Chapter XII: Confederation (4)

[217] Schanz, i. 119-142; 7 Henry VII. c. 7.

[218] An interesting account of this is given in Hist. MSS. Com. v. 461.

[219] Schanz, i. 298.

[220] In 1475, 1486, and 1495. (Schanz, i. 299-304.) In 1475 a proclamation in Cinque Ports forbade Englishmen to buy Gascon wine of an alien. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 494.)

[221] An interesting trace of foreign connections is given in the will of Wm. Rowley, who left money to a parish church and a nunnery at Dam in Flanders, and to two places in Spain. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 326.)

[222] Schanz, i. 275-7.

[223] Ibid. i. 285-90. The Portuguese were among those who were allowed to export woollen cloths under Henry the Sixth. (Proc. Privy Council, v. ii. 11.)

[224] Notices of English trade with Portugal in the second half of the fifteenth century may be found in the complaints of the merchants; Schanz, ii. 496-524. For Portuguese in Lydd in 1456, Hist. MSS. Com. v. 521.

[225] In Piers Ploughman a graphic illustration is taken from the mediæval borough thus isolated and protected.

“He cried and commanded all Christian people
To delve and dike a deep ditch all about unity,
That Holy Church stood in holiness as it were a pile.
Conscience commanded then all Christians to delve,
And make a great moat that might be a strength
To help holy Church and them that it keepeth.”

—Pass. xxii. 364-386.

[226] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 461.

[227] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. 386.

[228] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 466.

[229] “And we use that during the siege if the bailiff be an unable and impotent man or unlearned, to choose us one other for the time being; but not a far-dweller unless by the pleasure of the commonalty.” (Ibid. 488.) See Proc. Privy Council, iv. 217.

[230] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 463, 488.

[231] In Rye there was a tax “from every stranger, as though from a prisoner taken, payment of his finance for his ransom, and when he has entered the fortresses of the port for his passage thence, 3_s._ 4_d._; he having to pay towards the building of the walls and gates there what pertains to the common weal of the town.” (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 490.) For the strengthening of Canterbury wall against the French, (ibid. ix. 141.) It had twenty-one towers and six gates, and mayors in 1452 and 1460 left money for the gates. (Davies’ Southampton, 62-3, 80, 105. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.)

[232] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 518-24, 492-3. The Common House at Romney was only provided with bows until in 1475 a gun was laid on it. Burgesses were sometimes driven from towns by the excessive charges of war and of watch and ward. (Owen’s Shrewsbury, i. 205.) For Southampton, see Davies, 79, 80, Chester, Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 370.

[233] Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 370. In 1399, when the master-weavers and tradesmen came armed to the cathedral and led an attack on “William of Wybunbur and Thomas del Dame and many of their servants called journeymen in a great affray of all the people of the city against the peace of the Lord King.” Ibid. 367. See also Paston Letters, i. 408; Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 432.

[234] Plumpton Correspondence, liv. lxii.

[235] Davies’ York, 183. For the directions given about the gathering of troops, see ibid., 152-157. For cost of arms and maintenance of troops to towns, see Stubbs ii. 309. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 143.

[236] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, p. 171.

[237] The authorities of York decreed that the soldiers sent on a Scotch campaign should be given their wages for the first fourteen days, and the captain should have in his pocket the money for the second fortnight. The troops struck, however, and insisted on having the whole twenty-eight days’ pay before they started, and the town had at last to give in as the only way of getting the expedition started. (Davies’ York 132-7.) The soldiers, once paid, often did no more than start on their journey and then “sraggle about by themselves” with their pay in their pockets. (Paston Letters ii. 1-2.)

[238] Eng. Chronicle, 1377-1461, pp. 71, 83, 90, 109.

[239] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. 478, 479.

“‘Therefore I counsel no King any counsel ask
At conscience if he coveteth to conquer a realm,
For should never conscience be my constable
Were I a king y-crowned, by Mary,’ quoth Meed,
‘Nor be marshall of my men where I most fight.’”

—Passus iv. 254-8.

[240] In Canterbury, any man drawing a knife was fined or imprisoned forty days. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172.) In Sandwich if any one wounded another with a sword or knife he might choose one of three punishments, a fine of 60s. to the commonalty, imprisonment for a year and a day, or to have his hand perforated with the weapon by which he had inflicted the wound. (Boys 502.)

[241] Parker, Manor of Aylesbury, 20-21. “Also I complain,” said one of them pitifully, “upon James Fleccher for fraying of my wife about 10 o’clock in the night and I ready for to go to bed, standing scolding at my door bidding me come out of thy doors an thou dare with his dagger in his hand ready to break the king’s peace.” The prudent constable, however, refrained from coming out and was content to appeal to the next court; “he is coming and therefore I beseech you of peace of his godabery.” In Canterbury one of the watchmen called to a person “walking out of due time” to know wherefore he walked there so late. “The suspect person gave none answer, but ran from thence into St. Austin’s liberty and before the door of one John Short they took him. And the same John Short came out of his house with other misknown persons and took from the said watchmen their weapons and there menaced them for to beat contrary to the oath of a true and faithful freeman.” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.)

