THE SCOTCH RAIDS AND: THE, FOURTEENTH - 
CENTURY TAXATION OF NORTHERN 
ENGLAND 
By James F. WILLARD 
After the death of King Edward I in 1307, the tide of invasion in 
the north turned toward England. Year after year the Scots crossed 
the border, wasting the sparsely settled counties of Northumberland, 
Cumberland and Westmoreland. At times they advanced farther 
south into Lancashire or Yorkshire, devastating the country far and 
wide. Of these forays there are many accounts in the chronicles and 
in the royal and private correspondence of the reigns of Edward II and 
Edward III, and it is upon these that the work of the modern historians 
is largely based. There is, however, another and valuable index to 
the extent and severity of the inroads of the Scots, in the returns of the 
taxes upon movable property and in the other financial documents of 
the period. 
The principal tax used by the kings of the fourteenth century was 
the subsidy levied upon the personal property of all the classes in the 
country, with the exception of certain kinds of clerical property other- 
wise taxed.' | This personal or movable property included the house- 
hold utensils, the grain, cattle, or goods for sale of noble, freeman and 
serf. The subsidies were levied in varying percentages of the value 
of this property, a tenth, a fifteenth, a twentieth or other rate. As the 
Scots advanced into the country it was these movable goods which 
would be taken away or destroyed, and as a direct consequence the 
amount of taxes paid by the men of the north would be lowered. The 
revenue of the church, after the same fashion, was largely based upon 
movable property, either directly in the form of gifts, tithes, and 
produce from their farms, or indirectly upon the rents paid by their 
villeins, or freemen. So in the case of the ecclesiastics we should expect 
x WiLLARD, J. F., ‘The English Church and the Lay Taxes of the Fourteenth Century,’’ University 
of Colorado Studies, Vol. IV, pp. 217-25. 1907- 
237 
