728 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



venient for the leader of an army than to be under the necessity, 

 on the expiration of the forty days, either to cui short the cam- 

 paign, or purchase, by payments or promises, the continued ser- 

 vice of his best soldiers? To overcome this difficulty a new system 

 was arranged, it is said, by Thomas a Becket, which marked an 

 important era in English taxation ; whereby the king, in lieu of 

 personal service by his barons and their retainers, agreed to sub- 

 stitute a tax called " scutage" or shield tax ; which, as levied at 

 the rate of ten marks (1 65. Sd.) on every estate held by tenure, 

 of the annual value of twenty pounds, was a land tax, payable in 

 money, which before that period had not been definitely recog- 

 nized. And thus it was that the king practically disarmed the 

 feudal power by accepting money from the knights in place of 

 armed service ; and at the same time greatly strengthened his 

 own power. As with the money thus raised he created a per- 

 manent and subservient army of mercenaries a process which 

 Michelet, the French historian, has characterized as a provision 

 by the nobles of a bit and bridle for their own restraint.* 



Historians can find no evidence that the right of the English 

 kings to levy taxes was in any case made contingent on any for- 

 mal grant of any national council until toward the close of the 

 reign of Richard II (1190) ; f and we have a statement from the 

 historian Hallam that, previous to that time, the system of extor- 

 tion practiced by the Norman kings upon their English subjects 

 was " what we should expect to find among Eastern slaves." 



Progressive civilization and the necessity for larger revenues 



* The reign of this English king Henry II is also signalized by an organization of the 

 royal (state) revenue system which in some of its features has continued to the present 

 time. Under it the management and general superintendance of the royal revenues were 

 intrusted to certain officers of the king's household, who constituted the " Court of the 

 Exchequer," so called from the checkered cloth laid upon the table upon which the tax 

 collectors or treasurers told out the king's money ; and the chief financial officer of the 

 British Government at the present time is designated by the title of " Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer." The payments when made were entered into an account book, and from this 

 transferred to a strip of parchment ; which last was sent through a pipelike opening into a 

 room specially provided, and called a " tally count," where a " tally " was made of it. This 

 tally was a piece of dry wood on which " the cutter of the tallies " had to cut notches cor- 

 responding to. the sum paid, while the " writer of the tally " wrote the sum down on both 

 sides of the wood in figures. According to the length of the incision, one notch denoted 

 1,000; another 100; 20; 20s.; Is.; and so on. The chamberlain then split the 

 notched stick down the middle in such a manner that each half contained the written sums 

 and the incised notches. The two matching parts thus split asunder were called " tally " 

 and " counter tally," or " tally " and " foil " (folium). The one was retained by the cham- 

 berlain, the other was kept by the payer as a receipt and proof to be produced to the ac- 

 count department of the exchequer. This curious system of receipts was maintained in 

 force until 1783 ; and it was through the burning, with a view to getting rid of an accumu- 

 lation of these tally sticks, that the old House of Parliament in London was burned in 1834. 



f Constitutional History of England, Stubbs, vol. i, p. 577. 



