The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that carucage, a medieval English land tax, was first collected in 1194 in order to raise funds for the ransom of King Richard I of England?
Current status: Featured article
This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
the Middle Ages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Middle AgesWikipedia:WikiProject Middle AgesTemplate:WikiProject Middle AgesMiddle Ages articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject European history, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the history of Europe on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.European historyWikipedia:WikiProject European historyTemplate:WikiProject European historyEuropean history articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Business, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of business articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BusinessWikipedia:WikiProject BusinessTemplate:WikiProject BusinessWikiProject Business articles
Knowing nothing on the subject of medieval taxation, should not the definition be of a "12th to 13th century tax", judging from the information in the article (collected 1194-1224)?
The first sentence of the article should be a short sucinct summing up of the entire article. Either 12th and 13th century or medieval works fine. I slighly prefer medieval because it flows better and still gets the gist of the subject across, but I'm not going to scream at the other either. It was only collected six times, it was an experiment in taxation that didn't take off. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
notes/nb
Just a personal preference, is it worth changing the "notes" in the body to "nb"? It's a little less distracting. Parrotof Doom 22:05, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer "notes" though (grins). Ealdgyth - Talk 22:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thought I'd ask before changing things like that :) Parrotof Doom 22:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't you married PoD? Surely you know how prickly women can be. sticking out tongue to Ealdgyth, who I really do love --
Nope, my house, my money, my rules :) Parrotof Doom 22:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See.. my money, my house, my rules! Simple! Ealdgyth - Talk 22:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Confused
It was only assessed, or only collected, six times? SlimVirginTALKcontribs 22:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having problems understanding this, for example, "Carucage was introduced by King Richard I in 1194, and was sporadically assessed during the following two reigns. It was collected for the last time in 1224, and was replaced by taxes on income and personal property. The tax was levied only six times between 1194 and 1224, and never raised as much as other taxes."
There we have accessed, collected, and levied, apparently all being used in the same way, or in different ways? SlimVirginTALKcontribs 22:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They are essentially the same thing. I suspect Malleus (who copyedited) was looking to avoid repetition. I generally leave the copyediting minutiae to him, as he's got fresh eyes. I'm open to suggestions to make it less confusing. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'll add my suggestions to the lead. You can revert if you don't like them. Richard collected it twice, is that right? Are the dates in the article? SlimVirginTALKcontribs 22:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, twice under Richard: 1194 and 1198. Once under John in 1200. Three times under Henry III, 1217, 1220, 1224. All dates are in the article. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quick review
I just now looked at the article, and it's much improved since it started FAC. Some further comments and questions.
Background is quite good about the background. But now that things are clearer there's a question that needs to be answered. Carucage seems to be a simple renaming of danegeld: that is, it's a land tax with the same basis as danegeld. So why did they change the name of the tax? Presumably this was some political thing? Perhaps it was to cancel the danegeld exemptions without raising as much of a fuss?
I suspect it's the same way that the US collects fifteen different small taxes instead of one big tax, names have power, and if you change the name, you avoid the previous associations. Also, danegeld, under the first three Anglo-Norman kings, was supposed to be an annual tax, but carucage was not annual. Also, geld was not collected from the tennants-in-chief (those who held land directly from the king), it appears, while carucage was. There isn't anything directly stating why this was so, though. Lots of speculation on why the geld declined, and quit being collected, but little on why they then tried to collect it under a new name. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, could the two points about annual vs. non-annual and exemptions vs. no exemptions for tennants-in-chief be made more clearly in Background? The point about annual is not made at all (on the contrary, it sounds like danegeld was sporadic too) and the point about exemptions is made too indirectly; it's not clear. Eubulides (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it needed HERE, though? It's perfectly explained that the danegeld under the Anglo-Norman Kings was an annual tax, and that it had lots of exemptions, there in the danegeld article? I mention that danegeld had exemptions, do you REALLY think it's necessary to state those exemptions in this article? Again, this isn't an article on the danegeld.. and, to be fair, Henry II did NOT collect danegeld/geld annually, nor are we sure it was collected at all during Stephen's reign (the reign before Henry II). By the time carucage was first collected in 1194, it'd been 32 years since the last attempt at collecting geld and almost 60 since the last known annual imposition of it. Why is it so vital to explain all this information about geld here in an article about another tax? To try to de-empahasize the whole geld issue (which may have been stressed a bit much here, as it's not quite true that carucage "replaced" the geld (I don't know whether that was a remant of an earlier rewrite of mine or it it was because of the extensive copyediting this poor article has undergone) I've changed the first sentence of "Under Richard" to "Under Henry's son, King Richard I a new land tax was collected, the first since 1162." which downplays the replacement of the geld thing. It's a bit hard to say it was a replacement for the geld, since it'd been either 32 (since the last collection) or 59 years (since the last annual collection we're sure of) since it was collected. Does that help? Ealdgyth - Talk 19:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks, that helps. If the danegeld wasn't really annual, then obviously the article shouldn't say it was. I agree that this article needn't go into detail about danegeld exemptions. The point, though, is to explain whether or why carucage replaced danegeld, as much as is known. Barzel & Kizer 2002 (
