of such things as a brass crock, a ring, small sums of money, and more
often one or two sheep or lambs. Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 494. Manorial
Pleas (Selden Soc.), 150. Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 524, 529, 531. Gross,
Gild Merchant, ii. 345.
[300] Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 345, 346. When Hythe set up its new steeple
in 1480 the twelve jurats headed the list of subscriptions, the
greatest sum given by them being 10s. Then came the commons giving from
20s. down to 1d., that is, a day’s subsistence. (Ibid. iv. 1, 433.)
[301] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 273. Money was collected for the church at
Yaxley, in Suffolk, in 1485 and the following years, by a similar
custom of the yearly “church ale,” the usual amount contributed from
each householder for his bread and drink being about 4_s._ or 5_s._
(Ibid. x. 4, 465.)
[302] Boys’ Sandwich, 784.
[303] In 1327 a violent quarrel broke out between Sandwich and
Canterbury. The convent was put to great inconvenience, and the prior
wrote to “the mayor and bailiff of Sandwich” asking to be allowed to
buy food and wax, as they had been put to great straits. The Sandwich
men agreed on condition that the monks should in no manner relieve or
give supplies to the Canterbury citizens. (Lit. Cantuar. i. 248-254.)
There was great jealousy between Norwich and Yarmouth. Yarmouth was
made a Staple town in 1369, in spite of all the efforts of Norwich. In
1390 Norwich paid large sums to have the wool staple at Norwich again.
(Blomefield, iii. 96, 113.) In the fifteenth century Yarmouth set up a
crane, which the Norwich men forced it to take down again.
[304] 1478. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 88.
[305] The towns were not wholly untouched by the struggle but their
interest was very languid. Many, like London, were divided in sympathy.
(Polydore Vergil, 106; English Chronicle, 1377-1461, 20-1, 67, 95;
Fabyan, 638.) During this queasy season the Mayor of London feigned
him sick and kept his house a great season. (Ibid. 660; see also
Warkworth’s Chronicle, 12-22.) Bristol and Colchester were Yorkist
(Hunt’s Bristol, 97-100, 102; Cutts’ Colchester, 131-2). For Nottingham
see vol. ii. The chief interest was probably felt in Kent and Sussex.
(English Chronicle, 1377-1461, 84, 91-4.) Canterbury was against Cade
and Lancastrian in sympathy (ibid. 84-95; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140-3,
168, 170, 176-7); but in 1464 entered in its accounts presents to the
brothers of the king “nunc.” The city suffered severely. The Cinque
Ports went generally for Warwick and York. Lydd sent Cade a porpoise
to London, and a letter to have his friendship in case he succeeded.
(Hist. MSS. Com. v. 518, 520, 523, 525.) For Romney, ibid. 543, 545;
Rye, ibid. 492-4; Sandwich, Boys, 676.
[306] The agricultural tenants and labourers on a manor were accustomed
to elect from among themselves a “Provost” to be head over them and to
stand between them and their lord, whom they were pledged to obey in
all things, and who on his side undertook to answer for them to their
master. Bound by the closest ties of mutual responsibility, their
fortunes were inseparably connected. If the lord suffered any loss,
small or great, by the tenant’s fault, the provost had to pay the
value, recovering it afterwards as best he could from the servant who
was to blame; and on the other hand if the damage had come through the
provost’s neglect, and he had not of his own property the wherewithal
to make it good, all those of the township who elected him had to pay
for him; and hence people and lord alike in self-protection upheld
the rule that the provost must be no stranger of doubtful character
or property, but chosen “from their own men,” and that “by election
of the tenants.” (Walter of Henley, edited by E. Lamond, Husbandry,
65.) It is easy to see the similarity between the simple methods of
rural government and the organization of municipal independence under
an elected mayor. An admirable illustration is given in Mr. Maitland’s
Manorial Pleas, Selden Society, 161-175.
[307] A citizen of Preston was obliged to show a frontage of twelve
feet to the street; in Manchester or Salford he was bound to own
at least an acre of land. Custumal in Hist. of Preston Guild, 75.
Thomson’s Mun. Hist. 165; Gross, i. 71, note.
[308] Ipswich, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. p. 244. Otherwise he was not allowed
to be of the common council of the town.
[309] At Bury S. Edmunds there were seventy-five tradesmen of various
kinds, bakers, tailors, shoemakers, &c., who were bound to cut corn
in harvest, the services being commuted for a rent called reap silver
when the place became a borough. At Battle, under Henry the Second, 115
burgage tenements were occupied by tradesmen who had to work in the
meadows or at the mill, but were called burgesses “on account of the
superior dignity of the place’s excellence.” Rep. on Markets, 17, note.
[310] From examination of the names of the Norwich inhabitants in the
Conveyance Rolls, Mr. Hudson thinks it certainly within the mark to
assume “that the city of Norwich, towards the close of the thirteenth
century, had attracted within its sheltering walls natives of at least
four hundred Norfolk, and perhaps sixty Suffolk, towns, villages, and
manors.” Notes on Norwich, Norfolk Archæology, vol. xii. p. 46.
[311] Picton’s Mun. Rec., i. 10-12. For the survival in Wareham of
these burgages of various sizes, Hutchins’ Dorsetshire, i. 77. Henry
the First of England gave charters to some of his towns in Normandy
early in the twelfth century, by which the burgess was obliged to own
a house, and was originally granted three acres and a garden, but with
the right of creating other burgesses by giving up to them a part of
his land. Flach, Origines de l’Ancienne France, ii. 347-8.
[312] In Nottingham a subsidy roll in 1472 gives a list of the 154
owners of freehold property in the town, headed by one the tenth of
whose property was assessed at 74s. 7½d.; then came one whose tenth was
worth 67s. 7½d.; six others paid sums from 30s. to 20s.; and a great
number paid from 5s. to 2s. At the bottom of the list came three men
whose tenth was assessed, one at 1¼d. and one at ¼_d._ Nott. Records,
ii. 285-297.
[313] The old feeling about burgage property is shown in the custom of
Nottingham that when a man sold land his nearest heirs might redeem it
if they made an offer in the Guild Hall within a year and a day of the
sale to pay to the buyer the price he had given; and they might thus
redeem even if the buyer refused to accept their offer. Cases of a
messuage and a butcher’s booth thus redeemed (Nott. Rec. i. 70, 100).
See also at Dover (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 274). In Lincoln and Torksey no
burgess could sell his burgage tenement save to a burgess or a kinsman
without leave (Rep. on Markets, 35). The mayor and jurats of Rye might
compel a tenant to keep his house in proper order, “at the request of
him that is in the reversion.” (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 362.)
[314] For London rules in 1319 see Lib. Cust. 269-70.
[315] As, for example, John de Ypres at Romney (Hist. MSS. Com. v.
542. Ibid. iv. i. 427). Foreigners no longer lived separately, as in
towns of the Conqueror’s time, but tended to become completely united
with the English in customs and law. See Nott. Rec. i. 109; Norwich
documents, printed 1884, in the case of Stanley _v._ Mayor, p. 1.
[316] Ricart, The Mayor of Bristol’s Kalendar, Camden Society, 41. In
1439 two severe ordinances were passed by the Bristol Council that
no Irishman born might be admitted to the Council by the Mayor under
penalty of £20 each from the Mayor and from the Irishman. In Canterbury
also the Irish were busy and unpopular traders (Hist. MSS. Com. ix.
173). When Irishmen were ordered out of England in 1422, burgesses and
inhabitants of boroughs of good reputation were excepted. (Statutes 1st
Henry VI. cap. 3.)
[317] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 468. There was constant communication
between various towns about the character of new settlers who offered
themselves, and the testimonials preserved to us show how careful the
towns were in such matters. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 488. Piers Ploughman,
edited by Skeat, Part iii. passus iv. 108-116.) No one of illegitimate
birth might be a burgess. Nott. Rec. ii. 66.
[318] A bondman born could in many if not in most towns win the freedom
of the city, as in Norwich where serfs were admitted to the franchise;
but it is clear that here certainly mere residence without admission
to citizenship was no protection against the claims of a feudal lord.
(Norf. Arch. vol. xii.; Hudson’s Notes on Norwich, Sec. xi.) It is most
probable that the common phrases of “dwelling in the town a year and a
day, and holding land in it and being in lot and scot,” or of being “in
the Merchant Guild,” or of “remaining in the town _without challenge_,”
were in fact equivalent to having been received as burghers; and in
such cases emancipation was won not by a year’s residence but by
a year’s citizenship. In Norwich a serf had to produce his lord’s
license. (Hudson’s Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. lxxxv.-vi.)
For a similar instance of feudal claims urged by a lord over his
serf dwelling in a city, see Owen’s Shrewsbury, i. 133. Compare the
references given by Gross, i. 30. There were exceptions, as in London,
where men who held land in villeinage of the Bishop of London were not
allowed in 1305 to be freemen of the City (Riley’s Mem. 58-9). And
after the Peasant Revolt some towns withdrew the privilege (Hist. MSS.
Com. i. 109).
[319] A chaplain and four parsons of churches in Norwich were presented
before the Leet Court of Norwich for various offences in 1292, in 1374,
and in 1390. One of them had occupied himself with a large brewing
business, another traded as a wool merchant, and two were charged with
not being citizens. There were in all towns plenty of “clerici” who
were citizens. (Hudson’s Norwich Leet Jurisdiction, Selden Soc. pp. 45,
63, 65, 76.) For burgages owned by parsons and clerics in Southampton,
Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 65, 70, 71, 75, 81. In Romney, where “the
freedom” seems to have meant more than the right to trade, it was given
to the vicar and others. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 540, 542, 546-7.) Monks
and heads of religious houses were, according to Dr. Gross, excluded
from citizenship (i. 66) though given rights of trade; but from the
Charter Rolls, John, 1215, it appears that in Bridgewater the brethren
of the Hospital of S. John were to be capable of taking up burgages
in the town and to have the same liberties within and without the
town as burgesses. This instance, has been kindly given to me by Miss
Greenwood from her study of the muniments of the town; she adds that
in the documents at Bridgewater there are many instances of houses and
market-stalls being held by clergy. In all the bills of sale _stalls in
High Street_ are named burgages, and a lawsuit shows that a wool-stall
there was sold to the abbot of Michelney. For Ipswich, Gross, ii.
123; and Andover, ibid. 321. Local customs doubtless differed. The
Guild Merchant at Lynn allowed no “spiritual person” to work on their
quay—that is, to trade there (ibid. ii. 166)—a circumstance which
reflects the greater credit on the hermit who about 1349 lived in the
Bishop’s marsh by Lynn and set up at his own great cost a certain
remarkable cross of the height of 110 feet, of great service for all
shipping coming that way (Blomefield viii. 514). When the burgesses
of Totnes admitted the abbot and convent of Buckfastleigh into the
Merchants’ Guild, so as to make all their purchases like the burgesses,
all sales that they might attempt to make “by way of trading” were
excepted. Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 343.
[320] In Bristol; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 327. In Rye, “by the Common Seal
of the Barons of the Ville of Rye;” ibid. v. 513, 499. For the old
custom of sealing through rush rings see ibid. ix. 234-5.
[321] For the various ways of winning municipal freedom see First Rep.
of the Commissioners on Mun. Corporations, 1835, 19, and especially
the table given on page 93. Even towns as closely connected as the
Cinque Ports differed much in their willingness to admit new burgesses.
The freedom of Sandwich might be acquired in six ways—by birth,
by marriage with a free woman, by buying a free tenement, by seven
years’ apprenticeship, by purchase, by gift of the Corporation. In New
Romney freedom could only be acquired by birthright in the male line,
and grant of the Corporation; while in Hythe all children born after
the father’s admission to freedom were entitled to the freedom, and
daughters could convey it upon their marriage (Boys’ Sandwich, 787,
796, 799, 812, 821). The same differences existed in other towns. See
Davies’ Southampton, 140; Boase’s Oxford, 48; English Guilds, 390;
Freeman’s Exeter, 142; Hereford, Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 471, 468.
[322] Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. xxxvii. I have met with but
one instance in which the King interfered—when Edward the Second by
Royal Letters Patent granted the right of burgesses at Southampton to
John de London of Bordeaux, and in 1312 extended them to his wife and
children. (Davies, 190.) Henry the Fourth granted to the Archbishop of
Canterbury the right to trade in Ipswich; but this right carried with
it no political privileges in the town. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 246.) For
the granting of franchises by French kings, see Luchaire, Les Communes
Françaises, 56-7.
[323] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. III, 114.
[324] Hereford; Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii. 468.
[325] Gross, ii. 257.
[326] Totnes, Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 342, 343. Preston Guild Rolls, xvi.,
xix. In Nottingham one pledge was required in the fourteenth century;
generally two in the fifteenth century. See Nott. Records, i. 285-7,
ii. 272, 302, iii. 58, 80, 84, 90, 102.
[327] In 1397 the burgesses of Preston paid sums varying from 3_s._
to 40_s._ (Preston Guild Rolls, xvi.-xix.) In Exeter an artificer had
to pay 20_s._, a merchant whatever the Mayor chose to ask (Freeman’s
Exeter, 142). In Canterbury freemen were admitted in the fourteenth
century for 10_s._; in 1480 the sum had risen to 40_s._ (Hist. MSS.
