peaceful settlements and commenced a career of aggression, they would
direct their marches by the great lines of roads which the Roman or
British authorities had maintained in every part of the island. They
would thus unavoidably be brought into the neighbourhood of earlier
towns, and be compelled to decide the question whether they would attack
and occupy them, or whether they would turn them and proceed on their
march. If the views already expressed in this chapter be correct, it is
plain that no very efficient resistance was to be feared by the
invaders: they could afford to neglect what in the hands of a population
not degraded by the grossest misgovernment would have offered an
insuperable obstacle. But the locality of a town is rarely the result of
accident alone: there are generally some conveniences of position, some
circumstances affecting the security, the comfort or the interests of a
people, that determine the sites of their seats: and these which must
have been nearly the same for each successive race, may have determined
the Saxons to remain where they had determined the Britons or Romans
first to settle. Yet even in this case, and admitting Saxon towns to
have gradually grown up in the neighbourhood of ancient sites, there is
no reason to suppose that either the kings or bishops made their
ordinary residences in them; and thus in England, a very active element
was wanting to the growth and importance of the towns, which we find in
full force in other Roman provinces. In truth both king and bishop
adopted for the most part the old Teutonic habit of wandering from vill
to vill, from manor to manor, and in this country the positions of
cathedrals were as little confined to principal cities as were the
positions of palaces. This is not entirely without strangeness,
especially in the case of the earliest bishops, seeing that we might
reasonably expect Roman missionaries to choose by preference buildings
ready for their purpose, and of a nature to which they had been
accustomed in Italy. Gregory had himself recommended that the heathen
temples should if possible be hallowed to Christian uses; and even if
Christian temples were entirely wanting, which we can scarcely imagine
to have been the case[795], there were yet basilicas in Britain, even as
there had been in Rome, which might be made to serve the purposes of
churches. Nevertheless, whatever we do read teaches us that in general,
on the conversion of a people, structures of the rudest character were
erected even upon the sites of ancient civilization: thus in York,
Eádwine caused a church of wood to be built in haste, “citato opere,”
for the ceremony of his own baptism: thus too in London, upon the
establishment of the see, a new church was built—surely a proof that
Saxon London and Roman London could not be the same place. It is indeed
probable that the missionaries, yet somewhat uncertain of success, and
not secure of the popular good-will, desired to fix their residences
near those of the kings, for the sake both of protection and of
influence; and thus, as the kings did not make their settled residence
in cities whether of Saxon or Roman construction, the sees also were not
established therein[796].
-----
Footnote 795:
We know that it was not the case in Canterbury. Queen Beorhte’s bishop
and chaplain, Liuthart, had restored a ruined church, and officiated
there before the arrival of Augustine.
Footnote 796:
York supplies a striking example of the facts stated in this chapter.
In the ninth century a Danish army pressed by the Saxons took refuge
within its entrenchments. The Saxons determined to attack them, seeing
the weakness of the wall: as Asser says, “Murum frangere instituunt,
quod et fecerunt; non enim tunc adhuc illa civitas firmos et
stabilitos muros illis temporibus habebat.” An. 867. It seems quite
impossible that this should refer to the Roman city of York.
-----
The town of the Saxons had however a totally independent origin, and one
susceptible of an easy explanation. The fortress required by a simple
agricultural people is not a massive pile with towers and curtains,
devised to resist the attacks of reckless soldiers, the assault of
battering-trains, the sap of skilful engineers, or the slow reduction of
famine. A gentle hill crowned with a slight earthwork, or even a stout
hedge, and capacious enough to receive all who require protection,
suffices to repress the sudden incursions of marauding enemies,
unfurnished with materials for a siege or provisions to carry on a
blockade[797]. Here and there such may have been found within the
villages or on the border of the Mark, tenanted perhaps by an earl or
noble with his comites, and thus uniting the characters of the mansion
and the fortress: around such a dwelling were congregated the numerous
poor and unfree settlers, who obtained a scanty and precarious living on
the chieftain’s land; as well as the idlers whom his luxury, his
ambition or his ostentation attracted to his vicinity. Here too may have
been found the rude manufacturers whose craft supplied the wants of the
castellan and his comrades; who may gradually and by slow experience
have discovered that the outlying owners also could sometimes offer a
market for their productions; and who, as matter of favour, could obtain
permission from the lord to exercise their skill on behalf of his
neighbours. Similarly round the church or the cathedral must bodies of
men have gathered, glad to claim its protection, share its charities and
aid in ministering to its wants[798]. I hold it undeniable that these
people could not feed themselves, and equally so that food would find
its way to them; that the neighbouring farmer,—instead of confining his
cultivation to the mere amount necessary for the support of his
household or the discharge of the royal dues,—would on their account
produce and accumulate a capital, through which he could obtain from
them articles of convenience and enjoyment which he had neither the
leisure nor the skill to make. In this way we may trace the growth of
barter, and that most important habit of resorting to fixed spots for
commercial and social purposes. In this process the lord had himself a
direct and paramount interest. If he took upon himself to maintain
freedom of buying and selling, to guarantee peace and security to the
chapmen, going and coming, he could claim in return a slight recognition
of his services in the shape of toll or custom. If the intervention of
his officers supplied an easy mode of attesting the _bona fides_ of a
transaction, the parties to it would have been unreasonable had they
resisted the jurisdiction which thus gradually grew up. So that on all
accounts we may be assured that the lord encouraged as much as possible
the resort of strangers to his domain. In the growing prosperity of his
dependents, his own condition was immediately and extensively concerned.
Even their number was of importance to his revenue, for a
capitation-tax, however light, was the inevitable condition of their
reception. Their industry as manufacturers or merchants attracted
traffic to his channels. Lastly in a military, political and social
view, the wealth, the density and the cultivation of his
burgher-population were the most active elements of his own power,
consideration and influence. What but these rendered the Counts of
Flanders so powerful as they were throughout the middle ages? Let it now
be only considered with what rapidity all these several circumstances
must tend to combine and to develop themselves, as the class of free
landowners diminishes in extent and influence and that of the lords
increases. Concurrent with such a change must necessarily be the
extension of mutual dependence, which is only another name for traffic,
and, as far as this alone is concerned, a great advance in the material
well-being of society. It is difficult to conceive a more hopeless state
than one in which every household should exactly suffice to its own
wants, and have no wants but such as itself could supply. Fortunately
for human progress, it is one which all experience proves to be
impossible. There is no principle of social ethics more certain than
this, that in proportion as you secure to a man the command of the
necessaries of life, you awaken in him the desire for those things which
adorn and refine it. And all experience also teaches that the attempt of
any individual to provide both classes of things for himself and within
the limits of his own household, will totally fail; that time is wanting
to produce any one thing in perfection; that skill can only be attained
by exclusive attention to one object; and that a division of labour is
indispensable if society is to be enabled to secure, at the least
possible sacrifice, the greatest possible amount of comforts and
conveniences. The farmer therefore raises, stores and sells the
abundance of the grain which he well knows how to gain from his fields;
and, relinquishing the vain attempt to make clothes or hardware,
ornamental furniture and articles of household utility or elegance, nay
even ploughs and harrows,—the instruments of his industry,—purchases
them with his superfluity. And so in turn with his superfluity does the
mechanic provide himself with bread which he lacks the land, the tools
and the skill to raise. But the cultivator and the herdsman require land
and space: the mechanic is most advantageously situated where numbers
concentrate, where his various materials can be brought together cheaply
and speedily; where there is intercourse to sharpen the mind; where
there is population to assist in processes which transcend the skill or
strength of the individual man. The wealth of the cultivator, that is,
his superabundant bread, awakens the mechanic into existence; and the
existence of the mechanic, speedily leading to the enterprise of the
manufacturer, and the venture of the distributor, broker, merchant, or
shopman, ultimately completes the growth of the town. It is unavoidable
that the first mechanics—beyond the heroical weapon-smith on the one
hand, and on the other the poor professors of such rude arts as the
homestead cannot do without,—the wife that spins, the husbandman that
hammers his own share and coulter—should be those who have no land; that
is, in the state of society which we are now considering,—the unfree. It
is a mere accident that they should gather round this lord or that, on
his extensive possessions, or that they should seek shelter, food and
protection in the neighbourhood of the castle or the cathedral: but
where they do settle, in process of time the town must come.
