Definition

• were offerings made in England at Whitsuntide by the householders of a diocese to the cathedral church, and also a hearth-tax based on the number of chimneys in the district. Murray, in the Oxford English Dictionary, cites its use in this sense by quotations of 1524 and later.

  Smoke silver were the silver coins used in payment of the tax.

  It was the common name for Fumage, Fuage, or Fouage, i.e., a tax paid to the sovereign for every house that had a chimney.

Source

• Frey's Dictionary (American Journal of Numismatics, Vol. 50, 1916)

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