Com. ix. 144). See also Hereford (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii.). In the
sixteenth century the jury of the Mickle Tourn of Nottingham presented
a request that every foreigner should henceforth pay £10. (Nott. Rec.
iv. 170-1. Wells, Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106.) In Dover the payment was
“put into the common horn” by the new freeman (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 306).
[328] In Preston the rule was that if he had received for his burgage
“a void place” he must set up a house on it within forty days; in other
towns, as in Norwich or Hereford, he was allowed a year and a day.
(Custumal of Preston, given in Hist. of Preston Guild, 74. Hudson,
Municipal Organization of Norwich, 27. Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 468.)
[329] In Preston regulations had to be made to prevent builders
blocking up a street by temporarily fixing in it the framework of a
house. (Hist. Preston Guild, 47.)
[330] Carlisle Mun. Records, Ed. Ferguson and Nansen, 63-4.
[331] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 472, 475; Lyon’s Dover, ii. 362.
[332] Gross, ii. 276. Custumal, Preston Guild, 75. Hist. MSS. Com.
viii. i. 426.
[333] In Hereford the freeman who lost his position for perjury could
never recover it save by the special favour of the commonalty, “and by
the redemption of his goods and chattels at least for twice as much as
he gave before.” Any citizen who had been sentenced to the pillory,
tumbrill or the like, “by that means let him lose his freedom; but
afterwards by the special favour of his bailiff and the commonalty he
may be redeemed.” (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii. 468, 481.)
[334] English Guilds, 403.
[335] Also at Andover; Gross, The Gild Merchant, ii. 320, 324.
Public disapproval was held to be a powerful motive. In Hereford if
a plaintiff brought a writ of right for the possession of a tenement
into the court and the defendant refused to appear at the court, “there
ought to be taken from the tenement demanded one post and to be brought
unto the court and delivered to the bailiff; and the second time two;
and the third time three; and _this to be done always towards the
street, in reproach to him, and to the noting of his fellow-citizens_;
and if he shall not come, the house ought to be thrown down, by taking
one post towards the street, and so forward and forward until the whole
house be thrown down to the ground.” (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii. 481-2.)
[336] A copy of the Charter of Manchester, granted 1301, is given in
Baines’ History of County of Lancaster ii. 175-6. A comparison of the
special privileges of the burgesses with those in the Preston custumal
illustrates the variety in the customs of different towns. (Cutts’
Colchester, 169-170. Davies’ Southampton, 111.)
[337] See von Ochenkowski, Die wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im
Ausgange des Mittelalters, 66. Stubbs’ Charters, 107, 159. The monopoly
was sometimes the privilege of the Merchant Guild. “So that no one
who is not of that Guild shall make any merchandise in the said town,
unless with the will of the merchants.” (Hist. of Preston Guilds,
Custumal, 73. Gross, ii. 122, 127, 129.) In other towns where we do not
hear of a Merchant Guild it belonged to the whole body of burgesses.
(Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425.)
[338] An alien living in Romney paid double Scot to the town. (Lyon’s
Dover, ii. 332.)
[339] English Guilds, 392, 384. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 332.
[340] Boys’ Sandwich, 521. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 365, 366, 367, 386; Pleas
in Manorial Courts, Selden Soc. 137.
[341] An Act to prevent Mayors from levying shewage from denizens.
Statutes 19 Henry VII., Cap. 8.
[342] “The Mayor of the city of York and his brethren made great
instance” to Lord Surrey to see that their fellow citizen, Thomas
Hartford, bower in Norwich, should not be annoyed by Thomas Hogan, a
shoemaker. (Paston Letters, iii. 366.) This protection however was only
given on the condition of his renouncing all other aid. The mayor of
York and his brethren aldermen in 1488 were applied to by Sir Robert
Plumpton to protect some “servants and lovers” of his dwelling in York
from annoyance by certain York citizens. The mayor answered in the name
of himself, the aldermen, and the common council, that these dependants
of Plumpton’s had been franchised and sworn to keep the customs of the
city of York, that they were therefore bound to show any variance or
trouble to the mayor “and to none other, and he to see an end betwixt
them.” The mayor plainly intimates that these men must either go home
and live under the protection of their master there, or else if they
stay in York must submit their affairs to the mayor alone “as their
duties had been.” (Plumpton Correspondence, 57-58.)
[343] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425.
[344] Preston Guild Rolls, xxiv.; Freeman’s Exeter, 144; Hist. MSS.
Com. ix. 241, 242, 246. For instances of royal pressure brought to bear
on the town courts, see Proc. Privy Council, ii. 152; Hist. MSS. Com.
xi. 3, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104.
[345] There was a hot dispute on this question between Wycombe and the
Abbot of Missenden under Edward the First, and the jury was finally
formed of seven burgesses and five foreigners, “thus saving to the said
burgesses their liberty aforesaid.” (From Pleas de Quo Warranto, Bucks,
Rot. i. Edw. I., 1286. Parker’s Hist. of Wycombe, 23-4.)
[346] Parker’s Hist. of Wycombe, 12.
[347] Especially in matters of debt and arrest. Stubbs’ Charters, 107.
In Romney a burgess might recover money owed to him by a stranger
in the town by himself going, in the absence of the bailiff, to
make distraint on the stranger’s goods under the sole condition of
delivering the distraint to the bailiff. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425.
For Rye see Lyon’s Dover, ii. 358; Boys’ Sandwich, 449. See also for
the difficulties of aliens, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 243.)
[348] English Guilds, 391; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 170-1. Henry the Second
granted to burgesses of Wallingford that if his provost impleaded any
one of them without an accuser, he need not answer the charge. (Gross,
ii. 244.) See Newcastle, Stubbs’ Charters, 107. The importance of these
provisions is obvious if the custom of Sandwich was common. There the
mayor might arrest and imprison any one whom he chose as a “suspect.”
After some time the prisoner was brought from the castle to the Mastez
and a “cry” made to ask if there were any one to prosecute him. If no
one appeared he was set free on giving security, but if he could find
no security he might at the mayor’s will be banished for ever from
the town. The bailiff could not arrest on suspicion as the mayor did.
(Boys’ Sandwich, 687, 466-7.) For mediæval notions of punishment see
the sentence of the King in Piers Ploughman, pass. v. 81-82—
“And commanded a constable to cast Wrong in irons,
There he ne should in seven year see feet ne hands.”
[349] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 170-1. Boys’ Sandwich, 445 and 443. In
Winchester the freeman was summoned three times to the court, others
only once. (English Guilds, 360.)
[350] English Guilds, 391. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 152.
[351] In Norwich the bailiffs were liable to such heavy expenses in bad
years that in 1306 it was ordained that they could only be compelled to
serve once in four years. (Blomefield, iii. 73. Ordinances in Hist. of
Preston Guilds, 12.)
[352] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145.
[353] Parker’s Manor of Aylesbury, 20, 21.
[354] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 536-541.
[355] Davies’ Southampton, 168. In 1422 a Winchester burgess paid £10
to be free of holding any office save that of Mayor for the rest of his
life. Another paid five marks to be freed from ever taking the office
of bailiff. (Gross, ii. 259-260.) In Lynn, when a man was chosen jurat,
“he took time till the next assembly to bring ten pounds into the Hall,
or otherwise to accept the burden.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.) Fine
for refusal to go to Yarmouth as bailiff of Cinque Ports, and payment
to substitute (Ibid. v. 541). In 1491 an Act was passed forbidding the
burgesses of Leicester to refuse the Chamberlainship. Sixty years later
another Act ordered them not to refuse the Mayoralty. By Acts of 1499
and 1500 members who absented themselves from the Court of Portmanmote
at Whitsuntide and Christmas were fined. (Ibid. viii. 426.) In
Canterbury certain powers were exempted by writ from serving on juries,
1415. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169.)
[356] Shillingford’s Letters, xxiii.
[357] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 527.
[358] Lyon’s Dover, Custumals, vol. ii. 267, &c.
[359] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425; Boys’ Sandwich, 679, A.D. 1493.
Gross, The Gild Merchant, ii. 276.
[360] The charter of Edward the Fourth to Colchester declared that the
burghers should never be appointed against their will in any assizes or
any quests outside the borough; nor to any post of collector of taxes
or aids, or of constable, bailiff, &c., nor should they be liable to
any fine for refusing these posts. (Cromwell’s Colchester, 257.) The
Winchester people paid a sum about 1422 “to excuse every citizen of
the city from being collector of the King’s money within the county of
Southampton.” (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 602.)
[361] Thus in Hythe there was a privileged body who were not of the
franchise, but were still apparently subject to the town jurisdiction,
and excused by a writ called Dormand from Hundred Court and Shire Court
and inquests. See also Preston Guild Record, xii., xvi., xx., xxix.
[362] English Guilds, 394. Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk, iii., 80.
[363] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 544-545. At one time when Preston was much
distressed, it was ordained that decayed burgesses unable to pay
their yearly taxes should not lose their freedom because of poverty.
(Thomson’s Mun. History, 104. Custumale in Hist. of Preston Guild.)
[364] See ch. x.
[365] See ch. xi.
[366] See vol. ii., The Town Market.
[367] The non-burgesses of Lynn, the “Inferiores,” were men of
substance and formed an important body, whose struggles for a
re-distribution of power fill the annals of the town in the fifteenth
century.
[368] English Guilds, 386, 399
[369] Paston Letters, ii. 293.
[370] 7 Henry IV. cap. 17. The coming of country apprentices into
towns, though forbidden by Richard II. and Henry IV., was afterwards
permitted in London, Bristol, and Norwich. (Statutes 8 Henry VI. cap.
11; 11 Henry VII. cap. 11; 12 Henry VII. cap. 1).
[371] Paston Letters, iii. 481. Apprentices in London and Bristol might
not be _under_ seven years old. Ricart, 102.
[372] Manners and Meals, xv.
[373] Piers Ploughman, Passus x. 206-207, 253-4.
[374] Custumal in History of Preston Guild, 73-78. As late as the
time of James I. lords here and there were fighting to keep up old
customs. An action was brought by a lord against a townsman of Melton
for not baking his bread at the lord’s oven; “and the action,” wrote
the steward, “is like to prove frequent, for the lord’s court there
is scarce able to preserve his inheritance in this custom of baking.”
Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 342-3.
[375] If a Preston burgher died suddenly, neither lord nor justices
might seize his lands, which passed on to the next heir; only if he had
been publicly excommunicated they were to be given in alms. Custumal.
Hist. Preston Guild, 77. Compare Luchaire 248.
[376] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 471. The age was sometimes fixed at
twelve, sometimes at fourteen. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 244.) The burgher
had no power to leave by will any lands he held outside the town
liberties, which must pass to the heir appointed by the common law. For
the frauds to which this might give rise, see Hist. MSS. Com. x. 3,
87-9. Wills bequeathing land were read publicly in the borough courts
(Nottingham Records, i. 96), and there enrolled by the mayor as a Court
of Record. The muniments of Canterbury show that from this right the
mayor went on to claim probate, possibly following the example of Lynn.
The claim was perfectly illegal, but was energetically pressed.
[377] Birmingham, which under Henry the Eighth had 2,000 houselings,
and was said to be “one of the fairest and most profitable towns to
the King’s highness in all the shire” (English Guilds, 247-9), only
counted in Doomsday nine heads of families. In 1327 these had risen to
seventy-five. The burghers first won the lightening of feudal dues,
when Birmingham was freed from ward and marriage, heriot and relief,
so that if a burgess died the lord could only take his best weapon—a
bill or a pole-axe—or forty pence. (Survey of the Borough and Manor
of Birmingham, 1553. Translated by W. B. Bickley, with notes by Joseph
Hill, pp. xii., 108.) The bailiff and commonalty rented the stalls
in the market from the lord, and leased them out by their constables
to the townsfolk, fishmongers, butchers, and tanners, and in this
way secured complete control of the town market (pp. 60-61), where
burgesses were exempt from toll, while strangers free of the market
paid a small sum, and those not free a larger amount. After the Plague
a “free burgage by fealty” grew up, with an oath to observe the customs
and services of the manor. The normal holding of the villein seems to
have been forty-five acres, that of the cotters less (pp. xii., xiii.
See Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, i. 12, 298). As population increased
new pastures in the foreign were leased out for a term of years at an
annual rent, and while the increase of perpetual free tenures thus
ceased the alienation of the whole domain was prevented (pp. xiv., 74,
102). Though the town was not made a borough by royal grant, it had
even in the thirteenth century secured an independent life, called
itself a borough and elected its officers (pp. 60-1, 108-9). Its public
acts were done under the style of “bailiff and commonalty” or “bailiff
and burgesses.” See also Manchester Court Leet Records, 12, 14, 169,
170. For examples of the first privileges which the townspeople sought
to win see the “customs” of Newcastle under Henry I., Stubbs’ Charters,
106-8.
[378] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491, et seq.
[379] For the injuries that might be inflicted on a community by a
lord’s reeve, see Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Society.
[380] If the lord of the soil held the town as a market-town, and not
as a borough, the inhabitants had to attend the Sheriff’s tourn, where
their petty offences were judged by him or his deputy. In all cases
which were not specially exempted they had to appear also twice a year
at the court of the shire for view of frank pledge and for judgment of
their more serious crimes. Manchester Court Leet Records, 14.
