Only two matters have been taken to be of first rate importance,--the tax and the authority by which it was laid. Taxation has been construed broadly as being any contribution levied by the government for its own support. An endeavor has been made in each instance to find out who or what the taxing authority was, and whether the tax was laid in accordance with it. Under the Normans the taxing authority was unmistakably the king, and by the Bill of Rights it lay as unmistakably in Parliament, with the right of initiation in the House of Commons. The story of the shift from one position to the other forms, of course, the major burden of the essay.
At the time when the subject was assigned, the power of the House of Commons over money bills had not been brought into question for more than two centuries, and the first drafts had been written and the prize awarded before the Asquith ministry was confronted with the problem of interference by the House of Lords. At this writing the question has not been settled. It has seemed advisable therefore to leave the essay within the bounds originally set for it, and what connection it has with the events of 1909 and 1910 consists chiefly in its consideration of the basic principles involved in that struggle.
To the late Henry Loomis Nelson, David A. Wells Professor of Political Science in Williams College, I owe the interest I have had in the preparation of this book. It is an outgrowth of his course in English Constitutional history, and some of the interpretations placed upon events are his interpretations. His death intervened before the second draft of the book was made, and the revisory work had to be done without his suggestions. To my friend, Dr. Theodore Clarke Smith, Professor in Williams College, I am indebted for a painstaking examination of the manuscript and for much valuable advice in the work preliminary to publication. Acknowledgments in the footnotes to Bishop Stubbs, Mr. Medley, Mr. Taswell-Langmead and many others scarcely manifest my obligations. But the essay throughout is based upon original authorities.
THE SAXONS: CUSTOMARY REVENUES AND EXTRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTIONS 1
Evolutionary character of the English Constitution--Early ideas of taxation amongst the Germans and Anglo-Saxons--Revenues of the Anglo-Saxon kings--The Danegeld and the authority for it--The Witenagemot and its powers.