-----
Footnote 797:
Ida built Bebbanburh, Bamborough, which was at first enclosed by a
hedge, and afterwards by a wall. Chron. Sax. an. 547.
Footnote 798:
The growth of a city round a monastery is well instanced in the case
of Bury St. Edmund’s. The following passage is cited from Domesday
(371, b) in the notes to Mr. Rokewode’s edition of Jocelyn de
Brakelonde. “In the town where the glorious king and martyr St. Edmund
lies buried, in the time of king Edward, Baldwin the abbot held for
the sustenance of the monks one hundred and eighteen men; and they can
sell and give their land; and under them fifty-two _bordarii_, from
whom the abbot can have help; fifty-four freemen poor enough;
forty-three living upon alms; each of them has one _bordarius_. There
are now two mills and two store-ponds or fish-ponds. This town was
then worth ten pounds, now twenty. It has in length one leuga and a
half, and in breadth as much. And it pays to the geld, when payable in
the hundred, one pound. And then the issues therefrom are sixty pence
towards the sustenance of the monks; but this is to be understood of
the town as it was in the time of king Edward, if it so remains; for
now it contains a greater circuit of land, the which was then ploughed
and sown; where, one with another, there are thirty priests, deacons
and clerks, twenty-eight nuns and poor brethren who pray daily for the
king and all Christian people; eighty less five bakers, brewers,
seamsters, fullers, shoemakers, tailors, cooks, porters, serving-men;
and these all daily minister to the saint, and abbot and brethren.
Besides whom there are thirteen upon the land of the reeve, who have
their dwellings in the same town, and under them five _bordarii_. Now
there are thirty-four persons owing military service, taking French
and English together, and under them twenty-two _bordarii_. Now in the
whole there are three hundred and forty-two dwellings in the demesne
of the land of St. Edmund, which was arable in the time of king
Edward.” Chron. Joc. de Brakelonde, pp. 148, 149 (Camden Society).
Similarly Durham and other towns grew up around cathedrals.
-----
The conditions under which this shall constitute itself are many and
various. For a long while they will greatly depend upon the original
circumstances which accompanied and regulated the settlement. When a
great manufacturing and commercial system has been founded, embracing
states and not petty localities only, it is clear that petty local
interests will cease to be the guiding principles: but this state of
things transcends the limits of a rude and early society. The liberties
of the first cities must often have been mere favours on the part of the
lords who owned the soil, and protected the dwellers upon it. Later
these liberties were the result of bargains between separate powers,
grown capable of measuring one another. Lastly, they are necessities
imposed by an advanced condition of human associations, in which the
wishes, objects and desires of the individual man are hurried
resistlessly away by a great movement of civilization, in which the vast
attraction of the mass neutralizes and defeats all minor forces. It
would indeed be but slight philosophy to suppose that any one set of
circumstances could account for the infinite variety which the history
of towns presents: though there are features of resemblance common to
them all, yet each has its peculiar story, its peculiar conditions of
progress and decay; even as the children of one family, which bear a
near likeness to each other, yet each has its own tale of joy and
sorrow, of smiles and tears, of triumph and failure. Yet there is
probably no single element of urban prosperity more potent than
situation, or which more pervasively modifies all other and concurrent
conditions of success. Let the most careless observer only compare
London, Liverpool and Bristol, I will not say with Munich or Madrid, but
even with Warwick, Stafford or Winchester. If royal favour and court
gaieties could have made cities great, the latter should have
flourished; for they were the residences of the rulers of Mercia and
Wessex, the scenes of witena gemóts, of Christmas festivals and Easters
when the king solemnly wore his crown; while the _ceorls_ or _mangeras_
of Brigstow and Lundenwíc were only cheapening hides with the
Esterlings, warehousing the foreign wines which were to supply the royal
table, or bargaining with the adventurer from the East for the incense
which was to accompany the high mass in the Cathedral. But Commerce, the
child of opportunity, brought wealth; wealth, power; and power led
independence in its train.
Against the manifold relations which arose during the gradual
development of urban populations, the original position of the lord
could not be maintained intact. It is indeed improbable that in any very
great number of cases, the inhabitants of an English town long continued
in the condition of personal serfage. The lords were too weak, the
people too strong, for a system like that of the French nobles and their
towns ever to have become settled here; nor had our city populations,
like the Gallic provincials, the habit and use of slavery. The first
settlers on a noble’s land may have been unfree; serfs and oppressed
labourers from other estates may have been glad to take refuge among
them from taskmasters more than ordinarily severe; but in this unmixed
state they did not long remain. There is no doubt that freemen gradually
united with them under the lord’s protection or in his alliance; that
strangers sojourned among them in hope of profits from traffic; and
hence that a race gradually grew up, in whom the original feelings of
the several classes survived in a greatly modified form. To this, though
generally so difficult to trace step by step in history, we owe the
difference of the urban government in different cities,—distinctions in
detail more frequent than is commonly supposed, and which can be
unhesitatingly referred to the earliest period of urban existence, if
not in fact, at least in principle,—institutions representing in a
shadowy manner the distant conditions under which they arose, and for
the most part separated in the sharpest contrast from the ordinary forms
prevalent upon the land.
The general outline of an urban constitution, in the earlier days of the
Saxons, may have been somewhat of the following character. The freemen,
either with or without the co-operation of the lord, but usually with
it, formed themselves into associations or clubs, called _gylds_. These
must not be confounded either on the one side with the Hanses (in
Anglosaxon Hósa), i. e. trading guilds, or on the other with the guilds
of crafts (“collegia opificum”) of later ages. Looking to the analogy of
the country-gylds or Tithings, described in detail in the ninth chapter
of the First Book, we may believe that the whole free town population
was distributed into such associations; but that in each town, taken
altogether, they formed a compact and substantive body called in general
the _Burhwaru_, and perhaps sometimes more especially the _Ingang
burhware_, or “burgher’s club[799].” It is also certain from various
expressions in the boundaries of charters, as “Burhware mǽd,” “burhware
mearc,” and the like, that they were in possession of real property as a
corporate body, whether they had any provision for the management of
corporation revenues, we cannot tell; but we may unhesitatingly affirm
that the gylds had each its common purse, maintained at least in part by
private contributions, or what we may more familiarly term _rates_
levied under their bye-laws. These gylds, whether in their original
nature religious, political, or merely social unions, rested upon
another and solemn principle: they were sworn brotherhoods between man
and man, established and fortified upon “áð and wed,” oath and pledge;
and in them we consequently recognize the germ of those sworn communes,
_communae_ or _communiae_[800], which in the times of the densest
seigneurial darkness offered a noble resistance to episcopal and
baronial tyranny, and formed the nursing-cradles of popular liberty.
