In opposition to labour and rents in kind we find a great many payments in money. Some of these are said in as many words to have stept into the place of labour services; of mowing, carrying, making hedges,(61*) etc. The same may be the case in regard to produce: barlicksilver is paid instead of barley, fish-silver evidently instead of fish, malt-silver instead of malt; a certain payment instead of salt, and so on.(62*) But sometimes the origin of the money rent is more difficult to ascertain. We find, for instance, a duty on sheep, which is almost certainly an original imposition when it appears as fald-silver. Even so the scythe-penny from every scythe, the bosing-silver from every horse and cart, the wood-penny, probably for the use of wood as fuel, must be regarded as original taxes and not quit-rents or commutation-rents.(63*) Pannage is paid in the same way for the swine grazing in the woods.(64*) Ward-penny appears also in connexion with cattle, but with some special shade of meaning which it is difficult to bring out definitely;the name seems to point to protection, and also occurs in connexion with police arrangements.(65*)I must acknowledge that in a good many cases I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation for various terms which occur in the records for the divers payments. An attentive study of local usages will probably lead to definite conclusions as to most of them.(66*) From a general point of view it is interesting to notice, that we find already in our records some attempts to bring all the perplexing variety of payments to a few main designations. Annual rents are, of course, reckoned out under the one head of 'census.' Very obvious reasons suggested the advisability of computing the entire money-proceed yielded by the estate.(67*) It sometimes happens that the general sum made up in this way, fixed as it is at a constant amount, is used almost as a name for a complex of land.(68*) A division of rents into old and new ones does not require any particular explanation.(69*)But several other subdivisions are worth notice. The rent paid from the land often appears separately as landgafol or landchere.
It is naturally opposed to payments that fall on the person as poll taxes.(70*) These last are considered guaranteed by the as a return for the personal protection lord to his subjects. Of the contrast between gafol as a customary rent and mal as a payment in commutation I have spoken already, and I have only to add now, that gild is sometimes used in the same sense as mal.(71*)Another term in direct opposition to gafol is the Latin donum.(72*) It seems to indicate a special payment imposed as a kind of voluntary contribution on the entire village. To be sure, there was not much free will to be exercised in the matter; all the dependent people of the township had to pay according to their means.(73*) But the tax must have been considered as a supplementary one in the same sense as supplementary boon-work.
It may have been originally intended in some cases as an equivalent for some rights surrendered by the lord, as a mal or gild, in fact.(74*) In close connexion with the donum we find the auxilium,(75*) also an extraordinary tax paid once a year, and distinguished from the ordinary rent. It appears as a direct consequence of the political subjection of the tenantry.(76*). It is, in fact, merely an expression of the right to tallage. Our records mention it sometimes as apportioned according to the number of cattle owned by the peasant, but this concerns only the mode of imposition of the duty and hardly its origin.(77*) As Ihave said already, the auxilium is in every respect like the donum. One very characteristic trait of both taxes is, that they are laid primarily on the whole village, which is made to pay a certain round sum as a body.(78*) The burden is divided afterwards between the several householders, and the number of cattle, and more particularly of the beasts of plough kept on the holding, has of course to be taken into account more than anything else. But the manorial administration does not much concern itself with these details: the township is answerable for the whole sum.
It is to be added that the payment is sometimes actually mentioned as a political one in direct connexion with 'forinsec'
duties towards the king. The burdens which lay on the land in consequence of the requirements of State and Church appear not unfrequently in the documents. Among those the scutage and hidage are the most important. The first of these taxes is so well known that I need not stop to discuss it. It may be noticed however that in relation to the dependent people scutage is not commonly spoken of; the tax was levied under this name from the barons and the armed gentry, and was mostly transmitted by these to the lower strata of society under some other name, as an aid or a tallage. Hidage is historically connected with the old English Danegeld system, and in some cases its amount is set out separately from other payments, and the tenants of a manor have to pay it to the bailiff of the hundred and not to the steward. Asmaller payment called ward-penny is bound up with it, probably as a substitute for the duty of keeping watch and ward.(79*) In the north the hidage is replaced by cornage,(80*) a tax which has given rise to learned controversy and doubt; it looks like an assessment according to the number of horns of cattle, pro numero averiorum, as our Latin extents would say. The Church has also an ancient claim on the help of the faithful; the churchscot of Saxon times often occurs in the feudal age under the name of churiset or cheriset.(81*) It is mostly paid in kind, but may be found occasionally as a money-rent.
