The term "feu" (French for "fire" from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''focus'' meaning ''hearth'') meant, especially in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, the hearth, first in the strict sense (the place where the fire burns) and figuratively: the family home (cf. the expression "without fire or place") or the family itself. Very quickly, it was used as the basic unit for assessment, calculation, and collection of tax and it was called the "feu fiscal" meaning "fire tax".

Use of Taxes in the Middle Ages

For tax allocation, the principle was to divide the total amount required to be collected by the number of fires, which necessitated a census of fires which was called "réel". The task was relatively simple to perform to the level of an urban district, however it took on a whole different scale in a rural area or across a kingdom. Thus, the King of France only made a single fire census in his territory – in 1328. Yet the result was incomplete as it excluded the great fiefs (e.g.

Guyenne Guyenne or Guienne (, ; oc, Guiana ) was an old French province which corresponded roughly to the Roman province of '' Aquitania Secunda'' and the archdiocese of Bordeaux. The name "Guyenne" comes from ''Aguyenne'', a popular transformation o ...

and

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...

) and some

Appanage An appanage, or apanage (; french: apanage ), is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger child of a sovereign, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture. It was common in much o ...

s. In addition, it became quickly outdated due to the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

. In 1426, the

Duke of Brittany This is a list of rulers of the Duchy of Brittany. In different epochs the sovereigns of Brittany were kings, princes, and dukes. The Breton ruler was sometimes elected, sometimes attained the position by conquest or intrigue, or by hereditary r ...

made a "reformation of taxes" to limit exemptions (noble families had to prove their nobility) in all the provinces. There were no records of fires by urban community or territorial division (''bailliage'' or ''sénéchaussée'' in France). Yet their accuracy should be put in perspective: the provinces did not stop asking the central government for revisions, always for reduction, due to famine or epidemic. The total number of fires was therefore subject to hard bargaining between the central government and municipalities, regardless of the reality on the ground. In addition, the poorest families were grouped at the parish level as a single fire for joint taxation. This led to rounded off counts cut off from reality. The "feu fiscal" became a purely theoretical unit, as distinguished from the "feu allumant" (fire lights) which corresponded to the family home. Its value varied depending on the year or on social status even within the same city. It could even be set arbitrarily. Thus, in 1426, the

decreed that a "fire" corresponded to three "estagiers" (heads of households). The

Taille The ''taille'' () was a direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in ''Ancien Régime'' France. The tax was imposed on each household and was based on how much land it held, and was directly paid to the state. History Originally o ...

roles were updated regularly during "visites de feu" (fire visits).

Their Use and historical demography

The population counts were, for the most part of the "

Ancien Régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for "ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France {{disambig ...

", made in fires, not real people. The

French monarchy France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the firs ...

continued to focus on the counts by fire until 1726. To estimate the number of inhabitants according to the given fires, some people applied a multiplier of 5. Thus for a population of 34 fires, 170 inhabitants are obtained. However, the conversion factor from fires to inhabitants is still under discussion among historians. The ''State of fires in 1328'' counted 61,098 fires for Paris. The calculations on the numbers of population varied from 80,000 to 240,000 inhabitants. The coefficient of 5 was not a rule but an average indicator. Across regions and eras, the multiplier varied. Serge Dontenwill: for the current department of the

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...

under

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Vers ...

, using a coefficient of 4.5 (and following Jacques Dupâquier in his ''French population in the 17th and 18th centuries'', PUF, 1993).Serge Dontenwill, ''Aspects of everyday life and social organisation of the peasant communities of the Central South-East of France in the time of Louis XIV (1638-1715)'', Dix-septième siècle, 2007/1 No. 234, p. 106

Bibliography

*Robert Henri Beautier, ''Fires, population and social structure in the middle of the 15th century: the example of Carpentras'', Annales. Economies, societies, civilizations, No. 14 (1959), p. 255-268 *

Jean Favier Jean Favier (2 April 1932 – 12 August 2014) was a French historian, who specialized in Medieval history. From 1975 to 1994, he was director of the French National Archives. From 1994 to 1997, he was president of the Bibliothèque nationale de ...

, Finance and Taxation in the late Middle Ages, SEDES al. "Perspectives on History", Paris, 1971 (ASIN 2718136995) *

Jean Glénisson Jean Glénisson (25 January 1921 – 9 October 2010) was a French historian, archivist and paleographer. Career * Degree in literature at the Faculty of Arts of Poitiers, (1940) * Studies at the École nationale des chartes * Archivist paleog ...

and Élisabeth Carpentier: ''Balance sheets and methods: French demography in the 16th century'', Annals. Economies, societies, civilizations No. 17 (1962), p. 109 *Albert Rigaudière, ''Governing a town in the Middle Ages'', Anthropos, coll. "History" (), *Albert Rigaudière, ''Dictionary of the Middle Ages'', s. dir. Michel Zink, Alain de Libera and

Claude Gauvard Claude Gauvard is a French historian and Middle Ages specialist. She has been the President of Société de l'histoire de France since 2009. Life She was an assistant at the University of Rouen in 1969, then at the Sorbonne in 1971. She i ...

, PUF, coll. "Quadriga", 2004 ()

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feu Fiscal Statistical data sets Property taxes Taxation in France Medieval economics Abolished taxes

Use of Taxes in the Middle Ages

Their Use and historical demography

Bibliography

See also

References