[381] The coroner was an officer elected in full county court, and was
charged with guarding the interests of the Crown. His intrusion in the
towns was much resented.
[382] When a robber from Bridport escaped from the town prison a set of
girths or horse-nets was sent by the town to Dorchester to mitigate the
sheriff’s anger.
[383] For abuses in appointing tax collectors, see Paston Letters, i.
li.
[384] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491.
[385] See Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 361-3.
[386] Close Rolls, I. p. 273, 1216.
[387] Nottingham Records, i. 46.
[388] This appears in the records of Gloucester. The scot-ale was
a very common method of collecting money for other purposes. See
Malmesbury, Gross, ii. 172, Newcastle (183), Wallingford (245),
Winchester (253), Cambridge (358). It was an article of inquiry for
Justices Itinerant in 1254. (417) Stubbs’ Charters, 258-259.
[389] Hundred Rolls, i. 49, 55. The jurors of Bridgenorth complained
in 1221 that the sheriff’s bailiffs and the men of the country had
committed to them the duty of following the trail of stolen cattle
through their town and fined them if they failed, whereas they could
not follow a trail through the middle of the town. Select Pleas of the
Crown, Selden Society, 113.
[390] Piers Ploughman, Pass. iii. 59, 177, iv. 172.
[391] For the profits to be made in this business and its opportunities
of fraud, see Winchelsea (Rot. Parl. i. 373). Sometimes the escheator
divided the fines levied between himself and the King; in other cases
the office was farmed out and the King took a fixed sum leaving the
escheator a free hand to do what he pleased. In the towns the office
was finally given to the mayor at a fixed salary. The Mayor of Norwich
received as escheator £10; that is, an equal salary to that which he
received as Mayor (Blomefield, iii. 179). As Mayor of the Staple he was
given £20. (Ibid. iii. 94.)
[392] He was forbidden by Richard the Second to ride with more than six
horses, or tarry long in a town. (Statutes, 13 Richard II. 1, cap. 4,
and 16 Richard II., cap. 3.) In 1346 the King by charter freed Norwich
from “the clerk of the market of our household,” so that he should
not enter the city to make the assay of measures or weights, or any
other duties belonging to his office. (Norwich Doc., pr. 1884, case of
Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., p. 26.) For clerk of the market in Calais,
Lives of Berkeleys, ii. 198.
[393] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.
[394] Statutes, 13th Richard II., I, cap. 3.
[395] In Rochester “the King’s hackney-men” took oath to be ready at
all times, early and late, to serve the King’s Grace with able hackney
horses at the calling of the Mayor, and to provide at all times for any
man riding on the King’s message, and to give information to the Mayor
in case any hard-driven hackney-man in the town “purloin or hide any
of their able hackney horses in any privy places, whereby the King’s
service may be hindered, prolonged, or undone.” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix.
287.) For Romney see Lyon’s Dover, ii. 341. In some towns certain
innkeepers had letters patent to require horses and carts for the
King’s service. The right was greatly abused, and such patents declared
void by Statute. (28 Henry VI. cap. 2.)
[396] For purveyors, Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, 1., 119, 166.
Brinklow’s Complaint, 19, 20. Rot. Parl. i. 400. At Lynn the King’s
Larderer would claim ships to go out fishing for the King’s provisions,
or perhaps to carry 5,000 fish for the King’s household. (Hist. MSS.
Com. xi. 3, 188-9.) As late as 1493 it was necessary for Canterbury
(which had been freed by charter from these exactions in 1414) to get
a “breve” from Henry the Seventh to give its inhabitants a summary
means of resisting the demands of the King’s Purveyors. (Ibid. ix.
168.) For seizing of carts, see Nottingham Records, i. 118. The King’s
cart-takers in the seventeenth century, Hist. MSS. Com. v. 407.
[397] Instances in Chester, 1282, Hemingway’s Chester, i. 132.
[398] Among the Bristol liberties was one that no burgess nor
inhabitant of Bristol shall against his will receive none host into his
house by lyverance of the King’s Marshall. (Ricart, 24.)
[399] Instances of the necessity for new grants and confirmations and
the heavy consequent expenses are too numerous to quote. In Canterbury
£36 was paid in 1460 for a new charter, and other payments connected
with the same business were made in the following year. In 1472
messengers were sent to London for the obtaining again of a charter of
liberties. Two years later an envoy rode to London to treat with the
Treasurer, Lord Essex, about a writ of proviso touching the liberties
of the city, and a grant was then made, probably in return for heavy
payment, which confirmed a recent restoration of ancient privileges. A
magnificent supper given to Lord Essex expressed the gratitude of the
city. In 1474 the city paid for a proviso to confirm the restorations
of their liberties. In 1475 there was an investigation _in camera_ of
the charters and muniments concerning the bounds of the liberty; and in
1481 payments were made to friends and patrons who had helped them with
the King in preserving the liberties of the city. At the accession of
Henry the Seventh it became necessary to buy renewal and confirmation
of the charter, and this was completed in 1487. In 1490 the Mayor
conferred with Cardinal Morton on the renewal and extension of the
liberties of the city. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140 _et seq._, 170.) See
Romney, Ibid. v. 534-5, 537, 539, 543-4.
[400] Writ of inquisition as to privileges of Cinque Ports. (Hist. MSS.
Com. vi. 544.) The instance of charters forfeited on these grounds are
very frequent.
[401] In Southampton a hogshead of Gascony wine was given “by common
consent” to the sheriff to have his friendship in the return of a jury.
In 1428 a sum of 13_s._ 4_d._ was paid for returning “friends of the
town” on a jury to settle a question which had arisen between the King
and Southampton as to which was to have the goods and chattels of a
felon who had run away. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 140, 142.) See also
Ibid. v. 518.
[402] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539. The Lieutenant of Dover, who settled the
amount and division of benevolences required from the Cinque Ports, had
also his offerings from the various towns that they might be well dealt
with. (Ibid. v. 527.)
[403] Ibid. v. 528. These courts on the sea-shore meant considerable
expense in fees and feasts.
[404] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 491. In 1474 money was given by Canterbury to
Kyriel, that he might excuse the city from sending men and ships to the
war. (Ibid. ix. 143.)
[405] Ibid. v. 518, 522.
[406] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 543. Three and fourpence, and 18_d._ for a
pair of boots as a reward.
[407] See in Winchester the gifts to the coroner’s clerk, to jurors at
the Pavilion, to the King’s taxers, to the wife of the Sheriff, to the
Bailiff of the Soke of Winton, and so on. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 595-605.)
[408] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 138-149. The expenses at Lynn were
very great. (Ibid. 218-225.)
[409] Doubtless a scribe’s error for Llandaff. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix.
145.) The Bishop of St. David’s writes that “in many great cities and
towns were great sums of money given him which he hath refused.”
[410] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 141-3.
[411] At the important meeting in 1474, when the constitution of
the town was reaffirmed, William Haute, the lord of the manor of
Bishopsbourne (four miles away), who was then patron of the town,
was put at the head of the list before even the five aldermen, the
sheriff, or any town officers, as establishing and ordaining the town
ordinances. Poynings, Browne, Guildford, were at different times
patrons of the city.
[412] Davies’ York, 128-9, 123-5. For an interesting instance of
beneficent protection in 1605, see Hibbert’s Influence and Development
of Guilds, p. 95.
[413] The election of a Mayor as a responsible person through whom the
King could deal with the town was probably often connected with the
settlement of the fee-farm rent. In Liverpool the first mention of a
Mayor is in 1356, the very next year the fee-farm was granted to the
Mayor and others on behalf of the burgesses for ten years. (Picton,
Municipal Records of Liverpool, i. 13-15.)
[414] As against the idea of Merewether and Stephens, that charters of
municipal incorporation only began in 1439, Dr. Gross points out that
such a charter occurs in 1345, that in the time of Edward the First
the technical conception of municipal incorporation was familiar, and
that long before the judicial conception came into being the borough
had a real corporate existence, and exercised all the functions of a
corporate body. (Gild Merchant, i. 93, &c.)
[415] In 1391 the Statute of Mortmain was extended to cities and
boroughs. (Statutes, 15 Richard II., cap. 5.) Even when license to hold
land was granted by the Crown the amount was strictly limited, and the
power of refusal or of limitation was a serious consideration to the
town.
[416] According to Mr. Round, London found means of annexing the shire
of Middlesex instead of asking to be separated from it. (Geoffrey de
Mandeville, 347-373.)
[417] We have a hint of a troublesome mode of interference with the
municipal taxation in an incident in Norwich in 1268, when “the lord
the King commanded all his bailiffs that, _for a fine_ £10, _which
Margaret the Taneresse of Norwich made with the same lord the King_,
he granted to her such liberty that for the whole time of her life she
should be quit from all his tallages in the town of Norwich ... for
whatsoever cause they may be made. And he commanded that they vex not
the aforesaid Margaret contrary to this his grant.” (Norwich Documents,
pr. 1884, 9.) In any case where the tallage was a fixed sum due from
the town some one else would have to pay Margaret’s share.
[418] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 478.
[419] Journ. Arch. Ass. 479. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 241-2. Statute of
Maintenance, 13 Richard II., Stat. 3. For the jealousy of the towns as
to any inhabitant relying for protection on a lord outside, see p. 183,
note 2.
[420] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 482. For a duel in Leicester in 1201,
see Select Civil Pleas, Selden Society, p. 33. Judicial combat in
Fordwich with an alien had to take place in the middle of the river
Stour, the alien standing up to his middle in the water, while the
Fordwich man apparently fought from a boat tied to the quay, with an
instrument called an “ore,” three yards long. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 442.)
In 1200 “the citizens of Lincoln came and produced the king’s charter
which witnesses that none of them need plead outside the city walls
except the king’s moneyers and servants, and that they need not fight
the duel because of any appeal.” An accused man answered the charges
against him “word by word as a free citizen of Lincoln,” and “according
to the franchise of the town” waged law with thirty-six compurgators.
(Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Society, p. 39.) For compurgation in
Sandwich in 1493, Boys, 680.
With old forms of trial old forms of punishment were allowed to
survive. In Sandwich, if a man failed to clear himself by compurgation
of a charge of homicide or theft he was condemned to be buried alive
in a place called the Thiefdown at Sandown. (Ibid. 465.) Felons were
also drowned in a stream called “the Gestling”; but in 1313 a complaint
was made that the prior of Christchurch had diverted the course of the
stream, and that criminals could not be executed in that way for want
of water. (Ibid. 664.) At Dover and Folkestone a thief was killed by
being thrown from a cliff, and at Winchelsea was hanged in the salt
marsh. (Lyon’s Dover, i. 231.) In others of the Cinque Port towns when
a thief was taken his ear was nailed to a post or cartwheel and a knife
put in his hand, he had to free himself by cutting off his ear, to pay
a fine, and to forswear the town. In 1470, 12_d._ was paid “for nailing
of Thomas Norys his ear.” (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 525, 530.)
[421] Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 407. Nottingham retained the old usage
till after the fourteenth century; Records, i. 175. Exeter till 1581;
Freeman’s Exeter, 119. The question may have partly turned on the form
of government adopted in the town and the work required of the common
assembly in which the burghers voted.
[422] It has been argued (Gneist, Constit. Communale, tr. Hippert, i.
263; v. 275) that the State created local government in the towns as a
method of developing better administration, and that it was therefore
only accidentally and as a secondary consequence that independence and
local liberties came in the wake of this administrative system. The
facts, however, of their story make it perfectly clear that municipal
liberties were of natural growth, and sprang out of local needs rather
than out of Court statecraft.
[423] Gross, i. 23; ii. 115.
[424] The seals of English towns of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries were of finer workmanship than any in Europe. They
generally represented a fortress or walled town, a ship, a patron
saint, or heraldic arms, but it is interesting that in no case is the
figure of the Mayor used to typify the borough save in the London seal,
where he stands among the corporation and citizens. Sometimes a bridge
is given, as at Barnstaple; in two or three cases the Guild Hall.
[425] A few towns, in the case of some members of the Cinque Ports,
depended on another borough.
[426] For the position of tenants on ancient demesne, see Vinogradoff,
Villainage in England, ch. iii. Mr. Maitland (Select Pleas in Manorial
Courts, ii. 99, &c.) gives an account of King’s Ripton, a manor on
ancient demesne, whose tenants when transferred to the Abbey of Ramsey
were always fighting with their new lords as to the services due from
their holdings. “The privileged nature of the tenure had engendered a
privileged race, very tenacious of its land and of its customs” (p.
105). The study of the way in which the customs of ancient demesne
affected the later constitution of the boroughs lies outside my
subject, and is therefore merely indicated.
[427] Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, 89. Compare the claim of
Bristol to be “founded and grounded upon franchises, liberties, and
free ancient customs, and not upon common law.” (Ricart’s Kalendar, 2.)
For its liberties, see p. 24-5.
[428] As a matter of fact the various towns of this kind which applied
to Hereford for any information as to its customs on any point had to
pay one hundred shillings for the answer vouchsafed to them. (Journ.
