CONFEDERATION
THE fact that the English burghers took so impatiently the one
hindrance that lay in their path to independence and supremacy is
itself a proof of the habit of prosperity and success which they
were accustomed to accept as part of their natural heritage in the
pleasant place where their lot had fallen. How little they had at
any time to reckon with opposition is obvious from the striking fact
that they never found themselves compelled to form any kind of union
or alliance for common purposes. Here the story of English boroughs
is in vivid contrast to that of the continental towns. The powerful
confederations formed in European countries by towns battling against
tremendous odds to protect their commerce, liberty, and law, had no
parallel among the comparatively peaceful and regular conditions of
English life, where self-government was so easily attained, and where
trade was so generally secure, that the necessity never arose for the
creation of any such associations. Towns on the royal demesne stood
in no need of any combined effort to defend their freedom; and the
towns on ecclesiastical lands or feudal estates that had grievances
to complain of were few, scattered, and subject to so many different
lords that combination among them would have been wholly impossible.
Organized common action was therefore practically unknown among the
English boroughs; for the loose tie of affiliation which bound together
communities of which one had adopted the charter and copied the customs
of another was a bond so slight as to be scarcely recognized,[722] and
implied no mutual obligations whatever. In moments of excited strife or
rapid constitutional growth a borough might undoubtedly become fired by
the example of a near neighbour, or catch the contagion which spread
from some community more advanced in its experiments and daring in its
pretensions; but these movements of sympathy, of voluntary affiliation,
of emulation, never resulted in any kind of federation or alliance.
For the developement of its liberties each borough was ultimately left
to depend only on its own resources; while such societies as were
constituted in later days in England for trading purposes took the form
of federations of men not of towns.[723]
There was but one exception to this general rule, and in the
Confederation of the Cinque Ports we have the single illustration in
England of an association of towns created and maintained for common
interests. From Seaford in Sussex to Brightlingsea in Essex ports and
villages were bound together into one society. To the original group
of the Five Ports—Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe, whose
alliance probably reaches back to the time when the English learned war
and commerce from Danish masters—the two Ancient Towns, Winchelsea and
Rye, had been added immediately after the Norman Conquest; and what
with the desire of these seven to divide their burdens of taxation and
war charges with the neighbouring villages, and the readiness of the
villages on their side to seek admission to the Port privileges,[724]
an association had in course of time been evolved consisting of
seven head Ports with eight corporate and twenty-four non-corporate
members,[725] all gathered under the rule of the Lord Warden. To the
last they bore traces of foreign influences in the name of Jurats by
which they called their “portmen,” and of Barons which they gave to
their “freemen.” But amid the curious vicissitudes of their history,
and the odd incidents of their ownership in times when it seemed
natural and simple to grant away the very frontier defences of England
to Norman counts and Breton dukes and abbots of Fécamp and monks of
Canterbury,[726] and in later days after English kings had realised the
advantages of themselves owning the main gates by which their country
opened on the European world,[727] these communities remained firmly
united under their federal government.[728] The King’s writ did not
run in the Ports unless it bore the seal of the Lord Warden. Exempt
by charter from serving on juries, assizes, or recognizances outside
their own territory,[729] the freemen could be impleaded only in their
own courts.[730] No prisoner from the Ports could be summoned by the
Judges to Westminster, and in the case of an express order from the
King “some demur should be made to the first mandate till it be known
with certainty it is his pleasure,”[731] while on the other hand any
stranger who committed a crime within their liberties might be claimed
by the mayor and jurats from any lordship in the realm, even from
the King himself.[732] They had even, after a fight which lasted for
generations, successfully resisted all attempts to bring their local
jurisdiction within the general judicial system of the kingdom, and
the Justices Itinerant were shut out from crossing their boundaries
or sitting at their Court of Shepway.[733] Ancient privileges were
jealously guarded. “New Acts of Parliament,” they said, “ought not
to alter the free customs.”[734] No deodand was given to the Crown
“because it never was the custom here.”[735] If an ecclesiastical
officer came from Canterbury to make an inventory of the goods of
a Sandwich man who had died without a will, he was not allowed to
act because it was contrary to the ancient customs and liberties of
the town.[736] Their corporate dignity was officially recognized on
great occasions of State, such as the coronation of a King or the
consecration of an Archbishop, when the envoys of the Cinque Ports were
treated with special honour and sat at the right hand table in the
hall; and each of the Ports in turn sent representatives to carry the
canopy over the newly-crowned King, and after the ceremony to bear it
back with its silk hangings, its spears, and its silver bells, as the
town’s spoils.[737]
As to the idea or principle which held this society of towns together
and the purpose which it was meant to serve, the definition given by
a minister of the Crown would probably have been very different from
that given by a baron of the Ports. To a statesman the confederation of
the Cinque Ports was organized in the interests of the whole country,
and maintained as the bulwark of national safety; and the policy of
West Saxon rulers, of Danish conquerors, of Norman kings, of Angevin
statesmen, had all alike aimed at the increasing of its public utility.
Holding their posts in the first line of defence against invasion, the
Cinque Port towns were bound to keep a sufficient number of men within
their walls for defence against the enemy, and watch that inhabitants
were not driven away by the imposition of undue local taxes; they
had to bear heavy costs for ordnance, ammunition, fortifications; to
set a nightly watch in every borough and at every dangerous creek or
harbour; to have armed forces ready to meet the first brunt of attack,
while their citizens might expect in time of war to see their houses
sacked and burned again and again. They had to provide every year
fifty-seven ships and 1,197 men with provisions for the defence of the
kingdom,[738] and if these were not enough in number or in size greater
ones and more were required of them. If they hesitated to comply with
such demands, or if they were shown not to have held firm against the
invader, they were roughly reminded of the bargain on the terms of
which alone all their privileges were held, and saw their charters and
franchises seized into the King’s hand.[739]
This view of the organization of the Cinque Ports for the public
service was visibly represented in the rule of the King’s officer, the
Lord Warden of the Ports and Constable of Dover Castle. His authority
the men of the Cinque Ports were never for a moment allowed to forget;
and the Lieutenant of Dover or his messengers, continually riding round
the Ports with message or proclamation or to “make inquisition,”[740]
were everywhere helped on their way by dinners, breakfasts, pipes of
wine, or a play at the public expense. From Dover came proclamations
“warning us of the Danes”; ordering “that no man should quarrel with
other for none old sores”; commanding “to arrest the men who came
from beyond sea without leave and without billets”; or to seize ships
for crossing over to Flanders; calling out vessels “to watch the
sea”; or to serve the King in siege or battle during the French war;
summoning men “to keep the Castle of Dover”; or decreeing the amount
of benevolences to be paid to the King.[741] The subjection of the
whole confederation to his rule was publicly recognized every year
in the Court of Shepway, when at his summons there came from every
port the mayor and a little group of jurats carrying with them the
required gifts and dues, wine and swans and fish and spices to furnish
breakfast for officials and suitors at the court; or costly offerings
to soften the hearts of wardens and judges, and induce them on their
first entering into office to look favourably on their subjects. Before
them as they sat on either side of the Warden on the open plain near
Lympne[742] proclamation was made as to the taxes to be raised by the
confederation, the special military services required of the freemen,
or the new decrees issued by the Government; and special offences
against the Crown were judged. A whole community might be charged with
a breach of the King’s peace,[743] or an aggrieved corporation made
application that officers of the Ports should be sent to help in the
arrest and punishment of some stranger who had committed a crime in
their town; and prisoners from the various towns accused of coining
false money, treason, or counterfeiting the King’s seal,[744] were
tried, and if found guilty were forthwith tied on a sledge, drawn round
the circuit of Shepway, and hanged on the spot.[745]
Nor did the authority of the Warden end at Shepway. As Constable of
the Castle he had his court-martial in Dover.[746] As Admiral he could
order a “quest of the Admiralty” to be held on the sea-shore, or
perhaps at some one of the Ports which had offended against the laws of
the confederation—a calamity which the town at once sought to avert
by negociations and bribes “that he should not hold the court.” As
Chancellor he issued precepts and summonses as to the services to be
performed by the Ports in return for their privileges, and exercised in
his court of chancery the complicated jurisdiction that gradually arose
out of these records. There were moments when the King was stirred to
a recollection of his sovereignty—moments when the towns had pushed
independence too far, or when the treasure in the royal coffers had
fallen low; then from Westminster a writ of enquiry would come as to
the privileges of the Ports, delegates were summoned from the various
towns to appear before the Warden, and might find themselves kept
many days and nights at Dover[747] while “inquisition was made for
the King.” Sometimes they were ordered to assemble on the sea-shore.
Sometimes the Warden came down the steep path of the castle hill to
the tiny church of S. James, set in the first little reach of level
ground below the walls of the fortification, and there the jurats came
up to meet him from their lodgings in the town below, and after days of
discussion probably returned home with heavy news of fines to be levied
for buying a new charter, or for getting the confirmation of some
doubtful privilege.
In the authority of the Warden we see the view held at Westminster
about the uses of the Cinque Ports and the main object of their
existence. To the people on the other hand the association had another
and wholly different character. So completely was all the business
of the Warden’s court at Shepway looked on by the portsmen as the
King’s affair, and so slight was their sense of participation in it,
that they presently gave up attending it altogether, leaving the
Warden at last to preside in solitary state. In course of time even
the ancient site was abandoned, and instead of the annual assembly at
Shepway the president only summoned an occasional court of appeal to
be held at Dover,[748] and there, surrounded by a group of lawyers
to advise him, sat on the chalk cliff fronting the castle to hear
certain cases immediately touching the King’s interest.[749] Meanwhile
the barons of the Ports had their own tradition of independence and
self-government; and the popular belief as to the object and meaning of
the confederation was embodied in another court which sat on the Broad
Hill, near Romney—a court where the Lord Warden had no seat.[750] It
was there that the whole interest of the people centred, as turning
their backs on the King’s courts and leaving him to conduct through
the Lord Warden the matters which were his peculiar business, they
occupied themselves with the management of their own special affairs.
