Scutage

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Scutage

The tax of scutage or escuage, in the law of England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
under the feudal system, allowed a knight to "buy out" of the military service due to the Crown from the holder of a knight's fee. Its name derived from the knightly shield (in Latin: scutum).

The term sometimes loosely applies to other pecuniary levies on the basis of the knight's fee

Knight's fee

Knight's fee was a Feudalism term used in Britain in the Middle Ages and Anglo-Norman Ireland to describe the value of land. It is also sometimes called scutage....
.

General Information
The institution existed under Henry I

Henry I of England

Henry I was the fourth son of William I the Conqueror. He succeeded his elder brother William II of England as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106....
(reigned 1100–1135) and Stephen

Stephen of England

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The tax of scutage or escuage, in the law of England

England

Knight's fee

Knight's fee was a Feudalism term used in Britain in the Middle Ages and Anglo-Norman Ireland to describe the value of land. It is also sometimes called scutage....
.

General Information

The institution existed under Henry I

Henry I of England

Stephen of England

Stephen often known as Stephen of Blois was a grandson of William I of England. He was the last Norman dynasty King of England, from 1135 to his death, and also the Count of Boulogne jure uxoris....
(reigned 1135–1154), when it occurs as scutagium, scuagium or escuagium. The creation of fractions of knights' fee probably hastened its introduction: the holders of such fractions could only discharge their obligation via scutage. The increasing use of mercenaries

Mercenary

A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict, who is not a national or a party to the conflict, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or p...
in the 12th century would also make a money payment of greater use to the crown.

Separate levies of scutage received the names of the campaigns for which they were raised, as "the scutage of Toulouse" (or "great scutage"), "the scutage of Ireland", and so forth. The levy demanded from each fee one marc

Mark (money)

Mark was a measure of weight mainly for gold and silver, commonly used throughout western Europe and often equivalent to 8 ounces. Considerable variations, however, occurred throughout the Middle Ages ....
(13s. 4d.), one pound

Pound sterling

----The pound sterling , subdivided into 100 pence , is the currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependency and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory....
or two marcs, but anything above a pound seemed abnormal till John

John of England

John reigned as List of English monarchs from 6 April 1199, until his death. He succeeded to the throne as the younger brother of King Richard I of England, who died without issue....
(reigned 1199–1216) imposed levies of two marcs in most years without even the excuse of a war. The irritation caused by these exactions reached a climax in 1214, when John demanded three marcs, and this became a prominent cause among the many causes that led the baron

Baron

Baron is a specific title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English language beorn meaning "nobleman."...
s to insist on the Great Charter

Magna Carta

Magna Carta , also called Magna Carta Libertatum , is an Kingdom of England legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215. It was written in Latin....
(1215). Its provisions prohibited the crown from levying any scutage save by "the common counsel of our realm".

The reissued Charter of 1217 provided, instead of this, that scutage levies should remain at the rate as of the reign of Henry II

Henry II of England

Henry II, called Curtmantle ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France....
. In practice, however, under Henry III

Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John of England as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester....
(reigned 1216–1272), scutage rates usually amounted to three marcs, but required the assent of the barons, and levies occurred only on adequate occasions.

Meanwhile, a practice had arisen, possibly as early as Richard I

Richard I of England

Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Ireland, Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Nantes and Brittany at various times during the same period....
's reign (1189–1199), of accepting from great barons special "fines" for permission not to serve in a campaign. This practice appears to have rested on the crown's right to decide whether to exact personal service or to accept scutage in lieu of service. A system of special composition thus arose which largely replaced the old one of scutage. As between the tenants-in-chief, however, and their under-tenants, the payment of scutage continued. The terms of charters of subinfeudation

Subinfeudation

Subinfeudation, in English law, is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands new and distinct tenures....
, which specified the quota of scutage due rather than the proportion of a knight's fee granted, often stereotyped scutage. For the purpose of recouping themselves by levying from their under-tenants, the tenants-in-chief received from the crown writs de scutagio habendo. Under Edward I

Edward I of England

Edward I , popularly known as Longshanks, the English Justinian, and the Hammer of the Scots , was a House of Plantagenet King of England who achieved historical fame by conquering large parts of Wales and almost succeeding in doing the same to Scotland....
(reigned 1272–1307) the new system developed so completely that the six levies of the reign, each as high as two pounds on the fee, applied in practice only to the under-tenants, their lords compounding with the crown by the payment of large sums, though their nominal assessment, somewhat mysteriously, became much lower (see knight service).

Scutage rapidly became obsolescent as a source of revenue, Edward II

Edward II of England

Edward II, of Caernarfon, was Kingdom of England from 1307 until he was deposition in January 1327. His tendency to ignore his nobility in favour of low-born favourites led to constant political unrest and his eventual deposition....
(reigned 1307–1327) and Edward III

Edward III of England

Edward III was one of the most successful List of the monarchs of the Kingdom of Englands of the Britain in the Middle Ages. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II of England, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into the most efficient military power in Europe....
(reigned 1327–1377) imposing only one levy each and relying on other more uniform and direct modes of taxation. The lengths to which subinfeudation had gone also hastened its rapid decay; increasing subinfeudation led to constant dispute and litigation as to which of the holders in the descending chain of tenure remained liable for the payment. Apart from its financial aspect it had possessed a legal importance as the test, according to Bracton

Henry de Bracton

Henry of Bracton, also Henry de Bracton, also Henrici Bracton,or Henry Bratton also Henry Bretton was an England jurist....
, of tenure by knight-service, its payment, on however small a scale, proving the tenure to be "military" with all the consequences involved.

J. F. Baldwin's The Scutage and Knight Service in England (1897), a dissertation printed at the University of Chicago Press, offers a major monograph on the subject (though not wholly free from error). Madox's History of the Exchequer formerly formed the standard authority. J. H. Round in Feudal England (1895) first set forth a more modern view. In 1896 appeared the Red Book of the Exchequer (Rolls series

Rolls Series

The Rolls Series, official title The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources, published in the second half of the nineteenth century....
), which, with the Testa de Nevill (Record Commission) and the Pipe Rolls

Pipe Rolls

The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rolls, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or Treasury....
(published by the Record Commission and the Pipe Roll Society), provides the chief record authority on the subject; but the editor misdated many of the scutages, and JH Round in his Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer (privately issued) and his Commune of London and other Studies (1899) severely criticized his conclusions. See also Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law (1895) and McKechnie's Magna Carta (1905). Scargill Bird's "Scutage and Marshal’s Rolls" in Genealogist (1884), vol. i., has important coverage of later records.