Arch. Ass. xxvii. 470.)
[429] There was constant watchfulness on both sides as to their rights.
In 1400 the bailiffs of Ipswich granted land for the building of a mill
for the benefit of the corporation; the King’s officers declared the
grant to have been made without the royal licence, and the mill was
seized for the King. On the other hand, when the sheriff of the county
arrested a felon in the liberties of Ipswich and put him in the King’s
jail, the bailiffs required that he should be given up to them. (Hist.
MSS. Com. ix. 231, 246.)
[430] That is on the plea of lack of justice in the borough court. In
1401, when the citizens of Canterbury were summoned by the Crown to
appear at Westminster about a breach of the statutes for the regulation
of the victualling trades, they pleaded that by their charter they
could not be called to answer civil suits out of their own city. (Hist.
MSS. Com. ix. 167.)
[431] In 1299 the amercements ordered by the Leet Court of Norwich
amounted to £72 18s. 10d.; the amount accounted for by the collectors
was £17 0s. 2d. (Hudson’s Leet Jurisd. of Norwich, Selden Soc. xl.)
Where there was profit to be made the King was, however, always on the
alert. In Piers Ploughman, Passus v., 169, he complains bitterly of
the lawyers; “through your law I believe I lose my escheats!”; and it
was often late before he made the mayor escheator. In 1492 two Scotch
priests were arrested in Ipswich for treasonable talk, and the King
granted their chattels to one of his own serjeants. The bailiffs sent
the Town Clerk to Henry to represent that the forfeited goods of felons
rightly belonged to the town; to which the King answered that he would
not for a thousand pounds infringe in the least degree their charters,
but that the community had really no right to these particular
chattels, since the priests, being Scotch and not the King’s subjects,
could not fairly be accused of treason, and had a perfect right to talk
as they chose. On this plea he kept the goods. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix.
247.)
[432] This was strictly enforced, and the town charter forfeited if
the rent fell into arrears. (Madox, 139, 161-2.) The towns therefore
made careful provision for the discharge of the debt, sometimes
setting apart a mill or some valuable property for its payment (Madox,
Firma Burgi, 251-2; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 198-9; Nott. Rec. i. 313), or
assigning certain tolls or customs; (Shillingford’s Letters, 92); or
collecting it as rent from house to house. (Custumal in Hist. Preston
Guild, 75.)
[433] When the ferm of Carlisle was raised from £60 to £80 the citizens
were granted, as a help towards its payment, all fines, inflicted by
the King’s judges within their walls. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 198, 200.)
See also Norwich Documents, 16, 17.
[434] Thus the Nottingham men paid 13_s._ 4_d._ a year to Henry the
Sixth, at least from 1454, for liberties granted them. There is no
entry of this in the King’s accounts, and the only evidence of it is
in the Nottingham Records (iii. 133). The loyal theory of Hereford was
that “our goods and chattels are to be taken and taxed at his pleasure,
saving unto ourselves a competent quantity for our sustentation and
tuition of our city.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 471.)
[435] Nott. Rec. i. 225, 227, 413, 421.
[436] The agreement made in the fourteenth century which fixed the
tenths and fifteenths for the towns at a permanent fixed sum, made it
easy for the King to give over to local officials the levying of this
tax without fear of injury to the Exchequer. (Stubbs, ii. 599, 600.)
[437] Blomefield, iii. 137.
[438] The Admiral and his deputy had jurisdiction over everything done
on the sea and the great rivers up to the first bridge. (13 Richard
II. St. 1, cap. 5; 15 Richard II., cap. 3; Blomefield, iii. 103;
Davies’ Southampton, 239-40.) In 1487 the commonalty of Ipswich by a
covenant with the King bound themselves to take surety of every owner,
master, or purser of every English ship to twice the value of the
ship, that the mariners should keep the peace on the sea; that if the
surety by any means became less than twice the value of ship, tackle,
and victuals, new security should be taken; and that the town should
strive to arrest every robber and spoiler in the sea or the streams
thereof. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 259-60.) In 1463 a charter was given to
the corporation of York, constituting them the King’s justiciaries
for overlooking and preserving the main rivers of Yorkshire. For the
expenses and difficulties which this involved, see Davies’ York, 59-63,
82, &c.
[439] As an illustration of his difficulties, see the statute allowing
sheriffs and escheators to remain for four years in office, because
owing to pestilence and wars there was not a sufficiency of persons to
occupy these offices. (9 Henry V. St. 1, cap. 5.)
[440] In the lack of officials to carry out the regulations for
the control of trade a number of private people got royal letters
appointing them surveyors and correctors of victuallers in various
cities and boroughs, and freely used their privileges for extortion and
oppression, and the taking of heavy fines and ransoms; their patents
were gradually withdrawn; and in 1472 an Act was passed that all such
letters and patents should be void, and that the duty of searching and
surveying victuals should rest wholly with the mayor or bailiff. (12
Edward IV. cap. 8.)
[441] In this matter the King was not allowed to interfere. In 1489
there was a dispute in Leicester between the Town Council and the
Commons about the election of a Mayor. The matter was referred to the
King, who issued a precept under the seal of the Duchy of Lancaster,
showing that it was as Lord of the Manor and not as King that he
interfered. He set aside both candidates and reappointed the last
Mayor. The next year the question was settled by Act of Parliament.
(Thomson, Mun. Hist., 84.) For authority exercised by Parliament see
Norwich (Doc. Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c. 30.) When the citizens applied
in 1378 to the King and Council for a renewal of their ancient liberty
that no stranger should have power to buy or sell by retail, they
were answered that it would not be valid “without Parliament”; they
therefore pray for a grant by charter.
[442] See Hudson’s Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. xxvii. xc. “For
he doth represent to us the body of our King.” (Journ. Arch. Ass.
xxvii. 462.) See the proclamation of the London Mayor: “We do command,
on behalf of our Lord the King, that no dyer or weaver shall be so
daring,” &c. —”Memorials of London,” p. 309. An illustration of how
the King’s law and the town law ran side by side may be seen in the
fines for the breach of certain rules, as, for instance, the rule
against liveries, which had to be paid both to the King and to the
town. (English Guilds, 388-9.)
[443] Piers Ploughman, Passus ii. 156, 157.
[444] Warkworth’s Chronicle, 2.
[445] See Gross, ii. 245.
[446] The instances of similar grants made to various towns at almost
the same date are too numerous to give, but they would form a striking
list.
[447] Charter of Lincoln the same year; that of Winchester, 1190.
(Stubb’s Charters, 257-8). Nottingham and Northampton in 1200 (ibid.
301-3). The system of government adopted at Norwich was followed or
imitated a little later by the neighbouring towns of Yarmouth and
Colchester.
[448] Norwich Doc. Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c. p. 3. In the great majority
of cases this grant was made once for all; but occasionally it was
renewed from time to time. Thus Henry the Sixth in 1437 gave the mayor
and burgesses of Bristol a lease of the town and its profits for a
term of twenty years. In 1446 he granted a new lease for sixty years.
In 1461 Edward the Fourth renewed the lease, not for a term of years,
but for ever. (Seyer’s Charters of Bristol, 105.) The ferm was granted
in the same way for a term of years in the case of Dunwich, a royal
town, where it was let out to the highest bidder. Here, however, the
collection of rent was peculiarly uncertain from special circumstances
(Madox, 235-8, 241); and in 1325 Dunwich, ruined by the filling up of
its port, prayed to have the town taken into the King’s hand and a
guardian appointed. (Rot. Parl. i. 426.) For the inconvenience of this
letting out to the highest bidder, see Madox, 251.
[449] Hudson, Municipal Organisation in Norwich, 20; Leet Jur. in
Norwich, Selden Society, xvi. lxxii.
[450] Hudson’s Notes about Norwich, Norfolk Arch. vol. xii. p. 25.
[451] In 1288 the four bailiffs presided over the courts of these
leets. (Hudson, Municipal Organisation, 16, 21.)
[452] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., p. 5.
[453] Ibid. 6, 8, 10. Blomefield, iii. 46, 62.
[454] The convent sided with De Montfort. For the state of affairs in
the city, see Blomefield, iii. 52, &c.
[455] Blomefield, iii. 49.
[456] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., 7.
[457] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., 16, 17.
[458] Ibid. 10-12.
[459] This meant that it was the town bailiff who was to return the
certificate of what he had done in execution of a writ addressed to
him, instead of this being returned, as formerly, by the sheriff.
[460] Norwich Documents, 16, 18.
[461] Norwich Documents, 25.
[462] Ibid. 26.
[463] Blomefield’s Hist. of Norfolk, iii. 103.
[464] Ibid. iii. 81, 94-5. In 1393 the corporation was granted shops
and houses held of the King and worth £10 yearly, the profits of which
were to be spent on repairing the walls and towers. For this licence
they had to pay the King £100. Norwich Documents, 32.
[465] Ibid. 33-37.
[466] Gross, i. 240-267.
[467] Report on Municipal Corporations, 1835, pp. 16-17. Gross, i. 94,
note 1.
[468] This change was evident from the time of Richard the Second,
when the powers of the Justices were rapidly enlarged. See Statutes,
12 Richard II. cap. 10; 13 Richard II., 1, cap. 8; 13 Richard II., 1,
cap. 13; 13 Henry IV. cap. 7; 2 Henry V. cap. 4; 2 Henry V., 1, cap. 8;
2 Henry VI. cap. 12; 2 Henry VI. cap. 14; 2 Henry VI. cap. 18; 6 Henry
VI. cap. 3; 18 Henry VI. cap. 11.
[469] Southampton, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 104. Cases of interference
occur in the unpublished records of Coventry. For Romney see Lyon’s
Dover, 313. In 1489 there was some such trouble in Leicester (Thompson,
Mun. Hist., 84). And in 1512 there is another instance in Nottingham
(Records, iii. 341-2). From the time of Richard the Third there seems
evidence of the growth of a new anxiety in the central government
about the democratic movement in the boroughs, and a determination to
reserve power in the hands of a small corporation. An earlier instance
may perhaps be found in the Exeter quarrel from 1477 to 1482 (English
Guilds, 305, &c.); and in York in 1482 (Davies, 122-4).
[470] There were many cases in which a town’s privileges were
forfeited, whether for arrears of rent (Madox, 139, 161-2) or for
other causes (154-5, 157). The franchises of Nottingham were twice
forfeited for some unknown cause—in 1283 for three years (Records,
i. 56), and in 1330 for a short time. (Ibid. 102.) In the same year
Edward the First seized the franchises of Derby because of exactions
of the Merchant Guild, but restored them on payment of a fine. (Gross,
ii. 53.) For the case of Sandwich (Boys, 661, 676). Ipswich charter
withdrawn, 1285; regranted, 1291. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 230, 239, 243.)
Chester in 1409. (Hemingway’s Chester, i. 137.) The liberties of
Carlisle were forfeited for a short time for some irregularity in the
town courts in the thirteenth century. (Gross, ii. 38.) Southampton
lost its freedom in 1276 and 1285, and again in the next century for
letting the French into the town. (Davies’ Southampton, 33, 35, 79.)
Norwich suffered several times; for its attack on the Priory in 1272;
for an accusation of having exceeded its powers in punishing crime in
1286; for riots about the election of mayor in 1437; and for Gladman’s
insurrection in 1443. (Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., Norwich Doc., 9-12.
Proceedings, Privy Council, v. 45. Hist. MSS. Com. i. 103.) In these
cases a royal officer was appointed to rule the town; and the complaint
of Scarborough, when Edward the Second in 1324 deprived it of the
right of direct payment to the Exchequer, shows how a town suffered
when its ferm was leased out. (Rot. Parl. i. 423.) The loss of liberty
was always temporary, lasting from a few months to five or six years,
and had no political significance as in France, where it formed part
of a settled policy and had results which to the English mind seem of
peculiar importance in the history of constitutional development.
[471] Gross, ii. 235-243.
[472] Occasionally a borough was granted to a great noble or court
favourite; but more commonly as time went on the grant merely meant
giving a charge on the rent of the town. Thus before 1339 Preston had
been granted at various times to neighbouring lords. In 1361 John of
Gaunt held the manor, but long before this the rights of the lord were
so reduced that they are practically never mentioned in the history of
the town. (Hewitson’s History of Preston, 7-8.) For the troubles to
which the nobles’ claims to rent might lead, see Davies’ Southampton,
112. Edward the Fourth granted the ferm of Bristol to the Queen for her
life. The treasurer of the King’s chamber declared it had been assigned
to him in payment of a debt and brought an action for it against the
Bristol sheriff. Bristol proved the money had been paid to the Queen
and gained the case, 1465. (Madox, 227-8.)
[473] In 1273 Henry de Tracy held the borough from the King in chief
at a ferm of about £5 14_s._ 2_d._ There were 36 tenants whose rent
amounted to 23_s._ 8_d._ and some tenants in a suburb who paid an
uncertain rent, but generally about 6_s._ 8_d._ A market was held every
Friday which yielded in tolls to the lord about £3 a year, and a yearly
fair gave 10_s._ Fines, reliefs, &c., came to about 13_s._ 4_d._ a
year. The wealth of the town increased after the building of the “Long
Bridge” in 1280 over “the great hugy, mighty, perylous, and dreadful
water named Taw,” and the increase of the cloth trade about 1321.
