Tallage or Talliage (from the French
tailler, i.e. a part cut out of
the whole) appears to have signified at
first a tax in general, but became
afterwards confined in England to a
special form of tax, the assessment upon
cities, boroughs, and royal demesnes -
in effect, a land tax. Like Scutage
?,
tallage was superseded by the subsifdy
system in the 14th century. The last
occasion on which it was levied appears
to be about the year 1332. The famous
statute of 25 Edw. I. (in some editions
of the statutes 34 Edw. I.)
De
Tallagio non Concedendo, though it
is printed among the statutes of the
realm, and was cited as a statute in the
preamble to the Petition of Right in
1627, ad by the judges in John Hampden's
case in 1637, is probably an imperfect
and unathoritative abstract of the
Confirmatio Cartarum. The first
section enacts that no tallage for aid
shall be imposed or levied by the king
and his heirs without the will and
assent of the archbishops, bishops, and
other prelates, the earls, barons,
knights, burgesses, and other freemen in
the kingdom.
Tallagium facere was
the technical term for rendering
accounts in the exchequer, the accounts
being kept by means of
tallies or
notched sticks. The tellers (a
corruption of
talliers) of the
exchequer were at one time important
financial officers. The system of
keeping the national accounts by tallies
was abolished by 23 Geo. III. c. 82, the
office of teller by 57 Geo. II. c. 84.
Original article from a paper copy of the 9th edition EB