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 Another Random Document on
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 NORMAN LONDON.
To larger image.

Islington.—“Derman holds of the King half a hide in Iseldone

(Islington). There is land to half a plough. There is one villane there.
This land is and was worth ten shillings. Algar, a vassal of King
Edward’s, held this land, and he might sell and give it.”
Lisson Green.—“Lilestone (Lilestone) answered for five hides.
Eideua holds it of the King. There is land to three ploughs. Four
hides and a half are in the demesne, and there are two ploughs
there. The villanes have one plough. There are four villanes of half a
virgate each; and three cottagers of two acres; and one bondman.
Meadow for one plough. Pasture for the cattle of the village.
Pannage for one hundred hogs. For herbage threepence. Its whole
value is sixty shillings; the same when received; in King Edward’s
time forty shillings.’ Edward, son of Suan, a vassal of King Edward’s,
held this manor, and might sell it.”
According to the A.S. Chronicle, King William held a great Council,
and had much discourse “as to how the land was holden and by
what men. He sent over all England into every shire his men, and let
them inquire how many hundred hides were in each shire, and what
land and cattle the King himself had in the shire, and what rent he
ought to receive yearly in each. He let them also inquire how much
land his archbishops had, and his other bishops and his abbots, and
each and what and how much every man had who held land within
the kingdom, as well on land as on cattle, and how much each was
worth.”
It must be remembered that the King under the Feudal system
was the overlord of all estates, and there was no land which was not
under the King as overlord. In the Survey of Middlesex there is no
manor returned as belonging to the Crown. In Ossulston Hundred,
the King held 12½ acres of “No man’s land”; he also had thirty
cottagers in one place and two in another. Twenty-two owners of
manors in Middlesex are entered in Domesday, of these the Church
had by far the largest share, viz. the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Abbot of Westminster, the Abbot of the Holy Trinity at Rouen, the
Abbess of Barking, and the Bishop and Canons of St. Paul. The last
owned the principal part of Ossulston Hundred.
The largest manor round London was Stepney: at a very early
period the hamlets of Shoreditch, Stratford Bow, Hackney, Bethnal
Green, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, St. George’s in the East, Shadwell
and Limehouse are supposed to have been carved out of the great
manor and parish: in other words, the original parish of Stepney
extended from the great north road of Bishopsgate Without to the
River Lea. That a great part of Ossulston Hundred belonged to St.
Paul’s is shown by the fact that Twyford, Willesden, Harlesden,
Totehill, St. Pancras, Islington, Newington, Horton, Hoxton, and
Drayton all belonged to this church. The Abbot of Westminster held
the manor—only second in size to Stepney—of his church, that of
Hampstead, that of Hendon, and another manor, probably Belsize.
There were only eight lay proprietors of manors in the county.
It is clear from the Domesday that London was confined within its
wall; that Westminster had no existence as a town; that outside the
walls the only parish inhabited, except by farmers, was a part of
Stepney; and that the northern part of the county, as is proved by
the “pannage” for swine, was covered with forest beginning beyond
Islington and Kentish Town, and covering Hampstead and Highgate,
and so east and west to Willesden on the west and the Essex Forest
on the east.
In other words, there lay, all around London, a broad belt of
manors belonging to the Church. We may consider how the
ownership of this land would affect building and settlement outside
the walls. We find, what we should expect, the first settlement on
the Moorland immediately north of the walls; Smithfield and
Clerkenwell the first suburbs. We then find houses built as far as the
“Bars” in the Whitechapel Road, then in Holborn, and then in Fleet
Street and in Bishopsgate Without. Beyond the Bars there are
difficulties; they seem to be surmounted in Chancery Lane and St.
Giles’s, also along the Strand, but not on the east side, nor on the
north. It would be interesting had one the time to trace the gradual
removal of the prohibition to build on the part of the Bishop of
London, the Abbot of Westminster, and the Chapter of St. Paul’s.
 CHAPTER III
WILLIAM RUFUS
This king—of a strange and inexplicable personality—gave no
Charter to the City so far as is known, nor do there appear to have
been any events of importance in London itself during his reign. One
or more destructive fires, a hurricane, and a famine, or at least a
scarcity, are mentioned.
William Rufus followed his father’s example in being crowned at
Westminster. And as the Conqueror was crowned by a Norman and a
Saxon Bishop, so he also was crowned by the Norman Archbishop of
Canterbury and the last Saxon Bishop, Wulfstan.
In the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, it is mentioned that on
the outbreak of the Civil War, the year after the accession of William
Rufus, he collected his army in London; that it consisted mainly of
English whom he made loyal by promising “just laws”; that while
William was besieging Pevensey, the garrison of Rochester fell upon
the people of Canterbury and London with fire and sword. Had the
King taken from London the power of defence? Were there no walls
and gates, or were there traitors within the walls and gates? The
A.S. Chronicle says nothing of this massacre; it speaks, however, of
discontent. When the rebellion in favour of Robert broke out, the
King “was greatly disturbed in mind; and he sent for the English, and
laid his necessities before them, and entreated their assistance. He
promised them better laws than had ever been in this land, and
forbade all unjust taxes, and guaranteed to his subjects their woods
and hunting. But these concessions were soon done away. Howbeit
the English came to the aid of their lord the King, and they then
marched towards Rochester.”
William spent very little time in London or at Westminster. Once he
held his Christmas at the King’s House, Westminster, and twice he
held Whitsuntide there. At the feasts of Christmas, Easter, and
Whitsuntide the King feasted in public, wearing his crown.
In the year 1092, Florence of Worcester says that a fire destroyed
nearly the whole of London. The A.S. Chronicle does not notice the
event. Like the alleged massacre in London by the men of Rochester,
we may suppose that the damage was exaggerated.
The
slender
annals of
the City
during
this reign
do not,
NORMAN CAPITALS FROM WESTMINSTER HALL therefore,
Archæologia, vol. xxvii. tell us
much. As
for its internal condition, the trade and the prosperity of the place, it
is not to be supposed that in a time of continual wars, internal and
external, the trade of London could possibly advance; nor is it likely
that when the hand of the King was heavy with exactions and unjust
taxation upon the rest of his kingdom, London would escape. In
