I have often wondered how taxes were handled in the old days.
The problems of administering a fair and equitable system were numerous.
No records of any kind. Certainly no idea of who had what. I cannot imagine any method short of just stealing or holding persons for ransom. But there must have been better ways.
I am currently reading a most fascinating book, The Year 1000. It is about the everyday life of the of people in England around the year 1000.
At the time there were 10 mints in England. Silver coins (sterling: 92.5 percent silver) were minted.
Minted coins were good for only three years.
They did not have a date on them so they were identified by what was imprinted on the obverse and reverse sides of the coin.
When your coins expired you turned them in for newer coins that were valid for three more years.
So what did all this have to do with taxes? You turned in 10, they only gave you perhaps eight in return.
Note that the richer one was the more he was automatically taxed, a quite ingenious system.
By the year 1600 or so coins had ridges around the outer edges. Why?
Well before that people would shave off bits of silver from the edges.
Ridges made shaving obvious. It was Sir Isaac Newton who was the mint master then who invented the ridge process.
Theodore Theodorsen
Manhasset
