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Feudal aid is the legal term for one of the financial duties required of a feudal
tenant Tenant may refer to: Real estate *Tenant, the holder of a leasehold estate in real estate *Tenant-in-chief, in feudal land law *Tenement (law), the holder of a legal interest in real estate *Tenant farmer *Anchor tenant, one of the larger stores ...
or
vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerai ...
to his
lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage ...
. Variations on the feudal aid were collected in England, France, Germany and Italy during the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, although the exact circumstances varied.


Origin

The term originated in the late 11th century, and it first appears in northern France, in the
County of Anjou The County of Anjou (, ; ; la, Andegavia) was a small French county that was the predecessor to the better-known Duchy of Anjou. Its capital was Angers, and its area was roughly co-extensive with the diocese of Angers. Anjou was bordered by B ...
.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 65 It was a payment made by the tenant or vassal to the lord on certain occasions, usually the knighting of the lord's eldest son and the marriage of his eldest daughter. Occasionally it was collected when the lord needed to pay a ransom after being captured.Coredon ''Dictionary of Medieval Terms & Phrases'' p. 8 Sometimes a fourth occasion was added to the customary list: when the lord went on
Crusade The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 312 Other times when aids might be demanded were when the lord himself was being taxed by his own superiors. At those times, the lord might try to pass the demand on to his own vassals.Zacour ''Introduction to Medieval Institutions'' p. 98 The growth of the custom sprang from the traditional obligation of the vassal to render aid and counsel to his lord. At first, this was physical aid in the form of military service and attendance at the lord's court, but gradually it came to include financial aid to the lord as well. As it became obligatory to give monetary gifts to the lord, it also became limited by custom to set occasions.Bloch ''Feudal Society Volume 1'' pp. 222-224


In France

The first recorded royal feudal aid levied in France was that of 1137. This was assessed by King Louis VI in order to pay for the marriage of his heir, the future
Louis VII Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (french: link=no, le Jeune), was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and married Duchess ...
, to
Eleanor of Aquitaine Eleanor ( – 1 April 1204; french: Aliénor d'Aquitaine, ) was Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of King Louis VII, List of English royal consorts, Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of Henry II of England, King Henry I ...
. Another aid was levied in 1147 by Louis VII to pay for his crusade. The kings of France continued to collect aids for crusading under Philip II and
Louis IX Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the House of Capet, Direct Capetians. He was Coronation of the French monarch, c ...
.Hallam and Everard ''Capetian France'' p. 224 Under Philip IV, the payment of aids was extended to under vassals as well as towns.Hallam and Everard ''Capetian France'' p. 378


In England

The custom of collecting aids arose in northern France, and was brought to England following the
Norman Conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqu ...
in 1066. There, the three customary occasions for the collection of aid came to be the knighting of the eldest son, the marriage of the eldest daughter and when the lord needed to be ransomed. Custom also limited the amount that could be collected at each occasion.Lyon ''Constitutional and Legal History'' pp. 131-132 The English kings after the Conquest exploited their rights to aids extensively, although
Henry I Henry I may refer to: 876–1366 * Henry I the Fowler, King of Germany (876–936) * Henry I, Duke of Bavaria (died 955) * Henry I of Austria, Margrave of Austria (died 1018) * Henry I of France (1008–1060) * Henry I the Long, Margrave of the N ...
promised in his coronation charter to respect custom in the amounts and times he collected them. Records from the Pipe Rolls, however, show that Henry continued to exact more than custom allowed.Lyon ''Constitutional and Legal History'' p. 161 Under Henry II, the royal government needed ever greater sums of money to operate, so it continued the practice of extorting the aids whenever possible for as much as possible.Lyon ''Constitutional and Legal History'' p. 267 The 1168 aid for the marriage of Henry II's daughter was not only assessed on the nobles, but collected from the towns and from the royal lands also.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 365 In England,
Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by t ...
limited the occasions on which a lord might impose an aid. Chapter XII of Magna Carta dealt with aids, limiting the ones that the king could collect to the three customary ones unless the barons agreed to the imposition of non-customary ones. Chapter XV then regulated the aids that the barons themselves could impose on their vassals, and stipulated that the king could not grant a license allowing a baron to impose a non-customary aid on his vassals.Lyon ''Constitutional and Legal History'' p. 317 Many examples of English Feudal Aids were published in ''Inquisitions and Assessments Relating to Feudal Aids, with Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office, A.D. 1284-1431'', 6 vols. (1899–1920). These volumes are arranged by traditional counties and includes some examples that were not strictly aids


In Germany and Italy

Although gifts from vassals to lords happened in the German empire, they do not appear to have become compulsory nor have been institutionalized into formalized occasions when they were required. However, aids for the customary occasions were sometimes collected from German towns in the 12th and 13th centuries, as they are mentioned in town charters.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 471 In Italy, the custom of feudal aids appears to have been introduced by the Normans when they conquered Sicily and southern Italy.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 245 Evidence for feudal aids in the northern part of Italy is late, and the custom may have been introduced from France or Sicily.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 254


Similar payments

Aids were distinct from the feudal incidents, which were collected when the vassal died. It was also distinct from the
tallage Tallage or talliage (from the French ''tailler, i.e. '' a part cut out of the whole) may have signified at first any tax, but became in England and France a land use or land tenure tax. Later in England it was further limited to assessments by the ...
, which was a tax imposed on the towns and the royal lands.Lyon ''Constitutional and Legal History'' pp. 382-383 Under Henry III, some voluntary taxes came to be called aids, but should not be confused with the feudal aids owed by vassals, which continued to be collected.Lyon ''Constitutional and Legal History'' p. 385 Bishops sometimes imposed aids, for similar occasions such as making a pilgrimage to Rome or aid the construction of cathedrals and churches.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 145


Problems

The historian
Susan Reynolds Susan Reynolds FBA (27 January 1929 – 29 July 2021) was a British medieval historian whose book ''Fiefs and Vassals: the Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted'' (1994) was part of the academic critique on the concept of feudalism as classically ...
notes that the evidence for feudal aids only dates from the 11th century, rendering the view that it arose earlier in a requirement of a vassal to give aid to his lord somewhat suspect.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 10 She also notes that although the classic view of the aid was that it was raised from holders of fiefs, in reality it was collected from peasants more often than from nobles. The earliest notations of feudal aids being collected do not imply a lord-vassal relationship, which makes some traditional aspects of their early history suspect.Reynolds ''Fiefs and Vassals'' p. 477


See also

History of the English fiscal system


Citations


References

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Feudal Aid Economic history of England Feudal duties Feudalism Medieval economics Medieval English law