TAILLE, the equivalent of the English tallage (q.v.), was in France the typical direct tax of the middle ages, just as the word tonlieu was the generic term for an indirect tax. Other words used in certain districts in the same sense as taille were queste (questa, quista), fouage (foragium), cote. The essence of the tax denoted by these names was that the amount was fixed en bloc for a whole group of persons, and afterwards divided among them in various ways. In ancient French law we find three forms of taille : the taille servile, taille seigneuriale and taille royale.
The taille seigneuriale was a true tax, levied by a lord on all his subjects who were neither nobles nor ecclesiastics ; but the writer holds that, when feudalism was set up, the right to levy it did not belong to every lord, but only to the lord having the haute justice. But he levied it by right, without the necessity for any contract between him and those who paid it. He fixed the sum to be paid by each group of inhabitants, who then had to see that it was assessed, collected and paid to the lord, electing commissaries (preud hommes) from among themselves for this purpose. The seigniorial taille, like the servile, had the character of a personal tax (taille personelle), a rudimentary tax on income, every man being taxed according to his wages or other income. The king originally had only the right of levying the taille in places where he had retained the exercise of the haute justice. At that time there was no royal taille, strictly speaking; it was only the seigniorial taille transferred to the Crown, but it was one of the first taxes his right to levy which upon all the inhabitants of the domain of the Crown, whether serfs or roturiers, was recognized. The gen eral taille, for the benefit of the king, became more frequent, and tended to become permanent. This transformation was con firmed, rather than effected, by the ordonnance of 1439. Its immediate object was, not the regulation of the taille, but the or ganization of the compagnies d'ordonnance, i.e., the heavy cav alry which the king from that time on maintained on a permanent footing. Military expenses thus becoming permanent, it was nat ural that the taille, the tax which had long been devoted to meet ing the expenses of the royal wars, should also become permanent.
This was contained implicitly in the ordonnance of which at the same time suppressed the seigniorial taille, as competing too closely with the royal taille by imposing a double buiden on the taxpayer. A kind of seigniorial taille continued to exist besides the servile taille, but this kind presupposed a title, a contract between the taxable roturier and the lord, or else immemorial possession, which amounted to a title. (See FRANCE : Law and Institutions.) Throughout the pays d'elections the taille was almost univer sally personal (taille personnelle) ; i.e., a tax on the whole income of the taxpayer, whatever its source. It was also a distributory tax (imp& de repartition) ; every year the king in his council fixed the total sum which the taille was to produce in the following year ; he drew up and signed the brevet de la taille (warrant), and the contribution of the individual taxpayer was arrived at in the last analysis by a series of subdivisions.
In certain districts the taille was real (taille reelle) ; i.e., a tax on real property. It was not an equal tax falling on all landowners, but the question as to whether a certain estate was to be taxed or not was decided according to the quality of the property, and not that of the owner. The biens nobles (fiefs) and the biens ecclesi astiques were exempt ; tenures roturieres, however, by whomso ever held, were taxed. A small part of the pays d'elections was also pays de taille reele. But it was the chief form of tax in the pays d'etats, and even there an attempt had generally been made to check the exemption of nobles' property. It has been shown that in these districts the taille had originally been personal, having become real by a curious evolution. In these districts there were cadastres, or compoix-terriers (land registers), which allowed of a non-arbitrary assessment ; and at the end of the ancien regime merely needed revision.