and tailles. So far as the origin of the former is
concerned, he follows, as we all must, the judicious Waitz.
Furthermore, the work of Karl Zeumer, with the amendments indicated
elsewhere (above, p. 825, n. 1 ; p. 846, n. 1), must stand as a
notable contribution to our knowledge of the subject. The
extension of his doctrine by von Below,however, seems to me somewhat
to legalistic. Although the taille was a sort of tax, and although,
accordding to strict definition, it was often a public right, the
fact remains that the attribution to the eleventh century of public
taxes in the modern sense is an anachronism. — Above, p.858n.2.
870 C. STEpHENSON

fact, neither had ever exercized such a monopoly. Society was

already feudalized when their respective fragments were
detached from the Empire. If any Western prince was ever able in
the eleventh century to levy an imposition more general than a
feudal aid, it was rather an anticipation of the future than a
survival of the past (x).
The taille was normally local. It was not derived from
monarchical centralization. Juristic uniformity had nothing to do
with it. Born of political chaos at a time when taxation in the
modern sense was impossible,it disappeared when, with the
passing of feudalism, that again became an actuality. In other
words, the taille was characteristically mediaeval.

Carl Stephenson.
Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin
Madison.

0) See Le Moyen Age, XXVI, 44.