reading the history of this king, one is continually wishing that a
layman had written an account of his sayings and doings. The
ecclesiastics were embittered against a man who was not only a
derider of the Church, but also a robber of the Church; who held in
his own hand, keeping them vacant, bishoprics and monasteries;
who dared to say that he had no belief in saints; who discouraged
the conversion of Jews, and even persuaded the Jews to hold a
public debate with Christians as to the tenets of their faith,
promising to become a convert if they should defeat the Christians.
This part of the story is, however, doubtful. William of Malmesbury
believed it. He says, “The thing was done, to the great fear of the
Bishops and clergy, fearing with pious solicitude for the Christian
faith, and from this contest the Jews received nothing but confusion,
though they often boasted that they had been conquered not by
argument but by power.” One would like to have been present at the
debate.
The few glimpses we get of London do not point to prosperity or
to contentment. The A.S. Chronicle (a.d. 1097) says, “Many shires
which are bound to duty in works at London were greatly oppressed
in making the wall round the Tower, in repairing the bridge which
had been almost washed away, and in building the King’s Hall at
Westminster. These hardships fell upon many.”
The memory of the general misery of the time is preserved in a
curiously suggestive manner: by the record of those strange and
monstrous events which only occur in times of trouble and injustice.
There was an earthquake; there was a very late harvest; lightning
struck the head off a crucifix. There was a deluge of rain such as
had never before been seen; there was a hard frost which froze
rivers; there was a rapid thaw which tore away bridges; there was a
famine, so severe, in some parts, that the dying wanted attention
and the dead wanted burial; there was a comet; there were stars
which fought with each other; there was a high tide which ran up
the Thames and inundated many villages; the devil appeared in
person to many, speaking to them in woods and secret places. It is
not reported what he said, which is a pity; he seems, however, to
have been in a gracious mood, no doubt because things were going
on quite to his liking. Lastly, a spring at Finchampstead began to
flow with blood, an omen which filled everybody, except the King,
with terror and gloomy forebodings. The King, it is reported, laughed
at the omen.
William’s sudden and tragic death—clearly a proof of Heaven’s
displeasure—gave rise to a whole group of omens and dreams. The
Abbot of Cluny is reported to have told the brothers on the very
morning after the death, long before the news could have arrived,
that King William was “last night brought before God, and that he
was sentenced to damnation.” The King himself was terrified by a
dream the night before his death; a monk had a terrible dream
which he brought to the King the very morning of his death. And so
on. The point remains that all these monstrous signs and portents
indicate a time of general terror, when no one knew what taxes or
burdens might be laid upon him by a king who was strong of will,
not afraid of Pope or Bishop, or anything that the Church could do or
threaten: a king of strange freaks and uncertain temper: influenced
by no one; feared for his courage; respected for his success in war;
beloved by his favourites; prodigal and extravagant; a free-thinker; a
man of no private morality; and of so little respect for the Church
that he made his Bishops and Abbots strip off the gold from their
shrines, and melt down their chalices. Wherever he went his Court
was composed chiefly of young men who wore flowing hair and
extravagant dress; who, as the Chronicle says, “rivalled women in
delicacy of person, minced their gait, and walked with loose gesture
and half-naked.” They plundered the country far and wide; what
they could not devour they sold or destroyed. If it was liquor, they
washed their horses’ legs with what they could not drink. “Droves of
harlots” followed the Court. No wonder the fountain of
Finchampstead ran with blood. At the same time, it must be
remembered that the ecclesiastics who wrote these things were not
likely to take a favourable view of their oppressor.
 CHAPTER IV
HENRY I
William Rufus was killed on Thursday,
August 2, 1100, and buried on Friday.
Henry rode off to London without the
least delay: he arrived on Saturday;
conferred with the leading citizens on the
same day, and was actually crowned at
Westminster on Sunday. Haste such as
this shows not only his desire to get
crowned before his elder brother could
interfere, but points to the danger to the
realm if the throne were vacant even for
a single day. J. R. Green, in a paper on
the election of Stephen, dwells upon the SEAL OF ST. ANSELM
importance and the power of the citizens
of London, who could thus of their own authority elect and crown a
king. But, in fact, the City only repeated in the case of Stephen their
action in the case of Henry. The latter rode at headlong speed from
the New Forest to London—he must have ridden night and day. To
be sure, it was the height of summer, when the roads were dry and
hard. He presented himself before the Bishop and Portreeve and the
notables of London. “Make me your king,” he said. “In return I will
give you what you most desire, peace and order. I will do more. I
will marry Maude, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scots, and of
Margaret, sister of Edgar, heiress of the line of Alfred, and will make
the crown secure and the country free from civil war.” They agreed.
It is generally believed that the citizens made a bargain with Henry
for new privileges. What they wanted most was a strong king, who
would make peace and keep it; enforce his laws; put down highway
robbery and oppression and piracy, and make trade possible. There
was not much thought of new privileges, but first and foremost—of
order. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was absent. The King was
crowned by Maurice, Bishop of London, who had the greatest share
in his election. Three months later the King’s wife, Maude, the Saxon
heiress, was also crowned in the Abbey, and feasted in the Red
King’s Hall, to the unspeakable joy of the whole country.
It has generally been stated that Henry bestowed upon the City
the famous Charter, by which their liberties were greatly widened, in
the very first year of his reign, as a reward for their support and
election. There are, however, strong reasons for believing that at the
beginning of his reign he confined himself to promises or to a
confirmation of his father’s Charter, and that the document known as
his Charter was granted in reality in the year 1130, five years before
his death. What the City obtained from Henry was a time of peace:
when criminals had no mercy to expect; when a man might drive his
caravan of pack-horses from fair to fair without fear of robbers; and
the King acted up to his promise that none should do his people
wrong. That he was an expensive king: that he demanded money
without end or stint, was pardoned in return for the priceless boon
of peace and order.
 Valentine and Sons, Ltd.
NORMAN ARCH, IN THE CLOISTERS, WESTMINSTER ABBEY

