The exception is Kent. For this county both in 1334 and in later years the detailed lists of the individual taxpayers and their assessments continue as before. This special treatment was not the result of any overt royal instruction ; the writs issued to the Kent taxors were in exactly the same terms as those sent to other counties. The only official hint that Kent is a special case is found in certain entries in the King's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll. These show that while the other chief taxors were given abstracts from the 1332 rolls to guide them in their work those for Kent were entrusted with the complete 1332 county roll.¹
   Yet if the official documents do not explain the exceptional form of the Kent return it is clear that it is closely linked with the presence in the county of two classes of persons enjoying exemption from the tax, the men of the liberty of the Cinque Ports and the moneyers of Canterbury.² Of these, the moneyers, a small but important group, had been exempted from national subsidies by a grant of Edward I. The exemption of the Cinque Ports men first conferred in 1260 was established in detail by a royal inspeximus of 1327. This declared that their goods both within and outside the liberty which contributed to the maintenance of the fleet were not to be taxed for tallages or any burdens whatsoever with goods of men not of the Cinque Ports.³
   Members of both groups owned personal estate 

scattered throughout many hundreds and in the 1334 roll the assessments on such property were evaluated and listed separately within the hundreds affected. A similar procedure had been adopted in 1332. In this case it is not obvious why it was thought necessary to include exempt persons ; a possible explanation is that there was some uncertainty about the continuing exemption of the Ports. In the case of the 1334 and later taxes, however, an explanation is easier to find. Assuming that the chief taxors acting in accordance with their instructions, negotiated a lump assessment for each hundred, this would normally be related to the amount raised in 1332. If, however, the amount for a hundred containing some Cinque Port property were estimated on the basis of the sum actually collected in 1332 without taking account of exempt property there was a danger that the result would be unfairly high. For if the property owned by the Cinque Ports men had increased since 1332 it is obvious that the amount actually due from the hundred ought to be proportionally lower. Thus in 1334 and in all later subsidies
¹ Willard, op. cit., p. 133.
²  The Hospitals of Ospringe and Maison Dieu, Dover, were specifically exempted from the tax by royal writs (C.C.R. 1333-37, pp. 275, 352). From the text it is clear that the Hospitals of Eastbridge and Sheppey, the Convent of Sheppey and the London merchant John de Pulteney were also exempt but in these cases I have been unable to trace the official orders.
³ Willard, op. cit., p. 114, et seq.