Word Finder - exactions

definition

The act of demanding with authority, and compelling to pay or yield; compulsion to give or furnish; a levying by force

example

the exaction to tribute or of obedience

definition

Extortion.

definition

That which is exacted; a severe tribute; a fee, reward, or contribution, demanded or levied with severity or injustice.

A severe blow was struck against the city in 43 by C. Cassius, who besieged and ruthlessly plundered the people for refusing to submit to his exactions.

The earlier battles of the campaign were fought there; Strassburg and other of its fortified towns were besieged and taken; and its people were compelled to submit to very severe exactions.

Lords who did not wish to see their estates deserted had to submit to the rule of custom in respect of exactions.

Its subsequent history is uneventful, though it suffered from the exactions of Verres; and its inscriptions are unimportant.

He was also aware that the exactions of the French had produced deep indignation throughout Germany and especially in Prussia.

On the other hand the severe measures taken by the government prevented the growth of anything like legalized slavery on Siberian soil; but the people, ruined as they were both by the intrusion of agricultural colonists and by the exactions of government officials, fell into what was practically a kind of slavery to the merchants.

The estates loyally supported him against the attempted exactions of the popes, and do not seem to have objected to any of his reforms, chief among which was the army-reform project of 1435, to provide for the better defence of the land against the Turks.

Stephen Bathory, voivode of Transylvania and count of the Szeklers, for instance, ruled Transylvania like a Turkish pasha, and threatened to behead all who dared to complain of his exactions; " Stinking carrion," he said, was better than living Szeklers.

The drberi szabalyzat (feudal prescription) of 1767 restored to the peasants the right of transmigration and, in some respects, protected them against the exactions of their landlords.

In the days of the old German empire no fewer than thirty-five different tolls were levied between Melnik and Hamburg, to say nothing of the special dues and privileged exactions of various riparian owners and political authorities.

One of the consequences of the act was the abolition of tolls, statutelabour, causeway mail and other exactions for the maintenance of bridges and highways, and all turnpike roads became highways, and all highways became open to the public free of tolls and other exactions.

When Prithi Chand represented that he ought to have received the turban bound on Guru Arjan's head in token of succession to his father, Arjan meekly handed it to him, without, however, bestowing on him the guruship. The Sikhs themselves soon revolted against the exactions of Prithi Chand, and prayed Arjan to assert himself else the seed of the True Name would perish.

The allprevailing need of the later Roman and early medieval society was protection - protection against the sudden attacks of invading tribes or revolted peasants, against oppressive neighbours, against the unwarranted demands of government officers, or even against the legal but too heavy exactions of the government itself.

As in the last days of the Roman empire the poor landowner had found his only refuge from the exactions of the government in the protection of the senator, who could in some way obtain exemptions, so the poor Frank could escape the ruinous demands of military service only by submitting himself and his lands to the count, who did not hesitate on his side to force such submission.

Even the clergy were by no means altogether on Innocent's side; the council of Lyons was attended by but 150 bishops, mainly French and Spanish, and the deputation from England, headed by Robert Grossetete of Lincoln and Roger Bigod, came mainly in order to obtain the canonization of Edmund of Canterbury and to protest against papal exactions.

The curacas sorrowfully watched the gradual extinction of their people by the operation of the mita, protesting from time to time against the exactions and cruelty of the Spaniards.

Mungo Park, the first European traveller to visit the country, passed through Bondu in 1795, and had to submit to many exactions from the reigning prince.

The first charter was granted by John in 1204, and conferred a gild merchant, together with freedom from all pleas except pleas of the Crown and from all secular exactions by sea and land.

Usually humane and generous, he sought to relieve the people of the excessive taxation and to secure them against unlawful exactions.

Taxation was in many directions reduced, and the financial exactions of the imperial officers controlled by the erection of a special court.

There was also the old discontent among the orthodox in regard to the Church's exactions, bad clerics and 3 This so-called " ecclesiastical reservation " was not included in the main peace.

In Catalonia and Valencia the "germanias" were combinations of the peasantry to resist the exactions of the feudal lords.

Other confiscations and exactions followed; and when the rule of Fernando VII.

By the treaty of Tilsit (July 9th, 1807) Frederick William had to surrender half his dominions, and what remained to him was exhausted by French exactions and liable at any moment to be crushed out of existence by some new whim of Napoleon.

