A subsidy collected in the diocese of Lincoln in 1526 / edited by Rev. H. Salter.

Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A subsidy collected in the diocese of Lincoln in 1526 / edited by Rev. H. Salter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tion of 1291 all livings under the value of five marks were exempt, (4) that the rate of payment varied according to the circumstances of the case, those who had less than ^8 a year paying one fifteenth, not one tenth, and some of the poorer religious houses paying only one twentieth or one twenty- fifth, (5) that in estimating the income certain deductions were allowed, such as the cost of repairs to rectory (including the chancel) or vicarage, and the stipend of the curate. A study of the marginal notes in the subsidy will show that in many cases only a portion of the amount for repairs claimed by the incumbent was allowed; it is also clear that in some cases the curate’s stipend is not deducted from the incumbent’s stipend; and it may be that the deduction of the curate’s stipend was permitted only when the incumbent was performing ecclesiastical work elsewhere or studying at the university. The result remains that in many cases a double tax was levied. Thus at Shelswell, Oxford- shire, a rectory of the value of £4, as we learn both from our subsidy (p. 276) and from the Valor, the rector paid one fifteenth, and the curate who received £4 from the rector also paid one fifteenth, and whereas the amount from the parish under the old method would have been 8j., by Wolsey’s method it produced io.y. 8d. In our subsidy each incumbent pays either quota medictatis or quota tercie. It is evident that the former occurs where we should say one tenth and the latter one fifteenth. The payments are described in this particular way because Con- vocation granted in 1523 a moiety payable in five instalments {quota), and in 1526 each person paid an instalment of his moiety or his third part, and as there were five instalments the phrase in this case means one tenth or one fifteenth. It will be noticed that foreigners pay double, but this was a common feature in ecclesiastical subsidies, if not in all mediaeval taxation. There is only one instance of a man