tenants. … A national tax is imposed which the under-tenants pay to the king.[1]
This series of related hypotheses has been subjected by later writers to much destructive criticism. The most recent student of the problem, Dr. S. K. Mitchell of Yale, arrives, after an exhaustive analysis of the record sources for the reigns of John and Henry III, at conclusions directly opposed to those of Maitland:
That the fine and scutage had different names does not [he says] mean that there was anything different in principle between them. … The difference … was merely one of form, and depended on the bargain which the tenant in chief made with the king. Each year some tenants paid scutage and others fines; the same tenant paid a fine one year and scutage another.[2]
On another page he writes:
Was the scutage transformed to any extent into a general tax on the rear vassals while at the same time the king was getting the service of the fee from the tenant in chief either in knights or by a fine? … Though examples of a double contribution will be pointed out, it seems unquestionable that they were exceptions, and that in general scutage did not become a general tax, but retained its original character as the composition for service, though often not the only composition.[3]
Dr. Mitchell's investigations reveal three phases in the development of the scutage before the death of Henry III. The first phase may be regarded as covering the first century of the history of the levy. Down to the end of the reign of Henry II scutage was apparently the sole method of commutation for military service. Given the opportunity by the Crown the tenant in chief might choose between (i) personal service in the host, his servitium debitum, and (ii) payment of scutage at the rate per fee determined upon by the king. The second phase was roughly coincident with the reign of Richard I. In the course of the preceding half-century the rate of pay for a fully armed knight had risen considerably, with the result that a scutage of twenty or even of forty shillings the fee no longer compensated the Crown, even approximately, for the loss of the service of its military tenants. Hence the exchequer began to exact from those vassals who desired to absent themselves from the host sums larger than the scutage under the name of fines. These fines supplemented and did not entirely supplant the scutage; though they added a third alternative to those already open to the tenant-in-chief. He might now be required to discharge