For to the fisherman of the coast the confederation of the villages
was in its origin and working simply a great trading company of the
Ports for the protection of their staple business, the herring fishery,
and for the preservation of their ancient customs of harbourage and
sale on the strand at the mouth of the Yare—a matter which became
of absorbing importance when their monopoly was threatened by the
fishermen of Yarmouth, so that from the time of John onwards they could
only preserve their interests by ceaseless vigilance and by costly
appeals to King and Parliament, and Council.[751] In the eyes of the
barons therefore the great assembly of the confederation was that which
yearly met to discuss the business of the Yarmouth fair. And this was
in the strictest sense a court of the people themselves, summoned only
by common consent,[752] presided over by the chief magistrate of each
Port in turn, and in which every town was represented by its mayor
or bailiff, three elected jurats, and three commons. The sheltered
harbour of Romney formed a sort of natural centre of the Ports, and the
delegates met for business on the Broad Hill or Bromhille of Dymchurch
close by, whence they possibly took the name of Brodhull, a name which
in later days when the first site was forsaken and forgotten and the
delegates met in Romney itself, became changed into “Brothyrhill” or
Brotherhood.[753]
On the first day of meeting the business, as befitted an association
for trading purposes which dated back to the time when the herring
fishery was the staple trade of the Ports, was invariably the Yarmouth
fair, and the court heard the report of the bailiffs of the last fair
who stood bare-headed before them, and elected their successors who
were to govern the coming fair.[754] But other interests had grown up
round the assembly hill. The seafaring population, masters and mariners
of trading barges, saw in the union of Ports the power which regulated
the relations of seamen on either side of the Channel. To the taxpayers
it was a voluntary association for the equitable adjustment of their
burdens. And all the inhabitants alike recognized its importance for
maintaining against lords of other franchises the privileges which had
been granted them in return for their services.[755]
On the great day when the Yarmouth fair was under discussion the
Court of Brotherhood sat alone; but on the following days when other
work was to be done—the distribution between the various towns of
the taxation[756] ordered at Shepway, the discussion of commercial
relations,[757] the care of the common corporate privileges of the
confederation[758]—the Court of Brotherhood was joined by the Court
of Guestling, probably a descendant of the ancient Hundred Court once
held in the old town of Gestlinges near the border-line of Kent and
Sussex.[759] To this court each town might send the mayor, two jurats,
and two commoners; so that if all the delegates came the number of
the united assemblies would be seventy-seven; as a matter of fact
however in the time of Henry the Sixth the business was done by about
thirty members.[760] All the important affairs of the Cinque Ports
practically lay in their hands, and their decisions, registered as Acts
of the Brodhull by the Common Clerk of the Cinque Ports,[761] became
the law of the whole confederation.
Constantly reminded of their ancient covenant and confederation by
imminent perils, arduous exertions and recurring taxes, trained to
habits of vigilance and mutual support, the Cinque Ports kept a jealous
watch against the slightest infraction of the privileges of their
united body. But there was one matter with which the confederation had
nothing whatever to do. Subject to a variety of jurisdictions, some of
them depending on the King, some on the Archbishop, some on a bigger
neighbouring town, the special liberties of each borough had been
developed under very different conditions; and the whole association
took no heed of the defence of the liberties of any single Port against
its lord, or the enlargement of the privileges of any one member of
their society as apart from the whole.[762] The corporate existence of
the united Cinque Ports was a thing altogether apart from the corporate
existence of each town within it; and indeed combination for any
purpose of securing local liberties would have been out of the question
in a confederacy where a certain outward uniformity was but the screen
of endless diversity, and towns bound together by special duties and
privileges were widely separated from one another in all the conditions
of government.[763] This is very evident if we compare the situation of
Sandwich and Romney—much more so if we consider the position of any of
the subordinate members of the Ports.
I. For many centuries Sandwich belonged to the monks of Christ Church,
Canterbury, and so long as it was a humble little port powerful kings
like Eadgar, Cnut, Henry the First, and Henry the Second had been
content to have it so, and with indifferent acquiescence confirmed the
monastic rights over the town. But when in the course of time Sandwich
became the port through which almost the whole of the continental trade
with England passed, when its commerce and revenue increased till
it stood far before Dover in importance,[764] when it was the chief
harbour from which monarchs or their ambassadors set sail for France,
or from which armies were sent forth in time of war, the King began to
look more seriously on the powers exercised over it by the convent. An
inquest ordered by the Crown in 1227 reported in favour of the rights
of Christ Church over Sandwich, but by judicious bargaining matters
were finally arranged to the royal satisfaction. At the price of a
grant of lands in Kent Edward the First bought the town, and though the
monks were still allowed certain lands and houses free from municipal
charges, and continued to receive large sums from the wharf which was
known as Monkenkey with its crane for loading and unloading ships,[765]
and from the warehouses enclosing it, they had to abandon their powers
of taxing at discretion all passengers and goods which crossed the
bounds of their territory.[766]
The Sandwich people had elected their own mayor since the beginning of
the thirteenth century; while the royal interests were now looked after
by a bailiff appointed by the King.[767] The townsmen however kept a
jealous watch over their own prerogatives. When in 1321 Christ Church
obtained a royal writ to protect their property from the town taxes the
mayor and community refused to accept it because it had been issued
to the King’s bailiff, and the convent had to get a new writ.[768]
The bailiff’s powers were carefully defined and kept in strict
subordination to those of the mayor. He collected the King’s dues
on goods brought into the town;[769] and it was he who summoned the
Hundred Court every three weeks to meet in S. Clement’s church for view
of frankpledge, for pleas of land, questions of trespass, covenant,
debt, battery, bloodshed, and so on;[770] but he could not hold the
court without the mayor’s leave, nor issue the summonses without the
mayor’s orders.[771] The mayor for his part, if he was elected in S.
Clement’s, the church where the courts of the King were held, had his
seat of government in S. Peter’s, a church that stood in the very
centre of the town near the Market-place and Common Hall, and in whose
tower the “Brande goose bell” hung which summoned jurats and council
men to the Common Assembly, and rang out the hours for the market. He
gathered the Town Council for business to S. Peter’s, and in S. Peter’s
he sat every Thursday, and if business required it on other days, to
judge the people.[772] Though the bailiff sat by his side and took part
in the business of the court, yet for offences against the corporation
the mayor and jurats might punish the freemen “without consulting the
bailiff or any one else.”[773] To them belonged the entire regulation
of trade and the management of weights and measures, for “the bailiff
has nothing to do with this business.” In no case was he allowed to
interfere with the town market; “that business belongs wholly to the
mayor and jurats,” the town customs declared.[774]
II. Sandwich in fact after it had passed to the Crown enjoyed the full
freedom common to the royal boroughs. Bound only by allegiance to the
general law of the Cinque Ports it long maintained, as we shall see
later, a real independence of local life and a vigorous democratic
temper. But in Romney, in the very port where the general assembly of
the Cinque Ports held its deliberations, the conditions were wholly
different. For a moment Romney like other towns enjoyed its share
of profits in the growing trade of the country.[775] The vintners
engaged in the wine trade rose from ten in 1340 to forty-eight who
headed the list of taxpayers in 1394; a new ward was called after its
cloth-dealer Hollyngbroke;[776] and merchants from Prussia, Holland,
Spain, and Flanders, citizens of Bristol and of London, men from York
and from Dorset gathered within its walls. But a doom was already on
the town. As early as 1381 it had begun its vain struggle against winds
and tides which silted up its port, destroyed its river channel, and
forced the Rother into a new bed. Dutch and Flemish engineers had been
called over to make scientific sluices and barriers, and the whole
population had been summoned out to dig a water-course, but in spite of
incessant efforts the men of Romney saw their trade driven into other
ports.[777] The forty-eight vintners of 1394 had sunk to forty-four
in 1415, to five in 1431, and to one in 1449.[778] The burghers were
being steadily ruined, and the story of their decay remains registered
in the long lists of citizens who pledged their goods for debt, giving
in promise of payment saddles, cups, table-cloths, helmets, cloths,
which were delivered by the creditor into the hands of the bailiff for
keeping in the Common Hall “according to custom,” and when the day of
payment had passed were appraised by bailiff and jurats, often at half
or a quarter of the value at which they had been first declared, and
handed over to the creditor.[779]
Through good and evil fortune moreover Romney had to maintain a
constant struggle for freedom. The Archbishop of Canterbury was lord
of the manor, and appointed, subject to the ratification of the Lord
Warden, the bailiff of the town,[780] choosing if it seemed good to
him one of his own servants or squires, and by a curious exception
from the general law having liberty to select a publican.[781] The
bailiff fixed the days for holding the market. He gathered in the
Archbishop’s dues, made sure that his share of any wax, or wine, or
goods cast on the shore from wrecks was handed over, and that the
jurats collected in proper time the capons and swans and cygnets which
had to be sent to him, or that a porpoise taken by the fishermen should
be duly despatched to the lord. The common horn sounded twice at the
market-place and at the cross to summon the people to his court.
The question of government and of the bailiff’s position was however
always in debate. The “best men of the town” rode to Archbishop
Courtenay “to know his will and what he proposed to do against their
liberties”; and for the following century the Romney men were always
on the watch, and heavily taxed in gifts and bribes “to protect the
liberty of the town that the said lord might not usurp it.”[782]
The bailiff’s power indeed was strictly limited. So far as the
administration of justice went he was absolutely controlled by the
twelve jurats who were yearly elected “for to keep and govern the port
and town;”[783] and “in case the bailiff do other execution than the
sworn men have judged against the usage of the town” they might fine
him £10 to the commons.[784] But this was not enough. In 1395 the
jurats made suit to the Lord Archbishop to “put his bailiwick into the
hands of the community of Romney at ferm,”[785] and for the century
which followed they were always seeking for some means of gaining
complete control of the government. For lack of better security a
simple expedient was discovered. The townspeople allowed a custom to
grow up that the Archbishop should not be expected to appoint a new
officer every year, but that whoever was sent to the town should be
understood to hold his post permanently. When in 1521 the prelate
complained that the jurats would not let his bailiff enter Romney[786]
they answered that when there was no bailiff in the town the Archbishop
might send a new one, but that the accustomed bailiff who had been
admitted seven or eight years ago was still living and was “of good
name and fame,” and so the place was not void; moreover, they said,
a bailiff must make his appearance with certain formalities and “be
of good opinion,” but this new man had not been sent with the proper
forms. The fixity of tenure[787] which the townsfolk thus raised to the
dignity of a “customary” right was a real guarantee that the bailiff
should no longer be a mere dependent holding his post at the pleasure
of a distant master, trembling under the apprehension of hazarding his
employment by preferring the interests of the commonalty to those of
his lord, and only intent on heaping up treasure against the day when
his credit and employment should come to an end. He became more and
more identified with the townsfolk among whom he lived, and on whose
approval he was made dependent by their contention that he should hold
office so long as he was, in their opinion, “of good name and fame.”
