medieval-atlas/economic-development/305

Transcription

Taxation in medieval Scotland As the assessments of 1366 and the tax returns of 1365 to 1373 ants' income. The position is distorted by the inclusion of church were constructed on different bases, the value of church income income in the 1366 assessment of estates but its exclusion from the from benefices (spiritualities) can be directly gauged, but not church sheriffs' tax returns. Yet the general trends are clear. In the west income from ecclesiastical estates (temporalities). Similarly, it is (and probably the north) landowners' income formed a much smaller impossible to gauge directly the relative values of lay and ecclesi-proportion of the total returns than in the east. Excluding Argyll and astical estates. But a rough estimate may be made of the relative Inverness, where the comparative coverage is unclear, the sum of scale of ecclesiastical benefices to temporalities in each diocese. the highest returns from the sheriffdoms was 67% greater than the The average division across Scotland, on the basis of the highest 1366 assessment of lay and ecclesiastical estates. At one extreme tax returns, was 43% spiritualities to 57% temporalities (the com-were Banff and Kinross, where the highest sheriffdom returns were bined income of the church and its tenants from ecclesiastical es-94% greater than the estates' assessment; at the other was Peebles, tates -unlike the Nicholas IV data, which related only to church where they were only 33% greater. More typical of a regional trend income). The largest land holdings seem to have been in Galloway are: in the south-west and west-central, Dumfries (81 %), Ayr and (86% of taxed income -where the church accounted for nearly 40% Wigtown (both 77%), Stirling (74%), Dunbarton and Renfrew (67%), of the highest combined clerical and lay returns fromWigtownshire ), Lanark (66%) and Clackmannan (65%); in the borders, Berwick, Glasgow (68%), Brechin (67%), Dunkeld (65%) and Moray (64%). Roxburgh and Selkirk (all about 65%); in the east and east-central, St Andrews was closer to the national average, at 58%, than any Edinburgh (c.60%), Fife (59%), Perth (57%), Forfar (64%), Kinother diocese -probably well below average in the archdeaconry of cardine (an atypical 70%) and Aberdeen (49%). Lothian, where many of the large ecclesiastical estates were under Comparison of the highest returns with the thirteenth-cen-English occupation, and well above average in the archdeaconry of tury estate assessments suggests that proportionate values per square St Andrews. In relative terms, the smallest land holdings seem to mile had fallen most in the sheriffdoms of Wigtown, Peebles, Lanhave been in Dunblane (31 %), Aberdeen (39%), Argy II (44%) and ark, Roxburgh, Perth, Aberdeen, Dunbarton and Renfrew (all areas Ross (47%). with much high and marginal land); that they had appreciated most There were also wide variations across Scotland in the ra-in Kinross, Clackmannan and Kincardine (where rents and services vy r" tio of freeholders' to ten may always have been relatively light), and were little altered elsewhere. This suggests that a significant part of the apparent reduction be Caithness tween the thirteenth-century and 1366 estate assessments may indeed be due to falling rents and services. But the pattern varied greatly across the country: transfer of income seems . to have been most marked in the west, Banff and Kincardine; least apparent in Lothian, Fife, Perth and Aberdeen. Sodor? mile of dioceses 2.00 and over 1.50 -1.99 1.00 -1.49 0.50 -0.99 Under 0.50 Taxed i.ncome of the church and its tenants 1365 to 1373 ASt 305