I have thought it best to consider Henry’s Charter in a separate

chapter, clause by clause, in connection with the gradual rise of the
power of the Londoners, as is fitting for the most important of all the
Charters by which London rose to liberty and greatness. It will
suffice here to indicate generally the nature of the Charter by
quoting the words of Bishop Stubbs, Constitutional History, p. 439:—

“The Charter of Henry I. shows a marked advance. The City is

recognised as a distinct unity, although that unity depends on
hereditary succession only: it is independent of county
organisation, the county in which it lies is itself let at ferm to the
citizens; it is placed on a level with the shires, it is to have a
sheriff of its own and a justiciar: as a greater privilege still, it is
 to elect its own sheriff and justiciar, and to be open to no other
jurisdiction than that of its own elected officers. The citizens are
not to be called before any court outside their own walls, and
are freed from Danegeld, from scot and lot, from responsibility
from the murder-fine and obligation to trial by battle: they are
freed from toll and other duties of the kind throughout all
England, at the ports as well as inland. They are to possess
their lands, the common lands of their township, and their rights
of coursing in Chiltern, Middlesex, and Surrey. Yet with all this
no new incorporation is bestowed: the churches, the barons, the
citizens, retain their ancient customs; the churches their sokens,
the barons their manors, the citizens their township
organisation, and possibly their guilds.”

In the year 1125 there was done a deed of justice grim and
terrible: one which caused the ears of all who heard it to tingle. One
does not know how far London was concerned with it. But that there
were “moneyers” or minters in London is certain. Three, viz. Achard,
Lefwin Besant, and Ailwin Finch, were moneyers of London in 1149.
And nothing is said as to any exception in favour of London. There
had been grave and universal complaints about the coinage, which
was debased by those who struck it. Henry considered the subject,
he doubtless tested the coins; he made up his mind that all were
guilty, and thereupon “commanded that all the minters in England
should be deprived of their right hands and should be also, in
another well-known manner, mutilated. And this “because a man
may have a pound and yet not be able to spend a penny in the
market.” He means that the pound might consist of debased money.
Accordingly, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, sent over all England, and
invited every minter to come to Winchester at Christmas, without
letting any one know what awaited him: and when they obediently
journeyed thither, thinking probably they were to receive some new
privilege, his men took them one by one, cut off their right hands
and deprived them of their manhood. “All this was done within
twelve days, and with much justice, because they had ruined this
land with the great quantity of bad metal they had all corrupted.” A
strong king, truly! One can imagine the discourse of the unhappy
minters on the way. Some signal mark of the King’s favour was
coming, some promotion from the Bishop, larger powers, greater
profits. The Bishop said never a word of his purpose; he received
them courteously; he invited them as to a feast; and then, one by
one—Alas! Poor Minters! Never more did they debase the coinage.
This summary and terrible act of justice, if it included London, must
have fallen upon some of the most eminent merchants in the City:
not, one hopes, upon Orgar the Proud, of whom we hear more in
connection with deeds and documents of the time and as one of the
notables of the City.
In the year 1126 a famine fell upon the land.
In 1132 a fire which began at the house of Gilbert Becket in West
Chepe destroyed the greater part of the north-east quarter of
London.
During this reign the Priory of the Holy Trinity, that of St. Mary
Overies, and the Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew were
founded. It is generally asserted that the Benedictine Nunnery of
Clerkenwell was founded by one Jordan Briset in 1100, but Mr. H. J.
Round has now proved that both this nunnery and the Priory of St.
John were founded about the year 1145. Queen Maude also founded
the Lazar-House of St. Giles in the Fields. (See Mediæval London,
vol. ii. p. 311.)
There were grave complaints by ecclesiastics against the luxury
and effeminacy of the age—but every age has its complaints of
luxury. Young men wore their hair as long as women. They also
dressed with as much splendour and attention as women; they
crowned themselves with wreaths of flowers. Despite the revival of
religion, the corruption of morals attributed to William Rufus was
continued under his successor: the King himself was notorious for
his amours and infidelities. He was led to repentance in his old age
by one of those dreams which fill up a good part of the Chronicles.
In this dream he saw pass before him a procession. First marched
the ploughmen with their tools; next, the craftsmen with theirs; then
came the soldiers bearing arms, and with them the Barons and
Knights. Last of all came the clergy with their Bishops. But the latter
were armed with their croziers, and they ran upon the King as if they
would kill him with these hallowed weapons. The dreamer sprang
out of bed and seized his sword to defend himself. When he awoke,
behold! it was a dream. But the terror remained, and Henry set
himself to repentance and amendment. No doubt he remembered
how a dream of warning had been sent to his brother, by neglect of
which he came to his untimely end.
The importance of this reign to the City of London lies mainly in
the Charter which we are about to discuss: we must not, however,
forget the order which Henry I. established and maintained in every
part of his kingdom. This order was especially valued in a place like
London, which could only carry on its trade in security when order
was maintained. And though London contained so many citizens of
Norman birth and descent, the great mass of the people were
English, and could not fail to be pleased when Henry showed that he
threw himself upon the support of his English subjects, when he
married an English wife, and restored through her the line of Alfred
to the throne. A great king, a strong king, a just king. What more
could the times desire?
 CHAPTER V
THE CHARTER of HENRY I
We know that in the memorable and brief document which is
called William’s Charter, the laws and customs of Edward the
Confessor were simply confirmed. Probably the City asked no more
and wanted no more. Sixty years later the City, having prospered
and grown and being wiser, wished for a definition of their laws and
liberties, which was given them by Henry the First. I say sixty, and
not thirty years, because, as has been already advanced, it seems
probable that Henry’s Charter was granted in the year 1130, and
not, as has been generally assumed, at the beginning of his reign. I
now propose to take this Charter clause by clause.

