The taxation of 1297: a translation of the local rolls of assessment for Barford, Biggleswade and Flitt hundreds, and for Bedford, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and Luton

The taxation of 1297: a translation of the local rolls of assessment for Barford, Biggleswade and Flitt hundreds, and for Bedford, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and Luton

The introduction explains the method of taxation in the thirteenth century.  By the 1290s, taxes were levied as a fixed proportion of the value of a person’s goods: a ninth, a fifteenth, a thirtieth or other fraction, as ordered.  The proportion in 1297 was a ninth.  The rolls transcribed here contain a valuation of stock, crops and other goods, followed by their total value and the amount to be paid in tax. An account of the circumstances of the 1297 tax is given. There is an analysis of the returns for Bedfordshire, with tables, and a commentary on what was omitted from the assessment. The returns are translated into English and a glossary has been added to explain how Latin terms have been translated.
There is also a translation of the collection of a fifteenth for Shillington in 1301.