English

Noun

pedage ‎(plural pedages)

1. (obsolete) A toll or tax paid by passengers travelling through a specific place, entitling them to safe conduct and protection.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Spelman to this entry?)

   • 1784, Francis Grose, The Antiquities of England and Wales, Volume 6, page 99,

     He^{[Richard III]} also excused them from danegeld, aids, scutage, or a tax of 40/s. payable out of every knight's fee; pontage, or a toll for the reparation of bridges; pedage, or money collected from foot passengers for passing through a forest or county; carriage, tolls for repairing of castles or cleaning of fosses; stallage, or a fee paid for erecting stalls in a fair or market; and talliage, or taxes in general; forbidding every man from arresting any person within their premisses, without license from the abbott and convent.

   • 1814, John Britton (editor), The History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, page 26,

     This charter specifies that "New Saresbury" shall be for ever a free city, enclosed with ditches, or trenches; that the citizens shall be quit throughout the land of toll, pontage, passage, pedage, lastage, stallage, carriage, and all other customs; […] .

   • 1819, "Pedage", entry in Abraham Rees (editor), The Cyclopædia: Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, Volume 26, unnumbered page,

     Pedage is uſually levied for the repairing of roads, bridges, and cauſeways, the paving of ſtreets, &c. Anciently, thoſe who had the right of pedage were to keep the roads ſecure, and anſwer for all robberies committed on the paſſengers between ſun and ſun; […] .