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Webster 1913 Edition


Escuage

Es′cu-age

(?; 48)
,
Noun.
[OF.
escuage
, F.
écuage
, from OF.
escu
shield, F.
écu
. See
Esquire
.]
(Feud. Law)
Service of the shield, a species of knight service by which a tenant was bound to follow his lord to war, at his own charge. It was afterward exchanged for a pecuniary satisfaction. Called also
scutage
.
Blackstone.

Webster 1828 Edition


Escuage

ES'CUAGE

,
Noun.
[L. scutum, a shield.] In feudal law, service of the shield, called also scutage; a species of tenure by knight service, by which a tenant was bound to follow his lord to war; afterwards exchanged for a pecuniary satisfaction.

Definition 2024


escuage

escuage

English

Noun

escuage (plural escuages)

  1. (historical, Middle Ages) Payment to a lord in lieu of military service.
    • 1622, Francis Bacon, Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry VII, Cambridge University Press (1902), page 148:
      ..subsidies were not to be granted, nor levied in this case ; that is, for wars of Scotland : for that the law had provided another course, by service of escuage, for those journeys...
    • 1829, George Crabb, History of English Law, 1831 American Edition, page 374,
      When the escuage which was to be paid was uncertain, being more or less according to the pleasure of the king or the assessment of parliament ; then the tenure by escuage was a sort of knight′s service.
    • 1841, Thomas de Littleton, William Rastell (translator), Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins (editor), Lyttleton, His Treatise of Tenures: In French and English, page 188,
      And the cause why this service is called grand serjeanty is, for that it is a greater and more worthy service than the service in the tenure of escuage.
    • 1866, Land Tax, entry in William Thomas Brande, George William Cox (editors), A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art, Volume 2, page 308,
      These escuages were virtually a very heavy land tax, []

Old French

Etymology

Either from escu (shield) + -age, or escuer (to evade) + -age.

Noun

escuage m (oblique plural escuages, nominative singular escuages, nominative plural escuage)

  1. escuage (medieval payment to a lord)

Descendants