Western European Notions of Tribute in Medieval Times
Raiders, like Vikings and Celtic tribes, could also exact tribute instead of raiding the place if the potential targets agreed to pay an agreed amount of valuables.
Tribute was not always money, but also valuables, effectively making the payers hostages kept unpillaged in exchange for good behaviour.
Various medieval lords required tribute from their vassals or peasants, nominally in exchange for protection to incur the costs of raising armies, or paying for free-lance mercenaries against a hostile neighbouring state. That system evolved into medieval taxation and co-existed as a secular approximation of the churchly tithe levied on production
Read more about this topic: Tribute
Famous quotes containing the words western, european, notions, tribute, medieval and/or times:
“Sir Walter Raleigh might well be studied, if only for the excellence of his style, for he is remarkable in the midst of so many masters. There is a natural emphasis in his style, like a man’s tread, and a breathing space between the sentences, which the best of modern writing does not furnish. His chapters are like English parks, or say rather like a Western forest, where the larger growth keeps down the underwood, and one may ride on horseback through the openings.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It has become necessary to call the attention of European governments to a fact which is apparently so insignificant that the governments seem not to notice it. The fact is this: an entire people is being annihilated. Where? In Europe. Are there witnesses? One witness, the entire world. Do the governments see it? No.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Shelley is truth itself—and honour itself—notwithstanding his out-of-the-way notions about religion.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“The Christos-image
is most difficult to disentangle
from its art-craft junk-shop
paint-and-plaster medieval jumble
of pain-worship and death-symbol.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)