CORONATION OF HENRY I
Claud MS., A. iii. (contemporary).

“Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, to the

archbishop of Canterbury, and to the bishops and abbots, earls
and barons, justices and sheriffs, and to all his faithful subjects
of England, French and English, greeting.
 Know ye that I have granted to my citizens of London, to hold
Middlesex to farm for three hundred pounds, upon accompt to
them and their heirs: so that the said citizens shall place as
sheriff whom they will of themselves: and shall place
whomsoever, or such a one as they will of themselves, for
keeping of the pleas of the crown, and of the pleadings of the
same, and none other shall be justice over the same men of
London: and the citizens of London shall not plead without the
walls of London for any plea. And be they free from scot and lot
and danegeld, and of all murder: and none of them shall wage
battle. And if any one of the citizens shall be impleaded
concerning the pleas of the crown, the man of London shall
discharge himself by his oath, which shall be adjudged within
the City: and none shall lodge within the walls, neither of my
household, nor any other, nor lodging delivered by force.
And all the men of London shall be quit and free, and all their
goods, throughout England, and the ports of the sea, of and
from all toll and passage and lestage, and all other customs:
and the churches and barons and citizens shall and may
peaceably and quietly have and hold their sokes with all their
customs; so that the strangers that shall be lodged in the sokes
shall give custom to none but to him to whom the soke
appertains, or to his officer, whom he shall put there: And a
man of London shall not be adjudged in amerciaments of
money but of one hundred shillings (I speak of the pleas which
appertain to money); and further there shall be no more
miskenning in the hustings, nor in the folkmote, nor in any
other pleas within the City: and in the hustings may sit once a
week, that is to say, on Monday: And I will cause my citizens to
have their lands, premises, bonds and debts, within the City and
without: and I will do them right by the law of the City, of the
lands of which they shall complain to me:
And if they shall take toll or custom of any citizen of London,
the citizens of London in the City shall take of the borough or
 town, where toll or custom was so taken, so much as the man
of London gave for toll, and as he received damage thereby;
and all debtors, which do owe debts to the citizens of London,
shall pay them in London, or else discharge themselves in
London, that they owe none: but, if they will not pay the same,
neither some to clear themselves that they owe none, the
citizens of London, to whom the debts shall be due, may take
their goods in the City of London, of the borough or town, or of
the country wherein he remains who shall owe the debt: And
the citizens of London may have their chaces to hunt, as well
and fully as their ancestors have had, that is to say, in Chiltre,
and in Middlesex and Surrey.
Witness the bishop of Winchester, and Robert
son of Richier, and Hugh Bygot, and Alured of
Toteneys, and William of Alba-spina and Hubert the
King’s chamberlain, and William de Montfichet, and
Hangulf de Teney, and John Bellet, and Robert son
of Siward. At Westminster.”

