Cartulary of Saint Trond: Folcard of St. Trond:
Pledge of a Beer Tax, 1139
Not only could a tax become private property but it could be subject to purchase,
sale, and pledge. This particular tax was presumably a market tax.
In the name of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity.
Be it known to both present and future generations that I, Folcard, by the grace of God
Abbot of Saint-Trond, in order to bring an end to the striving and contention which was so
frequent under my predecessor, Abbot Rudolph, concerning the tax on beer in this town,
hereby proclaim, and, with the impression of my seal, confirm in favor of Reyner and his
wife Engelrude and their heirs because of their truthfulness and justice-a thing well
known to all-this grant of a tax which Reyner and his wife in the first place accepted in
pledge from those who maintained that the tax was their inherited right. These were
Reyner, Robert, and Hugh, and their children. This pledge was made in the presence of Dom
Rudolph, the Abbot, for one hundred marks, to which he, Reyner, later added of his own
will as much as they all thought the tax, and every right of inheritance which they
claimed to have therein, was worth. And Reyner and his wife Engelrude and their children
took it over in hereditary right from the hand of Rudolph, the Abbot, in the presence of
the brethren, assessors, and vassals of the church. And let this charter remain valid and
inviolable, just as was arranged by my predecessor and just as it has been renewed by us
in the presence of the chapter, assessors, and vassals of the church, lawfully and by
hereditary right, to Reyner and his wife Engelrude, and to their heirs.
In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord, 1139, etc.
Source:
C. Piot, ed., Cartulaire de l'Abbaye de Saint-Trond, (Brussels: Academie Royale
de Belgique, 1870), p. 39; reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source
Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936;
reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 368-369.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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