They were alliances offensive and defensive among the free citizens, and
in the strict theory possessed all the royalties, privileges and rights
of independent government and internal jurisdiction. How far they could
make these valid, depended entirely upon the relative strength of the
neighbouring lord, whether he were ealdorman, king or bishop. Where they
had full power, they probably placed themselves under a geréfa of their
own, duly elected from among the members of their own body, who
thenceforth took the name of Portgeréfa or Burhgeréfa, and not only
administered justice in the burhwaremót or husting, on behalf of the
whole state, but if necessary led the city trainbands to the field. Such
a civic political constitution seems the germ of those later liberties
which we understand by the expression that a city is a county of
itself,—words once more weighty than they now are, when privilege has
become less valuable before the face of an equal law. Nevertheless there
was once a time when it was no slight advantage for a population to be
under a portreeve or sheriff of their own, and not to be exposed to the
arbitrary will of a noble or bishop who might claim to exercise the
comitial authority within their precincts. Such a free organization was
capable of placing a city upon terms of equality with other constituted
powers; and hence we can easily understand the position so frequently
assumed by the inhabitants of London. As late as the tenth century, and
under Æðelstán, a prince who had carried the influence of the crown to
an extent unexampled in any of his predecessors, we find the burghers
treating as power to power with the king, under their portreeves and
bishop: engaging indeed to follow his advice, if he have any to give
which shall be for their advantage; but nevertheless constituting their
own sworn gyldships or commune, by their own authority, on a basis of
mutual alliance and guarantee, as to themselves seemed good[801].
-----
Footnote 799:
The “Ingang burhware” may possibly be only a selected portion of the
population; as, for example, the richer inhabitants, a special
burgher’s club. The argument in the text is no way affected by the
pre-eminence of some particular association among the rest, and an
“Ingang burhware,” even if a distinct thing, only proves the existence
of a “burhwaru” besides. However it is probable that there was a
general disposition to admit as many members as possible into
associations whose security and influence would greatly depend upon
their numbers.
Footnote 800:
The word _communa_ occurs at almost every page of the ‘Liber de
antiquis Legibus,’ to express the whole commonalty of the city of
London. Glanville himself uses _communa_ and _gyldae_ as equivalent
terms. “Item si quis nativus quiete per unum annum et unum diem in
aliquâ villâ privilegiatâ manserit, ita quod in eorum _communiam_,
scilicet _gyldam_, tanquam civis receptus fuerit, eo ipso a villenagio
liberabitur.” Lib. v. cap. 5. The reader may consult with advantage
Thierry’s history of the Communes in France, in his ‘Lettres sur
l’histoire de France,’ a work which has not received in this country
an attention at all commensurate to its merits, or comparable to that
bestowed upon his far less sound production the ‘Conquête de
l’Angleterre par les Normands.’ At the same time it would be an error
to apply the example of the French Communes to our own or those of
Flanders, which had frequently a very different origin. See Warnkönig,
Hist. de Flandre, par Gheldolf: Bruxelles, 1835, particularly vol. ii.
with its valuable appendixes.
Footnote 801:
This truly interesting and important document will be found in an
appendix to this Book. In fact the principle of all society during the
Saxon period is that of free association upon terms of mutual
benefit,—a noble and a grand principle, to the recognition of which
our own enlightened period is as yet but slowly returning.
-----
The rights of such a corporation were in truth royal. They had their own
alliances and feuds; their own jurisdiction, courts of justice and power
of execution; their own markets and tolls; their own power of internal
taxation; their personal freedom with all its dignity and privileges.
And to secure these great blessings they had their own towers and walls
and fortified houses, bell and banner, watch and ward, and their own
armed militia.
Such too were the rights which, in more than one European country, the
brave and now forgotten burghers of the twelfth century strove to wring
from the territorial aristocracy that hemmed them in; when ancient
tradition had not lost its vigour, though liberty had been trampled
under the armed hoof of power. If we admire and glory in these true
fathers of popular freedom, firm in success, unbroken by
defeat,—steadfast in council, steadfast in the field, steadfast even
under the seigneurial gibbet and in the seigneurial dungeon,—let us yet
give our meed of thanks to those still older assertors of the dignity of
man, duly honouring the gyldsmen of the tenth century, who handed down
their noble inheritance to the less fortunate burgesses of the twelfth.
Few pictures from the past may the eye rest upon with greater pleasure
than that of a Saxon portreeve looking down from his strong gyld-hall
upon the well-watched walls and gates that guard the populous market of
his city[802]. The fortified castle of a warlike lord may frown upon the
adjacent hill; the machicolated and crenelated walls of the cathedral
close, with buttress and drawbridge, may tell of the temporal power and
turbulence of the episcopate; but in the centre of the square stands the
symbolic statue which marks the freedom of jurisdiction and of
commerce[803]; balance in hand, to show the right of unimpeded traffic;
sword in hand, to intimate the _ius gladii_, the right to judge and
punish, the right to guard with the weapons of men all that men hold
dearest.
-----
Footnote 802:
“Ealdredesgate et Cripelesgate, _i. e._ portas illas, observabant
custodes.” Inst. London. § 1. Thorpe, i. 300.
Footnote 803:
In the cities of the Roman empire with Jus Italicum a statute of
Marsyas or Silenus was erected in the forum. Servius ad Æneid. iv. 58.
“Patrique Lyæo.—Urbibus libertatis est deus, unde etiam Marsyas,
minister eius, per civitates in foro positus, libertatis indicium est;
qui erecta manu testatur nihil urbi deesse.” So also Æneid, iii. 20.
The reader of Horace will remember the Marsyas in the Forum as
symbolizing the magistrate’s jurisdiction. Whether the Germanic
populations derived their pillar, figure or statue from the Roman
custom seems uncertain: certain however it is that the Rolandseule,
the pillar or figure of Orlando, (and, as is sometimes said, of
Charlemagne) denotes equally “nihil urbi deesse.”
-----
Again, no brighter picture than the present; when, drawing a veil over
the miserable convulsions of a nearly millennial struggle, we can
contemplate the mayor of the same town wandering with a satisfied eye
over the space where those old walls once stood, but which now is
covered with the workshop, the manufactory or the house, the reward of
patient, peaceful industry. Looking to the hill, crowned with its
picturesque ruin, he sees the mansion of a noble citizen united with
himself in zealous obedience to an equal law,—the peer who in the
higher, or the burgess who in the lower house of parliament, consults
for the weal of the community, and derives his own value and importance
most from the trust reposed in him by his fellow-townsmen. We can now
contemplate this peaceful magistrate (elected because his neighbours
honour his worth and the character won in a successful civic career,—not
because he is a stout man-at-arms, or tried in perilous adventure,) when
turning again to the ruined defences of the old cathedral, he sees
streets instinct with life, where the ditch yawned of yore, walls
picturesque with the ivy of uncounted ages, now carved out into quaint,
prebendal houses; and while he admires the beauty of their architecture,
wonders why the gates of cathedral closes should have been so strongly
built, or bear so unnecessary a resemblance to fortresses. Still in the
market-place stands the belfry, once dreaded by the neighbouring tyrant:
but its bell calls no longer to the defence of a city, which now fears
no enemy. The tenant of its dungeon is no more a turbulent man-at-arms,
or well-born hostage: the dignity of the prisoner rises no higher than
that of a petty market-pilferer, and the name of the belfry itself is
forgotten in that of the “cage.” Over the flesh- or fish-stalls perhaps
yet stands the mysterious statue, inherited from earlier times, but
without the meaning of the inheritance. The sword and balance are still
there, but it is no longer Marsyas or Silenus or Orlando: flowing robes
and bandaged eyes have transformed it into a harmless allegory; and
where the warlike citizen, whose privileges were maintained with sweat
and blood, erewhile looked upon it as the symbol—if not the talisman—of
freedom, his modern successor, as his humour leads him, wonders whether
_Justice_ were ever wanting in that place, or smiles to think that her
eyes are closed to the petty tricks of temporary stall-keepers.
