CAPITATION is applied to anything that concerns a number of persons individually.
Thus a capitation tax is a tax imposed upon all the members of a state, each of whom has to pay his share, and is distinguished from taxes upon merchandise, etc. A capitation-grant is a grant given to a number of persons, a certain amount being allowed for every individual among the number. Class capitation taxes, when differentiated according to fortune, be come income taxes. In France of pre-revolu tionary days graduated capitation taxes were levied and were intended to reach all classes. The privileged classes, however, succeeded by various means in evading either wholly or in part these taxes and the unequal burden thus thrown on the great unprivileged class was one of the fundamental causes of the Revolution.
CAPITO, or KOPPEL, Wolf gang Fabricins, Alsatian reformer: b. Hage
nau 1478; d. Strassburg, November 1541. Entering the Benedictine order, he became pro fessor of theology at Basel, where he showed in his lectures a tendency to shake off the tram mels of the scholastic writers. In 1523 he was made provost of Saint Thomas, Strassburg. He approved of Luther's action, but nevertheless in 1519 entered the service of Albert of Mainz; and it was not till some years later that he finally declared for the Reformation. He then entered zealously into its work, shared with Bucer the composition of the Confessio Tetra politana, and took part in the Synod of Bern in 1532. His earnest work for Christian unity caused him to be viewed with suspicion by the narrower-minded among the Reformers. Con sult Baum, and Bucer' (Elberfeld 1860).