But the burghers were still dissatisfied with so precarious a tenure
of independence. There was a proposal which came to nothing to unite
the bailiff and jurats of the town with the bailiff and jurats of the
marsh; but in 1484 the people profited by the troubles of Richard’s
reign to plan a thoroughgoing revolution.[788] They set up a mayor for
themselves, and sent to have a silver mace made at Canterbury under the
very walls of the Cathedral precincts. The Archbishop called in the
help of the Crown and the great people of the London law courts, and
after much battling and negotiation the matter was ended before the
year was out by a Privy Seal being sent down to Romney to depose the
mayor. Before a generation had passed away however the struggle broke
out again with new vigour, and in 1521 town and prelate were again
quarrelling over all the old grievances.[789]
The main point of the burghers’ argument was to deny the Archbishop’s
assertion that “the town is all bishopric.” The jurats contended that
“from all time” they had had the privileges of one of the capital Five
Ports, that their grant of “streme and strond” of the sea and all other
rights came to them from the King and not the Archbishop; and that they
held the greater part of their town directly from the Crown,[790] on
which land the Archbishop had no right to enter, and the commonalty had
rights of justice. So also the Archbishop had no right to the marsh and
pasturage of four hundred acres which had once been creek and haven,
but had been left dry land since about 1380 by the withdrawal of the
sea a good half-mile from the town, for this “void place” left by
the main course of the stream through the town belonged to the King.
Arguing therefore from this fiction of being on royal soil the jurats
went on to claim the popular control of justice which was used in royal
boroughs, and frowardly kept the courts without the bailiff, boldly
asserting in their own defence that he was at the best but a minister
of the King’s courts in Romney and not a judge; for if the town courts
were in fact courts of the King, they were under the royal grants and
charters which ordained that mayor and jurats, or bailiff and jurats,
_elected by the people_, were to hold courts, hear pleas, and have
fines and amercements and other profits of leets and law-days; and
therefore since the bailiff of Romney was not elected by the commons he
was clearly excluded and had nothing to do in the said courts save as
minister and executioner, and any record of pleas before him was void.
In times past, they declared, he had merely been allowed to sit among
them by favour, and not of duty. The fines raised at leets and law-days
they claimed for the town’s use, saying that these had only been given
to the most Reverend Father by the favour of the jurats to obtain his
good lordship; but that he had never any right whatever to leet or
law-day, fine or amercement. So persistent were their protestations
of independence that it seems as though ultimately the Archbishop’s
heavy wrath settled down to rest on the town. When Cranmer leased out
the bailiwick of Hythe to the townspeople,[791] he refused to give
to Romney a similar lease—a gift which it had begged of Courtenay a
hundred and fifty years before. Cranmer’s lordship indeed came to an
end at the Reformation, but even then Romney was for a time governed
by its senior jurat, and it was not until 1563 that it seemed to have
sufficiently purged its iniquity, and that Elizabeth finally allowed
its people to elect a mayor.
III. From the instances of Sandwich and Romney it is evident that the
bond which existed between the chief Ports only served certain definite
ends, and had no influence whatever on the developement of local
liberties or the intimate relations of a borough to its lord. And if
this was the case with the leading Ports, still less was it possible
for the subordinate members of the confederation to look for aid in
their private controversies. Romney itself for example in the midst
of its struggle with the Archbishop was engaged in a resolute effort
to retain its own hold over its dependent town of Lydd. There also
the Archbishop of Canterbury was lord of the manor, both of the town
and of a great part of the grazing land round it known as Dengemarsh,
in which lay the fishing-station of Lydd, Denge Ness; while the rest
of Dengemarsh was divided between the Abbot of Battle, the Castle of
Rochester, and Christ Church, Canterbury, all alike ready to raise at
any time questions of disputed rights. As far as the Archbishop was
concerned the townsmen had commuted their services at his court of
Aldington for a yearly payment, and became “lords in mean” of their own
borough—possibly in the time of Henry the Sixth when they first began
formally to use the style of Bailiffs, Jurats, and Commonalty of Lydd;
but the Archbishop’s seal with the mitre was still used in deeds for
selling or letting land.[792]
But Lydd was further subject to Romney as “member of the Town and
Port,” and in token of this submission their custumal was kept at
Romney. If they wanted to ascertain their rights they had to send a
messenger to the superior town; and an entry in the accounts of Lydd
tells how the corporation paid eightpence to “the servant of Romney
bringing authority of having again our franchise.” Romney claimed to
make awards on disputed questions, interfered about the Lydd markets,
and ordered inquisitions as to whether they had been wrongfully
held.[793] Moreover as the inhabitants of Lydd “were contributors
to Romney before all memory,” their officers had year after year to
present themselves before the jurats of Romney in the Church of S.
Nicholas carrying their accounts and such payments as were demanded by
their rulers.[794] Even after the men of Lydd had been given by Edward
the First the same liberties and free customs as the other barons of
the Cinque Ports, the sum of their taxes was fixed by Romney.
Among many masters the corporation was kept in a perpetual ferment.
The boundaries of its territory were not finally decided till 1462,
and the quarrel with Battle on this point kept lawyers and town clerks
busy hurrying backwards and forwards between London and Lydd, or riding
to Canterbury to get the Abbot’s charter, or to Winchelsea to meet the
Abbot’s counsel.[795] For a hundred years moreover the town kept up
the long struggle to free itself from the supremacy of Romney. Already
in 1384 deputations from both the towns met in Dover to discuss the
terms of agreement between them with the Warden, and from that time
lawyers were kept constantly at work, and a counsel seems to have been
permanently employed in London, besides the deputations of bailiff,
common clerk, and jurats sent there as well as to Dover, Sandwich, or
Canterbury, and the messengers despatched with “courtesies” for the
Lieutenant, the Seneschal, or the Clerk of Dover Castle, the Mayor and
Clerk of Dover town, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his steward,
the Common Clerk of Winchelsea and so on; while the salary of the
Town Clerk, Thomas Caxton, probably a brother of the great printer,
was raised again and again, so as to secure the services of the most
skilful lawyer and able administrator in all the country round.[796]
Even in a trifling matter of taxation it was not till 1490 that the
town was able to make a composition for a fixed yearly payment.[797]
IV. In the same way Sandwich had the mastery of the little town of
Fordwich,[798] which lay fifteen miles higher up the river and claimed
dominion over a tiny territory reaching back from the water’s edge on
either side as far as a man in a boat on the river could throw an axe
of seven pounds called “Taperaxe.” The inhabitants elected every year a
mayor, treasurer, and jurats to govern them and preserve the liberties
of the town. The mayor with a black knotted stick as badge of his
office, held his court of justice. He appointed every year four freemen
to act as arbitrators in case of trespass, and if any townsman refused
to accept their decision or tried to carry the cause to another court,
he was fined the enormous sum of a hundred shillings, or thrown for
a year into the town prison, a filthy hole of nine feet square which
still exists. In capital cases the mayor could give sentence of death,
and order the prosecutor if he won his suit to carry the condemned
criminal to the “Thefeswell” and himself throw him into it with hands
and feet tied, “knebent” as it was called.[799]
Fordwich however had been granted by the Confessor to S. Augustine’s,
Canterbury.[800] The Abbot owned the soil of the town; his bailiff
lived within its walls and presided over the Hundred Court which he
summoned by his officer “Cachepol”; he had his own prison; he was
entitled to fines and forfeitures from felons and fugitives; and he
claimed certain customs on all imports, and asserted a right to control
the fisheries of the river so as to supply his monks at the fasting
seasons.
The convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, owned on the other hand a
quay at the highest point to which ships could pass up the river; to
this quay wine, alum, Caen stone, etc., were brought for the use of
the monastery, and endless quarrels were developed out of its trading
monopolies.[801]
As a member of the Port of Sandwich the town was subject to certain
regulations and taxations which Sandwich had a right to impose. When
the chief Ports met to assess and distribute taxation among themselves,
the voice of the lesser members of the confederation was never heard,
and the dependent towns had simply to pay such proportions of the
sum due as their masters ordered, and there were naturally frequent
signs of grumbling and dissatisfaction.[802] The severe protectionist
laws which the Fordwich people passed against Sandwich as to the use
of the common quay with the crane possibly indicates some attempt at
encroachment which it was possible to resist as well as to resent.
Under the rude pressure of rival jurisdictions on every side, and from
which there was no escape, the corporation needed constant vigilance
in looking after its own interests. Like every other town big and
little in the fifteenth century Fordwich made careful research into
the true limits of its chartered rights, and the clerk wrote out new
copies of their custumal and of the old record of their boundaries. In
the only point where they had a chance of success its burghers fought
with steady pugnacity for their privileges. Protesting that they held
a monopoly of the quay where the ships were unloaded, they refused
the customs demanded by S. Augustine’s, claimed the whole control of
the river and of the three weirs which were made every year at the
beginning of the fishing season, and at last forced a compromise which
left the convent only the produce of a single weir.
If the lesser members of the Ports which were themselves corporate
bodies, such as Lydd or Fordwich, could expect from their superiors no
help in achieving independence, the non-corporate members were yet more
completely withdrawn from the chance of assistance; for the seven great
towns of the association would have looked with little tolerance on any
revolt in their dependent villages.[803] Undoubtedly the inhabitants
of the Cinque Ports had their full share of the democratic temper that
ruled in the trading towns of the eastern coast from the Wash to the
Channel. Rebellion was in the air; and the labourers and miners of
Kent and Sussex had an evil reputation in the Middle Ages as being
most prone to civil dissensions, “as well for that they can hardly
bear injuries as for that they are desirous of novelties.”[804] There
was never a rising in which they were not the most eager partizans of
the revolutionary side. The men of Kent crowded after Cade. Hastings
sent eleven soldiers to help him; Rye begged for his friendship; and
Lydd sent its constable on horseback to meet him, wrote him a letter
of excuse for not joining him, and presented him with a porpoise.[805]
When Warwick took up the cry of Cade they rallied to his side; and
when he brought back Henry the Sixth in 1470 they again gave him
support.[806] In the internal politics of the towns we meet the same
temper; and however obscure and insignificant were the struggles of
the Ports and of the humble villages that gathered around them, they
reveal to us the militant spirit of self-assertion which was stirring
in every hamlet in England. But with this sturdy spirit of municipal
freedom the question of federal organization had nothing whatever to
do. We have seen that the trading privileges won in early days by the
joint action of the towns were confined to the supervision of the
herring fair at Yarmouth, and that the association never developed
into a great commercial league after the imposing pattern of the
towns of Picardy or of the Rhine. Still less did the union resemble
any of the federative republics formed across the water in Ponthieu
or the Laonnais for mutual aid against the enemies of their peace or
liberties.[807] There is no evidence that the confederation of the
Cinque Ports afforded to its members any security of municipal freedom,
or any extension of the rights to be won from their several lords; and
as a matter of fact this group of favoured towns does not seem to have
made the slightest advance on other English boroughs, either in winning
an earlier freedom, or in raising a higher standard of liberty. In fact
the history of the sixteenth century was to prove that there was no
more formidable opposition to the growing democracies in the Kent and
Sussex towns than the respectable official company that gathered at
Romney and ate together the annual feast of the Court of Brotherhood.
