The Growing Power of the Towns
Back in early Saxon times we find that the inhabitants of a town
were banded together to keep the peace, thus forming a society
pledged to each other--the Peace or Frith Guild. It lost nearly all
its _real_ power in later Saxon and Norman times. But it did not
actually die out, and it appears that from this Frith Guild what
we now understand by a corporation took its rise. The guild was a
great power in some of the Saxon towns; only those belonging to it
could trade in the town, and its members were very slow to admit
outsiders to share in their privileges.
We have seen that the free, or nearly free, tuns gradually came
under the power of an overlord--the king, a bishop, a baron, or a
monastery, as the case might be--and very little real power was
left to the guild. The overlord appointed a reeve to look after his
interests, and the government of the place was in his hands. Yet
the old Frith Guild seems to have regulated matters connected with
the _customs_ of the town, which did not interfere with the lord's
rights.
[Illustration: _Seal of Guild Merchant, Gloucester, 1200. The
city gates are represented in the centre._]
When we reach Norman times we have come to a period during which
the towns improved their position. The Norman Conquest led to
increased trade with the Continent. The great building operations
here attracted skilled workmen and craftsmen to this country.
These men naturally found their way to the towns rather than to
the villages. They were protected and encouraged by the Norman
nobles, who preferred _their_ work to that of the Saxons. Although
they might be foreigners, these strangers had ideas of freedom
and liberty which fitted in very well with the town's ideas of
self-government. Then, too, these craftsmen were bound together in
trade societies or guilds, and that made them strong and worthy of
consideration in the places where they settled.
A charter to a town granted and secured to it certain privileges,
and a town with a charter became a borough town. The king granted a
good many charters to towns during the Norman period. A town which
wished to get a charter had to pay heavily for it. But it was quite
worth while for the town to secure the right which a charter gave
it--the right to manage its own affairs. What a town most desired
was to be free from the authority of the king's officer, to choose
its own port-reeve, who could preside over the court of the town,
so that the town might not have to appear before the hundred court.
By paying an annual rent to the king, however heavy the amount
might be, the town hoped to escape from the many extra fees and
taxes which the king's officers put upon it. It could then settle
its own disputes, raise its own taxes as it needed them, and punish
its own evil-doers.
In many cases bishops, barons, or religious houses were the
overlords of districts containing important towns, and those towns
managed to get charters from their overlords as other towns had
from the king. By so doing they could get out of the power of the
sheriff or shire-reeve. Charter or borough towns have most of them
been very particular to preserve their rights and privileges.
If you live in a small country borough town, or a city, you
will notice that two different benches of magistrates sit in
the town-hall to hear police cases; and there are two different
courts of justice, though held often in the same room. There
are first of all the Borough Sessions, at which the mayor of
the borough presides, and which deal with cases arising in the
borough, whether trifling or serious. Then, on another fixed day
in the week, in the very same building, another body or bench of
magistrates sits. These gentlemen usually come in from country
places outside the town, and the cases brought before them have to
do with the mischief done in the villages and country parishes.
These magistrates have nothing at all to do with offences committed
within the borough. These are the county magistrates, and their
court is called the Petty Sessions, or the County Sessions.
Some offences are too grave for the borough or county magistrates
to settle, and they have to be tried by a higher court of justice,
which has greater powers than the Court of Petty Sessions--the
Court of Quarter Sessions. The bench of this court is made up of
magistrates drawn from all parts of the county, and a jury of
twelve men, householders, from different parts of the county, has
to be sworn to hear the evidence in the cases to be tried. The
jury decides whether the man is proved to be guilty or not, when
they have heard all that can be urged for and against him, and the
magistrates decide what his punishment is to be, according to law.
There are some cases too grave or too complicated for the Court of
Quarter Sessions to decide, and these have to stand over to the
Assizes. These Assizes are held three times a year in the county
town of each county, and every prisoner in the county jail must be
accounted for. The court is presided over by one or more of the
king's judges. These are trained lawyers, and they attend in the
king's place, and are treated with much pomp and ceremony.
The sheriff of the county, properly attended, must meet the judge
or judges upon arrival. Formerly when judges on circuit travelled
by road from one county town to the next county town, the sheriff
of the assize town to which they were travelling met them some
distance from the town with a band of horsemen in quaint, old-time
uniforms, armed with javelins; and in a similar way attended them
for some distance out of the town when the assize was over. In most
places the javelin men have disappeared, or nearly disappeared, and
this guard of honour is supplied by mounted policemen. But there
are a good many quaint old customs and ceremonies still observed in
connection with the holding of the assizes.
[Illustration: _Court-house of Godmanchester, Hunts_
_An open court in which law proceedings were conducted in the
Middle Ages._]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF A NORMAN DOCUMENT
Part of the accounts of the sheriffs (who acted as the king's
bailiffs) of London and the various counties for the year 1130-1.
The portion shown refers to Middlesex, and was photographed from
the original in the Public Record Office, London
[See page 92]]