The true explanation is probably to be found in the fact that only a portion of the tax was raised by way of scutage. As this great levy has been wrongly supposed to have consisted of a scutage alone,[148] and as it played an important part in the development of direct taxation, I propose to set forth, for the first time, the various methods by which the money was raised. These were eight in number:
I. (FIXED) A _donum_ of two marcs on the fee from the under-tenants of the church, raised _by fiefs_ on the old assessment (_servitium debitum_).
II. (FIXED ?) A _donum_ of (it is said) two marcs on the fee from the under-tenants of the lay barons, raised partly _by counties_ and partly _by fiefs_.
III. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the church tenants-in-chief themselves, irrespective of their fees.
IV. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from some of the non-feudal religious houses (tenants _in elemosina_, and not by military service).
VI. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the sheriffs.
VII. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the Jewries.
VIII. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the moneyers.
Of these, the _first_ was strictly regular, being merely a repetition of the scutage of 1156, at the rate of two marcs instead of twenty shillings. The _second_ presents some difficulty. Subject to correction, there are some fifteen cases in which the payment is made separately by fiefs, and in which the rate is clearly two marcs, while there are twenty-two in which the _milites_ of the county pay as a group through the sheriff, and in which, therefore, we cannot actually test the rate of the levy or the manner of raising it. Swereford's _ipse dixit_ as to the rate in these latter cases was probably based on analogy, here our only guide.
With the _third_ and _fourth_ divisions we return to sure ground. To them I invite particular attention, because it is to them (and especially to the third) that apply the complaints of the church chroniclers, and not (as has always, but erroneously, been supposed) to the perfectly legitimate levy of two marcs on the fee. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that the matter has been wholly misunderstood. The bitter complaint of John of Salisbury that Henry, on this occasion, 'omnibus (contra antiquum morem et debitam libertatem) indixit ecclesiis ut _pro arbitrio_ ejus satraparum suorum conferrunt in censum', would have been without meaning had it referred (as alleged) to the latter levy (or even to the insignificant sums contributed _ut supra_ by eight foundations); but when we learn that, over and above this legitimate levy, a far larger sum was arbitrarily wrung from the church, the truth and justice of the protest are at once made evident. I here give two tables illustrative of this exaction. Each is divided into three columns. In the first column I give the number of the knights due from each bishopric and each religious house. In the second column I give the marcs due, and paid on this occasion, on the old assessment (_servitium debitum_). In the third will be found the exaction complained of, namely, the _dona_ extorted from the spiritual 'barons' themselves.