INDEX
A
Abbotsbury, convent at, 203
Adamson, William, lease of Liverpool ferm to, 271, _note_ 2
Admiral, appointment of mayor as, 234;
his jurisdiction, _ib._, _note_ 2;
of Norwich, 245;
of the Cinque Ports, his jurisdiction, 392
Adventurers, Merchant, 90;
their rivalry with Staple and Hanse, 94, 95;
organized by charter, 95, 96;
by Henry VII., 96;
growth of their privileges, _ib._;
settlement at Antwerp, 97, 98;
struggle for free trade in cloth in the Netherlands, 99-101;
struggle with the staplers, 101-103;
with Hanseatic League, 103-111;
organization in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, 106;
supported by Henry VII., 111, 112;
their triumph in the north, 114;
progress from Edward III. to Henry VII., 122
“Advocantes,” 190
Alderman of the staple, 46, 48
Aldington, archbishop’s court of, 409
Aletot, tax paid by Rye to Fécamp, 387, _note_ 1
Alexandria, centre of Mediterranean traffic, 77
Alien, judicial combat in Fordwich with, 221, _note_ 2
Almshouses, 41, _note_ 2
Amusements in towns, 145-153
Andover, punishment for breach of public duty in, 181, _note_ 2
Antwerp, trade of English Adventurers at, 94;
capital of the Merchant Adventurers, 97, 98;
succeeds Bruges as a centre of commerce, 100;
conference at, 113
Apprentices, kept only by burghers, 182
Apprenticeship, in towns, sought by country labourers, 194
Archers of Reading in 1371, 16, _note_
Arms, view of, at Bridport, 15, 16;
at Reading, 16, _note_
Arrest, disputes about rights of, 351-352, 364-367, 372
Assemblies in the towns, 223
Assize of wine, bread, and ale, controversy as to, in Exeter, 358-9
Attorneys, their numbers in Norfolk and Norwich limited, 58
Augustine’s, S., convent of, Canterbury, its agreement with
Christchurch, 369;
disputes with the town, 371-3;
owner of Fordwich, 412;
compromise with Fordwich, 414
Aylesbury, evasions of watch and ward in, 133
Aynesargh, Richard de, lease of Liverpool to, 271, _note_ 2
B
Bailiff, commander of the town in war, 128;
his appointment as king’s steward and marshal, 236;
capital, of Hereford, 229, 319-320;
election of, in Liverpool, 270;
of wards in Norwich, 240, 243, 245, 246;
of Romney, 404-406;
of the king, in Sandwich, 400-402
Bailiff-errant, his duties, 205
Baltic, English Merchant Adventurers in, 95
Barge, the admiral’s, 245;
common, of towns, 87, 140;
of Ipswich, 85, _note_ 2;
of London, 87, _note_ 3;
of Romney, 87, 88
Barnstaple, granted to Sir John Cornwall and the Countess of
Huntingdon, 253;
its ferm, &c., in 1273, _ib._, _note_ 3;
its traditions as borough in ancient demesne, 253-255;
byelaws of, 254;
“Burgesses of the Wynde” in, _ib._;
complaints of lords of, about authority claimed by burghers, _ib._;
inquisition as to franchises of, 255;
charters, _ib._;
market, 253, _note_ 3;
Long Bridge, _ib._;
its wealth in thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, _ib._;
seal, 225, _note_
Barons of the Cinque Ports, 386
Barton, John, thief in Exeter, 354
Battle, services due from its burgesses, 171, _note_ 2;
its quarrel with Lydd about boundaries, 411;
abbot of, owner of land in Lydd, 409
Beaufort, Cardinal, 214
Bedford, opposition to commission of enquiry in, 268, _note_ 1
Beer, its introduction, 57;
English, exported to Flanders, _ib._
Bell, the common, 161, 180;
of Bristol, 314, 315;
of Hereford, 127;
Reading, 304;
Romney, 405, _note_ 1;
Brandegoose, at Sandwich, 401;
of church, 153;
the curfew, 324
Bell-foundries, 55
Benecke, captain of Danzig privateers, 109, _note_ 2
Bergen, staple set up by English adventurers at, 95;
English expelled from, 107
Berkeley, owned by lay noble, 227;
privileges leased to the burghers of, 263;
relations with its lords, 264, 267;
lords of, their fight with Bristol, 313-315;
their trading, 316
Berkeley, Lord James, 266
Berkeley, Lord Maurice, 265, 266, 312, 314-315
Berkeley, Lord Thomas, 315
Berkeley, Lady, daughter of Mayor of Bristol, 316;
her funeral, _ib._
Bernard, the goldsmith, his escape from prison, 374
Berwick, government of, given to one of the Berkeleys, 264
Bier, the parish, 202
Billeting, forbidden in Bristol, 210, _note_ 3
Birmingham, 200, _note_ 2;
its bridges, 20;
its guild, _ib._
Bishops as lords of towns, 281
Blackwall, entrepôt of Dinant copper-workers at, 56
Bondmen, not to be admitted to franchise in York and Bridgenorth, 196
Bonvil, Sir William, 41, _note_ 2, 267, 268, 366
“Booners,” 141
Bordeaux, its trade, 87, 118, 119, 316, _note_ 1;
taken by the French, 119
Boroughs, English, their importance in fifteenth century, 1;
created by Edward I., 11, _note_ 3;
representation in Parliament, 24, 25;
conditions of claiming the property of, 218;
importance of corporate succession of, 219;
classification of, 227;
sympathy of king with, in questions of rival jurisdiction, 232-3;
local self-government in, 233-237;
extortion in, 235, _note_ 1;
advantages gained by, in times of state troubles, 237;
anxiety of king about democratic movement in, 247, _note_ 3;
granted to nobles, 253, _note_ 2;
in “ancient demesne,” 227, 246, _see_ Towns
Borough Court, or Portmote, attendance of burghers required at, 180;
wills enrolled in, 200, _note_ 1;
at Norwich, 239
Borough English, 222
Boston, house of the Hanseatic League at, 110
Boulogne, soldiers from Reading at, 16, _note_
Boundaries, preservation and perambulation of, 134
Boy Bishop, 148
Brass, guns made of, 55, _note_ 4
Bribes, system of, in the towns, 211-217
Brickmaking, its beginnings in England, 56
Bridges, repair of, 144;
the Long, at Barnstaple, 253, _note_ 3;
at Birmingham, 20;
Canterbury, 19;
Exeter, 144;
London, _ib._;
Nottingham, _ib._;
Reading, 301, _note_ 2
Bridgenorth, payment to players forbidden in, 152;
franchise of, 196;
complaint of the jurors against the sheriff’s bailiffs, 207,
_note_ 1
Bridgewater, burgages held by clergy at, 175, _note_
Bridport in the thirteenth century, 202-203;
in fourteenth century, 15;
in fifteenth century, 15-16;
views of arms at, _ib._;
fraternities in, _ib._;
Toll Hall and Guildhall at, _ib._;
bell foundries at, 55-56;
collection for improving its harbour, 143, 144;
rector and parishioners, 157;
bequests for the church, 159, _note_;
manufactures at, 202;
payments in kind for ferm, 204-5;
advantages of its obscurity and distance from court, 210
Brinklow, his political ideas, 60, _note_ 4
Bristol made a shire, 12;
gives a benevolence to the king, 27, _note_ 2;
disputes with Genoese merchants, 91, _note_ 2;
its contribution for protection of traders, _ib._, _note_ 3;
new channel dug for the Frome at, 142;
billeting forbidden in, 210, _note_ 3;
revolt of the Commons, 312;
charter forfeited, _ib._, _note_ 1;
mayor of, freed from oath to constable, 313;
obtains jurisdiction over Redcliffe, 314;
fight with lords of Berkeley, 313-315;
difficulties as to jurisdiction of Temple fee, 313, _note_ 2;
incorporation of Redcliffe with, _ib._, _note_;
burgesses’ petitions to King and Parliament, 315;
assault on Lord Thomas of Berkeley, _ib._;
payment for confirmation of charters, _ib._;
sends men to Lord Berkeley’s help at Nibley, 316;
the castle fee in, 311;
constable of castle, 312;
grant of ferm, 238, _note_ 3;
dispute about ferm, 253, _note_ 2;
S. Mary’s Hall at, 316;
Fellowship of Merchants, 89;
paving, 18, _note_;
common bell, 314, 315;
gaol, 315;
watch on S. John’s Eve, 149;
compass first used in England by its men, 107;
trade with Gascony, 119;
traders from, settle in Bridport, 15;
sail to Iceland, 107;
Flemish weavers in, 193
Britanny, commercial treaty with, 112
Broad-cloth first mentioned, 52
Broad Hill, court held on, 394, 395
Brodhull, register of its acts, 398;
_see_ Brotherhood
Brotherhood, court of, 395-398;
_see_ Brodhull, Guestling
Bruges, the staple at, 45;
made staple for English cloth in Flanders, 113, _note_ 3;
decline of its weaving trade, 65
Building in towns in fifteenth century, 18, 19
Burgage rents, 13, _note_ 2
Burgage tenure, 170-173, 200, _note_ 2
Burgesses, in the empire, first mention of, 11, _note_ 1;
decayed, in Preston, 190, _note_ 3;
of the Wynde in Barnstaple, 254;
their qualifications, 170, 171;
craftsmen and foreigners admitted as, 173;
_see_ Burghers, Citizens
Burghers, mode of admission of, 178-9;
duties, 180-181;
privileges, 181-185;
responsibilities and services, 185-188;
punishment of, for refusing to serve in municipal offices, 187, 188;
their duties confined to town, 188;
the exclusive character of the poorer, 195;
claim to have their own courts, 220;
growing importance in the country, 257;
their seals, 175;
_see_ Burgesses, Citizens
Burgundy, Henry VII.’s alliance with, 4;
charter to Merchant Adventurers in, 96
Burgundy, Duke of, grants charter to English Merchant Adventurers, 96
C.