Beyond all price indeed is this privilege of quiet inherited from our
earnest forefathers, and great the debt of gratitude we owe to those
whose wisdom laid, whose courage and patience maintained, its deep
foundations.
Yet not in all cases can we draw so favourable a picture of the
condition of an Anglosaxon town: in many of them, the unfree dwelt by
the side of the freemen in their gylds, under the presidency of their
lord’s geréfa. And where the number of the unfree was greatly
preponderant, and the power of the lord proportionally increased, we
cannot but believe that the freemen themselves were too often deprived
of their most cherished privileges. Without going quite so far as the
custom in some mediæval towns, where the air itself was emphatically
said to be loaded with serfage,—where slavery was epidemic[804],—it is
but too evident that in many places, the free settlers, while they
retained their wergyld and perhaps other personal rights, must yet have
been subject like their neighbours to servile dues and works, and
compelled to attend the lord’s court. Let us only imagine a case which
was probably not uncommon; where the lord, with his own numerous unfree
dependents, occupied the post of the king’s burggeréfa, the bishop’s or
abbot’s _advocatus_, and forced himself as their geréfa upon the free.
What refuge could there be for these, if he determined to assimilate his
various jurisdictions, and subject all alike to the convenient machinery
of a centralized authority? They might in vain declare, as did the
Northumbrians of old, that “free by birth and educated as freemen, they
scorned to submit to the tyranny of any duke,” or count or geréfa,—but
what remedy had they, when once the defence of the mutual guarantee was
removed? Theoretically of course they were _cyre-lif_, that is, they
could go away and choose a lord elsewhere: but we may fairly doubt
whether they could practically do this. New connexions are not easily
formed in a state which enjoys but little means of intercommunication:
what would be sacrificed now without regret, assumes a very
disproportionate importance at a period when accumulation is slow, and
acquisition difficult: nor could the expatriated chapman securely remove
his valuables from one place to another; or even legally withdraw from
the district where he felt himself aggrieved, without the consent of the
very officer from whose unjust exactions he desired to escape. Under
such circumstances of difficulty, it is to be supposed that, like the
prædial freemen on the country estates, they were reduced to make the
best bargain that they could; in other words, that they ultimately
submitted to the customs of the place.
-----
Footnote 804:
“Die Luft macht eigen.”
-----
Moreover there may have been then, as there frequently were in the
twelfth century, a plurality of lords each having _ban_ or jurisdiction
in particular localities[805], each having different customs to enforce,
separate and conflicting interests to further, and a separate armament
to dispose of. Often, as we pursue the history of mediæval cities, do we
find king, count, and bishop, with perhaps one or more barons or
castellans, claiming portions of the town as subject in totality or
shares to their several jurisdictions, imposing heavy capitation-taxes
on their own dependents, establishing hostile tolls or tariffs to the
injury of internal traffic, warring with one another, from motives of
pride or hate, ambition or avarice, and dragging their reluctant quotas
of the city into internecine hostilities, ruinous to the interests of
all. And then, if strong enough, among them all subsists a corporation
of burgesses, perhaps a turbulent mob of handicrafts, distributed in
gylds or mysteries, with their deacons, common-chests, banners, and
barricades:—freer than the old serfs were, but unfree still as regards
the corporation: for the full burgesses have made alliances with the
nobles, have enrolled the nobles as burgesses in their _Hanse_, and have
become themselves an aristocracy as compared with the democracy of the
crafts. Or the corporation of freemen may have elected a noble
_advocatus_, _Vogt_ or Patron, to be the constable of their castle, and
to lead their militia against his brethren by birth and rivals in
estate. Or they may have coalesced with the crafts in a bond of union
for general liberation:—unhappily too rare a case, for even those old
burgesses sometimes forgot their own origin, and blundered into the
belief that liberty meant privilege[806].
-----
Footnote 805:
_Banlieu_, banni leuca, or according to some etymologists, banni
locus.
Footnote 806:
Slight as this sketch is, it may serve to throw some light upon the
fortunes of the Flemish and Italian cities. Dönniges gives a most
interesting and instructive account of Regensburg in very early times,
with its three fortified quarters,—the Count’s (Palatium, Pfalz or
Imperial _banlieu_), the Bishop’s, and the Burghers’ or Merchants’
quarter. Deut. Staatsr. p. 250, _seq._
-----
The misery and mischief of this state of things were not so prominent
among the Anglosaxons, because the subdivision of powers was much less
than where the principles of feudality prevailed, and the lords and
castellans were not numerous. Nor were the guarantees which the tithings
and gyldships offered, and which were secured by the popular election of
officers, at any time entirely devoid of their original force. History
therefore records no instances of such painful struggles as marked the
progress of the continental cities, or even of our own subsequent to the
Norman conquest. But we are nevertheless not without examples of towns
in which the powers of government were unequally divided: where the
king, the bishop and the burgesses, or the king and bishop alone, shared
in the civil and criminal jurisdiction. In these the burh, properly so
called, or fortification, often formed part of the city walls, or
commanded the approaches to the market. In it sat the royal burhgeréfa
and administered justice to the freemen; while the unfree also appeared
in his court, and became gradually confounded with the free in his sócn
or jurisdiction. On the other hand the bishop, through his sócnegeréfa,
judged and taxed and governed his own particular dependents: unless the
power of the king had been such as to unite all the inhabitants in one
body under the authority of the royal thane who exercised the palatine
functions. Even in the burgmót of the freemen did the royal and
episcopal reeves appear as assessors, to watch over the interests of
their respective employers, and add a specious, but little suspected,
show of authority to the acts of the corporation.
We are still fortunately able to give some account of the growth of
various English towns, which seem to have arisen after the close of the
Danish wars, and the successive victories of Ælfred’s children, Eádweard
king of Wessex, and Æðelflǽd, duchess of Mercia.
By the treaty of peace between Ælfred and Guðorm, a very considerable
tract of country in the north and east of England was surrendered to the
latter and his Scandinavian allies. It is clear that from very early
periods this district had contained important cities and fortresses, but
many of these had probably perished during the wars which expelled the
Northumbrian and Mercian kings, and finally reduced their territories
under the arms of the Danish invaders. The efforts of Ælfred had indeed
succeeded in saving his ancestral kingdoms of Wessex and Kent, and by
the articles of Wedmor he had become possessed of a valuable part of
Mercia, between the Severn, the Ouse, the Thames and the Watling-street.
To the east and north of these lines however, the Scandinavians had
settled, dividing the lands, for the most part denuded of their Saxon
population, or occupied by Saxons who had submitted to the invader and
made common cause with him, against a king of Wessex to whom they owed
no allegiance. The Eastanglians and a portion of the Northumbrians had
adopted the kingly form of government; but there were still independent
populations in those districts following their national Jarls, and in
the North was a powerful confederation of five Burghs or cities, which
sometimes included seven, comprising in one political unity, York,
Lincoln, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Stamford and Chester[807]. The
power of the Scandinavians however was frittered away in internal
quarrels, and those two children of Wessex, Eádweard and his
lion-hearted sister, determined upon carrying into the country of the
Pagans the sufferings which they had so often inflicted upon others. A
career of conquest was commenced from the west and the south; place
after place was cleared of the intruding strangers, by men themselves
intruders, but gifted with better fortune; the Scandinavians were either
thrown back over the Humber, or compelled to submit to Saxon arms; and
the country wrested from them was secured and bridled by a chain of
fortresses erected and garrisoned by the victors.
