the barons' demands by the issue of Magna Carta rendered financial
readjustments inevitable. During the long reign of Henry III. the
struggle to maintain the privileges granted by the Charter acted on the
fiscal system by checking the arbitrary use of tallages, and as a
consequence, encouraging the regular assessment of the tax on movables,
which was becoming more prominent. The fruitful idea that it was
necessary to obtain the consent of the payers of taxes before the
imposition operated powerfully in favour of the establishment of bodies
representing the several estates. It is through the reaction of
constitutional on fiscal development that the transition from feudal to
parliamentary taxation in its earlier form is made.

Almost at the opening of the age of parliamentary taxation one of the
older sources of revenue ceased. The pressure of popular opinion forced
Edward I. to decree the expulsion of the Jews (1290), though he
naturally desired to retain such profitable subjects. It is, indeed,
probable that, owing to the exactions practised on them, the Jewish
usurers had become less serviceable to the exchequer; while it is
certain that the general resources of the kingdom had so increased as to
make their contribution relatively much smaller. The first effects of
the representative influence in the fiscal domain are the abandonment of
the tallages on towns and the decline of scutage as a mode of levy. The
tax on movables was framed in a more systematic way. Instead of distinct
charges on different classes, or variations in proportion of levy from
one-fourth to one-fortieth, the policy of imposing a tax of one-tenth on
the towns and one-fifteenth on the counties was adopted. Greater
strictness in assessment was sought by the appointment of commissioners
for each county, supplied with special instructions as to taxable goods
and exemptions. This method continued in force for the tax on movables
from 1290 till 1334, though in some cases the proportions imposed on the
towns and counties were varied (e.g. an eighth and a fifth were granted
in 1297, and a tenth and a sixth in 1322). A more general influence was
the growing national economy which led to greater activity on the part
of the king as administrator, and which also increased the need of the
state for revenue. Though the doctrine that "The king should live of his
own" was generally accepted as a constitutional maxim, the force of
events was making it obsolete. From