butlerage

English

Etymology

From butler +‎ -age.

Noun

butlerage (countable and uncountable, plural butlerages)

1. (law, archaic or historical) A duty formerly paid to the king's butler on every ton of wine imported into England by foreign merchants.
   • 1771, William, Sir Blackstone, “Of the King's Revenue”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England‎^[1], volume 1, pages 314–315:

     There is also another very antient hereditary duty belonging to the crown, called the prisage or butlerage of wines; which is considerably older than the customs, being taken notice of in the great roll of the exchequer, 8 Ric. I. still extant. Prisage was a right of taking two tons of wine from every ship importing into England twenty tons or more; which by Edward I. was exchanged into a duty of 2s for every ton imported by merchant-strangers, and called butlerage, because paid to the king's butler.

References

• “butlerage”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.