“Cachepol” of abbot of S. Augustine’s, 412
Cade, Jack, his supporters in Cinque Ports, 415
Calais, the staple at, 46;
captain of, 49;
mint at, _ib._;
Likedelers of, 90;
election of governors of Merchant Adventurers held at, 96, _note_ 6
Cambridge, first notice of bricks at, 56, _note_ 3
Canal-makers, Dutch, 193
Cannyges, of Bristol, 84, _note_ 1, 89, 107
Canopy, at coronation of King, carried by representatives of Cinque
Ports, 389
Canterbury, royal borough, 227;
extent of its jurisdiction, 3, _note_;
Henry VII. received at, 37, _note_;
quarrels with Sandwich, 163, _note_;
Henry VII.’s breve to enable inhabitants to resist demands of King’s
purveyors, 210, _note_ 1;
payment to be excused from sending ships to the war, 213, _note_ 3;
relations with York and Lancaster, 215, 216;
refusal of citizens to appear at the King’s Court at Westminster,
230, _note_ 2;
property exempt from corporate authority, 310, _note_;
dispute as to jurisdiction of city coroner, 355, _note_ 1;
dispute with S. Augustine’s, 371-2;
with Christ Church, 135-6, 373-382;
with convent of S. Gregory, 369;
bridge, 19;
charters, expenses connected with, 211, _note_;
cathedral, its jubilee festivals, 376;
church of S. Andrew, 380;
Blackfriar’s churchyard, 375;
first main drain, 20;
expenses of feasts, 372, _note_ 3;
town festival, 149;
price of admission to freedom, 178, _note_ 5;
municipal debts, 140, _note_ 1;
gifts, 214-216;
hospitals, 369;
Swan inn, 216;
loans to King, 27, _note_ 2;
market, 371-2, 377-80;
mayor, probate claimed by, 200, _note_ 1;
mace, 381;
king’s mead, 371;
mill, _ib._, 372, 381;
minstrels, 145, _note_;
paving, 18, _note_;
plays, 146;
protection of burghers, 185;
provision for pilgrims, 375-6;
punishment for drawing knife, 132, _note_ 2;
extortions of sheriff, 207;
Staplegate, 370;
trade with Bordeaux, 118;
walls and gates, 129, _note_ 1;
Westgate, 370, 381;
_see_ Augustine’s (S.), Christ Church
Canterbury, Archbishops of, 177, _note_ 2, 369-371, 409
Cardiff requests copy of Hereford customs, 228
Carlisle, its “frelidge,” 180;
help granted towards payment of ferm in, 231, _note_ 2;
liberties forfeited, 247, _note_ 4
Carpets, manufactory of, at Ramsey, 57
Castile, commercial treaty with, 120
Castle Coombe, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1
Castle, constable of, his authority, 311-12
Castle Fee, its independence of the municipality, 311
Catalonia, commercial treaty with, 120
Caxton, Thomas, town clerk of Lydd, 411
Cemetery, booths set up in, at fair-time, 362
Chaldensham, the breaking to pieces of the abbot’s gallows at, 372
Charters, power of the King to withdraw, 211-12;
payments for the confirmation of, 211;
of incorporation, 219, _note_ 1;
_see_ Barnstaple, Bristol, Canterbury, Ipswich, Leicester, Lincoln,
Liverpool, Lynn, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Plimpton,
Reading, Winchester
Chepin gavell in Reading, 299, 306
Chepstowe, its trade with Iceland and Finmark, 107, _note_ 1
Chest, the parish, 202;
the common, of Reading, 305, 306
Chester, raid of Baldwin of Radington on, 130;
affray at, _ib._, _note_ 1;
town festival, 149;
liberties forfeited, 247, _note_ 4;
silting up of harbour, 270
Chester, Earl of, Liverpool granted to, 270
Children of citizens, age of taking up duties of citizenship, 194;
of non-burgesses, age of beginning work, 194-5
Chimneys of tiles or brick, houses to be provided with, 194
Christ Church, Canterbury, its agreement with S. Augustine’s, 369;
ownership of Sandwich, 399-400;
owner of land in Lydd, 409;
quarrels with Fordwich about the quay, 413;
_see_ Canterbury
Christopher, the (ship), 316, _note_ 1
Church, hostile to the formation of communes, 279, _note_ 2
Church-ales at Plymouth, 160, 161;
at Yaxley, 161, _note_
Churches, parish, their various uses, 153-156;
apportionment of seats, 154;
townspeople lay rectors of, 157;
various expenses, 158-161;
bequests for, 159;
rebuilding of, in 15th century, 18
Churchyards and ecclesiastical precincts enclosed by walls, 335
Cinque Ports, their treaties with “French Shipmen,” 4, _note_ 1;
house of elected mayor or jurat who declined to serve, pulled down,
187;
jurats and barons of the, 386;
confederation of, 386-399;
privileges, 387-389;
ownership of, 387, _notes_ 1 and 2;
justices itinerant shut out from, 388;
writ of error in, 388, _note_ 2;
no trial by jury in, 388, _note_ 6;
support Simon de Montfort, 388, _note_ 5;
heavy charges for defence borne by, 389-390;
payments for maintenance of liberties of, 390, _note_ 2;
monopoly threatened by Yarmouth, 394;
jealous watch against infractions of privileges, 398;
accuser often executioner in, 412, _note_ 2;
confederation affords no security to members against their lords,
414;
various jurisdictions, 398;
admiral of, 392;
no coroner in, 388, _note_ 1;
trading privileges, 414-415;
confederation, unlike confederations abroad, 415;
supports Cade, _ib._;
supports Warwick, _ib._;
courts of, _see_ Brotherhood, Guestling, Shepway
Cirencester, 295
Citizens, their busy life, 161;
independence, 177;
laws passed in Norwich and Worcester to compel men to become, 190;
age for taking up duties, 194;
outnumbered by the unenfranchised classes in the towns, 196;
distinguished from “natives” in Hereford, 318;
_see_ Burgesses, Burghers
Clarence, Duke of, present from Canterbury to, 215
Clergy as citizens, 175, _note_
Clisheath, fight on, 267
Clock, the town, 182
Clock-house, payments for, in Reading, 304
Cloth, altered conditions of production, 54;
sold in London, _ib._, _note_ 1;
taxes on, 81, _note_ 1;
struggle for its free importation into Netherlands, 99, 100;
undressed, its export forbidden, 110;
terms of sale and finishing, granted to Henry VII. by Flanders, 113,
_note_ 3;
woollen, its export allowed to Portuguese, 121, _note_ 2;
manufacture protected by government, 66, 67;
attempt to confine its export to London, 69;
dressing of, disputes about, 70;
seal for sealing it, in Reading, 308;
broad, 52; _see_ Trade
Cloth-workers, rivalry with wool-growers, 68
Clothiers distinguished from drapers, 67
“Clothing, Great,” of Worcester, 138, _note_
Coal, its early use in London, 55, _note_ 1
Cœur, Jacques, 114
Colchester, its condition, c. 1300, 14;
progress in the 14th cent., _ib._, 15;
burghers not to be appointed in any quest or assize outside the
borough, 188, _note_ 2;
Norwich system of government imitated by, 238, _note_ 2;
gallows, 2, _note_;
moot hall, 14;
wool hall, _ib._
Cologne, Hanse of, 75, 76, _note_ 1
Commerce, treaties of, 66;
government protection of, 66, 67;
by sea, its early routes, 75-77;
between England and the Baltic, 83;
its two great routes, 83;
in hands of foreign carriers, 83, 84;
growth of private enterprise, 88, 89;
transferred from foreign carrying vessels to those of English
adventurers, 94;
_see_ Trade, Treaties
Common, rights of, 136, 137, 181
Commons, House of, relation of boroughs to, 24;
control over taxation, 25, _note_ 3;
height of power in early 15th century, 26;
petition for working of mines, 55, _note_ 1; _see_ Parliament
Communes, the Church hostile to the formation of, 279, _note_ 2;
of France, contrast between their history and that of the English
towns, 29-32
Communitas, its meaning, 167-168;
early government, 169-171
Compass, its first recorded use in England, 107
Compurgation, 221, _note_ 2
Conesford Ward, Norwich, 239-40
Confederation, contrast between English boroughs and Continental towns
as to, 384-385;
of Cinque Ports, 386-99, 414-416
Constable, dispute about election of, in Reading, 304, 306;
of the castle, his authority, 311-312
Convents, towns subject to, 227, 295
Copes, regulations about use of, at Plymouth, 158
Copper works at Dinant, 56;
in England, _ib._
Cornwall, Sir John, Lord of Barnstaple, 253
Cornwall, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1;
tin works, 83
Coroner, business of, 203;
dispute in Exeter about the jurisdiction of, 355;
of Devonshire, 355;
in Cinque Ports, 388, _note_ 1
Corpus Christi, guild of, 150, 151
Coteler, J., lieutenant of mayor of Exeter, 346
Court, the papal, its demands from Canterbury cathedral, 376;
_see_ Admiralty, Borough, Brotherhood, Curia Comitatus, Guestling,
Hundred, King’s, Leet, Orphans, Portmote, Sheriffs, Shepway,
Steward’s Hall Port, Tolbooth
Craft guilds, 150
Crafts, their formation into close companies, 195
Craftsmen, their political importance, 60;
admitted as burgesses, 173
Cranmer, his refusal to lease out bailiwick of Romney to townspeople,
408-9;
his lease of the bailiwick of Hythe to townspeople, 408
Cranbrooke, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1
Crete, English merchants buy wine in, 116
Criers in the towns, 161-162, 180
Cunningham, Sir Thomas, 98, _note_ 5
Curfew bell in Winchester, 324
Curia Comitatus at Norwich, 239
Customs, Hereford, 317;
copy of, asked for by Cardiff, 228
D
Danzig, English cloth-dealers at, 95;
English colony at, 104, _note_ 6
Dartmouth, its parish church, 157, _note_ 2
Davison, Sir W., 98, _note_ 5
Dean, Forest of, its forges, 54
Demesne, ancient, boroughs in, 227-229
Dengemarsh, 409
Denge Ness, 409
Denmark, English traders expelled from, 66;
Henry VII.’s treaty with, 113
Derby, franchises of, forfeited, 247, _note_ 4
Derby, Earl of, Liverpool granted to, 270
Devon, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1
Devon, Earl of, his fight with Lord William Bonvil, 267-8
Devonshire, the coroner of, 355
Devonshire, Earls of, 266, 366;
conflict of Exeter with, 339, 340
Dinant, its relation to the Hanseatic League, 82, _note_ 3;
copper-workers of, their trade with England, 56