[242] “The freemen of the borough of Huntingdon have this week been engaged in the observance of a curious and ancient local custom. With their sons, the whole of the freemen of the borough have assembled in the morning in the Market-place. The skull of an ox borne on two poles was placed at the head of a procession, and then came the freemen and their sons, a certain number of them bearing spades and others sticks. Three cheers having been given, the procession moved out of the town and proceeded to the nearest point of the borough boundary, where the skull was lowered. The procession then moved along the boundary line of the borough, the skull being dragged along the line as if it were a plough. The boundary holes were dug afresh, and a boy thrown into each hole and struck with a spade. At a particular point, called Blacktone Leys, refreshments were provided, and the boys competed for prizes. The skull was then again raised aloft, and the procession returned to the Market-place, where three more hurrahs were given before it broke up.” (From the Pall Mall Gazette, September 16th, 1892.) In Hythe Holy Thursday was the day of perambulation. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 432.) For Canterbury in 1497 see Hasted’s Kent, iv. 399-401.

[243] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 434.

[244] History Preston Gild, 41, 42; Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 345; Nottingham, Records, i. 150-151, 268, 164-165.

[245] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 519.

[246] For common pasture and closes see short account in Rogers’ Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i. 89-90, taken from Fitzherbert’s Treatise. In 1484 a great riot broke out in York on the question of the common lands. The King had begged the council to make an order that a close which belonged to S. Nicholas, but was common from Michaelmas to Candlemas, should be “closed and several” for the use of the hospital if the commons would agree to the same. The order was made, but a few days after Michaelmas, when the close was not thrown open as was customary, the citizens met in a “riotous assembly or insurrection” which led to interference of the King. (Davies’ York, 190-198.) In Winchester (1414) John Parmiter was punished for accusing the mayor of intending to sell the Coitebury mill without consent of the citizens. (Kitchen’s Winchester, 171.) For other instances see Vol. II. “Democracy in the Towns,” Note A.

[247] At Worcester the common coffer which contained the city deeds and moneys was fastened with six locks; three keys were kept by the bailiff, an alderman, and a chamberlain, chosen by the “Great Clothing,” or the council of “the twenty-four above;” the other three by a chamberlain chosen by the “Low Election” or the council of “the Forty-eight beneath,” and by two “thrifty commoners.” Eng. Gilds, 377.

[248] In case of error or fraud, or if the bailiff refused to make answer to complaints of the burghers, he was brought before the court of his fellow-citizens “and he shall make satisfaction as the commonalty shall think fitting.” Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 462.

[249] In Romney the town paid every year to have seats put in the church of S. Lawrence on the day of the Annunciation. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 546.) In the same way town accounts at Rye were made up and audited in the church at the end of the year. (Ibid. v. 494.) Lydd in 1471 “spended in the church upon the bailly and jurats when they enquired what lyvelod men have in Lydd two pence.” (Ibid. 525.)

[250] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106, 107.

[251] See p. 41, note 2.

[252] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 438. The Hythe barge brought back three lasts of herrings which were sold for £12. In 1409 Romney Jurats got 6s. increase upon white salt bought for the community. (Ibid. v. 537.) If a corporation was in need of money it could always fall back on loans from rich townsmen, who were willing to lend even on long credit. In 1455 or 1456 one Canterbury merchant lent £13 6s. 8d., which was needed for a gift to the queen, then travelling on pilgrimage, and he was only repaid in 1464. Three leading men, who advanced large sums to do honour to Edward the Fourth on his first coming to the city in 1460, waited four or five years for their money. (Ibid. ix. 139-140.) In Lynn the loans to the corporation were on a very great scale according to the ideas of the time, and the municipal debt, entirely raised on the spot, was as permanent and as progressive as that of a modern town.

[253] Madox, Firma Burgi, 159. See also in 1322, when the missing ferm was to be levied of the bailiffs’ goods, chattels, and lands, and, if this did not suffice, of the goods of the citizens. Documents pr. 1884. (Stanley _v._ Mayor, &c., 24.) See Note A at the end of chapter.

[254] Davies, 111, 37.

[255] Eng. Gilds, 362-363; Nott. Records, i. 267.

[256] Records of Nottingham, iv. 449. Afterwards a paviour was appointed who was paid, or partly paid, by a toll taken for corn “shown” for sale in the market. This tax, known as “shewage” or “scavadge,” gave rise to our later word scavenger (iv. 453). Rules for keeping streets clean in Southampton. (Gross, ii. 223.)

