Legal Definitions - prisage

Prisage was a historical term in England referring to a specific royal duty or tax levied by the monarch on wine imported into the country. Essentially, it was the Crown's right to claim a certain quantity of imported wine for its own use or revenue, without payment, before the merchant could sell it.

Here are some examples illustrating how prisage would have applied:

• Imagine a merchant ship arriving in the port of Bristol in the 12th century, laden with casks of wine from Bordeaux. Upon docking, before any wine could be unloaded for sale, royal officials would inspect the cargo. Under the system of prisage, the King's representatives had the right to take a specific number of barrels from the shipment for the Crown's use, without compensating the merchant. This demonstrates prisage as a direct levy on imported goods, providing resources directly to the monarch.

• Consider the royal household of King John. Instead of purchasing all the wine needed for court functions and daily consumption from various merchants, the Crown could utilize its right of prisage. When a large consignment of Portuguese wine arrived in London, the royal purveyors could claim a portion of it directly through prisage to stock the royal cellars. This illustrates how prisage served as a mechanism for the Crown to acquire valuable commodities for its own consumption, effectively as a form of non-monetary tax on international trade.

• A group of English wine importers in the 13th century might have factored prisage into their business calculations. If they brought in a shipment of wine from France, they knew that a certain percentage of their cargo would be claimed by the Crown as prisage. To account for this loss of sellable product, they would likely adjust the prices of their remaining wine to cover the cost of the "taken" portion, ultimately impacting the market price for wine in England. This shows prisage as an inherent, albeit sometimes unpredictable, cost of importing wine, influencing trade economics.