Pound inches

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The pound tariff was a levy based on the value of goods that merchants had to levy on goods imported or sold. The name is based on the unit of measurement pound . Hundreds of tariffs were levied on heavy merchandise such as stones or coal, measured by the hundredweight .

The pound duty as a tax

A pound tariff can be proven for the first time since 1310 in Mainz . It was originally due to the archbishop . In 1332 Baldwin of Trier left him to the city. From the Middle Ages to the 18th and 19th centuries In the 19th century, taxes called "pound tariffs" were levied on many or even all imported goods in many southern German and Swiss cities . Thus, a Zurich order of 1757 required the seller or buyer to put "2nd hlr of every pound that is worth 4th hlr of every gulden " in a "locked box". In case of doubt or in the case of strangers, the balance master had to determine the tax to be levied. Own citizens , merchants of certain areas or noblemen could be exempted from paying the pound duty through privileges . On the other hand, the pound duty could also be pledged in exchange for a loan .

As can be seen from the example of the "new pound tariff" introduced by Basel in 1451, the pound tariff was applied not only to the taxation of imports, but also to property and income.

The Hanseatic and Prussian pound tariffs

history

The Hanseatic League first introduced a pound tariff in 1361 to finance the armed conflicts with Denmark . The amount of the tax was between 1/360 and 1/240 fractions of the value of the goods of a ship. Unlike in the cities mentioned above, the Hanseatic pound tariff was only levied as a war tax for a few years and had to be approved by the Hanseatic League .

Following the example of the Hanseatic League, the Prussian cities also levied a pound duty of 1/55 of the value of goods from 1389, which was taken over by the Teutonic Order from 1400 and thus became a sovereign tax. Since then it has been a constant point of contention between the state and the cantons, and has been abolished and reintroduced several times, sometimes with concessions to the cities, which were supposed to share in the revenue. In 1454 the pound tariff was abolished by Casimir IV Andreas in the Teutonic Order. Danzig and other cities in the Duchy of Prussia now levied the pound duty as a municipal duty.

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The Port of Hamburg secures for the years 1369, 1399, 1400 and 1418 in the archives nor the work and pound inch books with information about the goods, ship and ownership. Similar books have been preserved from Lübeck , Danzig and other cities. These books are good sources for trade routes and volumes.

  • Stuart v. Jenks (ed.): The Danzig Pound Customs Book of 1409 and 1411 . Sources and presentations on Hanseatic history 63; Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2012
  • Hans Vogtherr (ed.): The Lübeck books of customs duties 1492-1496 4 volumes. Sources and representations on Hanseatic history , New Series Volume 41, Part 1 -4; Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1996

literature

  • Horst Kampas: Sea traffic and pound duty in the Duchy of Prussia: a contribution to the history of sea trade in the 16th and 17th centuries . Bonn 1964
  • Wilhelm Mantels : The second Hanseatic pound tariff decided in Cologne in 1376. School program of the Katharineum, Lübeck 1862.
  • Art. Pound inch . In: German legal dictionary 10, Sp. 1047-1048
  • Art. Pound inch . In: Adelung: Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect , Volume 3. Leipzig 1798, p. 762.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pfundzoll ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the glossary of the website of the Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.regionalgeschichte.net
  2. ↑ Collection of Civil and Policey Laws and Orders. Lobl. City and Landscape Zurich , Volume 3, Zurich 1757; Pp. 260-268
  3. ^ Karl books: The emergence of the national economy. Six lectures . Tübingen, 1893; P. 64
  4. ↑ Rolf Sprandel (Ed.): Sources on Hanseatic History - With contributions by Jürgen Bohmbach and Jochen Goetze. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1982, ISBN 3-534-06874-2 , p. 430 ff.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Sarnowsky : Customs and taxes in the Order of Prussia (1403-1454) , in: H. Nowak (ed.): Zakon krzyżacki a społeczeństwo państwa w Prusach , Toruń 1995, pp. 67-81.
  6. ↑ Christina Deggim: Harbor life in the Middle Ages and early modern times. Maritime trade and work regulations in Hamburg and Copenhagen from the 13th to the 17th centuries. , Hamburg 2005, p. 185 ff.