Towards the close of the fourteenth century the legacies and accounts
show that the burghers were laying up considerable wealth and doing a
thriving trade. Hence probably the dispute as to the claim to profits.
Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 206-213. See also case of Bridgewater, ibid. iii.
310-14.
[474] They even claimed the right of infang theof and outfang theof,
and to be impleaded only in their own court. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 206.
[475] Rich. Redeless, ed. Skeat, Early English Text Society, Text C,
Pass. iii. 177, &c.
[476] Book of Precedence, E. E. Text Society, 105-108. Langland in
Richard the Redeless describes the noble who “keepeth no coin that
cometh to their hands, but changeth it for chains that in Cheap
hangeth, and setteth all their silver in samites and horns;” and
“That hangeth on his hips more than he winneth
And doubteth no debt so dukes them praise.”
Richard the Redeless, Passus iii. 137-40, 147-8.
[477] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 467. Nott. Rec. ii. 425.
[478] The landowner of the fifteenth century was usually a mere
landlord subsisting on his rents and not interested in the produce
of the soil except as a consumer. He was only occasionally a trader.
(Rogers’ Agriculture and Prices, iv. 2; see Berkeleys, i. 365-6; ii.
23; Paston, i., lxxxviii-ix., 416, 430, 431, 454; ii. 70, 106; iii.
430; Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 263; iv. 1, 464.) The really important
classes were the new proprietors who rented land for trading purposes.
[479] See Fastolf, Paston Letters, i. 187-8.
[480] Treasures were apparently stored in different quarters for
greater security. See Fastolf’s stores at Caistor. (Paston Letters, i.
416, 473-475; S. Benet’s, 468, 508; S. Paul’s, London, 493; Bermondsey,
474; White Friars, Norwich, ii. 56.) The religious houses had their
reward in the form of benefactions for which masses were sung for the
donor. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 461.) In the Paston house there was
stored away over 16,000 ounces of silver plate, nearly 900 yards of
cloth, about 300 yards of linen, and coats and hats without number. See
also Hist. MSS. Com. vii. 537; viii. 93; Berkeleys, ii. 212. Plumpton
Corresp. 10-11, 13, 37.
[481] Berkeleys, i. 167.
[482] John of Gaunt retained Rankyn d’Ypres to dwell with him for peace
and war for the term of his life, granting him board and twenty-five
marks a year from the ferm of Liverpool, _in time of peace_. (Picton’s
Municipal Records of Liverpool, i. 16.) For the management of a great
house with the giving out of wool for spinning and weaving and accounts
audited by a master clothier, see Berkeleys, i. 167; Hist. MSS. Com. v.
330; Denton’s Lectures, 293; Paston, ii. 354-5; Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4,
p. 297. Often they supplied their own livery. (Brinklow’s Complaynt,
45; Paston, ii. 139.)
[483] Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 63.
[484] Plumpton’s Correspondence, 13, 20-1, 41, 71, 72, 97, 99, 148,
194, 206, 187, 198-9. The abbot of Fountains had to write a severe
letter to order that a wine-seller in Ripon shall be paid for a tun of
wine. (Ibid. 62.) For courtiers who “paid on their pawns when their
pence lacked,” Richard the Redeless, Pass. i. 53-4; Paston Letters, ii.
333-5, 349-50; iii. 99.
“Butt drapers and eke skynners in the town
For such folk han a special orison
That florisshed is with curses here and there
And ay shall till they be payd of their here.”
Book of Precedence, Early English Text Society, 107.
[485] Paston Letters, iii. 326, 194, 219, 358.
[486] Ibid. iii. 6-7, 20, 23, 24, 35, 46, 49, 114-5, 219, 258.
[487] Lives of the Berkeleys, ii., v.; Brinklow’s Complaynt, 40.
[488] Richard the Redeless, Pass. iii. 172.
[489] Berkeleys, i. 159.
[490] Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 130. A charter given by Baldwin of
Redvers to Plympton, 1285, grants the same rights as the citizens
of Exeter had from the King, except that Baldwin’s serfs, if they
lived in the borough, might not be granted its liberties without his
leave. (Madox, Firma Burgi, 42.) The King could grant a number of
privileges which were beyond the power of any other lord—such as
freedom from tolls throughout the kingdom, exemption from the sheriff’s
jurisdiction, freedom from interference of royal officers, and so on;
and the matter of tolls was so important that towns on private estates
were practically obliged to get a royal charter as well as a charter
from their lord. Compare the charters given in Stubbs’ Charters, 105;
and Gross, ii, 136; with royal charters such as those in Stubbs’
Charters, 103; and Nott. Rec., i. 1. See also Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 273.
[491] Berkeleys, i. 341.
[492] Berkeleys, i. 226, 228.
[493] Ibid. i. 183-185.
[494] Ibid. i. 227.
[495] Plumpton’s Correspondence, 1-li.
[496] Berkeleys, i. 233-236, 272, 280. Compare the story of Sir William
Plumpton, who fought at Towton on the losing side. He was brought
before the chief justice in York and gave a bond for the payment of
£2,000 before next Pentecost, and failing to procure it had to give
himself up a prisoner at the Tower. He obtained a pardon, was released
from his bond in 1462, and had new letters of pardon in 1463, but was
still unable to return home till 1464, after he had been through a new
trial and been acquitted. (Plumpton’s Corres. lxvii-ix. 30.)
[497] Freeman’s Exeter, 166-7.
[498] Berkeleys, ii. 95. Compare the expenses of Fastolf in a lawsuit
of ten years, the costs of which were recorded in a roll of seven
skins. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 461.)
[499] Berkeleys, ii. 65-73, 75, 84, 103-116.
[500] Freeman’s Exeter, 164; Paston, i. xcviii, 350-1; Proceedings of
the Privy Council, v., xc-xci.; vi. lxxviii-ix. In 1437 a commission
of inquiry into felonies and insurrections in Bedford could not be
held because Lord Grey, to whom the town belonged, appeared with a
strong armed force, and was met by Lord Fanhope ready to oppose him
with another army. (Proceedings of Privy Council, v., Preface xv-xvi.)
Account given by witnesses before Privy Council, v. 35, 39, 57. Fresh
troubles in 1442, v. 192.
[501] For the evils of liveries and maintenance under Richard the
Second, see Richard the Redeless, Pass. i. 55 &c., ii. 74 &c., iii. 309
&c. The wearing of liveries was forbidden in Shrewsbury lest “when any
affray or trouble fall in the said town each man having livery would
draw to his master or to his fellow and not to the bailiffs.” (Owen,
i. 217.) From the towns these evils seem to have been rigorously and
effectually banished by ordinances from 1309 (Freeman’s Exeter, 165,
143) throughout the two following centuries. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 557;
Eng. Gilds, 385, 388-9, 393, 333; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, page 16.) The
cases of trouble which occur are rare. (Nott. Records, ii. 384; iii.
37, 344-5. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 415. Hunt’s Bristol, 103-5.)
[502] Leicester shows the comparatively slow growth of freedom in
one of the most favoured towns dependent on a great lord. Its great
charter given by Edmund Crouchback in 1277, and translated into English
under Henry the Sixth, was mainly concerned with the ordering of legal
procedure for the burghers; and it was not till 1376 that the town
bought from its earl the right to appoint its own bailiff, and to
receive the annual profits of its courts, and various other dues and
fines. The town property was simply a tenement, a chamber, and a small
place yielding a few pence yearly till 1393, when it was allowed to
hold a little property for the repair of the bridges; and not till 1435
were the mayor and the corporation given the right to acquire lands and
rents for the sustenation of the town and mayoralty. (Hist. MSS. Com.
viii. 404, 412, 413, 414. Thompson, Mun. Hist., 74. A pamphlet on the
Origin of the Leicester Corporation by J. D. Paul gives a translation
of Crouchback’s charter.) Doncaster belonged to the family of De
Mauley till the middle of the fifteenth century, when it passed for a
few years to the Duke of Northumberland, and in 1461 was taken into
the possession of the Crown. Edward the Fourth made it a free borough
and gave it a common seal. Henry the Seventh in 1505 granted to the
corporation all the property which the Crown had acquired at Doncaster
on the attainder of Percy in 1461, and for a yearly rent of £74 13_s._
11½_d._ secured to it the rights which had belonged to the ancient
feudal lords. (Hunter’s History of the Deanery of Doncaster, i. 13-15.)
[503] Picton’s Municipal Rec. of Liverpool, i. 1-4.
[504] Picton’s Municipal Rec. of Liverpool, i. 5-7.
[505] Ibid. 13, 14, 16. From this time leases of the ferm were very
numerous and were constantly granted to one or more individuals;
between 1354 and 1374 Richard de Aynesargh and William Adamson, who
were often mayors, took such leases for several terms. (Picton’s
Memorials of Liverpool, ii. 54.)
[506] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 35-36.
[507] Ibid. i. 27-28.
[508] In 1413 the burgesses presented a petition complaining that their
privileges were infringed upon by the shire officers coming into the
borough and holding courts by force, by which “the said burgesses are
grievously molested, vexed, and disturbed, to the great hindrance and
detriment of the said borough and the disinheriting of the burgesses.”
It was declared on the other side, that the mayor and bailiffs had held
the King’s Courts without authority and received the tolls and profits.
It is not known how the case ended. Ibid. i. 31-2. Picton’s Mun.
Records, i. 20.
[509] The revenue from Liverpool in 1296 was £25: it then had 168
inhabited houses. (Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 20.) In 1342 the
personalty of the burgesses taxed was £110 13_s._ 3_d._, that is, the
average personalty of each was about one mark (25). The revenue in 1327
was £30; in 1346 it was £38 (26), and remained the same in 1394 (31).
In 1444 it was reduced to £21; in 1455 to £17 16_s._ 8_d._; and under
Edward the Fourth to £14 (36-7). In 1515 an inquiry was made as to the
decay of the revenue (38), and the Act of 1544 put Liverpool in the
list of towns which had wholly fallen into decay (45). Two plagues,
one in 1540, another in 1548, probably carried off half its population
(47); and in 1565 it had but 138 inhabited houses, and probably seven
or eight hundred inhabitants, and twelve vessels navigated on an
average by six men each (55). There were five streets under Edward the
Third, and seven under Elizabeth (62).
[510] Fortified in 1406. Picton’s Mun. Records, i. 21, 22.
[511] A little thatched building in the High Street which had to serve
as toll house, town hall, and gaol, but the greater number of criminals
were imprisoned and judged in the Stanley and Molyneux Castles.
Picton’s Memorials, ii. 25-6.
[512] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 32-3.
[513] Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 36, 37.
[514] Ibid. i. 37, 38, 46, 48-9.
[515] Picton, i. 63.
[516] As an illustration of the reverse process, showing the impulse
given to municipal liberty when a borough was transferred from private
ownership to the State, see the case of Sandwich (Ch. XII.).
[517] See charter to Beverley; Stubbs’ Charters, 105; Lambert’s Gild
Life, 73-6, York; Stubbs’ Charters, 304, Salisbury; Gross’ Gild
Merchant, ii. 209-10.
[518] Pol. Poems and Songs (Rolls’ Series). Ed. Wright, i. 327, 334.
[519] The Bishop of Salisbury by a royal charter of 1304 got the right
to tallage the townspeople of Salisbury, while the burghers were given
municipal privileges the same as those of Winchester. In 1305, however,
the burghers, rather than pay tallage to the bishop, surrendered their
municipal privileges to the King, and promised to give up to him their
common seal. (Rot. Parl. i. 174-6.) But in the composition made the
next year between the lord bishop and the citizens, those who had
shared in the revolt and had not made their submission were utterly
separated and removed from privileges of trade or government. (Gross,
ii. 209-10.) In 1396 there was again a quarrel between the bishop and
the citizens, and the case was carried to the King’s Council, when the
mayor and commonalty entered into a recognizance to the King in £20,000
to behave well to the bishop, and two hundred of the citizens entered
into recognizances to the bishop, each one in the sum of £1,000. In
the agreement, however, certain provisions were made to prevent the
ecclesiastics from taking advantage in any way of this treaty. (Madox,
142.)
The Commons in giving the grant of 1435 pray that no prelate may be a
collector, adding that the dioceses of bishops and the neighbourhood of
abbeys were greatly oppressed by ecclesiastical lords. (Rogers’ Agric.
and Prices, iv. 164.)
[520] Our Borough, by E. M. Beloe, 1-3.
[521] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 185-6.
[522] For the troubles of the mayor and community in trying to carry
out the King’s laws in the presence of this divided jurisdiction, see
Rot. Parl. i. 331.
[523] There had been trouble the year before which Robert’s soft words
failed to dissipate. “Know, dear friends,” he writes, “that I am surely
concerned for your trouble, and if I could give you ease or alleviation
of your trouble I would do it most readily, but assuredly, dear
friends, I am at present in such misfortune of money that ... wherefore
I pray you, my dear friends, that you put me in possession of my moneys
as speedily as you can, since of a truth I can no longer dispense
with them which much troubles me. And with respect to the wrong that
was done to my bailiff, you have sent me word that the parties are in
agreement. Know you that though peace be made between them the contempt
done to me is not redressed, wherefore, I pray you, dear sirs, that you
will take order amongst yourselves that amends may be made to me for
the aforesaid contempt. Adieu, dear friends! May he give you happy and
long life!” Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 241-4.
