Royal perquisites

Some rights are personal to the king and are never granted to others. Money from these sources go right to the king’s coffers. These include:

* **Treasure Trove:** The king owns all buried gold treasure that is found, and half of the silver.
* **Wreck:** The contents of all ships that wash ashore belong to the king. Whales are included in this because they are “royal beasts.”
* **Seizure of a Felon’s Goods:** A convicted felon is punished personally, and everything he owns is given to the king.
* **Deodand:** Any object that causes the death of a person (a wagon, mule, pitchfork, etc.) is given to the crown to be sold. The proceeds finance the king’s almoner, and thus benefit the poor.

## Pleas of the Crown

Only the king has the right to order an execution. He has granted the right to immediately hang thieves who are caught red-handed because that is a good way to keep the peace. But the king decides on the death of any prisoner found guilty of capital crimes. These offend the king’s personal rights. Capital crimes include treason, murder, rape, housebreaking, and violence on the king’s roads. Guilt means death, and all the felon’s properties go to the king.

This doesn’t mean that the king himself sits in on every death verdict. Most of the time, his justiciars legally execute those verdicts for him. His power of life and death is most important to the nobles of his kingdom, who might have been his friends, and who might still have worth to the king. If a convicted felon is important enough to have his plea heard by the king, then the king always has the right to issue a pardon ~ or not.

## Liberties

A liberty is something the king owns and gives the holder the right to use in some manner. The king collects considerable money for all kinds of things that are far too arcane for a game. These are a significant income for whomever wants to track it, but overall they are ignored. They are listed for interest here, occasionally with suggested values, but they can be so varied they are not calculated. Here are some of the most common and most important liberties:

* **Assize of Bread and Ale:** To “assize” is to assay (test) value. Commoners must buy their bread from the lord’s bakery and they pay to complain all the time. Little old ladies make all the ale in villages, and they regularly pay little fees for serving watered down drink and for forgetting they have to be tested.
* **Chase:** Hunting rights, specifically to venison ~ deer and boars, also called animals of the chase.
* **Warren:** Falconry rights to take rabbits, birds, etc.
* **Thief-hanging:** The right to hang a thief caught red-handed with the goods on him inside one’s own holding. Very rarely the king will grant the right to pursue a thief outside of the vassal’s own holding, lands and hang him if he has possession of the stolen goods.
* **Gallows:** The right to hang criminals. Public safety is a king’s basic duty, and only he has the right to take a life.
* **Pillory and Tumbrel:** The right to punish minor offences with public abuse and scorn, or “ducking.”
* **Blodwit and Fledwit:** The right to punish those who shed blood and who flee justice.
* **View of Frankpledge:** Frankpledge means “free pledge.” All free commoners must belong to a tithe ~ a group of 5-15 men (commonly kinsmen) who are collectively responsible for each other. The “view” is an assembly where all the common landholders of a county or hundred show up to register their pledge ~ their membership in the community ~ so that they maintain their full rights in the king’s court and all legal county actions. It also signs them up for the militia, to be jurors (a temporary unpaid job at county and hundred courts), and other onerous tasks. Men must pay to be registered, and fees and fines are collected from everyone who missed it, or who paid to be counted but were absent. The counting and bookkeeping is done at the hundred courts, but the final check and payment is to the sheriff.
* **Cert Money:** Money paid by the members of the frankpledge to opt out of the required meetings.
* **Ancient Customary Dues:** Certain fees due to the king for obscure reasons, or “just because it’s always been so.” The funds go right to the king’s coffer.
* **Service of Writs**: Only the king makes writs, which are non-negotiable demands that require the recipient to appear at the county court. Normally the sheriff delivers a royal writ, and collects various fees when it is executed, and even more if it is disobeyed. This is much desired, to control the flow of justice. This liberty almost always comes with the Levy of Royal Debt.
* **Levy of Royal Debt:** “Royal debt” is owed or payable to the king himself (not an agency). If it is owed, it has a penalty attached too, which is kept by whomever collects the money. The original debt is returned to the king.

## Purveyance

Purveyance is the royal right to take any goods, food, or services at any time, leaving a receipt for its appraised value, as determined by the king’s buyers. This is a powerful right, but one whose overuse once caused great discontent among the barons of Aurelius Ambrosius. If the goods are used to pay for an army going to fight invaders, no one complains. If the king uses it to impoverish an enemy, everyone else approves. If he uses it for his personal, private reasons, they are unhappy.

## Taxes (Geld)

Taxes are special extractions levied on the nobles and people by the king for specific needs. They are not regular payments.

Geld is a tax, previously called Saxgeld. It was originally levied when the Saxons invaded as a universal tax. Everyone who must pay this is part of “the geldable,” (“those who can be taxed”). It is a great source of income for the king. Nobles are always trying to avoid geldability for themselves and their personal domains, and the king is happy to arrange that for his favorites.

Market Aids are a form of taxes that are levied on settlements and cities that are outside of the usual geld. King Aurelius Ambrosius Pendragon levies these annually.

