The Medieval King: Taxation

Taxation

Under Medieval Kingship, any temporary taxes to protect the kingdom required the consent of those vassals paying the tax.¹ Usually, vassals were willing to pay more during times of war so the lord could keep men in the field longer. Certain temporary taxes could be instituted, such as during an invasion as the king raised an emergency tax to fulfill his role as protector of the realm. But as soon as the invasion was over, the tax ended.²

However, taxes never reached any levels near modern democracies. For example, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was in a hopeless financial situation. In desperation, the king wanted to impose a “heavy tax”of 2% on high earners and 1% on larger landholdings. This “massive” tax was approved, Archbishop William of Tyre writes, “By the common consent of all the nobles, both secular and ecclesiastical, and by the assent of the people of the kingdom of Jerusalem…for the common good of the realm.”³ When the Crusader States wanted to raise money to invade Egypt, they taxed only those willing to consent to the tax to fund the invasion. Taxes were perhaps more accurately seen as fundraisers for specific purposes paid by those who backed them.

Taxes were not only temporary but rare; and even here, a modern comparison would be a tax to avoid a military draft.⁴Multiple counts refused to enforceFrance’s first kingdom-wide tax to help fund the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1166.⁵ In 1199, Pope Innocent the Third taxed the clergy at 2.5%, which led to open rebellion.⁶When later King Phillip II introduced a tax (which was agreed upon by the nobles and the Church) within a year, it was abolished, and he was forced to apologize for introducing it.⁷ In the 1490s Germany first tried a realm-wide tax, and even then, Bavaria refused to ratify it. Most of northern Europe still had no permanent national tax until after 1500.⁸The level of taxation seen under Roman, Arab, and Byzantine systems did not appear in the West until industrialization.⁹

Decentralization

“By the end of the tenth century the kingdom of France remained a legal and ideological construct, but it’s kings exerted little genuine power outside their own family lands. The main political foci were the great counties ruled as autonomous principalities by comital families…linguistic contrasts mirrored different histories customs and laws. The far south retained a tradition of written law…. there was no uniformity of rules of landowning, judicial systems, weights, measures or currency. A kingdom often in name alone.“

-Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades

In a centralized system those in power can become as tyrannical as they like. A 6th century historian and bishop, Gregory of Tours, recorded the effects of decentralization in preventing tyranny. Due to the recent heavy taxation by King Chilperic I “many left their cities and their possessions and, seeking other kingdoms, thought it better to live abroad than to submit to such oppression.”¹⁰ When people have choice they will naturally migrate to a less oppressive system and join themselves to the lords and customs with the most liberty.¹¹ Thus naturally realms protecting their people would increase while tyrant realms would decrease.

Even though someone might be a king of a vast realm, he may not have influenced the entire area he was “king” of. For example, northern Italy consisted of several autonomous cities and duchies; their “king” ruled a minimal area around the Po valley.¹² Likewise, the well-known and mighty Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa controlled only within his family lands in Swabia. The rest of the empire was governed as autonomous realms. Professor Philip Daileader described the Holy Roman Empire in 1273 as a “loose confederation of hundreds of very tiny units, principalities, city-states, and bishoprics.”¹³ Historian Will Durant described the same when he wrote, “No German nation existed yet; there were only Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians, Franks…no one system of laws governed the realm….each region kept its own customs and Code.”¹⁴

Even under Charlemagne, the most prominent early medieval example of a pre-Renaissance monarch, power was limited, and Tierney and Painter wrote, “all the different people of the empire continued to live according to their own native laws. Charlemagne had no intention of abolishing this diversity,” and there was “virtually no public taxation, and Charlemagne depended for revenue on the proceeds of his own land.”¹⁵ A contemporary of Charlemagne was Einhard, who wrote a biography of the emperor. In it, he describes the power of the later Merovingian kings of the Franks;

“The Merovingian family…had long since been devoid of vital strength, and conspicuous only from bearing the empty epithet Royal…There was nothing left the King to do but to be content with his name of King…He had nothing that he could call his own beyond this vain title of King…except a single country seat, that brought him but a very small income. There was a dwelling house upon this, and a small number of servants attached to it, sufficient to perform the necessary offices. When he had to go abroad, he used to ride in a cart, drawn by a yoke of oxen driven, peasant-fashion, by a Ploughman.”¹⁶

Towns, manors, monasteries, isolated villages, and great dukedoms across feudal Europe were typically autonomous.¹⁷ In 800 A.D., Ireland was made up of perhaps 150 separate kingdoms.¹⁸ At the same date, sparsely-populated Norway was divided into 31 principalities.¹⁹ By 1200 A.D., there were 200 autonomous city-states in Northern Italy.²⁰ In the 14th century, Germany was made up of 600 autonomous realms.²¹ According to Will Durant, Spain was broken down into tiny realms of petty kings, but “even within each little kingdom unity was an interlude; the nobles almost ignored the kings except in war.”²²

Lords controlled within their own spheres, as did dukes, princes, barons etc, and held autonomy. Each realm had its own laws and courts, and the local village conducted affairs with no control from the King’s capital or a higher lord’s influence. In the thirteenth century, Beaumanoir remarked “each Baron is sovereign in his own Barony.”²³ Historian Régine Pernoud wrote that decentralization provided “variety between one town and another and gave a charming and attractive aspect to the country…each town possessed to a degree which is to-day almost unimaginable, its own personality.”²⁴ Historian Chris Wickham described the medieval situation as the “radical decentralization of political power in the west.”²⁵ The people might recognize the king and even honor him, but outside of his family’s inheritance, he could not control anything in those areas. A decentralized kingship should be understood as an aristocracy of sovereign lords rather than a monarchy.

About the Author

Jeb Smith is an author, speaker, and historian who has written five books, published over 130 articles in several publications, and has been featured on various podcasts, television, and radio interviews. For speaking engagements, interviews, or questions, please get in touch with him at authorJebSmith.com.