Carucage was a medieval English land tax based on the size of the estate owned by the taxpayer. It was a replacement for the danegeld, last imposed in 1162, which increasing numbers of exemptions had made difficult to collect. Carucage was introduced by King Richard I in 1194, and was sporadically assessed during the following two reigns. It was collected for the last time in 1224, after which it was replaced by taxes on income and personal property.
The tax was levied only six times between 1194 and 1224, and never raised as much as other taxes. The taxable value of an estate was initially assessed from the Domesday Survey, but other methods such as valuations based on the sworn testimony of neighbours, or a calculation based on the number of ploughteams used by the taxpayer, were employed later. The money raised was used for a variety of purposes: to pay King Richard's ransom in 1194, to pay King John's inheritance relief in 1200, and by King Henry III to pay for military campaigns in England and on the continent.
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In medieval England there was no clear separation between the government and the king's own household, and the governmental structure grew out of the royal household.[1] The main sources of royal income were: income from the royal estates; income from feudal rights, such as feudal aids or feudal reliefs, which derived from the king's position as a feudal overlord; taxation; the judicial courts, which included the fees and other profits from the royal courts paid to the king. In 1130, the records of revenues paid into the treasury show that about 40% of the revenues came from royal estates, 16% from feudal rights, 14% from taxes, and 12% from the judicial courts.[2] By 1194 the revenues from the lands came to about 37%,[notes 1] revenues from feudal rights was about 25%, income from taxation was about 15%, and income from judicial sources was about 11%.[4][notes 2]
English taxation after the Norman Conquest of 1066 was based on the geld or danegeld, a national tax paid by all free men, those who were not serfs or slaves. The geld was based on the number of hides of land owned by the taxpayer,[5][notes 3] and the king could demand its payment without consulting his barons or other subjects, and could assess it at varying levels. During King Henry I's reign however, increasing numbers of exemptions, and the difficulties encountered in collecting the geld, decreased its importance to the Exchequer, the treasury of England. It is unclear if the geld was collected at all during the reign of Henry's successor, King Stephen.[5] Stephen's successor, King Henry II, collected the geld only twice, in 1155 and in 1161–1162. The geld was unpopular, and after 1162 Henry may have felt it politically expedient to stop collecting it.[7]
Most information about the carucage comes from the financial records associated with its collection, but there is no detailed description of the way in which it was collected or assessed, unlike the account of the workings of the Exchequer given in the Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer, written in about 1180.[8] Government records such as the Pipe Rolls, the Memoranda Rolls, and other financial records[9] some of which are specific to the carucage have survived, and include records of assessments and receipts for the sums collected.[10] There are also occasional references to the tax in medieval chronicles, supplementing the information found in the financial records.[11]
Under Henry's son, King Richard I, the geld was replaced by the carucage, which was also based on land ownership. Because it was based on the amount of land owned,[12] only free men were subject to the tax, thus exempting serfs, who owned no land.[13] Carucage was established by Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Justiciar of England. It was first collected in 1194, and was the first land tax collected in England since the geld.[14] The basis of the tax was the size of the estate in hides, or carucates[12] (a unit of land that could be ploughed by an eight-ox ploughteam in a year,[15] which was normally considered to be equivalent to a hide).[16] Collection of the carucage was actually a feudal aid, as well as a tax, as it was first levied under King Richard in order to pay Richard's ransom when he was imprisoned while returning from the Third Crusade. The first assessment was based on the Domesday Survey, a survey of land holdings in England which was completed by 1087.[17][18]
The carucage was collected again in 1198, based on the carucate, which was then estimated at 100 acres (40 ha),[17] or 120 acres (49 ha).[19] This levy was often titled the "great carucage". A first assessment of 2 shillings per carucate was made, then later a further 3 shillings was imposed.[11] This tax was collected to provide the king with money for his military campaigns in France,[20] and raised about £1,000.[21] A number of fines were subsequently levied on taxpayers for evading payment,[notes 4] suggesting that the 1198 tax was not very successful.[22]
The medieval chronicler Roger of Howden is the main source for information on the 1198 carucage.[11] According to Roger, assessments were carried out in each shire or county, by a commission of two royal officials working in each hundred (a subdivision of a shire). This commission included two local knights, who took sworn testimony in each village, from four villagers and the bailiffs, or estate officials, of those barons holding land in the village. The resulting assessments were recorded, the sheriff, or chief royal official of the shire, received the money, and forwarded it to the treasury.[17] Estate holders in the area were responsible for the payments from their estates, and when they were handed into the Exchequer, a special procedure recorded the payments,[23] which were deposited into a special set of accounts.[24] These elaborate procedures were probably meant to avoid misappropriation of funds, but may not have succeeded because, later, justices were sent out with instructions to inquire into the commissioners' activities. As a result, 23 counties paid fines to secure an end to inquiries about the carucage.[23]