## Natural Resources

Britain has many natural resources suitable for human exploitation. The king has a monopoly on many of them, and his royal bailiffs maintain them. The bailiffs are in charge of various collection sites for each commodity, and their payments are taken to the local sheriff each six-month.

The raw goods are extracted and graded. Most precious metals are given over to royal receivers to distribute among the king’s armorers, goldsmiths, and so on. Remaining output from these sources is distributed to agents of the remaining Roman cities. They purchase ingots, blooms, and so on, then break them into lots and sell them to others. The king’s fees for those are just a part of the annual tax that the cities pay.

## Commerce and Trade

Commerce is the manufacturing, buying, and selling of local Logres goods, whose exchanges are taxed by the king. Such commerce is generated by Market Towns and Cities.

Trade here means international trade: bringing in goods from foreign lands, and sending goods back to them. All such business is overseen by the king. (Income from internal trade is covered by the taxes and other sources.)

### Staple Ports

As a matter of course, anything (and anyone) going in or out of the kingdom does so only with the king’s permission. A staple is an established market where otherwise restricted goods are bought and sold. Exporting wool, for instance, may only be done at the royal Wool Staples established at Londinium, Hantonne, and Venta. All goods, both coming and going, are taxed in Staple Ports at various rates set by the king.

Commissioners are named by the king to do his work in each of the ports.

Since the seas are contested at best and Saxon-controlled at worst, the ports are largely underused currently. Thus, Staple Ports yield little in the way of significant income for landholders.

## Royal Forests

Forests are special hunting preserves for use by the king and some warlords. Some of them do not have many trees at all, so the term is a legal designation, not a physical description.

Almost a quarter of Logres is forest, mostly royal but occasionally private. Within them the animals of the chase ~ red deer, fallow deer, roe deer, and boar ~ are protected. No one but the owner of the forest may take these animals; punishment for anyone else is blinding and castration. Even knights and clerics, who are normally protected from common law, are punished the same way for violations. Foresters, verderers, and other officials are intent upon keeping the Law.

Forests have three uses. First, they are the king’s private hunting ground (stocked and provisioned, with bridges and restful glens where tables can be set up). Secondly, they are an important source of food supply for the royal house. Finally, they are a steady source of private income for the king. Forests are also used to raise horses, whose wild herds wander amidst the trees.

“Hunting lodges” is a bit of a misnomer. These are all of the royal residences that are unfortified, even if they are not officially set aside for his pleasure at hunting. These are all substantial enough to house the king and all the retainers who accompany him. Each of these is unique, but includes a palatial residence, lodging for officers and their servants, hall, kitchen, buttery, gardens, and barracks for the guards.

When the king is absent, the local forester remains, along with a tiny household staff. Of collateral importance, the areas around his hunting lodges tend to have many bridges, maintained by the local people for the convenience and safety of their king.

### Forest Liberties

The king’s grip on the forested lands is absolute. No one may do anything to any part of it without his license. The king sometimes grants forest liberties to others, although these grants are exceedingly rare and expensive.

#### Exits from the Forest

Here are some of the major liberties that are lumped together into a single category: herbage (grazing rights), cheminage (toll for passage), windfall wood, loppings, pannage (feeding pigs), ash collecting, nut collecting, and selective tree cutting. The money that the king collects for all these together is called exits from the forest.

#### Park

A park is a part of a Forest designated as a private forest for a nobleman. It must be enclosed by a ditch and fence to ensure that none of the king’s deer go into it (although it is permissible for deer to run out). The holder must appoint parkers to keep the fence and ditch in good repair. The holder can hunt there, but usually has no other rights, and is fined if he cuts, collects, burns, or wastes the land. Alternatively, he has those rights and is “exempt from the regard.”

#### Chase

This is a large, unfenced section of a forest granted as a liberty to a nobleman. The holder is responsible for enforcing all the usual laws, but receives the benefits of the forest liberties too. Included rights allow the holder to hunt anything and anytime he wants ~ a very generous addition.

#### Swainmote

Every three years the forest court meets in a swainmote. The holder of this liberty collects the profits and perquisites collected during this forest court for executing forest justice.

#### Free Warren

Free warren is the right to hunt everything except the king’s deer. This largely means rabbits, hares, and game birds ~ all animals used in falconry.

#### Commons

“Common” here means shared by the community, and is an inclusive term that allows appropriate seasonal grazing in the woods.

#### Assart

Assart (“to clear”) is a license to clear woods for planting and settlement. Since the lowlands feel crowded, and the heavy plow allows grain to be grown in assarted lands, King Aurelius Ambrosius has declared that all non-forest lands may be cleared and settled without paying a fee to their lords for the privilege.

Ancient Law and Custom dictates that the lands on ground so cleared are still called assarts, even though they are in every other way villages and manors. The game draws a line for simplicity, and calls such settlements villages and manors, except when it is fun not to.