(2) “_Tallage_” was a tax levied at a feudal lord’s arbitrary will upon more or less servile dependants, who had neither power nor right to refuse. The frequency of these exactions and the sums taken depended solely on the lord’s caprice, restrained by no law, but only by such limits as an enlightened self-interest or regard for public opinion might dictate. Liability to arbitrary tallage was thus one of the chief marks of an unfree status, and was contrasted with the impositions levied on those freeholders who held by knight’s service, by socage, or by frankalmoin. The owner of the smallest manor, like the owner of the greatest barony, might tallage his own villeins; and the king had a similar privilege over a wider field. His rights extended even over civic communities who held royal charters, since towns were theoretically on the royal demesne, and therefore liable to tallage. The great city of London, in spite of its growing wealth, its political importance, and its list of chartered privileges, still shared this liability.[468] ----- Footnote 468: This statement, for which evidence is given _infra_, is not always admitted. Taswell-Langmead, _Eng. Const. Hist._, p. 107, says “The city of London can never have been regarded as a demesne of the Crown.” ----- (3) _Comparison of tallage and aid._ The tallage, as a forced payment, thus differed fundamentally from the nominally free “aid,” while two minor points of difference may also be noted. In arranging an aid the givers usually suggested the amount, though the king might reject the offer as insufficient; while the amount of a tallage, on the other hand, was arbitrarily fixed by the Crown. Further, while the aid granted by a community was a joint offering which the citizens assessed and collected by their own officers, and for which they admitted a collective responsibility, the Crown itself allocated on whom it pleased the particular sums of tallage to be paid by each individual, no joint liability being admitted by those who had to pay. It was obviously to the advantage of a borough to forestall, by the present of a liberal aid, the Crown’s anticipated demand for a tallage, for the hated tax-gatherer was thus kept outside the city gates. An aid was also more to the king’s advantage than a tallage of equal amount. Not only was he saved the trouble, expense, and delay of the collection, but he obviated risk of loss through the insolvency of some of the individuals fixed upon.