-----
Footnote 807:
The “Five Burghs” were Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and
Stamford. Chester and York could only be joined in a more distant
alliance, but still when there was a common action among them, they
were called the “Seven Burghs.”
-----
In the course of this victorious career we learn that Æðelflǽd erected
the following fortresses[808]:—In 910, the burh at Bremesbyrig: in 912,
those at Scargate and Bridgnorth: in 913, those at Tamworth and
Stafford: in 914, those at Eddisbury and Warwick: in 915, the fortresses
of Cherbury, Warborough and Runcorn. In 917 she took the fortified town
of Derby; and in 918, Leicester: and thus, upon the submission of York,
in the same year, broke up the independent organization of the “Seven
Burhs.”
-----
Footnote 808:
These statements are taken from the Saxon Chronicle, Florence of
Worcester, Simeon, and other authorities, under the years quoted. For
the sake of illustration I have added in the Appendix a list of
Anglosaxon towns, whose origin we have some means of tracing.
-----
The evidences of Eádweard’s activity are yet more numerous. The
following burhs or towns are recorded to have been built by him. In 913,
the northern burh at Hertford, between the rivers Mimera, Benefica and
Lea: a burh at Witham, and soon after another on the southern bank of
the Lea. In 918, he constructed burhs, or fortresses, on both sides of
the river at Buckingham. In 919 he raised the burh on the southern bank
of the Ouse at Bedford. In 921 he fortified Towchester with a stone
wall; and in the same year he rebuilt the burhs at Huntingdon and
Colchester, and built the burh at Cledemouth. The following year he
built the burh on the southern bank of the river at Stamford, and
repaired the castle of Nottingham. In 923 he built a fortress at
Thelwall, and repaired one at Manchester. In 924 he built another castle
at Nottingham, on the south bank of the Trent, over against that which
stood on the northern bank, and threw a bridge between them. Lastly he
went to Bakewell in Derbyshire, where he built and garrisoned a burh.
A large number of these were no doubt merely castles or fortresses, and
some of them, we are told, received stipendiary garrisons, that is
literally, king’s troops, contradistinguished on the one hand from the
free landowners who might be called upon under the _hereban_ to take a
turn of duty therein, and on the other from the unfree tenants, part of
whose rent may have been paid in service behind the walls. But it is
also certain that the shelter and protection of the castle often
produced the town, and that in many cases the mere sutler’s camp, formed
to supply the needs of the permanent garrison, expanded into a
flourishing centre of commerce, guarded by the fortress, and nourished
by the military road or the beneficent river. It is also probable enough
that on many of their sites towns, or at least royal vills, had
previously existed, and that the population whom war and its concomitant
misery had dispossessed, returned to their ancient seats, when quiet
seemed likely to be permanently restored.
It cannot be doubted that those who were already congregated, or for the
sake of security or gain did afterwards collect in such places, were
subject to the authority of the burhgeréfa or castellan, and that thus
the burh by degrees became a Palatium or Pfalz in the German sense of
the word. In truth _burh_ does originally denote a castle, not a town;
and the latter only comes to be designated by the word, because a town
could hardly be conceived without a castle,—a circumstance which favours
the account here given of their origin in general.
It is certain that the free institutions which have been described in an
earlier part of this chapter, could not be found in towns, the right to
which must be considered to have been based on conquest, or which arose
around a settlement purely military. In such places we can expect to
find no mint, except as matter of grant or favour: if there was watch
and ward, it was for the fortress, not the townsmen: toll there might
be—but for the lord to receive: jurisdiction,—but for the lord to
exercise: market,—but for the lord to profit by: armed militia,—but for
the lord to command. Yet while the lord was the king, and the town was,
through its connexion with him, brought into close union with the
general state, its own condition was probably easy, and its civic
relations not otherwise than beneficial to the republic. In such
circumstances a town is only one part of a system; nor is a royal
landlord compelled to rack the tenants of a single estate for a fitting
subsistence: the shortcoming of one is balanced by the superfluity of
other sources of wealth. The owner of the small flock is ever the
closest shearer. But even on this account, when once the towns became
seigneurial, their own state was not so happy, nor was their relation to
the country at large beneficial to the full extent. But all general
observations of this character do not explain or account for the
separate cases. It is clear that everything which we have to say upon
this subject will depend entirely upon what we may learn to have been
the character of any particular person or class of persons at any given
time. The lord or Seigneur may have ruled well; that is, he may have
seen that his own best interests were inseparably bound up with the
prosperity, the peace and the rational freedom of his dependents; and
that both he and they would flourish most, when the mutual well-being
was guarded by a harmonious common action, founded upon the least
practicable sacrifice of individual interests. Thus he may have
contented himself with the legal capitation-tax, or even relinquished it
altogether: he may have exacted only moderate and reasonable tolls,
trusting wisely to a consequent increase of traffic, and rewarded by a
rapid advance in wealth and power: he may have given a just and generous
protection in return for submission and alliance; have supported his
townsmen in their public buildings, roads, wharves, canals, and other
laudable undertakings. Nay, when the re-awakened spirit of
self-government grew strong, and the whole mighty mass of mediæval
society heaved and tossed with the working of this all-pervading leaven,
we have even seen Seigneurs aiding their serf-townsmen to swear and
maintain a “Communa,”—that institution so detested and savagely
persecuted by popes, barons and bishops,—so hypocritically blamed, but
so lukewarmly pursued by kings, who found it their gain to have the
people on their side against the nobles[809].
-----
Footnote 809:
History furnishes notable instances of what has been put here merely
hypothetically. The earls of Flanders were honourably distinguished
among all the European potentates by the liberal manner in which they
treated their subjects. The appendix to this chapter contains some of
the earliest charters which they granted to their towns, and these
fully explain the wealth, power and happiness of Flanders in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And notwithstanding what I have said
in the text, and which is justified by the conduct of the bishops in
some parts of Europe, it must be admitted that the clergy were
generally just and merciful lords, as far as the material well-being
of their dependents was concerned. The German proverb says: “’Tis good
to live under the crozier.”
-----
But unhappily there is another side to the picture: the lord may have
ruled ill, and often did so rule, for class-prejudices and short-sighted
selfish views of personal interest drove him to courses fatal to himself
and his people. When this was the case, there was but one miserable
alternative, revolt, and ruin either for the lord, the city, or both,—in
the former case possibly, in the latter always and certainly a grievous
loss to the republic. But before this final settlement of the question,
how much irreparable mischief, how much of credit and confidence shaken,
of raw material wasted and destroyed, of property plundered, of security
unsettled, of internecine hostility engendered, class set against class,
family against family, man against man! Verily, when we contemplate the
misery which such contests caused from the twelfth to the fifteenth
centuries, we could almost join in the cry of the Jacquerie, and wish,
with the prædial and urban serfs of old, that the race of Seigneurs had
been swept from the face of the earth; did we not know that gold must be
tried in the fire, that liberty could grow to a giant’s stature only by
passing through a giant’s struggles.
But from this painful school of manhood it pleased the providence of the
Almighty to save our forefathers; nor does Anglosaxon history record
more than one single instance of those oppressions or of that
resistance, which make up so large and wretched a portion of the history
of other lands[810]. Suffering enough they had to bear, but it was at
the hands of invading strangers, not of those who were born beneath the
same skies and spake with the same tongue. The power of the national
institutions was too general, too deeply rooted, to be shaken by the
efforts of a class; nor does it appear that that class itself attempted
at any time an undue exercise of authority. One ill-advised duke did
indeed raise a fierce rebellion by his misgovernment; but even here
national feeling was probably at work, and the Northumbrians rose less
against the bad ruler, than the intrusive Westsaxon: the interests of
Morcar’s family were more urgent than the crimes of Tostig. Yet these
may have been grave, for he was repudiated even by those of his own
class, and the strong measure of his deprivation and outlawry was
concurred in by his brother Harald.