[257] Ricart, 28. 1240 A.D. For carrying great stones for the quay and walls of Rye. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 492, 493.

[258] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 434.

[259] One man received £30 10s. in various sums, 3s. 4d. a rod for nineteen rods, 1s. 8d. a rod for 106 rods, and 12d. a rod for 380 rods. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 434.) For forty years the men of Romney fought a desperate battle with the sea and the changing bed of the Rother to preserve the harbour on which their prosperity depended. In 1381 they spent nearly £9 on making a sluice (Boys’ Sandwich, 803); there were heavy payments for it again in 1388, and in 1398 John Roan was brought over from Flanders to take charge of it. The commons turned out in 1406 for “digging the common Rie,” or bed of the Rother, and in 1409 were again busy “digging the water-course.” In 1410 Gerard Matthyessone was brought over from Holland to make the sluice at a cost of £100; in 1412 over £44 was spent on it besides clothing for Gerard and his household; and in 1413 payments were still being made to him. A few years later in 1422 his place was taken by another Dutchman, Onterdel, who seems to have finished the work, for after this there are only charges for slight repairs. Their improvements remained the model for neighbouring towns, and when Lydd was occupied in works of the same kind its citizens came to study the jetty at Romney.

[260] Ibid. vi. 495-7. A messenger went as far as Kent and Essex to gather alms for making the harbour. He collected groats, pence, fleeces of wool, broken silver and rings, a dish full of wheat, malt, or barley, a piece of bacon and so forth; and got a man to help him who swore before the canons of Christchurch that he would be true, but declared he must have a crucifix and writing as sign of authority, and got a goodly crucifix with beryl set therein and a new suit of clothes, and then made off with his booty.

[261] Shillingford’s Letters, 141, 142. Rec. Nottingham, i. 183. For Rochester, Eng. Chron. 124; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 76. For London see Lit. Cantuar. iii. 169.

[262] Boys’ Sandwich, 673, 676, 684. The town council of Lynn decreed in 1431 “that the three players shall serve the community this year for 21s., and their clothing to be had of every house;” but two years later the players demanded an increase of their “reward,” and a grant was made to each of them of 20s. and their clothing, in return for which “they shall go through the town with their instruments from the Feast of All Saints to the following Feast of the Purification.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 162-3.) In Canterbury four minstrels were appointed every year, and each one was given a silver scutcheon worth 100s.—a badge which was returned at the end of the year to the city chamberlain.

[263] Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (Camden Society), 12.

[264] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 147-8. A most interesting example of an English play is given in the “Commonplace book of the fifteenth century,” ed. by Miss Toulmin Smith, pp. 46-9, the play of Abraham and Isaac. The vivacity, the pathos, the dramatic movement, the strong human interest, are very remarkable.

[265] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 516-527.

[266] Piers Ploughman, pass. i. 34-38.

[267] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 518, &c.

[268] Ibid. pass. viii. 98.

[269] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 540, 541, 544, 552, 548, 549.

[270] Ibid. xi. 7, 172-4.

[271] “Two Sermons of the Boy Bishop at S. Paul’s” have been published by the Camden Society, 1875.

[272] Eng. Guilds, 430.

[273] Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 363.

[274] See vol. ii.

[275] Davies’ York, 43, 77; Eng. Guilds, 141-3. The expenses that fell on a town at a royal visit were exceedingly heavy. (Davies’ York, 69.) For Canterbury, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140-151.

[276] In 1415 there were fifty-seven crafts in York, each of which had its special play. (Davies’ York, 233-236; English Guilds, 141-3; Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109.) Plays were given over to certain trades to act. _Abraham and Isaac_, for instance, was given to the slaters in Newcastle, the bowyers and fletchers in Beverley, the weavers in Dublin, the parchminers and bookbinders in York, the barbers and wax-chandlers in Chester. (Commonplace Book, ed. by Miss Toulmin Smith, 47-8.)

[277] The prices charged by players and minstrels seem to have risen considerably between 1400 and 1500. For a growing economy, see Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 345.

[278] Ibid. ix. 173.

[279] Ibid. ix. 274. For the Worcester rules of 1467, see English Guilds, 385, 407-8.

[280] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 103-104, no date.

[281] Ibid. x. 4, 426.

[282] The York hostellers contracted in 1483 to bring forth yearly for the next eight years a pageant of their own, _The Coronation of Our Lady_.

[283] A small fee was sometimes paid to the parson when the church was used as storehouse for grain or wool as in case of Southampton. Roger’s Agric. and Prices, ii. 611.

[284] Paston Letters, iii. 436.

[285] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 306. York Ritual.

