--- title: Rules, courts, police, taxes and armies through time — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Rules, courts, police, taxes and armies through time», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Ivy's strategy game has armies ready at the click of a button, and Leo thinks jails, police and income tax have alway --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Rules, courts, police, taxes and armie… # Rules, courts, police, taxes and armies through time Lesson 68 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/0/) — Ivy's strategy game has armies ready at the click of a button, and Leo thinks jails, police and income tax have always been there. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/2/) — What really happened: for centuries most soldiers were farmers who fought between harvests, modern police are only about 200 years old, prison as the main punishment spread in the 1800s, and Britain's income tax started in 1799 to pay for war. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/3/) — Think of a playground argument: you can toss a coin, or you can ask witnesses what they saw. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/4/) — Old trials by ordeal were like the coin, asking God to show the truth; witnesses and juries of ordinary people were a fairer way, and they slowly took over. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/5/) — Taxes shape how people live. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/6/) — From 1696 to 1851 England taxed houses by their windows, so people bricked some up, and you can still see the dark patches today. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/7/) — Oliver's nan calls police «bobbies» after Robert Peel, who set up London's police. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/8/) — Even war has rules. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/10/) — In medieval Europe, trial by ordeal asked God to show the truth, for example by checking if a burn healed; in 1215 the Church told priests to stop taking part, and it faded away. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/11/) — After 1215, juries of ordinary people, usually twelve, grew in England, so people were judged by their «peers», not only by the king's officials. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/12/) — In 1829 Robert Peel set up London's Metropolitan Police, and officers were nicknamed «bobbies» after him; before that, towns had watchmen. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/14/) — From 1696 to 1851 England taxed houses by the number of windows, and some people bricked up windows to pay less. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/15/) — Britain started income tax in 1799 to pay for wars against Napoleon; it was dropped and brought back several times and became permanent. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/16/) — For centuries many soldiers were farmers who fought between harvests; full-time armies grew in the 1600s and 1700s, and France called up whole populations in 1793. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/17/) — After the Battle of Kadesh, Egypt and the Hittites signed one of the oldest known peace treaties, around 1259 BCE; a copy hangs at the United Nations. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/18/) — Henri Dunant helped start the Red Cross in 1863, and in 1864 countries signed the first Geneva Convention to protect wounded soldiers. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/19/) — In 1086 William the Conqueror had England's land, people and animals counted in the Domesday Book, for taxes; «doom» then meant judgement, because the records were final. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/68-rules-courts-police-taxes-and-armies-through-time/20/) — The idea that the accuser must prove the case comes from Roman law and is in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: innocent until proven guilty. - ← previous: [Who decides: kings, councils, republics and democracies](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/67-who-decides-kings-councils-republics-and-democracies/) - next →: [Rights won step by step: freedom, votes and children's rights](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/69-rights-won-step-by-step-freedom-votes-and-children-s-rights/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)