The medieval English tax paid by a knight or landholder instead of military service was scutage.
Scutage, from a Latin word connected with a shield, was a payment that substituted for a feudal military obligation. A king could collect it from knights or from holders of knight’s fees when he chose to accept money rather than require personal service in a campaign. The revenue could help finance mercenaries or other military expenses.
English kings used scutage especially during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Henry II imposed several assessments, and later monarchs also relied on the payment. Its use became politically sensitive because barons questioned the king’s authority to demand money beyond customary obligations.
Scutage appears in the background to Magna Carta. Clause 12 of the 1215 charter stated that scutage and certain aids should not be imposed in the kingdom without common counsel, subject to listed exceptions. Scutage was therefore both a military substitute and an important step in the history of consent to taxation.