[286] The belfry where the clock hung played so important a part in the communes of France that the right to have a belfry and a town hall were given by charter when the commune was established, and were taken away when it was suppressed (Ordonnances des Rois de France, vol. xi., cxlii., cxliii.), and the bell-tower often formed the town prison. In England, on the other hand, the town clock and the assembly and curfew bells in almost all cases were set in the tower of the parish church, and the ringers paid by the corporation.

[287] Piers Ploughman, passus vii. 144. In Totnes in the thirteenth century there is a long list of entries such as these:— “Alice wife of Walter Cochela sits above the seats of Walter rustic;” “Nicholas son of Henry has his seat by common purchase;” and so on. And down to recent times the mayor, who by tradition represents the head of the Merchant Guild, was charged with appointing seats in the church to the inhabitants. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 242-3.) In Liverpool, “according to ancient custom,” the city officers and their wives had special seats in S. Nicholas, and after them the householders; “apprentices and servants shall sit or stand in the alleys.” (Picton’s Liverpool, ii. 53, 54, 57.) For allotment of seats in the parish church see Toulmin Smith, The Parish, 2nd Edition, 1857, 441.

[288] In Cumberland stray sheep were proclaimed at the church on Sunday. At Rotherham the penalties decreed in the manor court were commonly ordered to be published by the bailiff in the church. (Hunter’s Doncaster, ii. 10.) In 1462 the king’s judges sat to hold trials in the Grey Friars’ Church at Bridgewater for cases of assault and theft. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 316.)

[289] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 537. Romney. Ibid. iv. 1, 436.

[290] Shillingford’s Letters, 48, 94. For the church of S. Nicholas Romney, 1422, see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 542. In Dover barons of Cinque Ports met at the church of S. James. (Ibid. v. 528, 538.) For Rye, Ibid., 499. The meetings of the town council in Southampton were probably first held in the church of S. Cross or Holy Rood, where the assembly bell and curfew bell hung; and so closely did the idea of the town life come to be connected with this spot that when a town hall was built in the fourteenth century the church was moved further back that the hall might stand on its exact site. As late as 1470 the mayor and his brethren met in the parish church to settle a question of town business.

[291] Shillingford’s Letters, 93. Report on Markets, 25. Fairs forbidden on Sundays and feast days; 27 Henry VI., cap. 5.

[292] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 436.

[293] It is interesting to note the scientific experiments of “Doctor Wren” in the tower of old S. Paul’s, described in a letter from Moray to Huygens, Sep. 23, 1664. Œuvres Complètes de Huygens. Amsterdam, 1893, vol. v.

[294] The mayor and jurats of Rye had the nomination of the chaplain of S. Bartholomew’s. (Lyons, ii. 367.) For Sandwich Boys, 672-3. The Bridgewater burgesses were lay rectors of the church. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 312.) For the Wells corporation, Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106. At Dartmouth the parish church was built by the mayor; and a dispute began between mayor and vicar who was to have fees for masses; fresh dispute raised every thirty years from that time till 1874, when it had come to a question of pew rents, and a compromise was made. In Andover the custodians of the cemetery were chosen by the people (Gross, ii. 331). “If any person shall be a water bearer in Totnes he shall cry the hour of the day and shall carry the holy water every Sunday throughout the whole ville of Totnes.” (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 344.) Payment was often made for sermons. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 549. Davies’ York, 77.)

[295] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 495. For the presenting of parish priests and clerics by the town juries see Cutts’ Colchester, 129. “And also the parish priest of St. Peter’s for over assessing of poor folks and men’s servants at Easter for their tythes and other duties.” (Nott. Rec. iii. 364.) In 1476, when the chaplain of Old Romney Church was arraigned for felony, “according to the custom of the Cinque Ports, for his acquittance it is assigned that he shall have 36 good and lawful men to be at the Hundred Court next to come at his peril.” Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 544. See ch. v. p. 175, note.

[296] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 272.

[297] For the rise of the new parish administration, Gneist i. 282-5; ii. 21.

[298] Hythe, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 432. Bridport, Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 495; Andover, Gross, ii. 345. In Lynn all houses leased for 20s. a year were bound to supply the blessed bread and wax for S. Margaret’s, and the most elaborate rules were drawn up to regulate the contributions which were to be paid by tenements lying together, or by various tenements under one roof. In case payment was refused the common sergeant, or any officer sent by the mayor, might levy a distress and carry off the tenant’s goods to the Guild Hall to be kept till he had made satisfaction or paid a fine of 20s. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 161.) Payments for the holy fire are frequent. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 432, v. 549.) Sometimes fines for breach of trade laws went to church uses. (Gross, ii. 331, 345.) In Rye, if any animal got into the churchyard the owner paid 3s. 4d. to fabric of church. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489.)

[299] In Bridport the bequests for the church from 1450 to 1460 consist 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.