THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 95
was concerned in the making of a will, the priests maintained
that all actions relating to wills were within the province of
the Church tribunals. The Church also pronounced on
nullity suits, sending the woman to a convent if a decree
of nullity were pronounced. With so large a number of
litigious matters reserved to them the ecclesiastical courts are
described as the busiest in Palestine.
There was no general system of taxation for the support of
the king, but a special tax might be imposed by the authority
of the barons in times of crisis. Normally, the ruler in
Jerusalem raised his income principally from the same sources
as other lords and within his own fief. He received an income
from the proceeds of the courts and the profits of the mint in
Jerusalem} he had the revenue from the levies imposed on
caravans and travellers $ his treasury was enriched by the
ransoms paid by rich Moslems captured in battle 5 but the
main source of income was from the capitation tax levied on
Moslems and Jews and from the sale of monopolies. Dyeing,
soap-making, tanning, the slaughter of pigs, brewing, glass-
blowing, etc., were monopolies much sought after and some-
times strictly confined to Jews. Nobles did not engage in
trade or industry, but the bourgeois were ready to pay heavily
for the exclusive right of manufacturing certain articles or
conducting certain kinds of business.
Despite the comparatively high taxation, the bourgeois
class grew rich in the Latin states. They were forbidden to
marry the daughters of knights and were restricted in their
choice of dress—each man was expected to dress according to
his station and scarlet, for instance, was reserved for nobles—
but they were much more respected than in Europe and their
social position was better. Many of them married Moslem
women (but only after the women had adopted the Christian
religion). Some of the merchants were rich enough to build
their own private chapels.
Many classes of goods had to pay a tax on entering the