A butlerage was a
duty of two
shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...
s on every ton of
wine imported into
England by merchant strangers. It was so called because it was paid to the king's butler for the king. The tax was levied from 1302 to 1809.
[Dictionary of Political Economy, Volume I, Macmillan and Co, London, 1894, p. 196]
References
Further reading
*''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (1913)
*
History of taxation in the United Kingdom
History of wine
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