You shouldn't discredit the taxes of the masses, imo. After all, how did the nobles become rich? By taxing these very same masses. Per head, they contribute a lot less... but since they are so many more than the nobles, it kinda balances.
Actually they became rich by requiring them to labourer on the nobles fields in order to secure access to their own fields. Peasant and the masses having any income that was actually taxable only occurred later in the medieval period. Most the masses were subsistence living. Remember part of the reason for the feudal system was that a true cash economy wasn't really in existence.
