décimes or dîmes ^ tithes

1. 34. alors, i. e. before the thirteenth century, when the Kings of France possessed only those lands which they held as Dukes of Paris.

1. 35. Lorsque tout changea, i. e. in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, when the great fiefs, Normandy, Burgundy &c. were gradually absorbed by the crown. The chief disputes between the church and the monarchy on the question of taxation took place in the reign of Philip the Fair, at the close of the thirteenth century, when Boniface VIII claimed complète immunity for the church in his famous bull "Clericis Laicos." The dispute ended in a practical compromise, the church maintaining the principle, but paying "voluntary contributions" to the king whenever requested to do so.

1. 39. qni ne s'' assemble point. Assemblies of the clergy in France were fréquent and tolerably regular, but the States General, or Parliament, of France, first summoned by Philip the Fair to aid him against the Pope, which claimed the right of self-taxation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, met very seldom after the reign of Louis XI, and ceased altogether after 16 14, till it was summoned for the last time in

1. II. droits sur les consommations ^ indirect taxes, taxes on articles consumed.

1. 18. droits régaliens, rights belonging exclusively to the crown, namely, (i) the right of coining; (2) of administering justice; (3) of raising taxes ; (4) of waging war.

1. i\. Sh'ashoJir^ et Ca7iibrai, The former was German till its seizure by Louis XIV in 1681. The latter, being in Flanders, was iiominally part of the Empire till its capture by Louis in the Flemish war, though Flanders and the rest of the Netherlands had been subject to Spain since the partition of the Empire on the abdication of Charles V.

1. 31. batix, the contracts niade by the clergy for the collection of their revenues : baux is pi. of bail.

1. 34. commendataires, abbeys held "en commende," or "in commendam." "Commende, originairement, la provision d'un bénéfice qu'on donnait à un séculier, pour en jouir en attendant qu'on eût pourvu un titulaire. Plus tard, titre de bénéfice donné par le Pape à un ecclésiastique séculier ou à un laïque nommés par le roi. " (Littré. )

1. 36. si on ajoute àfc.^ if one allows further for the increase in the value of landed property.

1. 38. bénéfices consistoi'iaux, bénéfices connected with the highest dignities of the church, and bestowed only by an assembly of cardinals {consistoire) held at Rome.

Page 134.

1. 7. annates, first-fruits, i.e. the first year's revenue v^^henever the bénéfice was bestowed on a fresh person. This was the rule in England till the Reformation. There was also a tax of this name, levied every three years on ecclesiastical bénéfices, amounting to one year's revenue. This was first imposed by Pope Clément VI.

1. 15. séculière et régulière, whether belonging to monastic orders or not: see above, p. 80, 1. 3, note. The two classes are again distinguished immediately below, as "personnes religieuses" and "ecclésiastiques."

1. 10. de quêtes et de messes, by collecting alms and by saying masses for the dead. Sums of money were, are still, left in order to pay for so many masses to be said yearly for the repose of the testator's soûl.

1. 26. portion congrue, indemnity granted to a secular priest doing parish duty in a church or chapel formerly connected with an abbey or monastery. This indemnity, almost always insufficient on account of the covetousness of the abbots or priors, was a source of endless contentions ; the crown finally settled it to a minimum of 300 livres, subsequently raised to 500. The expression portion congrue is now applied idiomatically to ail insufficient salaries, thus : "On a mis tous ces employés à la portion congrtie.''^

1. 29. et non moins oisif, i.e. he does not become less lazy when he becomes abbot.

1. 33. vioines prijîces. The heads of many of the great abbeys in Germany sat in the Diet as princes.

1. 36. dont la forme subsistât entière, the constitution of which would subsist in its entirety. Note the imperf subjunctive uscd instead of the conditional, and again, p. 135, 1. i, // eût été for // aw-ait été^ and. l. 9, qu'il eût pu for quHl aurait pu.

Tage 135.

1. 14. la Ligne. Name given to the semi-political semi-religious confederacy established in France during the reign of Henry III for the purpose of putting down Protestantism. Its principal leader was the Duke of Guise.

1. 15. états, the States General, or national parliament, to be distinguished from the Parlement of Paris, which was merely the suprême court of law.

1. 17. tiers état, the third estate, the Gommons, in France consisting of représentatives of towns only.

le fond de PÊtat, the backbone of the state.