doi:10.1177/1043463102014004003), for example, say "The danegeld was reintroduced under the name 'carucage', but only collected infrequently from 1194 until 1220, and was not a major revenue source (Stephenson 1929: 306–7; Green 1981: 258)", which does suggest that from a big-picture point of view it was mostly just a name change. Have you been able to get a copy of Barzel & Kizer by the way? It's a valuable resource in that it looks at things more from an economic point of view rather than from a historical viewpoint. Eubulides (talk) 21:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
I've got a copy of K&B, and I looked up their references. I can't see ALL of the Stephenson work on Google preview, but searching the book mentions nothing about carucage at all. Danegeld seems to be mentioned but not in a way that is connected to carucage at all. I have Green's article, and no where does she say that carucage replaced danegeld, it may be that B&K came to that conclusion, but their article isn't about this time frame, it's about later developments in taxation, and they aren't medieval historians, they are economists or economic historians, and they are very definitely summarizing off of other more specialised works. Yes, I've read their entire article. They are speaking a bit too sweepingly here, I suspect. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously we can't speculate about the politics without sources; yet surely there must be some source for how and why carucage differed from danegeld. Here's a quote found by a random Google search: "of course, the real importance of the impost (whatever it is to be called) of 1198 depends far less upon its financial aspect than upon the advance in the development of the representative system, marked by the altered character of the machinery whereby the survey was made". Kate Norgate. Carucage. The English Historical Review. 1888;3(12):702–704. No doubt you can find a better source, but the point is that this info must be out there somewhere. Eubulides (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Survey means the method of assessing, here. We're not sure HOW danegeld/geld was collected during the reigns, honestly. We sometimes know how much was collected, but not how or where it went. I consciously chose NOT to use Norgate, because no one cites her article anymore, which tells me it's out of date. From what I can see from that quote, it appears that she's pushing the idea that it was consented to in 1198, which we know to NOT be the case. Using a 130 year old article, that no one is citing any more, isn't a good idea. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Norgate is too dated to be a source. If there are no good sources for "why carucage" then I guess the article should say nothing, alas. Eubulides (talk) 21:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the first collection of carucage can be considered a feudal aid, can't the other collections be too? Why not?
A feudal aid, as the article on it says, is collected for specific purposes - knighting of the lord's eldest son, marriage of his eldest daughter, and to ransom the lord if he's captured. Because the first carucage was collected for Richard's ransom, it can be considered an aid, the rest were only to aid campaigns so they can't. I've moved this bit to a footnote, as it seems to keep tripping folks up, and a footnote will give it less prominence. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That wikilink in Note 1 to Farm is confusing. Apparently a farm is some kind of tax? But Farm is about ordinary farms, not about taxes.
See
Tax farming - but I agree the whole note needs expanding. Johnbod (talk) 09:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
I've clarified this, and linked explicitly to the "etymology" section of the farm article. Sheriffs didn't just collect taxes, they also collected rents and other income for the king. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"The clergy and ecclesiastics" A typical reader won't know the difference between "clergy" and "ecclesiastics"; this needs to be explained, at least with a wikilink and preferably with some minor rewording.
Now reads "lower clergy and bishops" which hopefully will be clearer. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"the designation of [long phrase] in official records" → "the designation in official records of [long phrase]"
"leading to the possibility that" It's not clear from the context whether this is talking about the possibility of an event happening then, or about the possibility of an inference being drawn now.
Now says "lending support to the possibility"... Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Typically the details about the mechanics of a particular levy are given, and then a trailing sentence explains where the money was intended to go. This is backwards. Please give the motivation for the levy first, and then give the detailed mechanics. With taxes, motivation (or at least, stated justification) is key and should be in the topic sentence; the details are less essential and can be given later.
See... I prefer this order, myself. If changing the order is what is required to get the support, I'll do it, but I'd really rather not, as there are three supports already with things in this order. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you prefer this order? That is, why put motivation last? Normally when one is reading about an event such as a war or a treaty or whatever, the question "what started it? why did it happen?" is something one wants to know first, not last. With taxes, particularly one-off taxes, surely the same question arise: "why was this tax imposed?"
