It was normally possible to make a payment, known as scutage or shield money, in place of performing feudal military service. |
|
They were also different, at least in origin, from scutage, which was a payment in lieu of military service by a feudal tenant. |
|
By the 13th cent. the arrangements were unravelling as lords increasingly paid scutage rather than perform knight service and vassals tried to commute their own obligations. |
|
Most of the head tenants and some of the under tenants held on condition of knight service, later commuted into a money payment in lieu of service called scutage. |
|
Thus the scutage was introduced, whereby most Englishmen paid to escape their service and this money was used to create a permanent army. |
|
John levied scutage payments eleven times in his seventeen years as king, as compared to eleven times in total during the reign of the preceding three monarchs. |
|