The Charter of Henry the First must be considered both on

account of the liberties and privileges it grants, and the light it
throws upon the government of the City.
First—The Charter is addressed, not to the City of London with
which it was concerned, but to “The Archbishop of Canterbury, and
the Bishops and the Abbots, Earls and Barons, Justices and Sheriffs,
and all his faithful subjects, French and English, of all England.”
Why was it not addressed to the City? Because as yet there was
no City in the modern sense of the word. It might have been
addressed to the Bishop and the Portreeve, as William’s Charter: it
was addressed to the whole country, because the concessions made
to London were understood to concern the whole country.
From a historical point of view, the constitution of London at this
time is of very great importance, for the simple reason that, after
the Norman Conquest, London, by a succession of fortunate events,
almost wholly escaped the changes and innovations introduced by
the Normans. In the midst of the feudal oppressions and exactions
which weighed down the rest of the kingdom, London still preserved
untouched and undisturbed the free and independent rights which
had belonged to all the towns of the kingdom—there were not many
—in Saxon times. In this respect London was not only the one
surviving Saxon City, she contained also the very Ark of the English
constitution itself.
Let us now return to Henry’s Charter,
taking it point by point.
(1) He grants to the citizens the Farm
of Middlesex for £300 yearly rent.
That is to say, the citizens of London
were to have the right of collecting the
King’s demesne revenues within the
limits of the County of Middlesex. These
revenues consisted of dues and tolls at
markets, ports, and bridges, with fines ANFIFTH
ANCIENT SEAL OF ROBERT,
BARON FITZWALTER
and forfeitures accruing from the penal
provisions of forest laws, and from the
fines from the Courts of Justice. They were collected by the Sheriff
or the Portreeve for the King; or they were farmed by the Sheriff,
who paid a fixed sum for the whole, making his own profit or his
own loss out of the difference between the sum collected and the
sum paid. Now if the collection of dues was granted to the citizens, a
corporate body was thereby informally created, though the people
might not understand entirely what it meant.
This grant has given rise to some controversy. The views and
arguments advanced by Mr. J. H. Round (Geoffrey de Mandeville,
App. P, pp. 347 et seq.) appear to me to satisfy all the conditions of
the problem and to meet all the difficulties. In what follows,
therefore, I shall endeavour to explain the meaning of the
concession and its bearing upon the early administration of the City
in accordance with the views of this scholar and antiquary.
The important words of the Charter are these:—
“Sciatis me concessisse civibus meis London(iarum), tenendum
Middlesex ad firmam pro ccc libris ad compotum, ipsis et hæredibus
suis de me et hæredibus meis ita quod ipsi cives ponent
vicecomitem qualem voluerint de se ipsis: et justitiarium qualem
voluerint de se ipsis, ad custodiendum placita coronæ meæ et
eadem placitanda, et nullus alius erit justitiarius super ipsos homines
London(iarum).”
Does this grant mean the shrievalty of Middlesex apart from
London or of Middlesex including London? “In the almost
contemporary Pipe Roll (31 Hen. 1) it is called the Ferm of ‘London.’”
In the Charters granted to Geoffrey, Stephen gives him the
“Shrievalties of London and Middlesex,” while the Empress gives him
the “Shrievalty of London and Middlesex.” Again, “the Pipe Rolls of
Henry the Second denote the same firma as that of ‘London,’ and
also as that of ‘London and Middlesex.’” In the Roll of Richard the
First there is the phrase “de veteri firma Comitat’ Lond’ et
Middelsexa.” And Henry the Third grants to the citizens of London—
“Vicecomitatum Londoniæ et de Middelsexia, cum omnibus rebus
et consuetudinibus quæ pertinent ad predictum Vicecomitatum, infra
civitatem et extra per terras et aquas ... Reddendo inde annuatim ...
trescentas libras sterlingorum blancorum.”
Round also maintains that the Royal Writs and Charters bear the
same witness. When they are directed to the local authorities it is to
those of London, or of “London and Middlesex,” or of “Middlesex.”
The three are, for all purposes, used as equivalent terms. “There
was never but one ferm and never but one shrievalty.”
I need not follow Round in his arguments against other opinions.
The treatment of Middlesex, he says, including London, was exactly
like that of other counties. The firma of Herts was £60; that of Essex
£300; that of Middlesex, the very small shire, because it included
London, and for no other reason, was £300 also.
In other counties the “reeve” took his title from the “shire.” In
Middlesex, where the “port” was the most important part of the
shire, the “reeve” took his name from the port. The Vicecomes of
“London,” or “London and Middlesex,” was the successor of the
Portreeve, or he was the Portreeve under another name. The
Shirereeve and the Portreeve, then, are never mentioned together;
writs are directed to a Portreeve, or to a Shirereeve, but never to
both. William the Conqueror addresses, in Anglo-Saxon, the
Portreeve; in Latin, the Vicecomes. Round sums up (p. 359):—

“This conclusion throws a new light on the Charter by which

Henry I. granted to the citizens of London Middlesex (i.e.
Middlesex inclusive of London) at Farm. Broadly speaking, the
transaction in question may be regarded in this aspect. Instead
of leasing the corpus comitatus to any one individual for a year,
or for a term of years, the king leased it to the citizens as a
body, leased it, moreover, in perpetuity, and at the low original
firma of £300 a year. The change effected was simply that
which was involved in placing the citizens, as a body, in the
shoes of the Sheriff ‘of London and Middlesex.’”