[524] For the King’s bailiffs, see the petition in 1382 to the Lord
Chancellor for relief from extortionate demands of the bailiffs of the
Tolbooth. The bailiffs were perhaps not to blame; in 1396 and 1397 they
had to pay 20 marks of silver out of receipts to the Duke of Britanny;
in 1398, 10 marks to the Duke of York; in 1400, 8½ to the Duke of
Lancaster. Ibid. 244-5.
[525] The charter of 1268 granted the right to elect a mayor in
accordance with the former charter of the bishop. Hist. MSS. Com. xi.
part 3, 186, 246; Gross, ii. 158.
[526] Gross, ii. 165.
[527] Gross, ii. 155; Paston Letters, ii. 86-7.
[528] Gross, ii. 155-6.
[529] See Vol. II., Chap. XIV.
[530] Blomefield, iii. 163.
[531] In 1403. Blomefield, viii. 531.
[532] Proceedings of Privy Council, vol. i., 167 (1401).
[533] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 186-7. In 1307 the mayor and community got
a grant of land from the bishop for their basin for water. Ibid. 239.
[534] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 240.
[535] Ibid. 213-215.
[536] A will was proved after a proclamation by the serjeant that on
such a day it would be read in the Guild Hall before the mayor, and
anyone who wished to contradict it must then appear. (Hist. MSS. Com.
xi. part 3, 153, 189.) In the earliest wills no mention is made of
probate before the ordinary; in later registrations it is recorded that
the will had received episcopal probate before coming before the mayor.
(Ibid. 155.) The cost of this was what the people desired to avoid.
“For who so woll prove a testament,
That is not all worth tenne pound,
He shall pay for the parchment
The third of the money all round;”
—Pol. Poems and Songs, ed. Wright, i. 323.
[537] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 207.
[538] Ibid. 205.
[539] Ibid. 189.
[540] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 188.
[541] Blomefield, iii. 513. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 189, 205.
[542] Blomefield, iii. 516-17.
[543] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 222. It would seem that in 1377 the
mayor and burgesses were made responsible for the custody of the town,
and were ultimately given power of distress for subsidies for its
defence. (Ibid. 190, 205.)
[544] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 165.
[545] Ibid. 225.
[546] Paston Letters, ii. 86-7.
[547] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 205.
[548] Ibid. 246.
[549] Proc. Privy Council, i. 127. Beecham’s Hist. Cirencester, 154-8.
[550] In 1333 St. Alban’s brought its charter to the King’s Chancery
and renounced there all the liberties contained in the said charter.
The keeper of the rolls at their request broke off the seal of wax,
and cancelled the enrolment in the Chancery rolls. The townsmen also
brought their common seal of silver, which at their request was
destroyed and the silver given to the shrine of St. Alban. (Madox,
140.) Common as it was in France for a commune to renounce its freedom,
there is scarcely any instance in England save on ecclesiastical
property. The case of Dunwich was peculiar and I have met with no other.
[551] Occasionally a convent drove a hard bargain. In 1440 an
agreement was made between the convent of Plimpton and the commonalty
of Plymouth, by which the commonalty was to pay £41 yearly, and if
this rent was unpaid fifteen days after quarter day, the officers of
the convent might seize all the goods and chattels of the mayor and
commonalty and of any burgesses and of any others residing and abiding
there which could be found within the borough and the precinct thereof.
Madox, 222-3.
[552] The organization of the guild does not seem to have been at
all of a democratic or “advanced” kind, but after the pattern of the
oligarchic societies of the time. Four men owning goods to the value of
10 marks were elected yearly, by a committee of twelve burgesses, to
hold the guild, and summoned to do their duty by two officers of the
guild called “les Dyes.”
[553] Gross, ii. 29-36. Yates’ Bury S. Edmunds, 123-135.
[554] Statutes, 6 Richard II., 2, cap. 3.
[555] Coates’s Reading, 49.
[556] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 224.
[557] Gross, ii. 208.
[558] Coates’s Reading, 49-50.
[559] Gross, ii. 202-4.
[560] Some of the fines levied were doubtless used for the townsmen’s
benefit. For example, there were nineteen bridges within the limits of
the borough, which after the dissolution of the monastery fell into
decay and were repaired in the time of Elizabeth with the stones from
the abbey walls. (Coates’s Reading, 64.) But material advantages did
not take the place of political freedom.
[561] Gross, i., 90-1. The number of burghers in the Guild seems to
have been very small. In 1486, 28 burghers paid _chepin gavell_; in
1487, 22 burgesses; and in 1490-93, 31 burgesses. In 1510 there were
45 burgesses. (Coates’s Reading, 58.) There were many who paid fines
and dues to the abbot who were of the town and not of the Guild, and
this class was doubtless encouraged by the convent, following the same
policy as the bishop in Lynn. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 172, 175-6.)
[562] The Guilds were naturally looked on with very little favour by
the ecclesiastical lords in such cases. There was a conflict between
abbot and town at Malmesbury in the time of Edward the First. The
burghers claimed to have a Guild of their own people, who alone had a
right to trade in the town, and to take certain taxes for the support
of the Guild from all traders who were not of it. The abbot refused to
allow them to use their rights. The town fell back on its liberties
_when it had been a royal borough_, and appealed to the King. (Gross,
ii. 173.) See also the precautions taken by the Bishop about the Guild
at Salisbury. (Ibid. 209-10.)
[563] Coates’s Reading, 53.
[564] They got afterwards from Henry the Eighth the church of the Grey
Friars for their Guild Hall.
[565] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 172-3.
[566] Coates’s Reading, 53, 54. All this time matters were made easier
for the townspeople by constant talk of loans to the King. In 1420 the
town officers went to Wallingford to discuss the matter with the King.
There was a loan made in 1430, and another in 1445. Hist. MSS. Com. xi.
part 7, 173, 174.
[567] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 174.
[568] Under Henry the Eighth, he received £10. (Coates’s Reading, 55,
56.) A woman of the town left three silver cups and one gilt cup for
the mayoralty in 1479. Public dinners at each election began in 1492,
and feasts for the burgesses at Christmas and Shrovetide. (Hist. MSS.
Com. xi. part 7, 180-1, 176.)
[569] Ibid. 180.
[570] Eng. Guilds, 298.
[571] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 175, 180.
[572] Ibid. 212.
[573] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 176.
[574] Coates’s Reading, 52, 53.
[575] Coates’s Reading, 54-5. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 168-9.
[576] Miller’s Parishes of Worcester, vol. I. Rot. Hun., p. 282, 3
Edward I. In Canterbury there were still in 1835 not less than fifteen
precincts within the limits of the corporate authority but exempt from
its jurisdiction (Rep. on Mun. Corpor., 31). For crown property in York
not under municipal law, see Davies’ Walks through York, 27-28.
[577] Ricart’s Kalendar, 117.
[578] In 1285 the Bristol charter was forfeited because of
encroachments on the rights of the constable of the castle. Seyer’s
Bristol, ii. 74.
[579] Seyer’s Bristol, ii. 88-109.
[580] Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., 25. Here the fee was given
to the citizens as early as 1346.
[581] There were also occasional difficulties as to the jurisdiction
of Bristol over the Temple fee, which first belonged to the Templars,
then to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and was not finally
incorporated with the city till 1543. (Seyer’s Bristol, i. 134-6.)
[582] In 1240 the inhabitants of Redcliffe were combined and
incorporated with the town of Bristol; and the ground of S. Austin’s by
the river was granted to the commonalty by the abbot for certain money
paid by the said commonalty. Ricart, 28.
[583] Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 177, 196-201.
[584] They took to trading about 1367. Berkeleys, i. 365-6. Ibid. i.
23. Thomas Berkeley got leave from Henry the Sixth “for three of his
factors to go with the ship called the _Cristopher_ with any lawful
merchandise, and to sell the same and return and go again. And the
year before, this Thomas and two of his partners had the like licence
to go with their ship called the _Trinity of Berkeley_, to Bordeaux,
and there to unload and load again, and bring any merchandise into
England.” Ibid. ii. 83, 136.
[585] Ibid. ii. 68.
[586] Ibid. ii. 113-4.
[587] The new marquis was very angry at the unworthiness of such a
match with so mean blood, and made it an excuse for disinheriting him.
Ibid. ii. 172, 173.
[588] Berkeleys, ii. 175, 176.
[589] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 461.
[590] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 480.
[591] Ibid. 481.
[592] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 467.
[593] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 480.
[594] Gross, ii. 265.
[595] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 601. Gross, ii. 254.
[596] The bailiff of the Soke was sometimes called the Mayor of the
Soke to emphasize his independence.
[597] Gross, ii. 254. For the way in which a bit of the town under
ecclesiastical and not under municipal control might serve as a sort of
sanctuary against the tax gatherers, see the complaint of the Bristol
commonalty about Temple Street. (Rot. Parl. i. 434.)
[598] They had once been occupied by “good citizens,” but all through
the Middle Ages were filled by a very poor population. (Kitchin’s
Winchester, 75.)
[599] Kitchin’s Winchester, 46-7, 75-7.
[600] In 1264 there was a violent fray near the King’s Gate, the
citizens fighting to keep the monks from admitting the followers of De
Montfort. (Ibid. 130.) The convent kept control of the King’s Gate till
1520. (Ibid. 132.)
[601] For the bishop’s rights during the fair such as tronage,
authority to take all weights and measures and bear them to the
Pavilion and there make assay, to demand that the people of the city
should come to the Pavilion to present cry raised and bloodshed, and
other things touching the peace of our Lord the King, see Hist. MSS.
Com. vi. 595-605. Compare his powers in Southampton during the same
fair. There he might send his bailiff to see that only food was weighed
or sold in the town, that no merchant whether resident or not ventured
to sell anything except food, that there was no weighing or measuring,
that merchants who came with their goods swore they did not bring them
to sell at this time. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, pp. 67, 68.) The
convent also had its own home and foreign trade on a very large scale.
(Kitchin’s Winchester, 161.)
[602] English Guilds, 353, &c. 358. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 495-605.)
[603] This custom, once common (Madox, 152-3), was abandoned in
Ipswich as early as 1317, and seems to have generally died out in the
fourteenth century, though Gloucester sent its bailiffs to Westminster
till 1483.
[604] In 1244 a mayor who had obeyed the King’s orders to shut the city
gates against a bishop whose election the King opposed, was severely
punished by the bishop when he gained possession of his see and palace.
(Kitchin’s Winchester, 121.) The mayor was thrown into a London prison
because a state prisoner had escaped from Winchester. (Ibid. 139.)
[605] Compare the action of Norwich. In the Wars of the Roses the
Winchester people were, like their bishop Wayneflete, Lancastrian, but
they had neither energy nor power to play any important part. (Hist.
MSS. Com. vi. 147.)
[606] Archæologia, i. 91, 93-4.
[607] Gross, ii. 260-1.
[608] Payments for stalls went to the King’s ferm. (Ibid. 262.) The
question was therefore one of revenue and not one of protection.
[609] Archæologia, i. 102.
[610] The fraternity of St. John allowed nearly £35 a year towards the
maintenance of the bridge and walls.
[611] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 77.
[612] Ibid. vi. 595-605.
[613] Gregory’s Chronicle of London, ed. Gairdner, Early English Text
Soc. 199.
[614] A charter of Edward the Fourth still speaks of Winchester as now
being “quite unable to pay the fee-farm rent of 100 marks.” (Kitchin’s
Winchester, 174.)
[615] See the case of Lincoln, Rot. Parl. i. 156-7.
[616] Hudson’s Leet Jurisdiction of Norwich (Selden Soc.).
[617] Cutts’ Colchester, 149. Hudson’s Norwich Leet-Jurisdiction
(Selden Soc.), 17. See pp. xxxvii., xli. The constables of Nottingham
at the court leet present the “Master Official (of the archdeacon) for
excessive and extorcious taking of fees” for probate of testaments, and
for over assessing poor folks and men’s servants at Easter for their
tythes. (Records, iii. 364.)
[618] 13 Richard the Second, 1, c. 18. Statute 4 Henry the Fifth, c. 5,
repeats with some alterations that of Richard.
[619] 1454, Cutts’ Colchester, 150-1.
[620] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 496.
[621] Freeman’s Exeter, 165.
[622] Freeman’s Exeter, 84-5, 165-6.
[623] Shillingford’s Letters (Camden Society), p. 68. An order of the
town had been issued in 1339 that no clerk of the consistory court was
to be chosen mayor or bailiff or allowed to meddle with the elections.
Freeman’s Exeter, 147.
[624] The bishop had taken an action years before in 1432-3.
Shillingford’s Letters, xiv.
[625] Shillingford’s Letters, xxii.-iv.
[626] Ibid. 98.
[627] Ibid. xiv.
[628] Shillingford’s Letters, 86-7.
[629] Shillingford’s Letters, 75-6.
[630] Ibid. p. 95-6.
[631] Ibid. p. 1, 43.
[632] Ibid. 10.
