Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/332

324 was directed primarily towards filling the gap thus left by previous students. Incidentally they revealed interesting evidence for the rehabilitation of the theories originally propounded in the History of English Law. They proved the reign of Edward I to have ushered in a fourth phase in the history of the scutage, in which the relations between king and tenant in chief were determined by either service or a fine; while the Crown, in order to maintain its interest in the scutage, attempted to convert it into a general tax paid by the sub-tenants irrespective of the service or fine proffered by their lords. This revolution in the incidence of the levy was not, as Maitland seems to infer, successfully carried through. As will be shown, it aroused strong opposition on the part of the feudal tenantry, and resulted in a conflict between the Crown and the tenants in chief which was brought to an end only when scutage ceased to be levied.

The position may be briefly summarized as follows. With the advance of the thirteenth century a tendency towards the supersession of the scutage by the fine as a means of commutation for the tenant in chief becomes clearly apparent. The latter was a much simpler expedient than the former for both Crown and tenants. It was offered at the opening of the campaign, amounted in general to a sum larger than the scutage, and involved no elaborate system of assessment and no laborious process of collection. The levy of scutage, on the other hand, grew increasingly complicated as changes occurred in the allocation and distribution of fees, and as the power of the feudal lords over their military tenants weakened. Hence fining tended to become the normal procedure for the Crown vassal, even when scutages were imposed; and after 1257, when no further scutage was taken by Henry III, it became the sole alternative to service. When therefore Edward I, after a lapse of twenty years, issued his first full feudal summons, every tenant in chief was expected to offer in response either (i) his recognized service, or (ii) its pecuniary equivalent in the shape of a fine. The scutage imposed two years later appears merely as an afterthought, and seems to have been regarded simply as a convenient means of raising additional revenue. A levy under the conditions which had prevailed in the early thirteenth century would have amounted to little more than the fixing of the rate at which the mesne lords were to collect from their rear-vassals and the king from the tenants of escheats, wardships, and honours in hand. This contingency the Crown obviated by assessing the impost, as if it had been an aid, upon all fees, irrespective of the performance of service or the payment of a fine; and when the magnates protested against this innovation, justified it by reference to the