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 Another Random Document on
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[347] Especially in matters of debt and arrest. Stubbs’ Charters,
107. In Romney a burgess might recover money owed to him by
a stranger in the town by himself going, in the absence of the
bailiff, to make distraint on the stranger’s goods under the sole
condition of delivering the distraint to the bailiff. (Hist. MSS. Com.
iv. 1, 425. For Rye see Lyon’s Dover, ii. 358; Boys’ Sandwich, 449.
See also for the difficulties of aliens, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 243.)

[348] English Guilds, 391; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 170-1. Henry the
Second granted to burgesses of Wallingford that if his provost
impleaded any one of them without an accuser, he need not
answer the charge. (Gross, ii. 244.) See Newcastle, Stubbs’
Charters, 107. The importance of these provisions is obvious if
the custom of Sandwich was common. There the mayor might
arrest and imprison any one whom he chose as a “suspect.” After
some time the prisoner was brought from the castle to the
Mastez and a “cry” made to ask if there were any one to
prosecute him. If no one appeared he was set free on giving
security, but if he could find no security he might at the mayor’s
will be banished for ever from the town. The bailiff could not
arrest on suspicion as the mayor did. (Boys’ Sandwich, 687, 466-
7.) For mediæval notions of punishment see the sentence of the
King in Piers Ploughman, pass. v. 81-82—

“And commanded a constable to cast Wrong in irons,

There he ne should in seven year see feet ne hands.”

[349] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 170-1. Boys’ Sandwich, 445 and 443. In
Winchester the freeman was summoned three times to the court,
others only once. (English Guilds, 360.)

[350] English Guilds, 391. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 152.

[351] In Norwich the bailiffs were liable to such heavy expenses in

bad years that in 1306 it was ordained that they could only be
compelled to serve once in four years. (Blomefield, iii. 73.
Ordinances in Hist. of Preston Guilds, 12.)

[352] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145.

[353] Parker’s Manor of Aylesbury, 20, 21.

[354] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 536-541.

[355] Davies’ Southampton, 168. In 1422 a Winchester burgess
paid £10 to be free of holding any office save that of Mayor for
the rest of his life. Another paid five marks to be freed from ever
taking the office of bailiff. (Gross, ii. 259-260.) In Lynn, when a
man was chosen jurat, “he took time till the next assembly to
bring ten pounds into the Hall, or otherwise to accept the
burden.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.) Fine for refusal to go to
Yarmouth as bailiff of Cinque Ports, and payment to substitute
(Ibid. v. 541). In 1491 an Act was passed forbidding the
burgesses of Leicester to refuse the Chamberlainship. Sixty years
later another Act ordered them not to refuse the Mayoralty. By
Acts of 1499 and 1500 members who absented themselves from
the Court of Portmanmote at Whitsuntide and Christmas were
fined. (Ibid. viii. 426.) In Canterbury certain powers were
exempted by writ from serving on juries, 1415. (Hist. MSS. Com.
ix. 169.)

[356] Shillingford’s Letters, xxiii.

[357] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 527.

[358] Lyon’s Dover, Custumals, vol. ii. 267, &c.

[359] Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425; Boys’ Sandwich, 679, A.D. 1493.
Gross, The Gild Merchant, ii. 276.

[360] The charter of Edward the Fourth to Colchester declared that

the burghers should never be appointed against their will in any
assizes or any quests outside the borough; nor to any post of
collector of taxes or aids, or of constable, bailiff, &c., nor should
they be liable to any fine for refusing these posts. (Cromwell’s
Colchester, 257.) The Winchester people paid a sum about 1422
“to excuse every citizen of the city from being collector of the
King’s money within the county of Southampton.” (Hist. MSS.
Com. vi. 602.)

[361] Thus in Hythe there was a privileged body who were not of
the franchise, but were still apparently subject to the town
jurisdiction, and excused by a writ called Dormand from Hundred
Court and Shire Court and inquests. See also Preston Guild
Record, xii., xvi., xx., xxix.

[362] English Guilds, 394. Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk, iii., 80.

[363] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 544-545. At one time when Preston was
much distressed, it was ordained that decayed burgesses unable
to pay their yearly taxes should not lose their freedom because of
poverty. (Thomson’s Mun. History, 104. Custumale in Hist. of
Preston Guild.)

[364] See ch. x.

[365] See ch. xi.

[366] See vol. ii., The Town Market.

[367] The non-burgesses of Lynn, the “Inferiores,” were men of

substance and formed an important body, whose struggles for a
re-distribution of power fill the annals of the town in the fifteenth
century.

[368] English Guilds, 386, 399

[369] Paston Letters, ii. 293.

[370] 7 Henry IV. cap. 17. The coming of country apprentices into
towns, though forbidden by Richard II. and Henry IV., was
afterwards permitted in London, Bristol, and Norwich. (Statutes 8
Henry VI. cap. 11; 11 Henry VII. cap. 11; 12 Henry VII. cap. 1).

