Annates

Annates is a word that describes a type of tax that was collected by the medieval Catholic Church. Basically, if you were appointed to a high position within the Church (like being a bishop or a priest), you would have to pay a certain amount of money to the Pope or the higher-ups in the Church as a sort of "tax" or "fee".

Think of it like when you have to pay money to go to school - the Church was like a big school, and if you wanted to be a part of it in a really important way (like being a leader), you had to pay a little bit of money to help keep everything running smoothly.

This tradition started way back in the early days of the Church, when the idea was that the money would go towards helping to support poorer bishops and church officials who might not have a lot of money. Over time, though, some popes and higher-ups started to use the annates as a way to make more money for themselves and for the Church overall, which wasn't always fair or popular with everyone.

Eventually, there were protests and reform movements that aimed to change the way annates and other Church taxes were handled. Today, there aren't really any "annates" in the way that there used to be, but the idea of taxes and fees within organizations and institutions is still something that exists in different forms all around us.