Taxation was far from progressive
If you think tax is complicated today, it’s a cakewalk compared to what it was like in Medieval times. To call it complex is an understatement. Taxes went up and down all the time. Sometimes they were low, other times they were frighteningly high. And it often depended on where you were living, too. Levels of taxation did, of course, vary between the different states of Medieval Europe – so, a peasant in Sweden would pay much more than a peasant in England – but it also varied markedly within countries too. Quite simply, peasants were often relying upon the generosity of their local Lord and hoping that he would fix taxation at a low rate – or best, of all, be extremely slack in collecting what was due to him.
Right across Medieval Europe, there was no income tax, simply because nobody had a regular income. Sure, lords, nobles and aristocrats would have had pretty regular income from their land, but then they were exempt from taxation anyway. Peasants and tradesmen, meanwhile, had irregular income, often going up and down according to the seasons. As a result, they were taxed by the local lords either once or twice a year. Farmers would be made to either pay a portion of what they made for their crops or more commonly in countries like Sweden and Denmark, they would simply be required to hand over a certain number of pigs or cows.
The stressful thing was that the lord could increase – he rarely decreased – how much he demanded without any prior notice. It was up to him to judge how much individual farmers or households owed him and failure to pay this could result in the confiscation of property or even imprisonment. Taxes were most likely to go up in times of war, especially in cities. This was especially common in modern-day Italy, where city-states would regularly raise armies to fight their neighbors, with the citizens footing the bill.
At several points in history, taxes became simply too high for the people to tolerate. In Sweden, the peasants revolted in 1434, burning their land after their lords demanded too much of them. So-called ‘peasant revolts‘ caused by taxation issues, were also relatively commonplace in Medieval England. And sometimes they were successful, forcing the nobility to lower their demands if they wanted to hold onto their power.