[371] Paston Letters, iii. 481. Apprentices in London and Bristol

might not be under seven years old. Ricart, 102.

[372] Manners and Meals, xv.

[373] Piers Ploughman, Passus x. 206-207, 253-4.

[374] Custumal in History of Preston Guild, 73-78. As late as the

time of James I. lords here and there were fighting to keep up
old customs. An action was brought by a lord against a
townsman of Melton for not baking his bread at the lord’s oven;
“and the action,” wrote the steward, “is like to prove frequent, for
the lord’s court there is scarce able to preserve his inheritance in
this custom of baking.” Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 342-3.

[375] If a Preston burgher died suddenly, neither lord nor justices

might seize his lands, which passed on to the next heir; only if he
had been publicly excommunicated they were to be given in
alms. Custumal. Hist. Preston Guild, 77. Compare Luchaire 248.
[376] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 471. The age was sometimes fixed
at twelve, sometimes at fourteen. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 244.) The
burgher had no power to leave by will any lands he held outside
the town liberties, which must pass to the heir appointed by the
common law. For the frauds to which this might give rise, see
Hist. MSS. Com. x. 3, 87-9. Wills bequeathing land were read
publicly in the borough courts (Nottingham Records, i. 96), and
there enrolled by the mayor as a Court of Record. The muniments
of Canterbury show that from this right the mayor went on to
claim probate, possibly following the example of Lynn. The claim
was perfectly illegal, but was energetically pressed.

[377] Birmingham, which under Henry the Eighth had 2,000

houselings, and was said to be “one of the fairest and most
profitable towns to the King’s highness in all the shire” (English
Guilds, 247-9), only counted in Doomsday nine heads of families.
In 1327 these had risen to seventy-five. The burghers first won
the lightening of feudal dues, when Birmingham was freed from
ward and marriage, heriot and relief, so that if a burgess died the
lord could only take his best weapon—a bill or a pole-axe—or
forty pence. (Survey of the Borough and Manor of Birmingham,
1553. Translated by W. B. Bickley, with notes by Joseph Hill, pp.
xii., 108.) The bailiff and commonalty rented the stalls in the
market from the lord, and leased them out by their constables to
the townsfolk, fishmongers, butchers, and tanners, and in this
way secured complete control of the town market (pp. 60-61),
where burgesses were exempt from toll, while strangers free of
the market paid a small sum, and those not free a larger amount.
After the Plague a “free burgage by fealty” grew up, with an oath
to observe the customs and services of the manor. The normal
holding of the villein seems to have been forty-five acres, that of
the cotters less (pp. xii., xiii. See Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, i. 12,
298). As population increased new pastures in the foreign were
leased out for a term of years at an annual rent, and while the
increase of perpetual free tenures thus ceased the alienation of
the whole domain was prevented (pp. xiv., 74, 102). Though the
town was not made a borough by royal grant, it had even in the
thirteenth century secured an independent life, called itself a
borough and elected its officers (pp. 60-1, 108-9). Its public acts
were done under the style of “bailiff and commonalty” or “bailiff
and burgesses.” See also Manchester Court Leet Records, 12, 14,
169, 170. For examples of the first privileges which the
 townspeople sought to win see the “customs” of Newcastle under
Henry I., Stubbs’ Charters, 106-8.

[378] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491, et seq.

[379] For the injuries that might be inflicted on a community by a

lord’s reeve, see Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Society.

[380] If the lord of the soil held the town as a market-town, and
not as a borough, the inhabitants had to attend the Sheriff’s
tourn, where their petty offences were judged by him or his
deputy. In all cases which were not specially exempted they had
to appear also twice a year at the court of the shire for view of
frank pledge and for judgment of their more serious crimes.
Manchester Court Leet Records, 14.

[381] The coroner was an officer elected in full county court, and
was charged with guarding the interests of the Crown. His
intrusion in the towns was much resented.

[382] When a robber from Bridport escaped from the town prison a
set of girths or horse-nets was sent by the town to Dorchester to
mitigate the sheriff’s anger.

[383] For abuses in appointing tax collectors, see Paston Letters, i.

li.

[384] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491.

[385] See Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 361-3.

[386] Close Rolls, I. p. 273, 1216.

[387] Nottingham Records, i. 46.

[388] This appears in the records of Gloucester. The scot-ale was a

very common method of collecting money for other purposes.
See Malmesbury, Gross, ii. 172, Newcastle (183), Wallingford
(245), Winchester (253), Cambridge (358). It was an article of
inquiry for Justices Itinerant in 1254. (417) Stubbs’ Charters, 258-
259.