[633] Shillingford’s Letters, p. 43, 44.
[634] Ibid. xiv.-xvi.; Freeman’s Exeter, 158-60.
[635] Shillingford’s Letters, p. 143, _et seq._
[636] Ibid. p. 58.
[637] Shillingford’s Letters, 17.
[638] Ibid. pp. 67, 68.
[639] Ibid. 23.
[640] Shillingford’s Letters, p. 6.
[641] Ibid. p. 12.
[642] Ibid. p. 12-15, 63.
[643] The Recorder of Exeter.
[644] Shillingford’s Letters, 146.
[645] Ibid. 9.
[646] Ibid. 23, 150.
[647] Shillingford’s Letters, 37, 38.
[648] Shillingford’s Letters, 11, 47.
[649] Ibid. 43, 45.
[650] Ibid. 32, see 11, 14, 20.
[651] His temper towards ecclesiastical interference and his urbanity
in argument are admirably shown in a letter to the bishop’s counsel.
The rough draft of the letter ends with a fine outburst of anger. “We
would fain have an end,” he writes, and goes on to ask how it was
possible for any one ever to conceive that “John Shillyng, for no
dread of great words of malice, disclaunders, language, writings, nor
setting up of bulls to that intent to rebuke me and to make me dull
to labour for the right that I am sworn to, for truly I will not be
so rebuked nor dulled, but the more boldlier.” But he struck out this
vigorous passage in the second draft in favour of a less belligerent
sentence—”for ye may fully conceive that my fellows and I would fain
have a good end and peace, praying you to apply your good will and
favour to the same.” Shillingford’s Letters, 25.
[652] Shillingford’s Letters, 52-3.
[653] Ibid. 78.
[654] Shillingford’s Letters, 97.
[655] Ibid. 53.
[656] Ibid. 66, 10, 94.
[657] Shillingford’s Letters, 53.
[658] Ibid. 64.
[659] Ibid. 93, 104.
[660] Shillingford’s Letters, 16.
[661] Ibid. pp. 10, 14, 91, 99, 104.
[662] Ibid. 83-4.
[663] Shillingford’s Letters, 83, 84, 99. Compare Norwich, Blomefield,
iii. 62. In Canterbury the murder of a citizen by a waggoner of the
priory in 1313 gave rise to a hot dispute as to the jurisdiction of
the city coroner. The Convent refused him admittance within the priory
gates, smuggled in an alien coroner to view the body, and then had it
buried by the prior’s grooms. The story is given in an Inspeximus of
Richard the Second; Muniments of Canterbury.
[664] The distribution of taxes was a matter of special arrangement in
the different towns. By the request of the canons the ecclesiastical
tenants at Grimsby were not tallaged with the burgesses (Madox, 270).
In Leicester the tenants of the Bishop’s Fee just without the walls did
suit and service to the Bishop of Lincoln; a compromise had been made
in 1281 by which it was decided that the Bishop’s tenants should share
in certain common expenses, and should in return enjoy the franchises
and free customs which had been won by the Merchant Guild of Leicester;
but while the burgesses had to bear the charges both of “the community
of the town,” and “the community of the guild,” the bishop’s tenants
only paid for such matters as touched “the community of the guild,”
and were not liable for the general town taxes. (Gross, ii. 140-1.)
As early as 1189 the Guild of Nottingham obtained the right to raise
contributions to the ferm rent from tenants of all fees whatsoever. In
Norwich this was given in 1229 (Norwich Doc., Stanley _v._ Mayor, etc.,
5, 6). But the question of collection still remained a burning one, and
the itinerant justices having failed in 1239 to settle matters between
the convent and the city, the King himself went to Norwich to insist on
an agreement in 1241. (Blomefield, iii. 46.) See p. 357, note 4.
[665] Shillingford’s Letters, p. 13.
[666] Ibid. 79.
[667] Shillingford’s Letters, 96.
[668] Ibid. pp. 98, 108.
[669] For the mayor’s defence, see p. x. 107-9.
[670] The tenants of the hospital of S. John in Worcester refused to
aid in tallages, to submit to the assize of bread and beer, under the
town’s officers, and to keep watch and ward. In 1221 they were ordered
to do all these things. (Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Soc. p.
97.) In 1331 Norwich resisted the handing over of three houses to the
prior and convent “for that a very great part of the same city which
is inhabited, is in the hands of the prior and convent and of other
religious persons, whereby the inhabitants are at their distress, and
cannot be tallaged to the tallages and aids of the lord the King and of
the city aforesaid as tenants should be, nor can they be in assizes,
juries, and recognizances, whereby others dwelling in the same city are
burdened and grieved more than usual by such gifts and assignments.”
(Norwich Documents, Stanley _v._ Mayor, pr. 1884, 24, 25).
[671] Shillingford’s Letters, 44-45.
[672] Ibid. 52.
[673] Shillingford’s Letters, 91-2, 104-5.
[674] Ibid. 92.
[675] Ibid. 100, 109.
[676] Shillingford’s Letters, 84-5, 99.
[677] In Canterbury also the Convent was bent on getting possession of
that part of the covered way which lay along its territory, and the
city wall itself so far as it touched the Cathedral precincts. Their
first step was taken in 1160, and their final success was not assured
till 1492, when the city resigned to the Convent the wall and covered
way between Burgate and Northgate with the waste land adjoining, and
the chapter was allowed to make a postern and to build a bridge across
the foss. Such an arrangement was of course only possible at a time
when peace with France, and the close of civil wars and riots at home
had freed the town from danger of siege or revolution. (Lit. Cant., i.
60-2, iii. 318-20.) See also Davies’ Walks through York, 11, 12.
[678] Shillingford’s Letters, 88, 89, 96.
[679] Shillingford’s Letters, 93, 94.
[680] Shillingford’s Letters, pp. 85, 86, 101, 110.
[681] Ibid. 9.
[682] Ibid. 20.
[683] Shillingford’s Letters, 12.
[684] Ibid. 10, 19.
[685] The Commons had perhaps some reason to ask in 1371 that none but
a layman should have charge of the seal. (Campbell’s Lives of the Lord
Chancellors, i. 262.) This system, however only lasted till 1378, and
in the next hundred years, out of 35 chancellors only eight were laymen.
[686] Shillingford’s Letters, 11.
[687] Shillingford, 136-140.
[688] In 1463 when Edward granted the city fresh franchises and powers
he exempted the close from civic jurisdiction. Freeman’s Exeter, 91.
[689] In 1452 the judges held their assize in the hall of the bishop’s
palace; the King being in the town it was proved to him that holding
of assize in the bishop’s hall was a breach of the privileges of the
church; two traitors who had been condemned were therefore pardoned by
the King. Ibid. 89.
[690] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 150.
[691] Ibid. 169.
[692] Lit. Cant. i., lxi. Sandwich and Stonor were the two ports of
London and therefore of considerable consequence. For the history of
Stonor see Boys’ Sandwich, 552-5, 658-62.
[693] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172-3.
[694] Ibid. 150.
[695] Ibid. 172-3, 141.
[696] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 139, 145.
[697] Ibid. 173.
[698] The cost was entered on the chamberlain’s accounts, but there is
nothing more to tell how the matter ended. Ibid. 144.
[699] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169-70.
[700] Ibid. 170.
[701] The details as to the costs of many of these feasts are
preserved—the claret and wines white and red, and the beer and ale,
which recommended a dinner made up for example of a swan, five capons,
two geese, a side of brawn, two lambs, four rabbits, beef, marrow
bones, a jowl of salmon, gurnards, roach, bread, spices, salt, vinegar,
butter, milk, eggs, lard, and suet. Sacks of coal were always bought
for the cooking of these great dinners, either charcoal sold in sacks,
or “sea-cole” sold by the tub. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 146, 163.
[702] Ibid. 143-4.
[703] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 77.
[704] Ibid. 112.
[705] Lit. Cant. i. 216.
[706] Ibid. iii. 379, 380.
[707] Ibid. 318-320; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433-4.
[708] These charges were heavy in the southern towns. For example,
Canterbury and Sandwich had to provide Warwick and his garrison with
victuals in Calais in 1457. Oman’s Warwick, 64.
[709] Lit. Cant. i. 213-222. This quarrel was 100 years old at this
time. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433.
[710] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 98.
[711] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 521.
[712] The last Jubilee, when the oblations amounted to £600, was
celebrated in 1470. In 1520 the Pope demanded a half of the gross
receipts, but the archbishop and chapter not being disposed to grant
this no Jubilee was held. Literæ Cantuar. iii. xxxv., xxxvi.
[713] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145-146.
[714] Ibid. v. 433.
[715] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433-4.
[716] Ibid. ix. 146-7. The chamberlain’s accounts give the costs of
one visit to London of mayor and aldermen on business of the town.
Three counsel were paid 10_s._; one of them “in the cloister at Paul’s
when he corrected the copy,” got 3_s._ 4_d._ and his clerk 12_d._ The
mayor gathered together all the witnesses in a house beside Paul’s to
rehearse their evidence “against they came into the Star Chamber,” and
paid for bread and drink and house room for them 16_d._ At Westminster
Hall the three counsel got 3_s._ 4_d._ each, and for the three days
following the same fees were daily paid. In the Star Chamber Master
Roydon paid for examination of sixteen persons at 2_s._ 4_d._ a man,
37_s._ 4_d._; two days after fees were again paid to two counsel, and a
breakfast given to Sir Matthew Browne. Master Fisher was paid for the
fees of the Hilary term 19_s._ Warrants of attorney cost 4_s._, and
copies of the panels 2_s._ The counsel had to be looked up in their
country houses, and messengers were always crossing Tilbury Ferry to
look for “Master Raimond,” and give him a retaining fee “to be our
counsel,” or going to Finchley to seek “Master Frowick,” perhaps to
find that “he was then ridden to Walsingham, so the said Thomas came to
London homeward again.” The Master Recorder of London was met coming to
the Temple and besought “to be good master to the city,” and retained
at a cost of 6_s._ 8_d._ with a breakfast to his servants in Fleet
Street. Then a messenger waited at the Guild Hall for the recorder, and
again watched for him “the same day at afternoon at Milord Dawbeny’s
place, there waiting till the said Master Recorder had supped, and when
he came out we besought him to speed us, for the time of the forfeit
passed not three days; which answered that he was sore occupied and
might not entende it so shortly, where we took him 6_s._ 8_d._, and
then he bade us wait on him on the morrow in the Temple. The next day
when Mr. Recorder had contrived the bill and corrected it, for his
reward 6_s._ 8_d._ Paid for a pike given to Master Mordaunt 3_s._
4_d._” The mayor then sent to Canterbury to direct that some gift
should be sent up which might be used in “making friends”; and several
members of the Common Council travelled up with two trouts (one trout
cost about 10_s._) and ten capons. The witnesses examined in the Star
Chamber each got 6_s._ 8_d._ and their travelling expenses; after
their examination they adjourned to the buttery for an entertainment,
and paid “in reward to the officers of the King’s buttery for their
good cheer 12_d._ and to the cook of the King’s kitchen 8_d._” Besides
all this there was a great deal of feasting and drinking in eight of
the London inns, in Southwark, Cheap, Fleet Street, Paul’s Chain, and
Holborn. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 147.
[717] The Plague. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 147.
[718] Ibid. 150.
[719] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433-4.
[720] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 434.
[721] The dispute in Norwich was brought before the king’s court in
1512. Documents, Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., pr. 1884, 50-64.
[722] Gross, i. 241-281.
[723] See the saying of Bacon quoted by Anderson in his Origin of
Commerce, ii. 232. “I confess I did ever think that trading in
companies is most agreeable to the English nature, which wanteth that
same general vein of a republic which runneth in the Dutch and serves
them instead of a company; and therefore I dare not advise to adventure
this great trade of the kingdom, which hath been so long under
government, in a free or loose trade.”
[724] Boys’ Sandwich, 770. The Custumals of Dover, Sandwich, Romney,
Rye, and Winchelsea, are given in Lyon’s Dover, ii. 267-387.
[725] The Ports with corporate members were:—Hastings: (Seaford,
Pevensey). Sandwich: (Fordwich, Deal). Dover: (Folkestone, Faversham).
Romney: (Lydd). Rye: (Tenterden). Hastings had six non-corporate
members; Sandwich six; Dover seven; Romney four; and Hythe one; each of
which was governed by a Deputy sent by the head Port.
[726] Dover had always remained in the King’s hands, but Hythe and
Romney belonged to the Archbishop, while Sandwich had been given to
Christ Church, Canterbury, and Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye had
been handed over to the Abbey of Fécamp. A few details about the
relations of Fécamp to its possessions at Hastings, Winchelsea, and
Rye, may be found in Leroux de Lincy’s Abbaye de Fécamp, pp. 289,
294, 300, 327, 331; and a notice of the tax called _aletot_ which
was paid by the inhabitants of Rye to Fécamp, p. 299. The two parish
churches of Hastings, being part of the alien priory of Fécamp, were
never appropriate or belonging either to the College of S. Mary or
to the Priory. They were afterwards granted away by Henry the Eighth
(Horsfield’s Hastings, i. 448). The Counts of Eu held the Castle with
the whole of the rape of Hastings and the manor till their estates were
forfeited by rebellion about 1245 and given by Henry the Third to his
son Edward. Moss’ Hastings, 3-4, 63.
