(3): Special Aids.

(a) When a fine of sixty marks was incurred in 1206 by the Abbot of Peterborough, John allowed him to distrain his under–tenants. (b) An heir, paying relief, might likewise take reasonable contributions from freeholders. (c) The lord’s debts were frequently paid by his tenants. The returns to the Inquest of 1170 contain particulars of “sums given individually by some forty burgesses of Castle Rising towards paying off the mortgages of their lord, the Earl of Arundel, who was clearly in the hands of the Jews” while in 1234 the Earl of Oxford and the Prior of Lewes each obtained a letter patent distraining tenants to contribute to discharge their debts. Evidence is thus preserved that Henry III. took full advantage of the omission from his own charters of this part of his father’s promises. He did not question the justice of such writs, if good fees were paid. His letters authorized the taking of a “reasonable” aid, without hinting at any mode of determining what that was. This is illustrated by the procedure adopted by Henry Tracey in 1235, when he debated with his assembled knights of Devonshire the amount to be paid as “reasonable,” and finally accepted 20s. per fee. This same mesne lord, however, twelve years later, obtained a writ bidding the sheriff of Somerset assist him to collect “the scutage of Gascony” at 40s. per fee.

The first Statute of Westminster virtually reverted to the rule laid down in 1215, for its terms imply that aids could only be taken on the three well–known occasions. Only 20s. could be taken from a knight’s fee and an equal sum from land held in socage of the annual value of £20. No aid for a knighthood could be taken before a son was 15 years of age, or for a marriage until a daughter was 7.