[389] Hundred Rolls, i. 49, 55. The jurors of Bridgenorth

complained in 1221 that the sheriff’s bailiffs and the men of the
country had committed to them the duty of following the trail of
 stolen cattle through their town and fined them if they failed,
whereas they could not follow a trail through the middle of the
town. Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Society, 113.

[390] Piers Ploughman, Pass. iii. 59, 177, iv. 172.

[391] For the profits to be made in this business and its

opportunities of fraud, see Winchelsea (Rot. Parl. i. 373).
Sometimes the escheator divided the fines levied between
himself and the King; in other cases the office was farmed out
and the King took a fixed sum leaving the escheator a free hand
to do what he pleased. In the towns the office was finally given
to the mayor at a fixed salary. The Mayor of Norwich received as
escheator £10; that is, an equal salary to that which he received
as Mayor (Blomefield, iii. 179). As Mayor of the Staple he was
given £20. (Ibid. iii. 94.)

[392] He was forbidden by Richard the Second to ride with more

than six horses, or tarry long in a town. (Statutes, 13 Richard II.
1, cap. 4, and 16 Richard II., cap. 3.) In 1346 the King by charter
freed Norwich from “the clerk of the market of our household,” so
that he should not enter the city to make the assay of measures
or weights, or any other duties belonging to his office. (Norwich
Doc., pr. 1884, case of Stanley v. Mayor, &c., p. 26.) For clerk of
the market in Calais, Lives of Berkeleys, ii. 198.

[393] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.

[394] Statutes, 13th Richard II., I, cap. 3.

[395] In Rochester “the King’s hackney-men” took oath to be ready

at all times, early and late, to serve the King’s Grace with able
hackney horses at the calling of the Mayor, and to provide at all
times for any man riding on the King’s message, and to give
information to the Mayor in case any hard-driven hackney-man in
the town “purloin or hide any of their able hackney horses in any
privy places, whereby the King’s service may be hindered,
prolonged, or undone.” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 287.) For Romney
see Lyon’s Dover, ii. 341. In some towns certain innkeepers had
letters patent to require horses and carts for the King’s service.
The right was greatly abused, and such patents declared void by
Statute. (28 Henry VI. cap. 2.)
[396] For purveyors, Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, 1., 119, 166.
Brinklow’s Complaint, 19, 20. Rot. Parl. i. 400. At Lynn the King’s
Larderer would claim ships to go out fishing for the King’s
provisions, or perhaps to carry 5,000 fish for the King’s
household. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 188-9.) As late as 1493 it was
necessary for Canterbury (which had been freed by charter from
these exactions in 1414) to get a “breve” from Henry the Seventh
to give its inhabitants a summary means of resisting the demands
of the King’s Purveyors. (Ibid. ix. 168.) For seizing of carts, see
Nottingham Records, i. 118. The King’s cart-takers in the
seventeenth century, Hist. MSS. Com. v. 407.

[397] Instances in Chester, 1282, Hemingway’s Chester, i. 132.

[398] Among the Bristol liberties was one that no burgess nor
inhabitant of Bristol shall against his will receive none host into
his house by lyverance of the King’s Marshall. (Ricart, 24.)

[399] Instances of the necessity for new grants and confirmations

and the heavy consequent expenses are too numerous to quote.
In Canterbury £36 was paid in 1460 for a new charter, and other
payments connected with the same business were made in the
following year. In 1472 messengers were sent to London for the
obtaining again of a charter of liberties. Two years later an envoy
rode to London to treat with the Treasurer, Lord Essex, about a
writ of proviso touching the liberties of the city, and a grant was
then made, probably in return for heavy payment, which
confirmed a recent restoration of ancient privileges. A
magnificent supper given to Lord Essex expressed the gratitude
of the city. In 1474 the city paid for a proviso to confirm the
restorations of their liberties. In 1475 there was an investigation
in camera of the charters and muniments concerning the bounds
of the liberty; and in 1481 payments were made to friends and
patrons who had helped them with the King in preserving the
liberties of the city. At the accession of Henry the Seventh it
became necessary to buy renewal and confirmation of the
charter, and this was completed in 1487. In 1490 the Mayor
conferred with Cardinal Morton on the renewal and extension of
the liberties of the city. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140 et seq., 170.)
See Romney, Ibid. v. 534-5, 537, 539, 543-4.

[400] Writ of inquisition as to privileges of Cinque Ports. (Hist. MSS.

Com. vi. 544.) The instance of charters forfeited on these
 grounds are very frequent.

[401] In Southampton a hogshead of Gascony wine was given “by

common consent” to the sheriff to have his friendship in the
return of a jury. In 1428 a sum of 13s. 4d. was paid for returning
“friends of the town” on a jury to settle a question which had
arisen between the King and Southampton as to which was to
have the goods and chattels of a felon who had run away. (Hist.
MSS. Com. xi. 3, 140, 142.) See also Ibid. v. 518.

