ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of public taxation in medieval England from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the end of Henry VII’s reign in 1509. Although broadly chronological, its overriding purpose is to survey the types of taxes collected by successive royal governments and chart the courses of their evolution. From the early land and feudal taxes it progresses to subsidies levied on moveable goods, direct taxes on wool, poll taxes and experimental taxes on landed income, and includes taxes collected by royal prerogative and the parliamentary and clerical subsidies granted to English kings with increasing regularity from the late thirteenth century. Distinctive features of English medieval taxation are the early development of a strong link between representation and taxation, and the principle of separate taxation of the clergy, based on the form of assessment of clerical incomes developed by the papacy to collect crusading subsidies. Royal clerical taxation and its roots in papal taxation are here accorded the substantial treatment that the subject deserves. It is the fortunate survival of the rich archival sources of the medieval royal Exchequer that enables historians to chronicle so fully the histories of both lay and clerical taxation.