-----
Footnote 810:
Even under the Norman kings, the condition of this country seems to
have been comparatively easy. Its darkest moments were during the wars
of Stephen and Henry Plantagenet. The position then assumed by the
seigneurs or castellans and its results are thus well described by an
old chronicler:—“Sane inter partes diu certatum est, alternante
fortuna; sed tunc quodammodo remissiores motus esse coeperunt: quod
tamen Angliae non cessit in bonum, eo quod tot erant reges quot domini
castellorum, habentes singuli numisma proprium et more regis subditos
iudicantes. Et quia magnates terrae sic invicem excellere satagebant,
eo quod nullus in alterum habebat imperium, mox inter se disceptantes
rapinis et incendiis clarissimas regiones corruperunt, in tantum quod
omne robur panis fere deperiit.” Walt. Hemingburh, vulgo Gisseburne,
i. 74. “Castella quippe studio partium per singulas provincias
surrexerant crebra; erantque in Anglia tot quodammodo reges, vel
potius tyranni, quot castellorum domini, habentes singuli percussuram
proprii numismatis, et potestatem dicendi subditis regio more iura.”
Annal. Trivet. 1147, p. 25. The contemporary Saxon chronicler gives
the most frightful account of the tyrannous exactions of the
castellans, and the tortures they inflicted on the defenceless
cultivators. And this miserable condition of the country is only too
obvious in the words with which the contemporary author of the life of
Stephen commences his work. Gest. Stephani, p. 1 _seq._ Nor can this
surprise us, when we learn that at this period not less than eleven
hundred and fifteen castles had been built in England. Rog. Wendov.
an. 1153, Coxe’s edit. ii. 256.
-----
In addition to the natural mode by which the authority of a lord became
established in a town built on his demesne, the privileges of lordship
were occasionally transferred from one person to another. Like other
royalties, the rights of the crown over taxation, tolls or other
revenues, might be made matter of grant. The following document
illustrates the manner in which a portion of the seigneurial rights was
thus alienated in favour of the bishop of Worcester. It is a grant made
by Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd to their friend Werfrið, about the end of the
ninth century[811].
-----
Footnote 811:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1075.
-----
“To Almighty God, true Unity and holy Trinity in heaven, be praise and
glory and rendering of thanks, for all his benefits bestowed upon us!
Firstly for whose love, and for St. Peter’s and the church at Worcester,
and at the request of Werfrið the bishop, their friend, Æðelrǽd the
ealdorman and Æðelflǽd commanded the _burh_ at Worcester to be built,
and eke God’s praise to be there upraised. And now they make known by
this charter that of all the rights which appertain to their lordship,
both in market and in street, within the byrig and without, they grant
half to God and St. Peter and the lord of the church; that those who are
in the place may be the better provided, that they may thereby in some
sort easier aid the brotherhood, and that their remembrance may be the
firmer kept in mind, in the place, as long as God’s service is done
within the minster. And Werfrið the bishop and his flock have appointed
this service, before the daily one, both during their lives and after,
to sing at matins, vespers and ‘undernsong,’ the psalm De Profundis,
during their lives; and after their death, Laudate Dominum; and every
Saturday, in St. Peter’s church, thirty psalms, and a mass for them
whether alive or dead. Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd proclaim, that they have
thus granted with good-will to God and St. Peter, under witness of
Ælfred the king and all the _witan_ in Mercia; excepting that the
wain-shilling and load-penny[812] are to go to the king’s hand, as they
always did, from Saltwíc: but as for everything else, as
_landfeoh_[813], _fihtwite_, _stalu_, _wohceápung_, and all the customs
from which any fine may arise, let the lord of the church have half of
it, for God’s sake and St. Peter’s, as it was arranged about the market
and the streets; and without the marketplace, let the bishop enjoy his
rights, as of old our predecessors decreed and privileged. And Æðelrǽd
and Æðelflǽd did this by witness of Ælfred the king, and by witness of
those witan of the Mercians whose names stand written hereafter; and in
the name of God Almighty they abjure all their successors never to
diminish these alms which they have granted to the church for God’s love
and St. Peter’s!”
-----
Footnote 812:
There can be no doubt that Wǽnscilling, written erroneously in the MS.
þægnsilling, is what is meant by _statio_ et _inoneratio plaustrorum_
in another charter. Cod. Dipl. No. 1066. It is custom or toll upon the
standing and loading of the salt-waggons. See p. 71 of this volume.
Footnote 813:
_Landfeoh_, land-fee, probably a recognitory rent for land held under
the burh or city. _Fihtwíte_, fine for brawling in the city. _Stalu_,
fine or mulct for theft. _Wohceápung_, fine for buying or selling
contrary to the rules of the market.
-----
A valuable instrument is this, and one which supplies matter for
reflection in various ways. The royalties conveyed are however alone
what must occupy our attention here. These are, a land-tax, paid no
doubt from every hide which belonged to the jurisdiction of the
burhgeréfa, and which was thus probably levied beyond the city walls, in
small outlying hamlets and villages, which were not included in any
territorial hundred, but did suit and service to the burhmót. And next
we find the lord in possession of what we should now call the police,
inflicting fines for breaches of the peace, theft, and contravention of
the regulations laid down for the conduct of the market. And this market
in Worcester was not the people’s, but the king’s, seeing that not only
are the bishop’s rights, beyond its limits, carefully distinguished, but
that Æðelred grants half the customs within it, that is, half the tolls
and taxes, to the bishop. In this way was an authority established
concurrent with the king’s or duke’s, and exercised no doubt by the
biscopes geréfa, as the royal right was by the cyninges or ealdormannes
burhgeréfa. Nor were its results unfavourable to the prosperity of the
city: there is evidence on the contrary that in process of time, the
people and their bishop came to a very good understanding, and that the
Metropolis of the West grew to be a wealthy, powerful and flourishing
place: so much so that, when in the year 1041 Hardacnut attempted to
levy some illegal or unpopular tax, the citizens resisted, put the royal
commissioners to death, and assumed so determined an attitude of
rebellion, that a large force of _Húscarlas_ and _Hereban_, under the
principal military chiefs of England, was found necessary to reduce
them. Florence of Worcester, who relates the occurrence in detail[814],
says that the city was burnt and plundered. From his narrative it seems
not improbable that the whole outbreak was connected with the removal of
a popular bishop from his see in the preceding year.
-----
Footnote 814:
1041. “Hoc anno rex Anglorum Hardecanutus suos huscarlas misit per
omnes regni sui provincias ad exigendum quod indixerat tributum. Ex
quibus duos, Feader scilicet et Turstan, Wigornenses provinciales cum
civibus, seditione exorta, in cuiusdam turris Wigornensis monasterii
solario, quo celandi causa confugerant, quarto Nonas Maii, feria
secunda peremerunt. Unde rex ira commotus, ob ultionem necis illorum,
Thurum Mediterraneorum, Leofricum Merciorum, Godwinum Westsaxonum,
Siwardum Northimbrorum, Ronum Magesetensium, et caeteros totius
Angliae comites, omnesque ferme suos huscarlas, cum magno exercitu ...
illo misit; mandans ut omnes viros, si possint, occiderent, civitatem
depraedatam incenderent, totamque provinciam devastarent. Qui, die
veniente secundo Iduum Novembrium, et civitatem et provinciam
devastare coeperunt, idque per quatuor dies agere non cessaverunt: sed
paucos vel e civibus vel provincialibus ceperunt aut occiderunt, quia
praecognito adventu eorum, provinciales quoque locorum fugerant.