The clergy and ecclesiastics resisted Richard's attempt to collect the 1198 carucage from their estates. In response, Richard withdrew the clergy's right to use the royal courts, forcing them to buy the right to do so back for a sum greater than the carucage that had been levied.[25]
King John, Richard's brother and successor, collected the carucage only once, in 1200. John set the amount to be collected from each carucate at 3 shillings.[17] Revenues from this taxation do not appear in the 1200 Pipe Roll, which may mean that it was paid into a special commission in the Exchequer; William de Wrotham is designated as receptores carucagii, or receivers of the carucage, in official records.[11] Whether the assessments used the system from 1198, or a new system, is unknown.[26] The medieval chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall noted that an "order went throughout England by the justices[notes 5] or the king" to collect the tax.[28] This may imply that the King appointed justices to collect the tax.[27] The carucage was raised in order to pay John's feudal relief, or payment due on inheriting lands, for his 1199 inheritance of lands in France.[20] The relief had been set by King Philip II of France at 20,000 marks.[29] Estimates of this amounts raised by this carucage – about £3,000 – are based on later revenues raised during the following reign.[30]
The Cistercian monasteries in the north of England resisted the tax, claiming that they were immune to taxation. John put pressure on them, as he was in the north when the tax was announced, but the various abbeys appealed to Hubert Walter, then Chancellor. Walter secured from the abbeys the promise of a group payment of £1,000, but in June 1200 the King rejected the offer. In October, the King returned from Normandy and resumed pressure on the monasteries, ordering the confiscation of all Cistercian livestock on royal lands after two weeks if a settlement was not reached. At the end of November, through the intercession of Walter, the King capitulated and recognised the Cistercian immunity from taxation.[31]
John's son, King Henry III, assessed the carucage on only three occasions, in 1217, 1220, and 1224. A new approach in 1217 and 1220 was to secure the consent of the great council of leading noblemen for the levying of the tax, which was collected from both laymen and clergy.[32] The 1217 tax was once again assessed at 3 shillings per carucate.[9] The assessment method to determine the amount of lands held by each taxpayer involved having each landowner provide the information and swear an oath that it was correct.[33] Like the 1200 tax, the 1217 tax was not recorded in that year's Pipe Roll, leading to the possibility that that year's revenue was collected into a separate branch of the Exchequer.[34] The 1217 carucage was only paid by laymen; the clergy made a donation in lieu of being taxed.[35] The tax was collected in order to defray the expenses of the war being fought against Prince Louis of France, who had invaded England before the death of King John and was claiming the English throne.[36]
The 1220 carucage was collected by a special commission, and was paid not into the Exchequer, but to the Templar Order church in London, the New Temple.[34] The Templars, besides their military function in the Crusades, through their internation organization, functioned as bankers between countries.[37] The three men appointed to the commission—William de Halliwell, a friar, William FitzBenedict, a London resident, and Alexander de Sawbridgeworth, an Exchequer clerk[34]—were responsible for accounting for the money received, which amounted to £3,000.[38] The time frame of the 1220 carucage collection was quite short; the orders for the assessments to be made were issued in August, but required the tax to be collected by Michaelmas in late September.[39] The 1220 tax attempted to allow for variation in land values, exempting wastelands from taxation.[32] The system for the 1220 assessments was simpler than the 1217 levy, as ploughteams were counted to determine the land size rather than requiring oaths from the taxpayers. This tax gathered around £5,500.[23] There was some difficulty in collecting the tax, however, as some counties did not pay, and a number of barons refused to pay, at least at first.[40] The 1220 carucage was for the defence of Poitou, parts of southern France that were part of Henry's lands.[36]
The 1224 carucage was an aid levied only on the clergy,[41] and did not appear in the Pipe Roll. It is likely that the clergy who were assessed for the tax, also collected the tax. Records indicate that the bulk of the revenues raised were paid into the Wardrobe, instead of the Exchequer.[42] The 1224 assessment was based on ploughteams,[19] and was imposed to pay for the restitution of the lost lands in France.[36]
The last carucage was imposed in 1224,[19] after which revenue was collected by levying taxes on moveable, or personal property, instead of land.[43][44] Taxes on moveable property were first assessed in 1207.[45] A probable reason for the abandonment of land taxes was the greater revenues raised by other taxes.[46]
Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue to supplement scutage, the fine paid by a knight or baron to avoid military service.[47][48] It was also intended to increase the royal revenues in the face of new demands placed upon them. Although derived from the older danegeld, carucage was an experiment in revenue collection, but it was only levied for specific purposes, rather than as a general tax regularly assessed. A novel feature was the consultation with the barons and other leading members of the ruling classes.[48] Despite its intermittent use to generate revenue during the reigns of Richard I, John, and the early years of Henry III, the main source of royal income during those years remained scutage, feudal dues such as feudal reliefs or feudal aids, and royal rights such as the profits from the justice system.[45]
  | The English Revenue of Richard I - JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie |
| | The Revenue of King John - JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie |
| | Observations on English Government from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century - JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie |
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