... The mayor and commonalty and citizens, and their successors, shall
and may, from henceforth for ever, have, hold, enjoy and use ... tolls,
stallages, piccages.
Birch, _Charters of City of London_, 122.
A duty called _scavage_ or _shewage_ was exacted from strangers who
sold in the fairs.
I have heard also that our townsmen (of Oxford) in their fair, which
they keep at Allhallowtide, do exact of strangers a custom for opening
and shewing their wares, vendible, &c., which is called scavage or
shewage.
Oxford Historical Society, _Charter of Henry II. to the citizens of
Oxford._, II. 2 (from Twyne's MSS. in the Bodleian).
In 1503 it was rendered illegal, except in the case of London, to take
scavage from denizens, otherwise from subjects of the king who were of
alien birth, so long as they sold goods on which due customs had
already been paid.
1503. Be it therefore ordained ... that if any mayor, sheriff, bailiff,
or other officer in any city, borough or town within this realm, take
or levy any custom called Scavage, otherwise called Shewage, of any
merchant denizen, or of any other of the King's subjects denizens, of
or for any manner of merchandise to our Sovereign lord the King before
truly customed, that is brought or conveyed by land or water, to be
uttered and sold in any city, borough, or town in this land, ... that
then every mayor, sheriff, bailiff, or other officer, distraining,
levying, or taking any such Scavage, shall forfeit for every time he so
offendeth £20, the one moiety thereof to our Sovereign lord the King,
and the other moiety thereof to the party in that behalf aggrieved, or
to any other that first sueth in that party by action of debt in any
shire within this realm to be sued.... Provided always that the mayor,
sheriffs, and commonalty of the city of London, and every of them,
shall have and take all such sums of money for the said Scavage, and of
every person denizen, as by our Sovereign lord the King and his
honourable council shall be determined to be the right and title of the
said mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of the said city of London, or any
of them.
_Statute, 19 Henry VII._, cap. 8.
Certain citizens and burghers, who had the privilege of free trade in
England or throughout the king's dominions, were exempt from paying
tolls or other customs.
_Charter of Henry I. to the citizens of London._
... Let all the men of London be quit and free, and their goods, both
throughout England and in the seaports, of toll and passage[5] and
lastage[6] and all other customs.
Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 108.
[5] Passage was probably the due payable for the use of
ferries.
[6] The most probable explanation of lastage is that it was
the due payable for the right of freely carrying away goods
bought in a market.
1384. The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London to the Abbot and
Bailiffs and Good Folk of the Town of Colchester.
Desiring them to restore to William Dykeman, Roger Streit, William
Fromond, and Henry Loughton, citizens of London, the distress they had
taken from their merchandise for piccage at Colchester fair; and to
cease in future to take custom of citizens of London, inasmuch as they
are and ought to be quit of piccage, and of all manner of custom
throughout the King's dominion, by charter granted to them by the
King's ancestors. The Lord have them ever in his keeping.
London. 8th June, 38 Edward III.
Sharpe, _Cal. Letters of City of London_, 105.
_Charter of Henry II. to the citizens of Oxford._
... I have granted to them moreover that they be quit of toll and
passage and every custom throughout England and Normandy, on earth, on
water and on the seashore, by land and by strand.
Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 167.