Wednesday, 18 June 2014

The Great Scutage of Toulouse, 1159

Scutage

 Scutage allowed barons under the feudal system of land tenure of knight-service, and who held knight fees, to opt out of personally attending the king's wars and in lieu of that personal service to buy out the military service owed to the crown, as holders these knight's fees, with money instead.

All bishops were barons, and consequently had to pay scutage, as they themselves could not personaly participate in a war. Scutage was a particularly heavy imposition for them. Further they probably saw that the Toulouse Campaign itself as nothing less than Henry's vanity (sinful attempt) in trying to extend his empire.

There is some evidence in the Pipe Rolls that the method of raising revenue by Scutage began in 1157 to finance King Henry II's wars in Wales. But the financing of the Toulouse Campaign in 1159 by Scutage is well established.  Why be faced with the costs of transportation of an effectively amateur force a very long way when you can tax the landholders in England and use the money raised to hire mecenaries?

The amount taken by the king for the expedition to Toulouse in 1159 was set at rate of two marks of silver (26s. 8d.) per knight's fee. But several bishops and abbots, including abbots who did not owe knight's service, as holders of land in frankalmoign, had to pay additional sums. These extra levies, known as secunda auxilia or dona, were to cause considerable resentment in the Church.

Becket, as Chancellor, was instrumental in the organisation of its collection, as well personally participating in the war itself. 

John of Salisbury complained bitterly that Henry

"Tolosam belle aggressurus, omnibus contra antiquum morem et debitam libertatem indixit ecclesiis, ut pro arbitrio eius satraporum suorum conferrent in censum. Nec permisit ut ecclesiae saltem cosequarentur in hac contributione, vel magis exactione tam indebita." (Sal. Ep., 145.)
But when about to attack Toulouse, he enjoined on all the churches, contrary to ancient custom, their rightful liberty, that they should contribute to a tax at the will of himself and his satraps. He did not allow the churches to be on a par with the lay magnates in the contribution, or rather improper and unjust extortion.
The churchmen complained bitterly of the extortion as being a sheer robbery, contrary to the ancient customs and exposing them to the arbitrary will of the king's officers.  In 1159 grand total of 1,101 marks was raised from the Church by legitimate scutage, and a further 4,442½ (or, adding the dona from non-feudal houses, 4,700) marks by special imposition. It was this latter which was the real extortion of which the churchmen of the time complained.

Secunda Auxilia

 Lyttleton calls this the Second Scutage or second levying of a tax in the same year.

 Father Morris says that Archbishop Theobald called this "custom " as the imposition of an unjust and illegal tax upon the clergy for the prosecution of the war, a part of the great  "scutage '' raised by the King for the expenses of the Toulouse campaign.

 L.B. Radford thinks that the auxilia cannot refer to the scutage raised by the King for the expenses of the Toulouse Campaign but were monies for part of the income of the post of Archdeacon of Canterbury.


References



Scutage - Encyclopedia Britannica 1911

Internet History Sourcebook - Scutage

Wilhelmus Parvus de Newburgh (1856). Historia rerum Anglicarum: Ad fidem codicum manuscript. recensuit Hans Claude Hamilton. Liber II Cap X De expeditione Tolosana, ...: Sumtibus Societatis (English Historical Society.). pp. 110–.
William of Newburgh (6 August 2015). The History of English Affairs. Chapter X Of the Expedition to Toulouse ...: Lulu.com. pp. 79–. ISBN 978-1-329-42963-5.
 
Graeme J. White ( 2000). Restoration and Reform, 1153–1165: Recovery from Civil War in England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–. ISBN 978-1-139-42523-0.

Thomas Madox (1711). The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England .... Chapter XVI: Of the revenue arising by Scutage or Escuage: Knaplock. pp. 431–.

 Studies on The Red book of the Exchequer by J.H. Round
The Antiquity of Scutage
James Fosdick Baldwin (1897). The Scutage and Knight Service in England.

James Tyrrell (1694). Bibliotheca politica Printed for R. Baldwin. pp. 443–53.

George Lyttelton Baron Lyttelton (1768). The History [of The] Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which He Lived: To which is Prefixed, A History of the Revolutions of England, from the Death of Edward the Confessor to the Birth of Henry the Second. G. Faulkner. pp. 539–.

