Information on Loughborough

Taxing all males over 12 - study of English peasantry opens up new interpretations

Posted on 16/03/2009
University of Leicester

A study of taxation over 300 years of English history reveals new insights into the English peasantry.

The study by Matthew Tompkins of the University of Leicester Centre for English Local History analysed a penny tax known as Headsilver. This is a manorial tax by which every male inhabitant of the manor over the age of 12 had to pay the lord a penny every year.

Matthew