Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE CUSTOMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. O quote an accepted definition of the force De or extent of the ' Customs' at large, com- finitkm of the Crown s prising as these do the revenue which the Prerogative 1 ' for collect- Crown enjoyed by virtue of its ancient pre- ing a Cus- rogative; the further revenue which had devolved Revenue .,, ., . . impossible. upon it by reason of lapse or resumption, purchase or exchange, of independent franchises; or by grant of Parliament; or by special contract with certain incorporate or associated bodies of subjects, or of strangers; and lastly, the ancient local revenues appertaining to some few private jurisdictions by immemorial custom or liberties acquired by early grant, would obviously be impossible, in the face of the state of facts depicted in the introduction of the present volume. Neither would it be convenient, nor perhaps even becoming, to attempt here an arbitrary definition of the term beyond what may be broadly gathered from a detailed classification and comprehensive description of the revenue in question, according as we find its particulars set down, evermore of record, in official or independent MSS. AnyBecause a such rash attempt would but reduce a sober history Contro- to the level of a controversial treatise, where utility versv since , . / , ,. . theieth and preciseness must perforce give way to that Century. engaging brilliancy which, in the pages of so many early historians, is linked with the grossest inaccuracies. Therefore it will still remain open to the reader who has studied the origin, growth, and eventual decline of the Custom-revenue, as these The Reader will be sketched in the following pages, together left to form .,,,.., . . . his own with the chief circumstances ...