Talk:Carucage/GA1

GA Review

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Comments

I will undertake a review here. As usual, we have here the well written, scholarly work of Ealdgyth. It is neutral, stable, has appropriate citations etc.

• It is hard to find useful images for an article like this, but the one selected seems appropriate and appears to have no problems.

Lead

• "...from the early use of the Domesday Survey assements to new assessments based on either sworn testimony of neighbors to an assessment based on the number of ploughteams used by the taxpayer." Apart from the mis-spelling of "assessments", the repeated use of that word, as well as the word "to" after "neighbors" had me a little unsure what was being expressed. Given where 'either' appears in the sentence, should not the 'to' be 'or'?

Caught the spelling error and changed to "The method of assessing the size of the estate owned changed from the early use of the Domesday Survey assessments to new valuations based on either sworn testimony of neighbors or a calculation based on the number of ploughteams used by the taxpayer." which hopefully is clearer and less assessy. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Background, or Under Richard I

• I would be inclined to include a one-sentence explanation of what a hide of land is, and likewise a carucate, since they are important to the subject of the article. If the text saying the carucate was "figured at 100 acres (etc)" is actually a definition of that word, I would, first, tweak the expression slightly to "based on the carucate, which was an area of land of 100 acres (etc)" and, second, move it up to where the term is first used.

Dealt with hide. Dealt with carucage. It's kinda tricky here, because the collection used both assessments, according to historians, but there wasn't really a strict 'definition' of carucage beyond a vague "amount of land a team could plough" which means that it varied. Hopefully it's clearer now. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• "It was actually a aid, rather than a tax". Firstly, "aid" is a redlink, which means a reader cannot go there to find out what it means. Therefore, secondly, it needs an explanation in this article. Third, I assume it is 'an' aid. Fourth, is it actually important enough to mention at all? There's just something about that sentence ("actually...") that implies this might be a detail that is kind of interesting but not actually germane. I will leave that expert editors :-)

Aid is redlinked because I am still trying to find out a good link for it while hoping to avoid writing a new article on the thing. Everytime I write a new redlinked article I end up with more on my plate... I gave up and wrote a new article. I changed it to the correct title, feudal aid, so it should be grammatically correct now. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• The text got a bit woolly in the latter part of this section and I copyedited. If I changed the sense inappropriately, of course you can find a better solution.

Under John

• "receptores carucagii". Que?

I'm assuming you are wondering what that means? Explained quickly. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• "feudal relief". Que?

ARGH! Another new article... working on it. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

HA! Deacon did a quick and dirty redirect back in March, so I'm saved. Let me put a quick explanation in the article and we're good to go. And done! Ealdgyth - Talk 19:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Under Henry III

• "assessed at 3 shillings per carucage". Should that be per carucate?

Fixed. Good catch. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• "the clergy who were assessed the tax also collected the tax". SHould that be "assessed for the tax"?

Fixed Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Legacy

• scutage is wikilinked twice, but explained in the article on neither occasion. Again, I would favour a one-liner on what it was.

Fixed both the double linkage and the explanation. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)