Disfranchised table, 181
Domesday, 343, 344, 345;
of Ipswich, 225
Dominicans, their settlement in Winchester, 323
Doncaster, 269, _note_
Dorchester, extent of its jurisdiction, 3, _note_;
sheriffs court at, 203, 204
Dorset, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1
Dover, member of Cinque Ports, 386;
ownership of, 387, _note_ 1;
church of S. James, 393;
the Lord Warden’s court of appeal held at, 393-394;
meeting of deputations from Lydd and Romney at, 411;
punishment of thief, 221, _note_ 2;
lieutenant of, 213, _note_ 1, 391;
castle, constable of, 390, 392
Drain, at Canterbury, 20;
at Exeter, 361
Drapers distinguished from clothiers, 67;
of London, their first charter, 52, _note_ 3
Duel in Leicester, 221, _note_ 2;
freedom from, in Lincoln, _ib._
Dunwich, 238, _note_ 3
E
Ecclesiastical estates, towns on, 227, 277-281;
tenants of, their attitude in the towns, 191, 192
Edmund Crouchback, 269, _note_, 270, 271
Edmund, Bishop of Exeter, 343
Edward I., boroughs created by, 11, _note_ 3;
charter to Norwich, 242;
grant to Lydd, 410
Edward II., advantages to towns of disorders under, 237
Edward III., his dealings with the staple, 45, 46;
relations with Florentine merchants, 78, 79;
borrows money of Lübeck merchants, 83;
advantages to towns of his commercial policy, 237
Edward IV., his relations with the Hanse, 109-110;
grants fresh franchises to Exeter, 367, _note_ 2
Egypt, Venetians driven out of, 114
Elbing, market at, 104
Election of town officers, 224, 235
Empire, first mention of burgesses in, 11, _note_ 1
Enclosure of churchyards and ecclesiastical precincts within walls,
335
Engineers, Dutch and Flemish, employed in England, 142, 143, _note_,
403
England, its comparative unimportance in Europe in thirteenth century,
32, 33;
character of its history in fifteenth century, 35-44;
classes of its population c. 1453, 60
English language, prayers in, used by a Norfolk guild, 42, _note_
Escheator, the King’s, 208;
appointment of mayor as, _ib._, _note_ 1;
term of office, 234, _note_ 3
Essex, Dom Robert, manufactures silk at Westminster, 57, _note_ 2
Exe Island, 339
Exeter, its early government, 338;
jurisdiction of Earls of Devonshire in, 339;
disputes with them, 266, 339;
with the cathedral, 340-368;
discussion between bishop and mayor, 155;
election of Shillingford as mayor, 340, 341;
grant of Richard of Almayne to, 357;
grants of Edward IV. to, 367, _note_ 2;
almshouses at, 41, _note_ 2;
right of arrest in, 364-366;
assize of wine, bread, &c., 358-9;
bridge at, 144;
Broad Gate, 353;
great drain, 361;
Canon’s-street, 360;
controversy as to common use of cathedral, 362-364;
as to jurisdiction of coroner, 355;
cathedral close, 352, 353, 355;
provision for ferm in, 359;
Fish-street, 360;
price of admission to freedom, 178, _note_ 5;
gates, dispute for control of, 361, 362;
Guildhall, 341, 351, 356;
hospitals, 41, _note_ 2;
law against livery, 339;
market, _ib._, 359, 360;
St. Martin’s-street, 360;
paving of, 18, _note_;
bishop’s prison, 362;
St. Peter’s fee, 357;
Recorder, 345, 347;
maces, 339, 367;
Black Roll, 345;
S. Stephen’s fee, 343;
town-hall, 344;
great tower, 361-2;
warden of the poor, 41, _note_ 2;
controversy as to watch and ward, 357, 358;
wine gavell, 359
Exeter, Edmund, bishop of, 343
Exmouth, port, 346, 359
Export trade, revenue from, under Henry VII. and VIII., 58;
industrial changes occasioned by, 67;
disputes caused by, between merchants and artizans, 70; _see_ Trade
Extortion in the boroughs, 235, _note_ 1
F
Fairs and markets forbidden to be held in sanctuaries, 156;
forbidden on Sundays and feast days, 156, _note_;
of Ripon, 130;
of Tetbury, 314;
St. Giles’s, at Winchester, 324, 329;
at Yarmouth, 395, 396, 415
Fastolf, Sir John, 259, _note_ 2, 267, _note_ 1
Faversham, its incorporation under mayor and jurats, 398, _note_ 2
Fécamp, abbey of, its relations to Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye, 387,
_note_ 1
Fees on admission to freedom of town, 178;
in kind at Wells, _ib._
Fellowship, Merchants’, in Bristol, 89;
in London, attempt to monopolize the export of cloth, 69;
of the mayor of Exeter, 346, 353, 366
Felon, dispute about the seizure of the goods of, in Exeter, 354
Ferm of towns, collection of, 205;
settlement of, connected with election of mayor, 218, _note_;
provision for payment of, 231, _note_ 1, 244, 359;
leasing out of, 238, _note_ 3, 247, _note_ 4
Festivals, local, 149;
complaints of their decay, 151;
jubilee, at Canterbury cathedral, 376
Feudal estates, condition of towns on, 250, 251;
lords, struggle of the boroughs with, 198-200, 255-257
Finance of towns, 138-141
Fines paid to be free of holding municipal offices, 187, _note_ 1;
of borough or manor courts, granted to citizens, 231
Fineux, Master John, justiciar, 214
Florence adopts free trade, 117;
Henry VII.’s commercial treaty with, _ib._;
its trading importance, 78;
loans of its merchants to Edward III., _ib._, 79;
commercial revival after acquisition of Leghorn, 79
Folkestone, punishment of thief at, 221, _note_ 2
Fordwich, 227, 369;
under mastership of Sandwich, 411, 412;
extent of its territory, 412;
jurisdiction of Abbot of S. Augustine’s, _ib._, 413;
quarrels with Christ Church about quay, _ib._;
regulations and taxations imposed by Sandwich on, _ib._;
compromise with S. Augustine’s as to control of river and weirs,
414;
capital punishment in, 412;
judicial combat with alien in, 221, _note_ 2;
Hundred court, 412;
jurisdiction of mayor, _ib._;
its officers, _ib._;
prisons, _ib._;
Thefeswell, _ib._
Foreigners, admitted as burgesses, 173, 178, _note_ 5;
limitation of their rights, 184
Forfeiture of town privileges, 247, _note_ 4;
of citizenship, 179, 180
Fortescue, Sir John, chief justice, 59, 346
France, condition of people in, as described by Fortescue, 59
Franchise forfeited by forsaking town for a year and a day, 179;
refusal to take up, 186, 328;
to be confined to members of craft guild, 195, 196;
bondmen born not to be admitted to, in York and Bridgenorth, 196;
of Lynn, controlled by the Bishop of Norwich, 286; _see_ Freedom
Franciscans in Winchester, 323
Frankpledge, view of, dispute in Lynn about, 290, 294
Fraternities at Bridport, 16
Freedom, municipal, ways of winning, 177, _note_ 1;
mode and terms of admission to, 178, 179;
lost by breach of public duty, 180;
mode of recovery in Hereford, 180, _note_ 3;
classes shut out from, 189, 190
Freemen, their decrease in Romney and Winchester, 190
Freeman’s prison, 185
Free-traders, their settlement outside the towns, 192, 193
“Frelidge” at Carlisle, 180
G
Gallows and pit, right of, 2, _note_
Gallows of prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, 373;
the abbot’s, at Chaldensham, 372;
of Colchester, 2, _note_;
Southampton, _ib._;
Worcester, 310
Gaol, the common, of Bristol, 315
Gascony, its trade with England, 119
Gates, dispute about control of, in Exeter, 362;
in Winchester, 324
Gate, the Broad, of Exeter, 353
Gaunt, John of, 253, _note_ 2, 260, _note_ 2, 270
Gavell, the wine, in Exeter, 359; _see_ Chepin
Genoa, its trade, 79, 80;
bank of S. George, 80;
relations of its traders with England, 114, _note_, 115;
proposal to forbid trade with, 116;
disputes of its merchants with those of Bristol, 91, _note_ 2
Germin, treasurer of Exeter, 346
Gestling, drowning of felons in the, 221, _note_ 2
Glass, English, forbidden in Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick, 56, _note_ 4
Glass-painting, early English, 56
Gloucester made a shire, 12;
owned by King, 227;
custody of, given to one of the Berkeleys, 264;
bell foundries at, 55, 56;
paving of, 18, _note_
Gloucester, Duke of, at York, 216, 217
Gloucester, Earl of, his gallows at Worcester, 310
Godbeate, liberty of, in Winchester, 324
Goldsmiths of London, their wealth, 58
Grendon, Simon, Mayor of Exeter, 41, _note_ 2
Griffith, David ap, grant of ferm of Liverpool to, 275
Grimsby, regulation as to taxes in, 355, _note_ 2
Guestling, courts of, 397; _see_ Brotherhood
Guild at Birmingham, 20;
of Corpus Christi, 150, 151;
of Young Men at S. Edmundsbury, 296, 297;
shipmen’s, at Hull, 89, _note_ 2;
of merchants at Lynn, 89;
at Malmesbury, dispute about, 302, _note_ 2;
of Nottingham, rights of taxation given to, 355, _note_ 2;
of Totnes, 251, 252;
of Our Lady and S. George at Plymouth, 158;
at York, 42, _note_, 89, _note_ 2
Guilds, festivals of, 150
Guild Hall, _see_ Hall
Guild Merchant, its importance in dependent towns, 302, 303;
of Ipswich, 224, 225;
Leicester, 355, _note_ 2;
Liverpool, 270;
Lynn, 286, 288;
Reading, 300, 303, 304;
Totnes, 175, _note_;
claimed by S. Edmundsbury, 297, 298
Guns, English-made, their superiority, 55
H
Hadley, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1
Hall, the common, of Romney, 129, _note_ 2, 403, 405, _note_ 1;
of Sandwich, 401;
the guild, of Bridport, 16;
Exeter, 341, 351, 356;
London, 378, _note_ 2;
Lynn, 283;
Reading, 300, 304, 305;
Winchester, 324
Hanse of Cologne, 75, 76, _note_ 1;
Flemish, in London, 76
Hanseatic League, 81, 82;
its carrying trade, 83;
disputes with Lynn merchants, 91, _note_ 2;
struggle with English Merchant Adventurers, 103-111;
gathers fleet against England, 109;
supports Edward IV., _ib._;
Edward IV.’s treaty with, 110;
its guildhall in London, _ib._;
house at Boston and Lynn, _ib._;
its decline, _ib._, 111;
negotiations with Henry VII. at Antwerp, 113;
expels English traders from Denmark, 66;
succeeds Hanse of Cologne in the carrying trade, 77
Harbledown, hospital of S. Nicholas at, 369
Harbours, making and improving, 142-144
“Harry Grâce à Dieu,” the, 84, _note_ 1
Hastings, 386;
