"TALLAGE AT WILL" 139
one of the lawyer's tests of servitude.1 The canonists also took
this view. Dr Coulton writes:
Let us begin with an extract which has almost the value of a direct
generalization. Richard Middleton (or de Media Villa) was an English
Franciscan who became Professor of Divinity at Paris about 1285,
and is reckoned among the masters of Duns Scotus. In the ayth
question of his third quodlibet he discusses the question whether
subjects are morally bound to obey a lord who imposes tallages which
are justified neither by custom nor by public utility:
" I answer, that these subjects are either serfs [servi\ or free. If they
be serfs, I say that they are bound to pay the tallages newly imposed
upon them, even though these tend to the profit of their lords alone;
for serfs and their possessions are the property of their lords___[In
the case of freemen], if those tallages be in no way to the profit of the
community, then I say that neither king nor prince can impose such
tallages upon his free subjects. And the reason here is, that the
possessions of free subjects are not the property of their lords."
When a doctor of this kind can thus decide against the moral right
of the serf to resist new and arbitrary taxation, it is more significant
even than the complaints of his fellow-moralists that the lords and
their bailiffs commonly oppress the poor.2
There can be no doubt that "tallage at will" was oppressive,
and was thought to be oppressive by the peasants. In 1299, the
serfs of the monks of Dunstable, for example, asserted that "they
would rather go down to hell than be beaten in this matter of
tallage", and after much controversy they finally bought their
freedom from this tax by the huge fine of £6o.3 This strong ex-
pression of opinion by the men of Dunstable was echoed by
many other serfs, and we constantly meet with evidence showing
how the lords were "destroying the peasants by exactions and
tallages", or that they were "exacting tallage from them by force
and oppression, some years taking 100 shillings, some years not".4
The Ministers' Accounts show us in detail what was happening.
For example, at Halvergate, in Norfolk, the tallage varied from
£10 to £12 from one year to the next; then it rose to £13, and the
following year was down to £8, where it remained for the next
1 Rot. Hund. II, 530, 619, 623, 643,etc.; Wore. Priory Reg. 150, 43b, 56a,
etc. For an important discussion of " uncertainty "and tallage, see Vinogradoffs
article, Econ.Journ. x, 311-15.
2 Med. Village, 482. 8 Arm. Dunst. (R.S.), 122.
* B.N.B. Nos. 485, 574, 691; cf. Bensington, 24; CaL Inq. Misc. I, 100
(No. 290).