[727] There was a considerable change in the century that followed the
complete political separation of England from the Continent. Henry the
Third got back Rye and Winchelsea, and at least the Castle of Hastings
if not more; and Edward the First Sandwich; while Hythe and Romney
remained with the Archbishop.
[728] For rights possessed in the time of Henry the Second see Hist.
MSS. Com. v. 454.
[729] Confirmed by Edward the First, 1293. Rot. Parl. i. 101. There
were no coroners in the Cinque Ports except the mayors of the various
towns. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 269, 347, 371, 303.
[730] A writ of error lay to the Shepway Court only from any of the
Ports; but from the Shepway finally there might be an appeal to the
King’s Bench. (Boys’ Sandwich, 697, 771.) A mayor of Sandwich accused
of assaulting the sheriff’s bailiff refused to answer except at the
Court of Shepway. (Ibid. 661.)
[731] Lyon’s Dover, ii. 304. See Rot. Parl. i. 332. For the charter of
Edward the Third see Boys’ Sandwich, 568-9.
[732] Boys, 470-1.
[733] Montagu Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 73-4. The Cinque Ports joined
Simon de Montfort against the King. Possibly this revolt was due to
the limits fixed to their territory by Henry in 1259-60, for a little
later the Barons’ party extended those limits. (Ibid. 107.) It was in
this war too that they finally secured freedom from summons before the
King’s Justices.
[734] Boys’ Sandwich, 445. “Within the Cinque Ports there is no trial
by jury as in other places.” Ibid. 452. For the system of compurgation
see p. 465.
[735] Ibid. 468.
[736] Boys, 681.
[737] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425; v. 496; ix. 151.
[738] Boys’ Sandwich, 682.
[739] In 1395 Romney contributed nearly £10 to the maintenance of the
liberties of the Cinque Ports, and in 1407, 1408, and 1409, it had to
spend over £5 each year in payment for such purposes. The renewal of
these charters on one occasion cost Hythe £17 as its share. (Hist. MSS.
Com. v. 535, 537.) These payments were over and above the sums which
had to be given for the charters of each separate Port, and which were
also a heavy cost.
[740] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.
[741] Ibid. 525, 494, 517-18, 520.
[742] The usual number was four or five. Lyon’s Dover, i. 251. Romney
sent six. Ibid. ii. 342. For the capons, geese, etc., with which they
came laden see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534.
[743] In 1281 the mayor and townsmen of Sandwich were accused of
assaulting the sheriff’s bailiffs. Boys’ Sandwich, 661.
[744] Ibid. 462.
[745] Lyon’s Dover, i. 254.
[746] Ibid. i. 260-1.
[747] In 1410 jurats from Romney spent three days and three nights at
Dover at such an inquisition. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 538.
[748] From about 1471 the court only met at Shepway for the
installation of the Lord Warden and the presentation of the courtesy
of £100 offered him on the occasion by his subjects. Montagu Burrows’
Cinque Ports, 186. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539.
[749] It only took cognizance of five points, high treason, falsifying
money, failure of ship service, false judgment, and treasure box.
[750] Montagu Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 66-7, 73-5. See the agreement of
the Ports drawn up in 1358. Boys’ Sandwich, 560-3.
[751] See Rot. Parl. i. 32, 332.
[752] Every year a letter was sent to each Port asking “whether a
Brotherhood or Guestling is necessary to be arreared this year,” and
when the common consent was given the summonses were issued. Burrows’
Cinque Ports, 177.
[753] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 427.
[754] These four bailiffs aided by a provost chosen by the Yarmouth
commonalty, took over the keys of the prison, issued all ordinances and
held pleas. This went on till 1663. (See Hist. MSS. Com. v. 553, 533,
535, 539-43.) Boys’ Sandwich, 576-7. But the question of the Yarmouth
fair gradually declined in importance, and in the fifteenth century
became relatively of so little consequence that the Brodhull decreed in
1515 that the yearly report of their bailiffs sent to Yarmouth might be
dispensed with. (Lyon’s Dover i. xii.)
[755] Lyon’s Dover i. iv. v.
[756] It was already well established in the fourteenth century, and
possibly much earlier, that orders of the Court of Shepway as to the
taxes required for the King or for the general purposes of the Ports
became the basis of agreements made between the Ports at the Brodhull
concerning the share of taxes to be paid by each Port. See Burrows’
Cinque Ports, 180-1.
[757] In 1412 a curious agreement between the mariners of France and
England was signed by Romney and Lydd, and probably by all the ports
from Southampton to Thanet. It provided that if any master or mariner
were captured the only ransom to be asked on either side should be six
nobles for the master and three for the mariner with 20 pence a week
board for each; a fishing boat with nets and tackles was to be set
free for 40 pence; any man taken on either coast should be charged no
ransom, but a gentleman or merchant who was taken might be charged any
ransom that his captor chose. In case of any dispute, arbitrators were
appointed; if these were disobeyed 100_s._ was to be paid on one side
to S. Nicholas at Romney, on the other side to the Church of Hope All
Saints. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 537-538.) The arrangement as to the place
of payment of the fine was doubtless different in each town of the
league. The common serjeant of Hythe in the same year rode to Dover
to get a copy of the composition for his own town. In a disputed case
when the plaintiff and defendant seem to have been of Romney, questions
touching the “Law of Oleron,” _i.e._, the Law Maritime, were decided
“by the judgment of the masters of ships and boats of the vills of
Hastings, Winchelsea, Sandwich, and Dover,” that is, a majority of the
seven towns. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 543.)
[758] At any time the court might be summoned to redress a wrong, and
not only the jurats and commonalty of a town but any aggrieved person
whatever in the whole confederation might claim that a Brodhull should
be summoned if he was wronged on any point touching the charters,
usages, or franchises of the Ports. Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 181.
[759] Ibid. 177-8. The Guestling sometimes sat separately for special
business, generally perhaps at Winchelsea, for the affairs of the three
Sussex Ports. For an instance in 1477 see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489.
[760] Moss’s Hastings, 21. The importance of the Guestling Court
gradually declined and in 1601 the Brotherhood Court (then near its
own extinction) passed a decree that the yearly Guestling might be
abolished. Lyon’s Dover i. xii.
[761] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539.
[762] Burrows (Cinque Ports, 238) suggests that Lydd, like the supposed
case of Faversham, might have owed its incorporation under a mayor and
jurats to the Court of Shepway. He does not give any reasons for this
supposition. Lydd was under the Archbishop; Faversham under the abbot
until the suppression of the abbey. Ibid. 234.
[763] Dover and Sandwich were the first of the Ports to have a mayor,
the mayors of Sandwich being continuous from 1226. Then came Rye and
Winchelsea about 1297. The other three, Hastings, Hythe, and Romney,
were ruled by bailiffs till the time of Elizabeth.
[764] For goods imported into Sandwich see Boys, 435-9, 658-9. Iron was
brought from Spain and Cologne and wine from Genoa; all kinds of skins,
and furs, with silk, spices, and frankincense from the Levant. For the
taxes on merchandise, cellars, and warehouses see Hist. MSS. Com. v.
458. Under Edward the Third it fitted out for the King’s service 22
ships with 504 mariners. Boys, 783-4.
[765] Literæ Cant. i. lxix.-lxxii. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 74. Boys’
Sandwich, 663. Edward the Third completed the process in 1364. Ibid.
669.
[766] In 1422 an agreement was made that the corporation should go in
and out on the quay freely, and use the monks’ gate, “to provide for
the guard and the defence of the town.” The ground along the quay was
to be deemed a highway. Ibid. 671.
[767] Under a patent of white wax because Sandwich would not obey an
Exchequer patent under green wax. Boys, 441, 404, 435-457.
[768] Literæ Cant., i. 46-48. In 1324 the convent however repeated the
offence. Ibid. 118-120.
[769] Boys’ Sandwich, 435.
[770] Pleas of the Crown were held at Sandown in a place called the
Mastez either on the Monday of the Hundred Court or any other Monday.
Ibid. 443.
[771] Ibid. 457.
[772] Ibid. 311, 501. The mayor is the judge and gives such judgment as
he thinks proper, whereas the bailiff has nothing further to do with
the business than to receive the amercements. Ibid. 459.
[773] Boys’ Sandwich, 527. See also 450.
[774] Ibid. 510, 536-7.
[775] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 533-4, 535,537, 539,541-2. In 1340 Romney
was divided into thirteen wards, and 941 persons above fifteen were
assessed to the subsidy granted to the King that year. The whole sum
assessed was £48 9_s._ 6_d._ Forty-five persons were assessed in Old
Romney at 43_s._ 6_d._ The receipts from taxes, rents, etc., in 1381
seem to have been nearly £180. (Boys, 799-801.) Romney seems to have
come to the height of its prosperity about 1386. One barge was built
1386; one in 1396; one in 1400; one hired in 1420. (Ibid. 535-40.)
[776] This was an old family in the town, for in 1314-15 complaint was
made that Hugh Holyligebroke and the community were sheltering and
defending robbers and felons so that the country could not get justice
on them. Rot. Parl. i. 324.
[777] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535-42.
[778] Ibid. 535-42.
[779] Ibid. vi. 543-4.
[780] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. I, 425, 429; Ibid. vi. 541.
[781] Bailiff and jurats were allowed to hold taverns of wine and ale
“notwithstanding their office, so that they do not sell more dear on
account of their office.” Lyon’s Dover, ii. 337.
[782] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534, 535, 539, 543, 544.
[783] The twelve jurats were summoned by the common horn to assemble
for business in the parish church until they hired a room in 1410 to
hold their meetings and to store the goods of the community; in 1421
they built or repaired a common house with thatched roof and glass
windows, an exchequer table covered with green cloth, and a bell to
ring for the election of jurats. A book of customs was probably drawn
up under Richard the Second, a small seal made in 1389, and a bell in
1424. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534, 537, 540, 541, 546.
[784] Lyon’s Dover, ii. 313-14.
[785] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535.
[786] Boys’ Sandwich, 806-8.
[787] One bailiff appointed in 1415 was only ratified in 1421. (Hist.
MSS. Com. iv. i. 429.) The contrast with the habit in other boroughs is
very striking.
[788] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 547.
[789] Boys’ Sandwich, 806-8.
[790] For notices in Domesday on this point see Burrows’ Cinque Ports,
48.
[791] In 1412 Hythe sent two of its citizens to London to see the
Archbishop and the Lord Chancellor and succeeded in winning some relief
from the ancient customary services to the King. In the fifteenth
century the Archbishop sometimes appointed the bailiff of Hythe, and
sometimes leased out the appointment to the town for a term of years.
Cranmer leased it out for ninety-nine years. It only got a mayor under
Elizabeth. (Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 215, 217-218; Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i.
434, 429. Boys’ Sandwich, 811.) One man was bailiff for six years from
1389; and a wealthy publican for two years from 1421.
[792] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 531-2.
[793] Ibid. 525-6, 532, 536.
[794] In 1403 “Jurats of Lydd and Dengemarsh made account in the church
of S. Nicholas at Romney before the Jurats there of all their outlays
and expenses.” Ibid. 536.
[795] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 524-5.
[796] Ibid. 522, 524, 526, 528.
[797] Ibid. 516, 532.
[798] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 606-7.
[799] It was a common custom in the Cinque Ports for the accuser to be
executioner. Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 76.
[800] The customs levied by S. Augustine’s on the imports at Fordwich
quay were to be the same as those collected by Christ Church at
Sandwich. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443.
[801] Literæ Cant. iii. 358. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 326.
[802] See case of Old Romney. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 544.
[803] For the difficulties which attended the government of a group of
dependent villages by the head town see Lyon’s Dover, i. 26-29. See
also the relations of Sandwich and Stonor. Boys’ Sandwich, 547-8.
[804] Polydore Vergil, 84.
[805] Archæologia Cantiana, vii. 234; Hist MSS. Com. v. 520.
[806] See especially the account of Canterbury in Hist. MSS. Com. IX.
176-7. Lydd incurred heavy expenses in the war of 1460. In Rye there is
an entry of 19_s._ 3_d._ for the expenses of the mayor, bailiff, common
clerk and four jurats at Dover, “going and returning on carrying the
men’s quarters, when the mayor and bailiff with four jurats were sent
under the heaviest penalty, and on pain of contempt of our lord the
King.” Another two pence was spent in giving them a drink of malmsey
before dinner (Hist. MSS Com. v. 492, 493); and the same year “the
men of the Lord Warwick entered the town with a strong band and took
down the quarter of the man and buried it in the churchyard.” In 1470
Romney and the other Cinque Ports supported Warwick against Edward,
1469-70. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.) For Lydd, p. 525; and Sandwich,
Boys’ Sandwich, 676. At the return of Henry the Sixth from October 1470
to April 1471, an entry in Lydd records “on the second Sunday after
the feast of St. Michael the Archangel in the year of King Henry the
Sixth.” (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 525.) The clerk did not know what year
to call it. For the sufferings of Kent in the war see Warkworth’s
Chronicle, 21-22.
[807] Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 77, etc.
TRANSCRIBER’NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.