castle, 387, _note_ 1
Haute, William, lord of the manor of Bishopsbourne, 216, _note_ 2
Hemp, grown at Bridport, 202
Henry III., advantages to towns of his reign, 237;
charter to Liverpool, 270;
to Norwich, 242
Henry IV. supports the Merchant Adventurers, 95, 96, 105, 106;
advantages to towns of his political insecurity, 237;
charter to Norwich, 245-6
Henry V. forbids English trade with Iceland, 106;
plans a royal navy, 86;
advantages to towns of his financial needs, 237
Henry VI., Canterbury associated with the party of, 215;
advantages to towns of tumults of his reign, 237;
charter to Barnstaple, 255
Henry VII., his position among English sovereigns, 73, 74;
received at Canterbury, 37, _note_;
enforces Navigation Act, 94;
patron of the Merchant Adventurers, 96, 111, 112;
international treaties of commerce, 66;
renews treaty with Brittany, 112;
treaties with Burgundy, 4;
commercial treaty with Florence, 117;
with Riga, 113;
with Scandinavia, _ib._;
with Venice, 118;
confirms treaty of Utrecht, 112;
negotiations with Hanseatic League at Antwerp, 113;
treatment of Lombards, 116;
secures protection for English merchants in Bordeaux, 119;
stipulations for free trade with Spain, 120
Herbert, bishop of Norwich, 282
Hereford, municipal almshouse at, 41, _note_ 2;
duties of its citizens to their chief magistrate, 126;
town bell, 127;
mode of recovery of freedom, 180, _note_ 3;
the burghers’ account of their freedom, 199, 200;
law against maintainers or protectors, 220, 221;
trial by combat abolished, _ib._;
customs, 317;
relations with lay and ecclesiastical lords and their tenants within
its liberties, 317-320;
distinction drawn between “citizens” and “natives,” 318;
authority over those privileged to trade in town, 318, 319;
capital bailiff, 229, 319, 320;
punishment of a vagabond, 319, 320;
tenants of various fees allowed to plead in the courts of, 320;
refusal to give Cardiff copy of customs, 228, 229
Highway, the king’s, sale of merchandise in, 156
Holcraft, Thomas, ferm of Liverpool let to, 275
Holland, engineers from, employed at Hythe, 142, 143, _note_;
at Sandwich, 142
“Holland” linen made in England, 57
Hollingbroke, ward in Romney named after, 402, 403
Horn, the common, 161;
at Dover, 178, _note_ 5;
of S. Edmundsbury, 296;
of Romney, 404, 405, _note_ 1
Hospital at Exeter, 41, _note_ 2;
at Sandwich, _ib._;
the Magdalen, Winchester, 328, 329;
of S. Nicholas, Harbledown, 369
Hospital of S. John, Worcester, refusal of its tenants to aid in
taxes, &c., 357, _note_ 4
House built by burgher as security on admission to freedom, 179;
of burgher must be kept in proper repair, _ib._, 180;
of stone, 193;
the Queen’s, at Winchester, 323
Hull, shipbuilding at, 89;
shipmen’s guild at, 89, _note_ 2
Hundred, freedom from officers of, 232, 233
Hundred court in Fordwich, 412;
Sandwich, 401
Huntingdon, perambulation of its boundaries, 134, _note_
Huntingdon, Countess of, owner of Barnstaple, 253
Huy, burgesses at, 11, _note_ 1
Hythe, ownership of, 227, 387, _note_ 1;
member of Cinque Ports, 386;
payment towards renewal of Cinque Ports charters, 390, _note_ 2;
Cranmer’s lease of bailiwick to townspeople, 408;
appointment of bailiff, _ib._, _note_;
grant of mayor to, _ib._;
new harbour made at (1412), 142, 143;
subscriptions for new steeple, 160, _note_
I
Iceland, English Adventurers in, 106, 107
Income-tax in towns, 139
Incorporation, charters of, 219, _note_ 1
Industry, revolution in, during 14th and 15th centuries, 39, 40, 44,
45;
changes in, 67, 70, 71;
relations of government to, 67, 70-72;
state protection of, 72, 73
Inferiores, in Lynn, 193, _note_
Inns of London, 378, _note_ 2;
bailiffs and jurats allowed to hold, in Romney, 404, _note_ 2;
the “Swan” at Canterbury, 216
_Intercursus Magnus_, 112
Ipswich, archbishop of Canterbury given right to trade in, 177,
_note_ 2;
general assembly, 224;
barge, 85, _note_ 2;
charter from John, 223, 224;
charter withdrawn, 247, _note_ 4;
Domesday Roll, 225;
election of officers, 224;
Guild Merchant, _ib._, 224, 225;
ordinances, 224;
arrest of Scotch priests, 230, _note_ 3;
common seal, 225;
guardianship of sea, 234, _note_ 2
Ireland, its trade with Liverpool, 270
Irishmen, feeling against, in the towns, 173, 174, _note_ 1
Iron, trade in England, 54;
increase in price, 55;
imported from Sweden and Spain, 55
Italy, merchants of, their privileges in England, 78;
expulsion from London, 329, 330;
hire houses in Winchester, 330;
settle in Southampton, _ib._
J
Jewry of Bishop’s Lynn, 283
John, advantages to towns of his money difficulties, 237;
charter to Ipswich, 223;
to Liverpool, 270;
to Lynn, 283
Jurats of the Cinque Ports, 386
Jury, citizens from twelve years old might serve on, 184;
exemption from serving on, granted to burghers of Reading, 306;
payments to “friendly,” 212;
no trial by, in Cinque Ports, 388, _note_ 6
Justices, itinerant, shut out from Cinque Ports, 388;
of the Peace, 247
K
Kent, men of, their evil reputation in Middle Ages, 415
Kiln of feudal lord, 199
King, the, and Commons, 25, _note_ 3, 26;
his sovereign rights, 207-209;
various officers of, who visited the towns, 208-210;
power of, to withdraw or question the value of charters and ancient
customs, 211, 212;
as lord of manor, 229-232;
his sympathy with borough in questions as to rival jurisdictions,
232, 233;
his difficulty in finding sufficient officers, 234;
power of granting privileges beyond that of other lords, 263,
_note_ 2;
loans to, 27, _note_ 2, 305, _note_ 1
King’s court, 208
L
Labour, division of, 67;
forced, in towns, 141, 142
Landowners, unfavourable conditions of life of, 258-268
Language, English, prayers in, used by a Norfolk guild, 42, _note_
Laonnais, federative republic of, 415
Law, king’s, and town law, 236, _note_
Law day, business done at, 203
Law Merchant, 48
Lawsuits, increase caused by growth of trade, 58;
of nobles, 266
Leet in Norwich, 240, 242, 243
Leet court, 336;
in Lynn, 288, 294;
in Norwich, 230, _note_ 3;
in Nottingham, 336, _note_ 3
Leghorn won by Florence, 79
Leicester, owned by lay noble, 227;
dispute about election of mayor, 235, _note_ 2;
town property, 269, _note_;
charter from Edmund Crouchback, _ib._;
regulations as to taxes, 355, _note_ 2;
Guild Merchant, _ib._;
duel in, 221, _note_ 2;
petition for abolition of “borough English” in, 222
“Libel of English Policy,” 61, 62;
the second, 62-64
Likedelers of Calais, 90
Lincoln, charter of, 238, _note_ 2;
complaint about trials in, 336, 337;
freedom from duel, 221, _note_ 2
Linen manufacture, its beginnings in England, 57
Lisbon, commercial treaty with, 121
Lisle, Lord, his death at Nibley Green, 267
Liverpool, burgages in, 172;
takes place of Chester as landing place, 270;
trade with Ireland, _ib._;
common seal, _ib._;
election of bailiffs, _ib._;
charter from John, _ib._;
from Henry III., _ib._;
granted to constable of Lancaster Castle, _ib._;
resumed by John, _ib._;
to Earl of Chester, _ib._;
to Earl of Derby, _ib._;
to Edmund Crouchback, _ib._;
passed by marriage to John of Gaunt, _ib._;
Quo Warranto in, _ib._, 271;
first mayor, 218, _note_, 271;
leases of fee form, 218, _note_, 270, 271;
liberties usurped by Edmund Crouchback, 271;
dependence on lord, 272;
reverts to crown, _ib._;
petition of burgesses, _ib._, _note_ 3;
relations with Molyneux and Stanley, 273-276;
grant of ferm to David ap Griffith, 275;
ferm let to Thomas Holcraft, _ib._;
granted to corporation, _ib._;
revenue, 273, _note_ 1
Livery, 339;
town laws against, 257, 268;
supplied from lord’s estate, 260
Loans, voluntary, from towns to the king, 27, _note_ 2
Lombards settled in London, 81;
their relations with Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry VII., 116;
persecution of, in London, _ib._
London hires out its common barge, 87, _note_ 3;
bell foundries in, 55, 56;
first notice of bricks in, 56, _note_ 3;
bridge of, 144;
drapers of, 52, _note_ 3;
cloth sold in, 54, _note_ 1;
use of coal in, 55, _note_ 1;
wealth of its goldsmiths, 58;
guildhall, 378, _note_ 2;
Flemish Hanse of, 76;
guildhall of Hanseatic League, 110;
inns, 378, _note_ 2;
Italian merchants expelled from, 329, 330;
Lombards in, 81, 116;
house of Cologne merchants in, 76, _note_ 1;
Merchants’ Fellowship of, its attempt to monopolize export of cloth,
69;
annexes Middlesex, 219, _note_ 3;
Recorder of, 372, 378, _note_ 2;
silk manufacture in, 57, _note_ 2;
settlers from, at Rye, 17;
effort to concentrate oreign trade in, 69;
paviour from, employed at Southampton, 18, _note_;
great play acted in, 145
Longport, Canterbury, disputes about rights of arrest in, 372
Lübeck, head of the Hanseatic League, 81, 82;
succeeds to financial importance of Florence, 79;
its merchants farm the English wool tax, 83;
lend money to Edward III., _ib._;
rent English mines, _ib._
Lucas, Hugh, arrest of, in Exeter, 351
Lydd, expenses incurred in war, 415, _note_ 4;
fine for refusing to take journey on town business in, 187;
incorporation under mayor and jurats, 398, _note_ 2;
assessment of income tax, 139, _note_ 2;
imitates Romney jetty, 143, _note_;
liberties given by Edward I. to, 410;
quarrel with Battle about boundaries, 411;
loan to Thomas Dygon, 139;
minstrels at, 147;
plays, &c., at, 148;
provision for poor in, 41, _note_ 2;
Portuguese in, 122, _note_;
use of archbishop’s seal in, 410;
its services at archbishop’s court commuted for yearly payment, 409,
410;
its hired ships, 87;
style under Henry VI., 410;
subjection to Romney, 410, 411;
town clerk, 411;
watch on S. John’s Eve, 148
Lynn under Bishop of Norwich, 227, 282;
granted by Bishop Herbert to monks of Norwich, 282;