 George Lyttelton Baron Lyttelton (1777). The History of the Life of King Henry the Second. Volume II. J. Dodsley. pp. 428–9.

 George Lyttelton [Baron Lyttelton] (1777). The History of the Life of King Henry the Second: Volume II. J. Dodsley. pp. 492–8.

William Stubbs. (1874) The Constitutional History of England, in Its Origin and Development. Volume 1 Cambridge University Press. pp. 456–. ISBN 978-1-108-03629-0.

William Stubbs. (1874) The Constitutional History of England, in Its Origin and Development. Volume 1 Cambridge University Press. pp. 581–. ISBN 978-1-108-03629-0.
https://archive.org/stream/constitutionalh27stubgoog#page/n592/mode/1up
The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury : John Morris (1885).   <http://archive.org/details/lifeandmartyrdo00morrgoog> p. 42-3

Hubert Hall. The Red Book of the Exchequer. Cambridge University Press. pp. 193–. ISBN 978-1-108-05325-9.

John Horace Round . Feudal England: Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth Centuries. Cambridge University Press. pp. 275–. ISBN 978-1-108-01449-6.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44021/44021-h/44021-h.htm

J. H. Round
The Introduction of Knight Service into England
English Historical Review (1891) VI (XXIV): 625-645
doi:10.1093/ehr/VI.XXIV.625
John Horace Round. Feudal England: Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth Centuries. Cambridge University Press. pp. 277–. ISBN 978-1-108-01449-6.

Thomas K. Keefe (1983). Feudal Assessments and the Political Community Under Henry II and His Sons. II The Knight's Fee and Scutage: University of California Press. pp. 20–. ISBN 978-0-520-04582-8.
  
Thomas K. Keefe (1983). Feudal Assessments and the Political Community Under Henry II and His Sons. University of California Press. pp. 29–30, 36. ISBN 978-0-520-04582-8.



Sydney Knox Mitchell (1951). Taxation in Medieval England. Yale University Press.

 The Significance of Scutage Rates in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century England
C. Warren Hollister
The English Historical Review
Vol. 75, No. 297 (Oct., 1960), pp. 577-588
http://www.jstor.org/stable/558107

John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres) (1979). The Letters of John of Salisbury. Volume 2. Clarendon Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-19-822240-8.

Cullinane, Mary Patricius, "Translations of Letters Sixty-One to One-Hundred Six of John of Salisbury" (1943). Master's Theses. Paper 478. - Introduction
http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/478

John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres) (1848). Opera omnia: nunc primum in unum collegit et cum codicibus manuscriptis. J. H. Parker. pp. 223–.

John of Salisbury (1641). Ab Hugone Et Roberto Regg. Usque Ad Philippi Augusti Tempora. Cramoisy. pp. 466–.

L.B. Radford  Thomas of London. CUP Archive Chapter VII: The Chancellor and The Church. pp. 153–.

Cullinane, Mary Patricius (1943) "Translations of Letters Sixty-One to One-Hundred Six of John of Salisbury" . Master's Theses. Paper 478.
Letter 99. Archbishop Theobald to Archdeacon Thomas Becket [also Chancellor]
Summary: Theobald informs his Archdeacon, Thomas Becket, that he proposes to abolish all the evil customs that have arisen during his term as archbishop, and specifically that of the "secunda auxilia", which was begun by his brother Walter [bishop of Rochester], when the latter was archdeacon of Canterbury. The letter was probably written in the autumn of 1159 when Theobald had fallen into his final illness.
[Giles JoS Epistola 49, Jacques-Paul Migne (1855). Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina Volume 199 Epistola XLIX: Ad Cancellarium Regis: excudebat Migne. Column 31. ]
[John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres); Christopher Nugent Lawrence Brooke (1955). The early letters, 1153-1161. Volume 1. Letter 22: T. Nelson pp. 28- ]

 John Allen Giles (1846). The Life and Letters of Thomas À Becket: Now First Gathered from the Contemporary Historians. Huge Levies on the Church: Aid or Scutage?: Whittaker and Company. pp. 94–.
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