In spite of these reforms the Silesians, who felt severely the financial exactions of Matthias, began to resent the control of the Bohemian crown.

Silesia remained a principal objective of the various contending armies and was occupied almost continuously by a succession of ill-disciplined mercenary forces whose depredations and exactions, accentuated at times by religious fanaticism, reduced the country to a state of helpless misery.

For each county four wardens of the peace were to be appointed, while the sheriffs were to hold their tourns twice a year and were not to oppress the people by their exactions.

The notorious Jack Sheppard, wearied of Wild's exactions, at last refused to deal with him, whereupon Wild secured his arrest, and himself arrested Sheppard's confederate, "Blueskin."

Frederick, who was called the Quarrelsome, had irritated both his neighbours and his subjects, and complaints of his exactions and confiscations reached the ears of the emperor.

The administrative officers were entrusted with the assessment and acted as arbitrators and referees in case of illegal exactions.

Ismails exactions from the Egyptian peasantry reacted on the army, causing discontent; and when he was tottering on the throne he instigated military demonstrations against his own government, and, by thus sapping the foundations of discipline, assisted Arabis revolution; the result was the battle of Tell el-Kebir, the British occupation, and the disbandment of the army, which at that time in Egypt proper consisted of 18,000 men.

Cairo was itself in a state of tumult, suffering severely from a scarcity of grain, and the heavy exactions of the pasha to meet the demands of his turbulent troops, at that time augmented by a Turkish detachment.

Here he distinguished himself by his outspoken criticism of the Austrian government, leading the opposition of the duchy to the exactions of the central power.

To gain the support of the estates of Gelderland in this war of succession, Arnold had been compelled to make many concessions limiting the ducal prerogatives, and granting large powers to a council consisting of representatives of the nobles and the four chief cities, and his extravagance and exactions led to continual conflicts, in which the prince was compelled to yield to the demands of his subjects.

Travelling by the high roads during his reign was comparatively safe; although it must be added that the excessive exactions of dues and customs very seriously damaged the external trade.

In 1677 the president of found- Madras had to warn him that unless his exactions ing of ceased, the company would be obliged to withdraw Calcutta.

In Sicily, however, Charles's government soon made itself odious by its exactions, the insolence and cruelty of the king's French officials and favourites, the depreciation of the currency, and the oppressive personal services, while the nobles were incensed at the violation of their feudal constitution.

The mistake was made of paying very low salaries to the officials, who took this as a justification for illegal exactions.

The early months of 50 were occupied by the administration of justice, chiefly at Laodicea, and by various attempts to alleviate the distress in the province caused by the exactions of his predecessor, Appius Claudius.

Therefore in most cases there were no arbitrary exactions to go by, except perhaps one or the other tallage imposed at the will of the lord.

A second drawback from the point of view of the landlords was called forth by the fact that commutation for fixed rents gradually lessened the value of the exactions to which they were entitled.

Italy, which appeared to have been won by the sword of Belisarius, had been lost again by the exactions and misgovernment of Alexander.

Honest and moderate, protecting the middle classes against exactions of the nobles, he exercised a happy influence upon the south, in spite of his naturally despotic character and his continual and pressing need of money.

A further visit to Italy in 1163 saw his plans for the conquest of Sicily checked by the formation of a powerful league against him, brought together mainly by the exactions of the podestas and the enforcement of the rights declared by the doctors of Bologna.

They held usury up to detestation, and practically made no distinction between interest on equitable moderate terms and what we now term usurious exactions.

There can be no doubt that they were subjected to most arbitrary exactions.

For the danger now was that some gentlemen were already cruel in exactions of their tenants, "requiring of them whatever before they paid to the Church, so that the papistical tyranny shall only be changed into the tyranny of the lords or of the laird."

The historians of the city have for the most part described these as unjust and tyrannical exactions, but, looking at the representative and municipal character of the companies, and the purposes to which their contributions were applied, we may regard them as a rough but not unfair mode of taxation.

The exactions of the Roman governors, however, soon led to a quarrel, which ended in the total defeat and death of Valens at Adrianople in the year 378.

After Giovanni's death he remained in the court of Bernabe and Galeazzo Visconti, closing his eyes to their cruelties and exactions, serving them as a diplomatist, making speeches for them on ceremonial occasions, and partaking of the splendid hospitality they offered to emperors and princes.