The sources of royal revenue were various rather than abundant. There were, first of all, the estates of the crown, crown lands strictly so called, which the king as king possessed and managed like any other landlord, out of which he provided for his family and friends, and which, in spite of the national jealousy of favorites, were always more liable to be diminished than to be increased. Of the same class, though with some important differences, were the estates which fell into the hands of the sovereign on the extinction of great families or the forfeiture of their owners; so the earldom of Chester had come into the hands of Henry III. on the death of the last earl, and the estates of the Montforts after the battle of Evesham. These estates--escheats, as they were called--seldom remained long in the king’s hands; the magnates did not like to see the inheritances of their fellows one by one absorbed in the royal domain, and it was necessary from time to time to provide for new rising men and for younger sons of the king. The possession of crown estates is, of course, common to all ages and forms of royalty. But a somewhat intricate system pervades the English finance of the middle ages, and grows out of the growing history of the nation itself. Under the Anglo-Saxon kings there had been little call for taxation. The king had a revenue from the public lands of the nation, which furnished him with provisions and money, enough to supply all needs that were not satisfied from his royal estates. It was a part of the sheriff’s duty to collect these contributions, and they were later on fixed at a regular sum to be paid by the sheriff, and exacted by him from the county he ruled. All local administration was maintained by popular action, the land-owners being liable for the three great task’s called “trinoda necessitas,” the building of bridges and fortresses, and the service in arms for national defence; and thus the king had little expense if he had little revenue. In the great emergencies, however, of the Danish wars, a tax of two shillings on the hide of land, the famous Danegeld, was established and became perpetual. [Sidenote: The Exchequer. ]