We find Stephen and the Empress in turn bestowing upon

Geoffrey de Mandeville the shrievalty of London and Middlesex.
Therefore no regard at all was paid to Henry’s Charter by Stephen or
the Empress.
 Valentine & Sons, Limited.
THE TEMPLE CHURCH

From all this it follows that if Henry’s Charter should be dated

1130, the citizens enjoyed the right of electing their Sheriffs and
paying the moderate rent of £300 for five years only, out of the
whole century. Let me once more quote Round (p. 372):—

“We see then that, in absolute contradiction of the received

belief on the subject, the shrievalty was not in the hands of the
citizens during the twelfth century (i.e. from ‘1101’), but was
held by them for a few years only, about the close of the reign
of Henry I. The fact that the sheriffs of London and Middlesex
 were, under Henry II. and Richard I., appointed throughout by
the Crown, must compel our historians to reconsider the
independent position they have assigned to the City at that
period. The Crown, moreover, must have had an object in
retaining this appointment in its own hands. We may find it, I
think, in that jealousy of exceptional privilege or exemption
which characterised the régime of Henry II. For, as I have
shown, the charters to Geoffrey remind us that the ambition of
the urban communities was analogous to that of the great
feudatories, in so far as they both strove for exemption from
official rule. It was precisely to this ambition that Henry II. was
opposed; and thus, when he granted his charter to London, he
wholly omitted two of his grandfather’s concessions, and
narrowed down those that remained, that they might not be
operative outside the actual walls of the City. When the
shrievalty was restored by John to the citizens (1199), the
concession had lost its chief importance through the triumph of
the ‘communal’ principle. When that civic revolution had taken
place which introduced the ‘communa’ with its mayor—a
revolution to which Henry II. would never, writes the Chronicler,
have submitted—when a Londoner was able to boast that he
would have no king but his mayor, then had the sheriff’s
position become but of secondary importance, subordinate, as it
has remained ever since, to that of the mayor himself.”

As to the “independent position” of the City spoken of in this

passage, perhaps that has been partly exaggerated. At the same
time, when we consider (1) that London, as Stubbs states and
Round agrees, was a bundle of communities, townships, parishes,
and lordships, of which each had its own constitution; that (2) as
Stubbs states and Round agrees, by Henry’s Charter, “no new
incorporation is bestowed; the churches, the barons, the citizens
retain their ancient customs”; (3) the really great concession made
by Henry; and (4) the continuance of the form, if not the reality, of
the Folkmote, we must acknowledge that the independence of the
City was relatively great. And we must remember, further, that the
Sheriff, or the Portreeve, was not the Mayor, nor was he the
Justiciar; he was the financial officer of the King to look after the
firma, and the taxes, fines, etc. The various jurisdictions and
lordships had their own Courts; the City was not a corporate body; it
had no head, unless it was the chief of that shadowy association, the
Guild Merchant; it had no commune, and it had no Mayor.
(2) Henry gave them the right to appoint their own Justiciar.
Under the Saxon kings, criminal cases were tried in the Courts
held by the Sheriff in his hundred, or the lord over his demesne.
There were thus a very great number of Courts, the fines and
forfeitures of which went to the owner of the soc or estate. William
the Conqueror secured to himself the proceeds of these trials,
together with the revenues arising from the new feudal tenures, by
establishing the aula regis, the King’s Court, with the Chief Justiciar
who sat in it. The aula regis went with the King wherever he went.
Before long, persons were appointed to be itinerant justices, so that
the aula regis included and suspended all older Courts. These new
and uncertain jurisdictions were extremely unpopular. If, however, a
city could obtain the privilege of electing its own Justiciar for its own
cases, there would be some security of obtaining justice without
delays—the Justiciar holding his office on good behaviour only; also
that the ancient laws and customs would be observed; that there
would be no temptation to impose arbitrary and grievous fines; that
the numerous extortions connected with the new feudal tenure,
possible where the royal revenues largely depended upon the
amounts so raised, might in some measure be checked.
The office of Justiciar of London presents many difficulties, partly
because there is no evidence, with a few exceptions, of the
existence of such an officer. The office, Round contends (Geoffrey de
Mandeville, p. 373), “represents a middle term, a transitional stage,
between the essentially local shirereeve and the central ‘justice’ of
the King’s Court.” He shows that—
 “The office sprang from ‘the differentiation of the sheriff and
the justice,’ and represented, as it were, the localisation of the
central judicial element. That is to say, the justitiarius for Essex,
or Herts, or London and Middlesex, was a purely local officer,
and yet exercised, within the limits of his bailiwick, all the
authority of the king’s justice. So transient was this state of
things that scarcely a trace of it remains. Yet Richard de Luci
may have held the post, as we saw, for the county of Essex,
and there is evidence that Norfolk had a justice of its own in the
person of Ralf Passelewe. Now, in the case of London, the office
was created by the Charter of Henry I., a charter which was
granted (as I contend) towards the end of his reign, and which
expired with the accession of Henry II. It is, therefore, in
Stephen’s reign that we should expect to find it [the office of
justiciar] still in existence; and it is precisely in that reign that
we find the office eo nomine twice granted to the Earl of Essex,
and twice mentioned as held by Gervase, otherwise Gervase of
Cornhill.”

We find a good deal more.

