Definition
TAILLE (French). A term carrying two distinct legal meanings depending on context:
1. FRENCH LAW: A direct tax levied by the king or any great lord upon his subjects, typically imposed on the owners of real property. The royal taille operated simultaneously in rem and in personam — each taxpayer bore personal liability for an amount proportionate to the estimated value of his immovable property. Critically, it was a tax falling exclusively on roturiers (commoners), leaving the nobility and clergy exempt. As a practical matter, the taille functioned as a property tax on the profits of working landholders, particularly farmers, assessed according to the stock and value of the land they held. The taille persisted in France through the Ancien Régime and was a central grievance of the Third Estate prior to the Revolution.
2. ENGLISH LAW: An estate in fee tail — that is, a freehold estate so "cut" or limited from fee simple that the owner cannot freely alienate it; the land is tied to a specific line of descent established by the original grantor. The word derives from the same root as "tailor" and "tally," conveying the idea of something pared down or cut away. In this sense, taille is simply the French rendering of what English law calls fee tail or estate tail. Rapalje & Lawrence note the direct equation: taille is "the fee which is opposed to fee-simple, because it is so minced or pared that it is not in the owner's free power to dispose of it, but it is, by the first giver, cut or divided from all other, and tied to the issue of the donee — in short, an estate tail."
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A form of taxation levied on the land of peasants in pre-Revolutionary France; also, the tenor voice or part, especially the part for the tenor viol or viola.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A tally; an account scored on a piece of wood (obs.). Any imposition levied by the king or other lord upon his subjects, with specific reference to the French taille as a tax on the profits of farmers assessed by the stock held on the farm.
The common usage tracks the French tax meaning reasonably well, but misses the English legal meaning entirely. A researcher encountering "taille" in an English legal source — particularly in property or conveyancing documents — may be misled by the familiar French tax sense when the term actually refers to a restricted estate in land. The two meanings share etymology but point to entirely different legal systems and doctrines.
Common Confusion
TAILLE / FEE TAIL / ENTAIL: In English legal usage, taille, fee tail, and entail are functionally interchangeable references to the same restricted estate. The confusion arises because the same French root word produces taille in French legal writing and "tail" in English legal writing (as in "fee tail"), leading researchers to treat them as separate concepts when they are not. In Scottish law, the equivalent concept appears as TAILZIE, which Rapalje & Lawrence define as "an arbitrary line of succession laid down by a proprietor, in substitution of a legal line" — a close but not identical institution to the English fee tail.
TAILLE (TAX) / TALLAGE: The French taille and the English tallage are related in origin and sometimes described interchangeably in historical sources, but they are not synonymous. Tallage was the English lord's arbitrary exaction on villeins or town residents; the taille was specifically the French royal and seigneurial land tax. Adam Smith, quoted in Webster's 1913, draws the comparison: "The taille, as it still subsists in France, may serve as an example of those ancient tallages." The comparison is illustrative, not definitional.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus will encounter taille in two entirely different documentary traditions, and conflating them produces misreading.
In French legal and historical sources, taille belongs to the vocabulary of the Ancien Régime fiscal system. Its significance lies in its class character: the exemption of the nobility and clergy made the taille a symbol of social inequality and a driver of revolutionary grievance. Sources discussing the taille as a tax will often reference the distinction between taille réelle (assessed on the land itself, regardless of owner's status — common in southern France) and taille personnelle (assessed on the person, based on presumed income from land — common in northern France). Historical dictionaries do not consistently draw this internal distinction, which matters for understanding regional French legal sources.
In English legal sources, taille as a synonym for fee tail will appear primarily in older treatises and conveyancing documents. Modern researchers are far more likely to encounter "fee tail" or "entail" in English-language sources; taille in this sense is largely a learned or antiquarian usage. Researchers reading older property law materials should recognize the term without being thrown by it.
A navigational trap: Black's 1st edition entry for taille is incomplete as printed, cutting off mid-sentence in a way that merges the French tax definition with the English property definition without a clean break. The 2nd edition remedies this by separating the two meanings. Researchers relying on the 1st edition entry alone may underestimate how distinct the two concepts are.
For Scottish law, the tailzie entry in Rapalje & Lawrence is the more relevant starting point; do not use taille as a direct proxy for Scottish entail doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
The source dictionaries show broad agreement on the French tax meaning, drawing primarily on Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature and Art and Burrill's own synthesis. Bouvier and Burrill provide the most precise descriptions, noting both the in rem and in personam character of the royal taille and its exclusive burden on roturiers — detail that Black's 1st edition omits entirely.
On the English property meaning, Rapalje & Lawrence are the clearest, explicitly glossing taille as an estate tail and redirecting the reader to the ESTATE TAIL entry. Black's 2nd edition includes this meaning but embeds it in a run-on definition that begins with the French tax sense without adequate signposting. Bouvier does not include the English property meaning in the taille entry, treating that doctrine elsewhere under FEE TAIL and ENTAIL.
None of the historical dictionaries address the internal French distinction between taille réelle and taille personnelle, which is a gap for researchers working with primary French legal sources. For that distinction, researchers should consult histories of French fiscal law rather than the common-law dictionaries on this shelf.
Jurisdictional Note
The taille as a tax is a specifically French (and, by extension, French colonial) legal institution; it has no direct English common-law equivalent, though tallage serves an analogous function. The English property sense of taille is essentially obsolete as active law in all common-law jurisdictions, most of which have abolished or severely limited the fee tail by statute.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Fee Tail; Taxation under the Ancien Régime; Entail (Scots Law)