ed rents, but levied heavy
talliages at pleasure on the inhabitants both of town and country, who
lived within his demesne. All bargains of sale, in order to prevent
theft, being prohibited, except in boroughs and public markets [u], he
pretended to exact tolls, on all goods which were there sold [w]. He
seized two hogsheads, one before and one behind the mast, from every
vessel that imported wine. All goods paid to his customs a
proportionable part of their value [x]: passage over bridges and on
rivers was loaded with tolls at pleasure [y]: and though the boroughs
by degrees bought the liberty of farming these impositions, yet the
revenue profited by these bargains: new sums were often exacted for
the renewal and confirmation of their charters [z] and the people were
thus held in perpetual dependence.
[FN [u] LL. Will. I. cap. 61. [w] Madox, p. 530. [x] Ibid. p. 529.
This author says a fifteenth. But it is not easy to reconcile this
account to other authorities. [y] Madox, p. 529. [z] Madox's Hist.
of the Exch. p. 275, 276, 277, &c.]

Such was the situation of the inhabitants within the royal demesnes.
But the possessors of land, or the military tenants, though they were
better protected both by law, and by the great privilege of carrying
arms, were, from the nature of their tenures, much exposed to the
inroads of power, and possessed not what we should esteem, in our age,
a very durable security. The Conqueror ordained, that the barons
should be obliged to pay nothing beyond their stated services [a],
except a reasonable aid to ransom his person if he were taken in war,
to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter.
What should, on these occasions, be deemed a reasonable aid, was not
determined; and the demands of the crown were so far discretionary.
[FN [a] LL. Will. Conq. Sec. 55.]

The king could require in war the personal attendance of his vassals,
that is, of almost all the landed proprietors; and if they declined
the service, they were obliged to pay him a composition in money,
which was called a scutage. The sum was, during some reigns,
precarious and uncertain; it was sometimes levied without allowing the
vassal the liberty of personal service [b]; and it was an usual
artifice of the king, to pretend an expedition, that he might be
entitled to levy the scutage from his military tenants. Danegelt was
another species of land-tax levied by the early Norman kings,
arbitrarily, an