In the second year of Stephen, the King was called upon to decide
between the Priory of the Holy Trinity and the Constable of the
Tower concerning certain lands on East Smithfield. Among those
present in Court was one Andrew Buchuinte—“Bucca uncta”—an
Italian by origin, with many other burgesses of London. The King
called upon Andrew to speak in the name of the citizens as their
Justiciar. This same Andrew is found as a witness at the investiture
of the Priory with the Cnihten gild’s soke in 1125, and again as a
witness in the agreement between Ramsey Abbey and Holy Trinity,
between 1125 and 1130. During the existence of the office of
Justiciar, the King addressed him by name, followed by the Sheriff
and the citizens.
In 1339, Andrew had ceased to be Justiciar. He was succeeded by
Osbert Octodenarius—“Huit deniers”—whom Garnier calls
 Une riche hume Lundreis
Ke mult ert koneiiset de Frans et d’Engleis.
This Osbert was Thomas à Becket’s kinsman and first employer.
In 1141 the Empress addresses a writ to Osbert Octodenarius, as
the Justiciar, according to Round’s conclusion, his name being
followed by that of the Sheriff.
Eleven years before this, in 1130, the name of Gervase appears as
Justiciar; it is in the very year of Henry’s Charter. Round connects
this Gervase with Gervase of Cornhill without any reasonable doubt.
Lastly, we find, as stated above, Geoffrey de Mandeville appointed
Justiciar by Charter of the Empress. He calls himself “Comes Essex
et Justiciarius Londoniæ” in a document of 1142-43. It is therefore
certain that this great Earl counted it among his chief honours to be
the Justiciar of London. Considering the history of this lord, we may
well understand the kind of justice which he would mete out to the
unfortunate citizens.
(3) He granted that they should not plead without the City walls.
This gave the parties to a civil case the same kind of protection as
the preceding clause gave to defendants in a criminal case. The aula
regis travelled with the King. Plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses had
to travel about with the King also, until they could get their case
heard. It was a grievance exactly like that of the present day, when
more cases are set down for the day than can possibly be heard,
and plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses, and solicitors have to attend,
day after day, until their case comes on; those who come up from
the country have to live in hotels at great cost; those who live in
London have to neglect their business at great loss. It is strange that
we should now be submitting to a system quite as iniquitous and,
one would say, as intolerable, as that from which London was
relieved early in the second quarter of the twelfth century.
 (4) The citizens were to be “free from Scot and Lot and Danegeld
and all Murder.”
Scot and Lot must be taken together as meaning the levy of taxes
by any kind of authority for public purposes. Every citizen had, for
civic purposes, to pay his Scot and Lot, i.e. his rates, according to his
means. Danegeld was a tax of so much for every hide of land (a
hide being probably one hundred acres). It was originally imposed
for the purpose of resisting, expelling, or buying off the Danes. It
was abolished in the reign of Henry the Second. In any case of
murder the hundred in which the murder took place had to pay a
fine. This, in a populous city, where violence was rife and murders
were frequent, might become a burden of a very oppressive kind.
Exemption, therefore, was a privilege of some importance.
(5) None of the citizens should be called upon to wage battle.
When we consider that the only justification of ordeal by battle
was the theory that the Lord Himself would protect the right, we ask
whether the Age of Faith had already passed away. It had not, but
here and there were glimmerings of change. According to G. Norton,
no man was ever compelled to fight in order to prove his innocence.

