The other sources of the royal revenue, which at least in the beginning may be said to have accrued to the king by reason of personal obligation, were the military, the judicial, and the police powers. By reason of the military power vested in him, the king could demand the services of all freemen to fulfill the trinoda necessitas,—service in the militia, repair of bridges, and the maintenance of fortifications. Further, in accordance with the system of vassalage incident to his military power, he had the right of heriot,[3] according to which the armor of a deceased vassal became the property of the king. The judicial authority, also, was a fruitful source of income; from it the king adduced a right to property forfeited in consequence of treason, theft, or similar crimes, and to the fines which were payable upon every breach of the law. The third great power vested in the royal person was the police control; under it the king turned to account the privilege of market by reserving to himself certain payments; also the protection offered to Jews and merchants was paid for, and the king pocketed the bulk of the tribute. Beyond these,—and here we have the analogy of the later royal claim to purveyance,—the districts through which the king passed or those traversed by messengers upon the king’s business, lay under obligation to supply sustenance throughout the extent of the royal sojourn.
Danegeld, 991
It is apparent that an extraordinary occasion had to arise before this large ordinary revenue should prove to be inadequate to meet all reasonable royal necessities. The whole matter is shrouded in obscurity, yet it is unlikely that this extraordinary occasion arrived before the onslaught of the Danes. There is no record of an earlier instance.
It was in 991[4] that the Saxon army under Brihtnoth, Ealdorman of the East Saxons, suffered decisive defeat at the hands of Danish pirates. King Ethelred the Unready found himself at the mercy of foreign enemies, and his only recourse was bribery. Under this necessity, a levy[5] of £10,000 was made, and secured momentary peace from the truculent Danes. But it was only momentary; they returned in 994 and took away £16,000. They repeated, under various pretexts, their profitable incursions in 1002, 1007, and 1011.[6] In 1012, having been bought off for the last time, the Danes entered English pay, and the Danegeld instead of being an extraordinary charge, became a regularly recurrent tax. It continued until 1051, when Edward the Confessor succeeded in paying off the last of the Danish ships.[7] The chronicler[8] accounts for the abolition of the Danegeld after the manner of his time. Edward the Confessor, so goes the story, entered his treasure-house one day to find the Devil sitting amongst the money bags. It so happened that the wealth which was being thus guarded was that which had accrued from a recent levy of the Danegeld. To the pious Confessor the sight was sufficient to demonstrate the evil of the tax and he straightway abolished it.
Authority for the Danegeld
But the history of the origin of the Danegeld and the mythical tale of its abolition are of trifling importance as compared with the authority whereby the impost was laid. In 991 it was apparently the Witenagemot, acting upon the advice of the Archbishop Sigeric, which issued the decree levying the tax.[9] Three years later it was “King Ethelred by the advice of his chief men” who promised the Danes tribute.[10] Similarly in 1002, 1007, and 1011 it is Ethelred “cum consilio primatum” who fixes the amount of money to be raised.[11]
The deduction is not hard to make: it was at least usual if indeed it was not felt to be a necessity for the king to take counsel with the Witenagemot before he went about the preliminaries of taxation. It is not unlikely, however, that in practice the assent of the Witan was less or more of a formality varying according to the weakness or strength of the king. A strong king’s will would dominate the Witan, whereas a weak king would be subservient to its desires and interest.
In order to arrive at a clear comprehension of the taxing power of the Witan as compared with that subsequently exercised by the English Parliament, The Witenagemot and its powers it is essential that one understands the make-up of the Anglo-Saxon body. As its name implies, the Witan was an assembly of the wise. Its organization was not based upon the ownership of land, nor was there any rule held to undeviatingly which prescribed qualifications for membership. Generally speaking it was composed of the king and his family, who were known as the Athelings; the national officers, both ecclesiastical and civil, a group which included the bishops and abbots, the ealdormen or chief men of the shires, and the ministri or administrative officers; and finally, the royal nominees, men who are not comprehensible in the above classes, but who recommended themselves to the king by reason of unusual or expert knowlege.[12] It is observable, then, that this assembly was by the nature of its composition aristocratic. That it was not representative in the modern sense of the term is as readily apparent. With certain restrictions the official members—the bishops, ealdormen, the ministri—were coöpted by the existing members, while the remainder were either present by right of birth or invited to attend by reason of peculiar attainment. Nevertheless, the Witenagemot was commonly believed to be capable of expressing the national will. It had the power of electing the king and the complementary power of deposition, and exercised every power of government, making laws, administering them, adjudging cases arising under them, and levying taxes for the public need.[13]
Such in brief was the body which in 991 assented to the levy of the Danegeld. The act was of great importance; by it the Witan both exercised a right which was not to be vindicated in its completeness for the space of seven hundred years, but it laid a trap for those who, in the time of Charles the First, should be struggling for the attainment of that right, for in their action lay the precedent which the Stuart lawyers should warp into a pretext for the levy of ship-money.