Civium vero multitudo in quandam modicam insulam, in medio Sabrinae
fluminis sitam, quae Beverege nuncupatur, confugerant; et munitione
facta, tam diu se viriliter adversus suos inimicos defenderunt, quoad
pace recuperata, libere domum licuerit eis redire. Quinta igitur die,
civitate cremata, unusquisque magna cum praeda rediit in sua; et regis
statim quievit ira.” Flor. Wig. 1041.
-----
There is another important document of nearly the same period as the
grant to Werfrið, by which Eádweard the son of Ælfred gave all the royal
rights of jurisdiction in Taunton to the see of Winchester[815]. He
freed the land from every burthen, except the universal three, whether
they were royal, fiscal, comitial or other secular taxations: he granted
that all the bishop’s men, noble or ignoble, resiant upon the aforesaid
land, should have every privilege and right which was enjoyed by the
king’s men, resiant in his royal fiscs[816], and that all secular
jurisdiction should be administered for the bishop’s benefit, as fully
as it was elsewhere executed for the king’s. Moreover he attached for
ever to Winchester the market-tolls (“villae mercimonium, quod anglice
ðæs túnes cýping adpellatur”), together with every civic _census_, tax
or payment. Whatsoever had heretofore been the king’s was henceforth to
belong to the bishop of Winchester. And that these were valuable rights,
producing a considerable income, must be concluded from the large
estates which bishop Denewulf and his chapter thought it advisable to
give the king in exchange, and which comprised no less than sixty hides
of land in several parcels. The bishops, it is to be presumed,
henceforth governed Taunton by their own geréfa, to whom the grant
itself must be construed to have conveyed plenary jurisdiction, that is
the _blut-ban_ or _ius gladii_, the supreme criminal as well as civil
justice.
-----
Footnote 815:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. Anno 904.
Footnote 816:
Lands held immediately of the king, and administered by his own
officers. People resident about the royal vills.
-----
These examples will suffice to show in what manner seigneurial rights
grew up in certain towns, and how they were exercised. From the account
thus given we may also see the difference which existed between such a
city and one founded originally upon a system of free gylds. These
associations placed the men of London in a position to maintain their
own rights both against king and bishop, and indeed it is evident from
the ‘Judicia Civitatis’ itself, that the bishops united with the
citizens in the establishment of their free communa under Æðelstán. We
are not very clearly informed what was the earliest mode of government
in London; but, from a law of Hloðhære, it is probable that it was
presided over by a royal reeve, in the seventh century. The sixteenth
chapter of that prince’s law provides that, when a man of Kent makes any
purchase in Lundenwíc, he is to have the testimony of two or three
credible men, or of the king’s wícgeréfa[817]. In the ninth century,
when Kent and its confederation had passed into the hands of the royal
family of the Gewissas, London may possibly have vindicated some portion
of independence. It had previously lain within the nominal limits at
least of the Mercian authority[818]: but the victories of Ecgberht and
the subsequent invasions of the Northmen destroyed the Mercian power,
and in all likelihood left the city to provide for itself and its own
freedom. We know that it suffered severely in those invasions, but we
have slight record of any attempt to relieve it from their assaults,
which might imply an interest in its welfare, on the part of any
particular power. In the year 886 however, we learn, Ælfred, victorious
on every point, turned his attention to London, whose fortifications he
rebuilt, and which he re-annexed to Mercia, now constituted as a duchy
under Æðelred[819]. On the death of this prince, Eádweard seized Oxford
and London into his own hands, and it is reasonable to suppose that he
governed these cities by burhgeréfan of his own[820]. But very shortly
after we find the important document, which I have already mentioned,
the so-called ‘Judicia Civitatis,’ or Dooms of London, which proves
clearly enough the elasticity of a great trading community, the
readiness with which a city like London could recover its strength, and
the vigour with which its mixed population could carry out their plans
of self-government and independent existence. Henceforward we find the
citizens for the most part under portgeréfan or portreeves of their
own[821], to whom the royal writs are directed, as in counties they are
to the sheriffs. We must not however suppose that at this early period
constitutional rights were so perfectly settled as to be beyond the
possibility of infringement. Circumstances, whose record now escapes us,
may sometimes have occurred which abridged the franchise of particular
cities: we cannot conclude that the Portgeréfa was always freely elected
by the citizens; for in some places we hear of “royal” portreeves[822],
from which it may be argued either that the king had made the
appointment by his own authority, or, what is far from improbable, that
he had concurred with the citizens in the election. Moreover the
direction of writs to noblemen of high rank, even in London, seems to
imply that, on some occasions, either the king had succeeded in seizing
the liberties of the city into his own hand, or that the elected
officers were sometimes taken from the class of powerful ministerials,
having high rank and station in the royal household[823]. Where there
existed clubs or gylds of the free citizens, we may also believe that
similar associations were established by the lords and their dependents,
either as a means of balancing the popular power, or at least of sharing
in the benefits of an association which secured the rights and position
of the free men; and thus, the same document which reveals to us the
existence of the “Ingang burhware” or “burghers’ club” of Canterbury,
tells us also of the “Cnihta gyld,” or “Sodality of young nobles” in the
same city[824].
-----
Footnote 817:
Leg. Hloð. § 16. Thorpe, i. 34.
Footnote 818:
Asser considers London to belong locally to Essex: he states that the
Danes plundered it in 851. Vit. Ælfr. _in anno_. Berhtwulf of Mercia
made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve it; so that it must be
considered to have been a Mercian town at that period. Later it seems
to have been left to itself, till Ælfred restored it in 886.
Footnote 819:
“Gesette Ælfred cyning Lundenburg ... and he ða befæste ða burg
Æðerede aldormen tó healdanne.” Chron. Sax. an. 880. “Eodem anno
Ælfred, Angulsaxonum rex, post incendia urbium, stragesque populorum,
Londoniam civitatem honorifice restauravit, et habitabilem fecit: quam
generi suo Æðeredo, Merciorum comiti, commendavit servandam.” Asser,
Vit. Ælf. an. 886. In 880 the Danes wintered at Fulham, and may then
have ruined London, if they had not done so before.
Footnote 820:
Chron. Sax. an. 912.
Footnote 821:
Swétman, portgeréfa. Cod. Dipl. No. 857. Ælfsige, ibid. Nos. 858, 861.
Ulf. ibid. No. 872. The first mayor of London was elected probably in
1187. See Lib. de Ant. Legib. p. 1 _seq._
Footnote 822:
“Cyninges geréfa binnan port,” the king’s reeve within the city. Leg.
Æðelst. iii. § 7; iv. § 3. Canterbury appears to have had both a
cyninges geréfa and a portgeréfa. The signatures of both these
officers are appended to the same instrument. Cod. Dipl. No. 789.
Footnote 823:
The document De Institutis Londoniae, which is considered to date from
the time of Æðelræd, that is the commencement of the eleventh century,
gives the fine for burhbryce to the king; and inflicts a further bót
of thirty shillings, for the benefit of the city, if the king will
grant it, “si rex hoc concedat nobis.” Inst. Lond. § 4. Thorpe, i.
301.
Footnote 824:
Cod. Dipl. No. 293.
