A number of other incidents of the reign of Henry II, though they lack the color of a controversy between archbishop and monarch, are nevertheless worthy of consideration. Scutage The imposition in 1159 of the Great Scutage, despite the fact that it came as a feudal charge rather than as a form of regular taxation, assumes great importance in view of the part that scutage played in the evolution of the taxing power.
Scutage is generally considered as one of the forms of “commutation for personal service,” and commutation was undoubtedly the underlying idea of the imposition.[34] The payment was made for every knight owing military service. Each knight holding of the king was expected to serve in the field for forty days. Eight pence a day in the reign of Henry II was the usual wages of a knight, and for forty days the wages would amount to two marks, which was the sum most commonly paid in lieu of personal service. It was in its earlier phase distinctly a feudal charge.
Early instances of Scutage
Payment of scutage, like most of the other forms of feudal and general taxation, struck its roots far into the past. Bishop Stubbs fixes 1156 as the year in which the term scutage was first employed.[35] Others find counterparts in various payments to the sovereign in the time before and shortly after the Conquest. In the reign of Henry I the practice of allowing ecclesiastics to compound at a fixed rate for the knight-service due from their estates was generally followed. The privilege was sometimes extended to mesne tenants.[36] One writer[37] points to Ranulf Flambard’s device in 1093, when he took from the men of the fyrd the money which had been given them for the purchase of supplies while on the march. Others[38] suggest the Anglo-Saxon fyrdwite, the payment made by the king’s men when they were absent from the royal train in war time as the analogy and precedent for scutage. It seems more likely that the king and his vassals adopted a money payment in lieu of service because it was convenient for both of them.[39] The king thereby got the means for the enlistment of a body of mercenaries, subject to his absolute will, and the barons were relieved, if so they pleased, of the burden of military service.
The Great Scutage, 1159
The levy commonly spoken of as the Great Scutage was made in 1159. Henry II was considering an expedition into France against the Count of Toulouse. He had a claim to the latter’s lands through the inheritance of his wife, the Duchess of Aquitaine. The English baronage, by the terms of their feudal tenure, were bound to follow their lord into the field. Nevertheless a distaste had arisen of late among them for service abroad, and it was natural enough, therefore, that they should fall in with the scheme of Henry and his adviser, Thomas à Becket, for a commutation in money. Henry levied a charge of two marks (£1, 6s. 8d.) on the knight’s fee of £20, annual value, from such of his vassals as chose not to follow him into France.[40]
The authority by which this payment was demanded was apparently solely that of the king. It is probable that the levy was unquestioned. In view of the facts that this was merely a change, and possibly no very great change, in the method of meeting a regular feudal obligation, and that many of the barons were willing to avail themselves of a means of escaping the burden of foreign service, the want of a recorded protest is not to be wondered at. The chronicler puts it plainly and probably with accuracy when he says that Henry “received” a scutage.[41] It was profitable for the king. The chronicler puts the proceeds at “one hundred and twenty-four pounds of silver.”
Theobald’s complaint, 1156
Three years previously, however, an ecclesiastical complaint was raised against a similar imposition. In 1156 such prelates as held their lands by military tenure were directed to compound for soldierly service which their character of churchmen precluded them from rendering.[42] Some thirty-five bishops and abbots paid the assessment, but Archbishop Theobald raised vigorous protest.[43] He objected, apparently, not out of principle, but because he could not see that the exaction was necessary.[44] This probability, together with the further considerations that the demand was not a demand for a new tax but merely that the prelates compound for an obligation long recognized as lawful, and that there were precedents for precisely this sort of commutation, makes Theobald’s protest not of great importance. He did not question, strictly speaking, the right of the king to levy taxes at all.
Early step toward a tax on movables