“If any man charged another with treason, murder, felony, or

other capital offence, he was said to appeal him, and was
termed an appellant; and the defendant, or party charged, was
at liberty either to put himself upon his country for trial, or to
defend himself by his body. If he chose the latter, the appellant
was bound to meet him on an appointed day in marshalled lists,
and the parties fought armed with sticks shod with horn. The
party vanquished was adjudged to death, either as a false
accuser or as guilty of the charge. If the defendant could
maintain his ground until the stars appeared, the appellant was
deemed vanquished; if the defendant called for quarter, or was
slain, judgment of death was equally passed upon him.”—
Historical Account of London, p. 360.
 (6) A man might be allowed to “purge himself by oath.”
By this ancient method the accused appeared in Court
accompanied by his friends, compurgators. He swore that he was
innocent. His compurgators swore that they believed in his
innocence. The number of compurgators was generally twelve.
(7) The citizens were allowed to refuse lodging to the King’s
household.
This permission removed a fruitful cause of quarrel. It was
intolerable that any man-at-arms might enter any house and
demand lodging and entertainment in the King’s name. With the
Tower in the east of London, and Baynard’s Castle in the west, and
the King’s house a mile or so outside the City, there seems no reason
why the King should have claimed this right.
(8) The citizens were to be free of toll, passage, and lestage.
Many people can remember the turnpike toll, the nuisance it was,
and the trouble it gave; how, near great cities, roads were found out
by which the toll could be evaded. Let them suppose a time when
the turnpike toll was multiplied a hundredfold. There were tolls for
markets, tolls of passage—fords and ferries, of lestage, a toll of so
much for every last of leather exported, tolls of stallage, tolls of
murage, tolls of wharfage, tolls of cranage, tolls through and tolls
traverse (i.e. tolls for repair of road or street). Then imagine the
relief of the London merchant travelling with his wares and his long
train of loaded pack-horses from one market-town to another, and
from fair to fair, when he was told that henceforth he should travel
free and pay no toll. Why did the King grant this privilege, one of the
largest and most beneficent in this Charter? Surely in wise
recognition of the fact that the more free and unfettered trade was
made, the more it would develop and increase, and make his
kingdom rich and strong.
(9) No man was to be assessed beyond his means.
 The penalty of a fine by way of punishment is at once deterrent
and inconvenient. It does not degrade, like flogging; it does not
make a man useless and costly, like imprisonment; it does not inflict
public disgrace, like the pillory. At the same time, in the hands of a
harsh magistrate, it may ruin a man to be fined above his power to
pay. The strong feeling on the subject shown in this clause was also
illustrated later on, when in Magna Charta it was enacted that a man
might be assessed, but “so as not to deprive him of his land, or of
his stock in husbandry or in trade.” To this day the ancient feeling
against heavy fines survives in the unwillingness always shown by
juries to award heavy damages.
(10) There should be no miskennings in the Courts, and the
hustings should be held every Monday.
What were miskennings? Nobody knows. It is interpreted to mean
that a man shall not unjustly prosecute another in any of the City
Courts by deserting his first plea and substituting another. According
to Norton,25 it is the same as miscounting, and it means false
pleading or mispleading. He goes on to show that the Normans
brought with them considerable proficiency in jurisprudence, and a
“mischievous dexterity in special pleading, by which the rights of
suitors were often made to depend on the ingenuity of the countors
(lawyers), rather than on the real merits of the case.”
I have considered this Charter clause by clause, because in it
Henry seems to have given the citizens everything that they could
ask or obtain by purchase. London was left, save in one respect,
absolutely free. In fact, the citizens never did ask for more. The
Charter was framed in order to allow the City to get rich without let
or hindrance. One right the King reserved: that of taking their
money for himself; and this right, there can be no doubt, was the
reason why he surrendered all the rest; the reason why London was
encouraged to grow so wealthy and so strong. It was a right,
however, which was not felt to be a grievance. It was the very
essence of things that in a mediæval kingdom the King should be
free to tax his subjects. It will be observed that the rights conferred
by the Charter of William are not recited here. Probably they were
recognised as a matter of common usage, so that it was no longer
necessary to repeat them.
 CHAPTER VI
STEPHEN
The election of Stephen by London is a fact the full importance of
which, in the history of the City, was first brought out by the late J.
R. Green. This importance signified, in fact, a great deal more than
the election of a king by the City of London, a thing by no means
new in the history of the City. First, we know that many Normans
flocked over to London after the Conquest. Normans there were
before that event, but their numbers rapidly increased in
consequence. By this time we see that the immigrants no longer
considered themselves Normans only, but Londoners as well.
William’s Charter especially recognises and provides for this fusion
when he “greets all the burgesses in London, Frenchmen and
Englishmen, friendly.” The Normans were his subjects as well as the
English: they were not, therefore, aliens in his English cities. For
instance, Gilbert Becket, father of the Archbishop, was by birth a
burgher of Rouen, and his wife was the daughter of a burgher of
Caen. But his son Thomas was always an Englishman. The Normans
in London, therefore, took their part without question in the election
of a king of England. And they elected Stephen rather than Henry,
the son of the Empress, because Henry was also the son of Geoffrey
Plantagenet, and the hatred of Norman for Angevin was greater
even than the hatred of Welshman for Englishman. It survived the
immigration of the Norman into England; it found expression when
King Henry died, and when his stepson Geoffrey of Anjou seemed
likely to claim the throne of England, as he claimed the duchy of
Normandy, in right of his wife. In Normandy, however, the people
rose as one man, and chased him out of the dukedom. In London,
the City seems to have assumed the power of electing the King of
England, as in the case of Henry, and without consulting bishop,
abbot, or noble, did elect Stephen, the nephew of King Henry, and
crowned him in Westminster. There were, in fact, two forces working
for Stephen. The first was this said Norman jealousy of Anjou. The
second was perhaps stronger. The religious revival of which we
spoke as belonging to the reign of Henry, was spreading over the
whole of western Europe. Green calls it the first of the great
religious movements which England was to experience. He seems to
forget, however, that there was a much earlier religious movement,
which filled the monasteries and weakened the country, by draining
it of fighting-men, in the eighth century.

“Everywhere in town and country men banded themselves

together for prayer, hermits flocked to the woods, noble and
churl welcomed the austere Cistercians as they spread over the
moors and forests of the North. A new spirit of enthusiastic
devotion woke the slumber of the older orders, and penetrated
alike to the home of the noble Walter d’Espec at Rievaulx, or of
the trader Gilbert Becket in Cheapside. It is easy to be blinded
in revolutionary times, such as those of Stephen, by the
superficial aspects of the day; but, amidst the wars of the
Succession, and the clash of arms, the real thought of England
was busy with deeper things. We see the force of the movement
in the new class of ecclesiastics that it forces on the stage. The
worldliness that had been no scandal in Roger of Salisbury
becomes a scandal in Henry of Winchester. The new men,
Thurstan, and Ailred, and Theobald, and John of Salisbury—
even Thomas himself—derive whatever weight they possess
from sheer holiness of life or aim.”—Historical Studies.

The outward sign of this movement was the foundation of many

religious houses, and the building of many churches. The number
and importance of the foundations created in or about London, not
taking into account those founded in the country, within a space of
about twenty years, indicate in themselves a widespread, deep-
rooted, religious feeling. It was an age of fervent faith; Stephen
himself, rough soldier that he was, felt its influence.
Now this religious fervour was openly scorned and scoffed at and
derided by the Angevins. Contempt for religion was hereditary with
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