-----
Two points necessarily arrest our attention in considering the case of
every city; the first of these is the internal organization, on which
the freedom of the inhabitants itself depends: the second is the
relation the city stands in to the public law, that is to say, its
particular position toward the state. The Anglosaxon laws do contain a
few provisions destined to regulate the intercourse between the
townspeople and the country: for example we may refer to the laws which
regulate the number of mints allowed to each city. In the tenth century
it was settled that each burh might have one,—and from this very fact it
is clear that “burh” was then a legal term having a fixed and definite
meaning,—while a few cities were favoured with a larger number. The
names of the places so distinguished are preserved, and from the
regulations affecting them in this respect we may form a conclusion as
to their comparative importance. Under Æðelstân we find the following
arrangement:—At Canterbury were to be seven moneyers; four for the king,
two for the bishop, one for the abbot. At Rochester three; two for the
king, one for the bishop. At London eight. At Winchester six. At Lewes,
Hampton, Wareham, Exeter and Shaftsbury, two moneyers to each town. At
Hastings, Chichester, and at the other burhs, one to each town[825].
-----
Footnote 825:
Leg. Æðelst. i. § 14. Thorpe, i. 206.
-----
It is right to observe that all these places are in Æðelstán’s peculiar
kingdom, south of the Thames, and that his legislation takes no notice
of the Mercian, Eastanglian or Northumbrian territories. But half a
century later, it was ordered that no man should have a mint save the
king, and that any person who wrought money without the precincts of a
burh, should be liable to the penalties of forgery. The inconvenience of
this was however too great, and by the ‘Instituta Londoniae,’ each
principal city (“summus portus”) was permitted to have three, and every
other burh one moneyer[826].
-----
Footnote 826:
Leg. Æðelr. iii. § 8, 16; iv. § 5, 9. Thorpe, i. 296, 298, 301, 303.
-----
Again, the difficulty of guarding against theft, especially in respect
to cattle, the universal vice of a semi-civilized people,—led to more
than one attempt to prohibit all buying and selling except in towns; and
this of itself seems to imply that they were numerously distributed over
the face of the country. But this provision, however beneficial to the
lords of such towns, was too contrary to the general convenience, and
seems to have been soon relinquished as impracticable. The enactments on
the subject appear to have been abrogated almost as soon as made[827]:
but the machinery by which it was proposed to carry their provisions
into effect are of considerable interest. In each burh, according to its
size, a certain number of the townspeople were to be elected, who might
act as witnesses in every case of bargain and sale,—whom both parties on
occasion would be bound to call to warranty, and whose decision or
_veredictum_ in the premises would be final. It was intended that in
every larger burh (“summus portus”) there should be thirty-three such
elective officers, and in every hundred twelve or more, by whose witness
every bargain was to be sanctioned, whether in a burh or a wapentake.
They were to be bound by oath to the faithful discharge of their duty.
The law of Eádgár says: “Let every one of them, on his first election as
a witness, take an oath that, neither for profit, nor fear, nor favour,
will he ever deny that which he did witness, nor affirm aught but what
he did see and hear. And let there be two or three such sworn men as
witnesses to every bargain[828].”
-----
Footnote 827:
Leg. Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 12, 13; iii. § 2; v. § 10. Thorpe, i.
158, 206, 218, 240.
Footnote 828:
Leg. Eádgár. Supp. § 3, 4, 5. Thorpe, i. 274.
-----
The words of this law seem to imply that the appointment was to be a
permanent one; and it is only natural to suppose that these “geǽðedan
men,” _jurati_, or jurors, would become by degrees a settled urban
magistracy. We see in them the germ of a municipal institution, a sworn
corporation, assessors in some degree of the geréfa or the later
mayor[829]. They were evidently the “boni et legales homines,” the
“testes credibiles,” “ða gódan men,” “dohtigan men,” and so forth, of
various documents, the “Scabini,” “Schoppen” or “Echevins,” so familiar
to us in the history of mediæval towns, which had any pretensions to
freedom. They necessarily constituted a magistracy, and gradually became
the centre round which the rights and privileges of the municipality
clustered.
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Footnote 829:
“Hoc anno [A.D. 1200] fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis,
et iurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.” Lib. de Antiq.
Legib. _in anno_.
-----
It is to be regretted that we have so little record of the internal
organization of these municipal bodies, which must nevertheless have
existed during the flourishing period of the Anglosaxon rule. Of
Ealdormen in the towns, and in our modern sense, there naturally is, and
could be, no trace: that dignity was very different from anything like
the geréfscipe of a city, however wealthy and influential this might be:
but the ‘Instituta Londoniae’ mention one or two subordinate officers:
in these, beside the Portgeréfa, Burhgeréfa or Wícgeréfa,—names which
all appear to denote one officer, the “praepositus civitatis,”—we are
told of a Túngeréfa, who had a right to enquire into the payment of the
customs[830]; and also of a Caccepol, catch-poll or beadle, who appears
to have been the collector[831].
-----
Footnote 830:
Inst. Lond. § 3. Thorpe, i. 301.
Footnote 831:
Ibid.
-----
The archæologist, not less than the historian, has reason to lament
that no remains from the past survive to teach us the local
distribution of an Anglosaxon town. Yet some few hints are
nevertheless supplied which enable us to form a faint image of what it
may have been. It is probable that the different trades occupied
different portions of the area, which portions were named from the
occupations of their inhabitants. In the middle ages these several
parts of the city were often fortified and served as strongholds,
behind whose defences, or sallying forth from which, the crafts fought
the battle of democracy against the burgesses or the neighbouring
lords. We have evidence that streets, which afterwards did, and do
yet, bear the names of particular trades or occupations, were equally
so designated before the Norman conquest, in several of our English
towns. It is thus only that we can account for such names as
Fellmonger, Horsemonger and Fleshmonger, Shoewright and Shieldwright,
Tanner and Salter Streets, and the like, which have long ceased to be
exclusively tenanted by the industrious pursuers of those several
avocations. Let us place a cathedral and a guildhall with its belfry
in the midst of these, surround them with a circuit of walls and
gates, and add to them the common names of North, South, East and
West, or Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate and Westgate Streets,—here and
there let us fix the market and its cross, the dwellings of the bishop
and his clergy, the houses of the queen and perhaps the courtiers, of
the principal administrative officers and of the leading
burghers[832],—above all, let us build a stately fortress, to overawe
or to defend the place, to be the residence of the geréfa and his
garrison, and the site of the courts of justice,—and we shall have at
least a plausible representation of a principal Anglosaxon city. Much
as it is to be regretted that we now possess no ancient maps or plans
which would have thrown a valuable light upon this subject, yet the
guidance here and there supplied by the names of the streets
themselves, and the foundations of ancient buildings yet to be traced
in them, coupled with fragmentary notices in the chroniclers, do
sometimes enable us to catch glimpses as it were of this history of
the past. The giant march of commercial prosperity has crumbled into
dust almost every trace of what our brave and good forefathers looked
upon with pardonable pride: but the principles which animated them,
still in a great degree regulate the lives of us their descendants;
and if we exult in the conviction that our free municipal institutions
are the safeguard of some of our most cherished liberties, let us
remember those to whom we owe them, and study to transmit unimpaired
to our posterity an inheritance which we have derived from so remote
an ancestry.
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Footnote 832:
The not unfrequent occurrence of such names as Kinggate, Queengate and
Bishopgate Street, imply something of this kind: for we cannot suppose
such names to have been assigned capriciously or without sufficient
cause. It is likely that the streets so called led to the dwellings
and were literally the property of the several parties: that is, that
offences committed upon them belonged to the several jurisdictions.
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