repurchased, 283-4;
charters from John, 283;
of 1335, 289;
from bishop, 290;
struggle between bishop and town, 287-294;
petition for relief from demands of king’s bailiffs, 285, _note_ 1;
expenses of bribes, 214, _note_ 3;
Church of St. Margaret, 283;
disputes with the lords of Castle Rising, 284-5 various courts held
by the Bishop of Norwich, 285-6;
courts leased by bishop to burghers, 294;
municipal debt, 140, _note_ 1;
franchise controlled by the Bishop of Norwich, 286;
dispute about the view of frankpledge, 290, 294;
guildhall, 283;
guild of merchants, 89;
Guild Merchant, 286, 288;
house of the Hanseatic League, 110;
cross set up by hermit at, 175, _note_;
“Inferiores,” 193, _note_;
Jewry, 283;
Leet court, 288, 294;
Tolbooth court, 286, 288;
the authority of the mayor limited by the Bishop of Norwich, 286;
disputes of merchants with the Hanse, 91, _note_ 2;
lends money to the king, 27, _note_ 2;
payment of players, 145, _note_;
growth of shipping, 87;
taxation for Church expenses, 158, _note_ 3;
trade with Iceland forbidden, 107, _note_ 1;
wealth in the thirteenth century, 286;
proving of wills at, 289
“Lyvelode,” 139
M
Maces, at Canterbury, 381;
Exeter, 339, 367;
Norwich, 246;
Reading, 306;
Romney, 406
Maintenance, statute of, 221, _note_ 1;
town laws against, 257
Malmesbury, dispute about guild at, 302, _note_ 2
“Maltodes,” 139
Malvern, fifteenth century glass at, 56, _note_ 4
Manchester, qualifications of burghers in, 170, _note_ 2;
charter, 181, _note_ 3
Mancroft, ward in Norwich, 240
Manufactures, growth of, in England in fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, 44, 45, 67;
of cloth, 52-54;
of wool, in Normandy, 119
Manufacturers, rivalry with merchants, 68
Marienburg, treaty of commerce made at, 104, _note_ 6
Mariners of England and France, agreement between, 396, _note_ 3
Market, the king’s clerk of, 208;
payments for freedom of, 192;
market at Barnstaple, 253, _note_ 3;
Canterbury, 371-2, 377-380;
Exeter, 359, 360
Marshal of king’s house, extent of his jurisdiction, 209
Mastez in Sandwich, 184, _note_ 5
Matthyessone, Gerard, Dutch engineer employed at Romney, 143, _note_
Mayor, election of, 12;
its connexion with settlement of fee-farm rent, 218, _note_ 1;
various offices given to, 231, 233, 234, 236;
position between the king and townspeople, 236-7;
of Bristol, charter to the, 313;
his daughter’s marriage with Lord Berkeley, 316;
of Canterbury, his office respecting pilgrims, 376;
of Exeter, his dependence on the Earl of Devonshire, 339;
of Fordwich, his jurisdiction, 412;
of Hythe, 408, _note_;
of Leicester, dispute about election of, 235, _note_ 2;
of Liverpool, first election of, 218, _note_, 271;
of Lydd, 398, _note_ 2;
of Lynn, his authority limited by Bishop of Norwich, 286;
dispute with the Bishop about jurisdiction, 289-94;
his sword, 293;
of Norwich, rights of jurisdiction given to, in 1403, 245-6;
made mayor of Staple, 245;
his salary, _ib._;
his sword and maces, 246;
appointed King’s Escheator in Norwich, _ib._;
of Reading, provision for his salary, 300, 304, 305;
his mace, 306;
disputes about election, _ib._, 307;
of Romney, 409;
deposed by Privy Seal, 407;
of Sandwich, 400;
his power to arrest on suspicion, 184, _note_ 5;
of Winchester, 325;
of the Staple, 46, 48
Mediterranean, its trade, 77, 78
Melton, action against townsmen for not baking bread at lord’s oven
in, 199, _note_ 1
Memling’s Last Judgement, its adventures, 109, _note_ 2
Mendip, mines in, 55
Mercers of York, 89, _note_ 2
Merchant Guild, _see_ Guild Merchant
Merchants, their aversion from foreign war, 64;
rivalry with manufacturers, 68;
associations of, 88;
increase in their number, 89;
Fellowship of, at Bristol, _ib._;
guild of, at Lynn, _ib._;
Italian, their privileges in England, 78;
of London, seek to monopolize foreign trade, 69;
Statute of, 156
Middlesex annexed to London, 219, _note_ 3
Mill of feudal lord, 199;
at Canterbury, 371-2, 380-1
Mines, English, 55;
rented by Lübeck merchants, 83
Miners of Mendip, riot of, 55;
of Sussex, 415
Minstrels, 147;
of Canterbury, 145
Mint at Calais, 49
Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, his Libel of English Policy, 61, 62
Molyneux, Sir Richard, his relations with Liverpool, 273-276
Monkenkey, Sandwich, owned by Christ Church, Canterbury, 400
Montault, Robert of, his struggle with Lynn, 284-5
Montfort, Simon de, Norwich and Winchester against, 242;
supported by Cinque Ports, 388, _note_ 5
Moot Hall at Colchester, 14
Morgespeche of Guild of Reading, 303
Morpeth, 227
Mortmain, Statute of, 219, 246-7;
extended to cities and boroughs, 219, _note_ 2
Morton, Cardinal, 211, _note_, 376-7
Music, its developement in England in fifteenth century, 44
N
“Natives,” their distinction from citizens in Hereford, 318
Navigation Act, the first, 84;
put in force by Henry VII., 94;
of 1489, 112, 119
Navy, mediæval idea of its origin and use, 75;
planned by Henry V., 86;
merchant, its character, 92;
its inefficiency as a royal navy, 93
Netherlands, rivalry with England in the cloth trade, 65, 66;
English traders in, 98-101
Newgate, leet of, in Norwich, 242, 243
Nicholas of the Tower (ship), 89
Nibley Green, battle of, 267, 316
Nobles, their patronage sought by towns, 216;
honours paid to, 256;
dress and state, _ib._, 257;
decay and poverty, 257;
stores of treasure, 259;
money difficulties, _ib._;
dependents, 260;
borrowing and debts, 261-2;
leasing out privileges to townspeople, 263;
frequent absences from home, 264, 265;
heavy consequences of rebellions and civil wars to, 265-266;
feuds and lawsuits, 266-268
Non-burgesses, 193-196
Norfolk, cloth-making in, 52, _note_ 1;
worsted manufacture, 54;
increase of lawsuits, 58;
traders robbed by Danes, 91
Normandy, beginning of its woollen manufactures, 119;
Henry I.’s charters to towns in, 172, _note_ 1
Northampton, charter of, 238, _note_ 2;
collection of arrears of ferm, 205-6
Norton Mandeville, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1
Norwich, its condition before Henry II.’s time, 238;
charter of Richard I., _ib._;
of Henry III., 242;
of Edward I., _ib._;
of Henry IV., 245-6;
sided with king against De Montfort, 242;
authority exercised by Parliament over, 235, _note_ 2;
liberties forfeited, 243, 247, _note_ 4;
petition in 1307, 243-4;
made county, 245;
made staple town, 245;
sues for repayment of a loan to the king, 27, _note_ 2;
twelve of its citizens distrained for the city’s debt to the king,
140;
action in Wars of the Roses, 37, _note_;
under the protection of Suffolk, 216;
rivalry with Yarmouth, 163, _note_;
admiral appointed in, 245;
its burghers freed from arrest for debt, 242;
four bailiffs, 240, 245, 246;
bell foundries, 55, 56;
Borough Court, 239;
castle fee and its tenants, 240, 241, 244, 245, 313;
law passed to compel men to become citizens, 190;
church of S. George, 243;
exemption from clerk of the market, 208, _note_ 2, 245;
ditch, 242;
exports in 1374, 88, _note_ 2;
ferm, 238;
provision for, 244;
guild of S. George, 150;
system of government imitated by Yarmouth and Colchester, 238,
_note_ 2;
inhabitants in thirteenth century, 171, _note_ 3;
increase of lawsuits in, 58;
four leets, 240;
leet of Newgate, 242, 243;
amercements ordered by Leet Court, 230, _note_ 3;
mayor of, his salary, 208, _note_ 1;
his rights of jurisdiction, 245-6;
his sword and maces, 246;
made mayor of Staple, _ib._;
made King’s Escheator, _ib._;
payment for charter, 238;
petition against players, 152;
Provost, 238, 239;
seal, 246;
sheriffs, _ib._;
municipal taxation, royal interference with, 219, _note_ 4, 241,
355, _note_ 2;
adventures of a thief, 243;
tollbooth, 239;
four wards, 239, 240;
towers and walls, provision for repairing, 245, _note_ 4
Norwich, Bishops of, _see_ Herbert, Lynn
Nottingham, borough in ancient demesne, 227;
charter, 238, _note_ 2;
franchise forfeited, 247, _note_ 4;
foreigners to pay £10 for admission to freedom, 178, _note_ 5;
payment for liberties, 232, _note_ 1;
rights of taxation given to the guild, 355, _note_ 2;
“booners” in, 141;
“borough English,” 222, _note_ 1;
bridge, 144;
burgages, 172;
court leet, 336, _note_ 3;
pledges, 178, _note_ 4;
pleas concerning trade, 58
Novgorod, 77, 111
O
Official, the Master, of the archdeacon at Nottingham, 336, _note_ 3
Onterdel, Dutch engineer employed at Romney, 143, _note_
Oporto, commercial treaty with, 121
Orphans, Court of, 41, _note_ 2
Outbutchery built in Reading, 304
Oven of feudal lord, 199;
of householders at Preston, _ib._
Oxford, first notice of bricks in, 56, _note_ 3
P
Palmer, John, of Exeter, 41, _note_ 2
Parliament, representation of towns in, 4, 7, 24, 25;
Brinklow’s criticism on, 60, _note_ 4;
authority exercised by, in Norwich, 235, _note_ 2;
expenses of members of, in Winchester, 329;
_see_ Commons
Paston family, stores in their house, 259, _note_ 2
Paston, Sir John, 260, 265
Paston, Judge, 265
Pavilion, the, in Winchester, 322
Paving of towns, 18, _note_
Payments from towns for the confirmation of charters, 211, 303;
for liberties, 232, 238;
for deliverance from feudal obligations, 198;
in kind at Bridport, 204-5
Peasant Revolt, 196, 237
“Penny prykke,” game of, 363
Pershore, Abbot of, his gallows in Worcester, 310
Philip, Archduke, makes Bruges the staple for English cloth in
Flanders, 113, _note_ 3
Picardy, commercial league of, 415
“Piers Ploughman,” picture of English life in, 21;
dealings with the social problems of the day, 22;
his theory of King and Commons, 25, _note_ 3, 26
Pilgrims to Canterbury, provision for the safety and comfort of, 375,
376
Pillory, 252, 315