Tallage or talliage (from the French , 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 crown upon cities, boroughs, and royal domains. In effect, tallage was a land tax.
England
Land taxes were not unknown in England, as the Anglo-Saxon kings had periodically levied a Danegeld on that basis, but tallage was brought to England by the Normans as a feudal duty. The word first appeared in the reign of Henry II as a synonym for the , which was an occasional payment exacted by king and barons. Under Henry's sons it became a common source of royal revenue. It was condemned in the Magna Carta of 1215, and its imposition practically ceased by 1283 in favour of a general grant made in Parliament. There were three further attempts to impose tallage, and it was formally abolished in England in 1340 (Taxation, etc. Act 1340) under Edward III, when Parliament's consent to the imposition of common charges became required.
The famous statute of 25 Edw. 1 (34 Edw. 1. Stat. 4 in The Statutes at Large), , 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 1628, and by the judges in John Hampden's case in 1637, is probably an imperfect and unauthoritative abstract of the .
It was reported that John may have imposed a tallage upon Jews in 1210 to the extent of 60,000 marks (£40,000). There are likewise records of tallages under Henry III of 4,000 marks (1225) and 5,000 marks (1270).
France
Tallage lasted much longer in France, where it was a royal tax and one of estate owners with tenants. It came to be called 'taille' and was much used during the Hundred Years' War. It was not abolished in France until the French Revolution.
Germany
Tallage never became significantly developed in the German states. It remained a small tax owed to a feudal lord in lieu of other feudal duties, dying out along with other feudal duties.
See also
- Danegeld
- Dazdie
- Leibzoll
- Taille