Probably because about half the history articles/books I read use this order - give the event then spend twenty pages disecting it. Keep in mind, every time the carucage was collected there were other taxes being collected, either "normal/annual" taxes or others. For example in 1194, to get Richard's ransom, they not only imposed the carucage but they did a massive just plain levy of "you owe this, pay" type, plus a bunch of other levies/fines/fees, etc. If we go "where the money went" then "how much was collected" it's implying, slightly, that the caused the carucage, and while the need for money certainly existed, these were not the only times that money was needed. There were a lot of OTHER financial crises, but it's not clear why they didnt' try the carucage more often, to raise other funds. For instance, in 1204, John lost control of Normandy, and imposed a lot of taxes/fees/fines to raise money to recover Normandy, but didn't use the carucage then. Why didn't he use this tax? We don't know, we just don't have the sources for everything here, and what sources we do have ... are not closely connected with the court. I just feel that if you go "motivation first" we're implying, somehow, that we can guess why they chose this tax for those occasions, which we just don't know. Like I said, if you insist, I can switch the order, but it seems that others did not feel it was needed (even Deacon, who isn't shy about telling me I've got things all wrong). In the end, this is an article I wrote, and this is the order I'm comfortable with, mainly because it's how a lot of monographs in the subject area go... facts, then causes and speculation. I know you edit more in medical articles, where I guess they have a differing order. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I won't insist: if this is the way history textbooks do it I suppose we can do it the same. Still, it's weird: it's sort of like seeing an article about the U.S. Social Security tax and then at the end seeing a brief comment saying "Oh, by the way, this is to fund old age and disability pensions." I don't think this has anything to do with medical vs historical style; perhaps it's more to do with putting the part we're unsure about last. Eubulides (talk) 21:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The last paragraph of Legacy is not about the legacy at all, but is a valuable paragraph summing up carucage and how it fit into things. I suggest moving this paragraph to the lead.
I've trimmed added a summary of it to the lead (in fairness, this information was there before SV rewrote the lead during the FAC). Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's some
WP:OVERLINKING
in References, as many sources are linked to more than once. Personally I'd remove all the wikilinks to author and journal names as they add almost no value and are likely to be moused on by mistake and send the reader off on a wild goose chase, but at the very least please remove the duplicate links.
Have removed the duplicate links. I find it helpful to have links to the journal/author for folks who are not familar with the time frame, to see that I'm not using some no-nothing as a source. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for removing the duplicates. I guess we'll have to disagree about this: I find those wikilinks a mild form of
peacockery
.
Conversely it would be useful to wikilink from citations in the Citations section to the corresponding sources in the Sources section.
I prefer not to, and generally have not in the past. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all the improvements. The article is much better-motivated now for the non-expert. (I'm just hoping for a bit more motivation to be added before I become too expert myself to see the gaps in explanation....) Eubulides (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One other thing that comes up in a rereading: I don't have a good sense for how important carucage was, as a source of revenue. That is, Background says that taxes in general were about 15% of revenue, and various figures like £1,000 are thrown around, but what's missing is a feeling for what percentage of revenue carucage was. Was it 1%? 5%? 10%? that sort of thing. Another thought: is it possible to give inflation-adjusted estimates for these old figures? as one can't expect modern readers to know what £1,000 was worth in 1198. Eubulides (talk) 21:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FAC
How is this a FAC with this sentence: "Carucage was an attempt to secure new sources of revenue to supplement and increase royal income increase in a time when new demands were being made on royal finances.", which is present in all diffs? Does that sentence mean something I'm not aware of? I've changed it for the time being PirateArgh!!1!
Thank you for catching that. Of course, no one is perfect, and no editing is ever perfect. That's why we call them "Featured Articles" not "Perfect Articles". Ealdgyth - Talk 01:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the dickishy wording. I thought I might have misinterpreted since I've been told FAC vetting is excessively anal. PirateArgh!!1! 03:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I hate "main page day" it's the worst part about writing Featured Articles. I was probably a bit... snappish myself. Yes, we try to make FAs as perfect as possible, but it's not always possible to catch everything. And that sort of typo (the double use of a word) is very hard to catch, as the human brain tends to gloss over it rather than catch it. Ealdgyth - Talk 03:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pronunciation?
I would like to see the pronunciation of "carucage" put in the lede. Is it kuh-ROO-kej? Kuh-RUCK-ej? CAR-ooh-kej? Pirate Dan (talk) 13:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Find a reliable source, and add it. I do not have one that says. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not in my dictionary. I'll try to get hold of the unabridged OED later today and see if that helps. Pirate Dan (talk) 15:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the 1998 version of Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary Encyclopedic Edition, it has an entry for car.u.cage that matches the article definition, and the pronunciation is given as "kar`e.kij" where the e is backwards. I have no idea how to read their pronunciations, but it might help someone. --81.153.144.130 (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The OED has it a bit different; I put the OED version in. The first A rhymes with the A in "fat," and the accent is on the first syllable. Also there's a "y" sound after the R. Pirate Dan (talk) 00:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
