404 The Period of Constitution Making

proportioned between town and country and with but
slight variation from time to time to meet a special
exemption or take account of some local calamity, was
known as the tenth and fifteenth. * With carucage and
the tax on movables

modern taxes began. In the first place, the basis^ofjhese
levies was property nqb^teunce; men gaidffire^y^to^ie
king, noTSaHer of ^homj:hey^ In

the second pTaceTthough the members of the council which
granted these aids may have thought that each acted for him-
self, individually, yet the result of the deliberations was to
create a uniform tax, pi£EQ2±iQnsljx>J^ amount of property.
" of assessment °

(in taxation) an3^iina5onal7 not

Perhaps the most notable development in this connection
in the thirteenth century was the growth of corporate
action on the part of the great council. In dealing in
money matters with such a king as Henry III. the barons
learned over and over again the lesson which had first
become plain to them in the drive for Magna Carta, that

In the twelve-forties par-

...__

ticularly we note the rapiHly growing use^Fsuch words
as conm^^ and the development of

Baroxiial as the
^

great council wasitmreanTmo5re spoke as if it were
spea^S^^JojJ^ie^^Latign, and it was rapidly learning to
drive a bargain with a shifty king and to attempt the

as wellj^ of

Indeed out of the feudal notion that the lord

their consent was g^

* J. F. Willard, The Taxes upon Movables of the Reign of Edward III.
English Historical Review, xxx., pp. 69-74. For a discussion of the older
method of assessment, see Professor Willard's The Assessment of Lay Sub-
Mies, 1290-1332, Annual Report of the American Historical Association
for the year 1917, pp. 283-292.
a S. 1C Mitchell, Taxation under John and Henry IIL, pp. 351, 352.