(6 June 2021, 08:06)bigpaul Wrote: you think anyone was paying taxes during "the dark ages" or during "The black death"??? that was their WTSHTF.
I don't know what I was expecting? I taught history for 35 years at every level and I should know better.
Paul you look back to a dream world that never existed! Man in his natural state, the noble savage living off the land. That is a dream from the pen of Sir Walter Scott or James Fenimore Cooper and the Romantic Era of literature.
Yes Paul, people most certainly were paying taxes during the Dark Ages, even earlier. Stone Hinge was probably fashioned by people paying tribute to their religious leaders! Offa's wall did not spring up magically from the soil, and the treasures at Sutton Ho and the Anglo Saxon Hoard were not mined and crafted by the hands of the warriors that they were buried with. The castles that dot your land were first constructed by conscript labor by the Norman war lords. They were accumulated as plunder or tribute.
There were only three classes; those who prayed, those who fought, and those who worked to support the other two classes. That was the system for 1000 years (500-1500). It had been the system for the previous 4000.
The entire system of rents and tenancy of the Dark and Middle ages was one of trading labor/taxes for protection. You worked on your own land three days a week and on the war-lords' land three days a week. It was the continuation of the system that had existed from the dawn of time.
Right up into the 20th Century much of the agriculture based economy was done on a crop share model, with the rent/tax due when the crop was harvested and the land lord having his customary amount even if there was none left for the tenant farmer.
As for the Black Death, well that was a radical incident but it was temporary and relatively short. The reduction in population changed the relationship between land lord and tenant and speeded the end of serfdom. It only lasted another 150 years in GB. Then, rather than "rents" to pay there were individual fees and taxes collected directly.
No, the system did not "collapse". It was disrupted, just like our own "pandemic" has done, then it picked up where it left off and sailed along for 150 years. Everyone was not instantly a "free man" able to move about and make his/her own decisions, live where they wanted and raise whatever crop they chose.
Outside the urban centers the labor based tax/rent system still exists on a widespread basis all over the world. Even well off farmers often trade labor for land use. The 100 acre field across the lane from me is cut and baled for hay by a farmer that pays half the hay to the landlord as tribute.
If you look to the chaos of any area in the midst of civil war you will find that one of the most serious problems is that each "side" or faction is collecting taxes, stripping the people of their subsistence, usually produce or possessions.
So, as things fall apart around you, expect to see multiple parties at your door claiming to be the new PTB, and wanting their taxes or they will burn you out.