TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 159 



foreign officials whose visits to England were, it was supposed, 

 in the interest of the clergy. The contribution seems to have 

 been made on a valuation, and, as we should call it, a per- 

 centage. Up to the reign of Edward the Third, it seems that 

 the unit of value was the mark, on which a certain fraction 

 varying from a farthing to twopence was paid. After this 

 time it appears to be a percentage on the pound, though the 

 older mode of reckoning was not entirely abandoned. It will 

 be seen, ii. 562. iv., that the clerks who represented Elham are 

 called clerks in parliament . 



Most of the complaints which antiquaries have collected 

 from the utterances of those who strove to be quit in those 

 days of the duty of parliamentary representation came from the 

 boroughs. The burgesses, we are told, considered the privilege 

 an intolerable burden, and strove by all means to be relieved 

 from the obligation. I am disposed to think that most of these 

 attempts imply that parliamentary taxes were more onerous than 

 the ordinary incidents of the unrepresented towns. But it seems 

 clear that the tax paid for the wages of the member in par- 

 liament was not particularly heavy. The estimate was not 

 of course taken on personal, but on real estate. It is unreason- 

 able to think that while the income of ecclesiastical fees only 

 was taxed to support the proctor, the personal estate of the 

 lay person was charged to the maintenance of the knight or 

 burgess. And if the rate were assessed at that of the proctor's 

 payment, that is, at about a penny in the pound of annual 

 income, it is not easy to see that the grievance of the money 

 payment could have been great. 



Taking the two kinds of taxation for public ends together, 

 it is clear that when an exceptional tax, such as a fifteenth 

 or twentieth, was levied on the chattels of lay, and a tenth, 

 or even a sixth, on the tithe of ecclesiastical persons, the 

 nominal amount only is larger in the latter case ; and that a 



c It is singular that the proctors paid from Ponteland, ii. 561. i., should have served in a 

 parliament in London. This seems to imply that the northern Convocation either did not 

 sit, or was in some cases amalgamated wiih the more important assembly of the south. 



