Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal Volume 10 | Issue 3 Article 5 Tax and the Forgotten Classes: from the Magna Carta to the English Revolution John Passant Australian National University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/aabfj Copyright ©2016 Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal and Authors. Recommended Citation Passant, John, Tax and the Forgotten Classes: from the Magna Carta to the English Revolution, Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal, 10(3), 2016, 67-88. doi:10.14453/aabfj.v10i3.5 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:
[email protected] Tax and the Forgotten Classes: from the Magna Carta to the English Revolution Abstract This paper looks at three key early events in English tax history, the 1215 Magna Carta, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and the English Revolution from 1640 to 1649. It uses these events to explore the relationship between tax, war, democracy and rebellion. Tax is both an expression of and a cause of class divisions that is can, and does as these events show, spark revolts against the state imposing the taxes. These revolts can be between members of the ruling elite, or between the people outside the ruling elite and that group of rulers both political and economic, or a mixture of both. The aim is to reintroduce class into tax history and show over time the crucial role ordinary people (for example peasants, artisans and workers) play in the history of taxation.