Chapter XXVI: The Growing Power of the Towns

Back in early Saxon times we find that the inhabitants of a town were banded together to keep the peace, thus forming a society pledged to each other--the Peace or Frith Guild. It lost nearly all its _real_ power in later Saxon and Norman times. But it did not actually die out, and it appears that from this Frith Guild what we now understand by a corporation took its rise. The guild was a great power in some of the Saxon towns; only those belonging to it could trade in the town, and its members were very slow to admit outsiders to share in their privileges.

We have seen that the free, or nearly free, tuns gradually came under the power of an overlord--the king, a bishop, a baron, or a monastery, as the case might be--and very little real power was left to the guild. The overlord appointed a reeve to look after his interests, and the government of the place was in his hands. Yet the old Frith Guild seems to have regulated matters connected with the _customs_ of the town, which did not interfere with the lord's rights.

When we reach Norman times we have come to a period during which the towns improved their position. The Norman Conquest led to increased trade with the Continent. The great building operations here attracted skilled workmen and craftsmen to this country. These men naturally found their way to the towns rather than to the villages. They were protected and encouraged by the Norman nobles, who preferred _their_ work to that of the Saxons. Although they might be foreigners, these strangers had ideas of freedom and liberty which fitted in very well with the town's ideas of self-government. Then, too, these craftsmen were bound together in trade societies or guilds, and that made them strong and worthy of consideration in the places where they settled.

A charter to a town granted and secured to it certain privileges, and a town with a charter became a borough town. The king granted a good many charters to towns during the Norman period. A town which wished to get a charter had to pay heavily for it. But it was quite worth while for the town to secure the right which a charter gave it--the right to manage its own affairs. What a town most desired was to be free from the authority of the king's officer, to choose its own port-reeve, who could preside over the court of the town, so that the town might not have to appear before the hundred court. By paying an annual rent to the king, however heavy the amount might be, the town hoped to escape from the many extra fees and taxes which the king's officers put upon it. It could then settle its own disputes, raise its own taxes as it needed them, and punish its own evil-doers.

In many cases bishops, barons, or religious houses were the overlords of districts containing important towns, and those towns managed to get charters from their overlords as other towns had from the king. By so doing they could get out of the power of the sheriff or shire-reeve. Charter or borough towns have most of them been very particular to preserve their rights and privileges.

If you live in a small country borough town, or a city, you will notice that two different benches of magistrates sit in the town-hall to hear police cases; and there are two different courts of justice, though held often in the same room. There are first of all the Borough Sessions, at which the mayor of the borough presides, and which deal with cases arising in the borough, whether trifling or serious. Then, on another fixed day in the week, in the very same building, another body or bench of magistrates sits. These gentlemen usually come in from country places outside the town, and the cases brought before them have to do with the mischief done in the villages and country parishes. These magistrates have nothing at all to do with offences committed within the borough. These are the county magistrates, and their court is called the Petty Sessions, or the County Sessions.

Some offences are too grave for the borough or county magistrates to settle, and they have to be tried by a higher court of justice, which has greater powers than the Court of Petty Sessions--the Court of Quarter Sessions. The bench of this court is made up of magistrates drawn from all parts of the county, and a jury of twelve men, householders, from different parts of the county, has to be sworn to hear the evidence in the cases to be tried. The jury decides whether the man is proved to be guilty or not, when they have heard all that can be urged for and against him, and the magistrates decide what his punishment is to be, according to law.

There are some cases too grave or too complicated for the Court of Quarter Sessions to decide, and these have to stand over to the Assizes. These Assizes are held three times a year in the county town of each county, and every prisoner in the county jail must be accounted for. The court is presided over by one or more of the king's judges. These are trained lawyers, and they attend in the king's place, and are treated with much pomp and ceremony.

The sheriff of the county, properly attended, must meet the judge or judges upon arrival. Formerly when judges on circuit travelled by road from one county town to the next county town, the sheriff of the assize town to which they were travelling met them some distance from the town with a band of horsemen in quaint, old-time uniforms, armed with javelins; and in a similar way attended them for some distance out of the town when the assize was over. In most places the javelin men have disappeared, or nearly disappeared, and this guard of honour is supplied by mounted policemen. But there are a good many quaint old customs and ceremonies still observed in connection with the holding of the assizes.

_An open court in which law proceedings were conducted in the
Middle Ages._]

Part of the accounts of the sheriffs (who acted as the king's
bailiffs) of London and the various counties for the year 1130-1.
The portion shown refers to Middlesex, and was photographed from
the original in the Public Record Office, London

[See page 92]]