[402] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539. The Lieutenant of Dover, who settled
the amount and division of benevolences required from the
Cinque Ports, had also his offerings from the various towns that
they might be well dealt with. (Ibid. v. 527.)

[403] Ibid. v. 528. These courts on the sea-shore meant

considerable expense in fees and feasts.

[404] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 491. In 1474 money was given by

Canterbury to Kyriel, that he might excuse the city from sending
men and ships to the war. (Ibid. ix. 143.)

[405] Ibid. v. 518, 522.

[406] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 543. Three and fourpence, and 18d. for a
pair of boots as a reward.

[407] See in Winchester the gifts to the coroner’s clerk, to jurors at

the Pavilion, to the King’s taxers, to the wife of the Sheriff, to the
Bailiff of the Soke of Winton, and so on. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 595-
605.)

[408] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 138-149. The expenses at Lynn
were very great. (Ibid. 218-225.)

[409] Doubtless a scribe’s error for Llandaff. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix.
145.) The Bishop of St. David’s writes that “in many great cities
and towns were great sums of money given him which he hath
refused.”

[410] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 141-3.

[411] At the important meeting in 1474, when the constitution of

the town was reaffirmed, William Haute, the lord of the manor of
Bishopsbourne (four miles away), who was then patron of the
 town, was put at the head of the list before even the five
aldermen, the sheriff, or any town officers, as establishing and
ordaining the town ordinances. Poynings, Browne, Guildford,
were at different times patrons of the city.

[412] Davies’ York, 128-9, 123-5. For an interesting instance of

beneficent protection in 1605, see Hibbert’s Influence and
Development of Guilds, p. 95.

[413] The election of a Mayor as a responsible person through

whom the King could deal with the town was probably often
connected with the settlement of the fee-farm rent. In Liverpool
the first mention of a Mayor is in 1356, the very next year the
fee-farm was granted to the Mayor and others on behalf of the
burgesses for ten years. (Picton, Municipal Records of Liverpool, i.
13-15.)

[414] As against the idea of Merewether and Stephens, that

charters of municipal incorporation only began in 1439, Dr. Gross
points out that such a charter occurs in 1345, that in the time of
Edward the First the technical conception of municipal
incorporation was familiar, and that long before the judicial
conception came into being the borough had a real corporate
existence, and exercised all the functions of a corporate body.
(Gild Merchant, i. 93, &c.)

[415] In 1391 the Statute of Mortmain was extended to cities and

boroughs. (Statutes, 15 Richard II., cap. 5.) Even when license to
hold land was granted by the Crown the amount was strictly
limited, and the power of refusal or of limitation was a serious
consideration to the town.

[416] According to Mr. Round, London found means of annexing the

shire of Middlesex instead of asking to be separated from it.
(Geoffrey de Mandeville, 347-373.)

[417] We have a hint of a troublesome mode of interference with

the municipal taxation in an incident in Norwich in 1268, when
“the lord the King commanded all his bailiffs that, for a fine £10,
which Margaret the Taneresse of Norwich made with the same
lord the King, he granted to her such liberty that for the whole
time of her life she should be quit from all his tallages in the town
of Norwich ... for whatsoever cause they may be made. And he
commanded that they vex not the aforesaid Margaret contrary to
 this his grant.” (Norwich Documents, pr. 1884, 9.) In any case
where the tallage was a fixed sum due from the town some one
else would have to pay Margaret’s share.

[418] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 478.

[419] Journ. Arch. Ass. 479. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 241-2. Statute of
Maintenance, 13 Richard II., Stat. 3. For the jealousy of the
towns as to any inhabitant relying for protection on a lord
outside, see p. 183, note 2.

[420] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 482. For a duel in Leicester in 1201,
see Select Civil Pleas, Selden Society, p. 33. Judicial combat in
Fordwich with an alien had to take place in the middle of the river
Stour, the alien standing up to his middle in the water, while the
Fordwich man apparently fought from a boat tied to the quay,
with an instrument called an “ore,” three yards long. (Hist. MSS.
Com. v. 442.) In 1200 “the citizens of Lincoln came and produced
the king’s charter which witnesses that none of them need plead
outside the city walls except the king’s moneyers and servants,
and that they need not fight the duel because of any appeal.” An
accused man answered the charges against him “word by word
as a free citizen of Lincoln,” and “according to the franchise of the
town” waged law with thirty-six compurgators. (Select Pleas of
the Crown, Selden Society, p. 39.) For compurgation in Sandwich
in 1493, Boys, 680.
With old forms of trial old forms of punishment were allowed
to survive. In Sandwich, if a man failed to clear himself by
compurgation of a charge of homicide or theft he was
condemned to be buried alive in a place called the Thiefdown at
Sandown. (Ibid. 465.) Felons were also drowned in a stream
called “the Gestling”; but in 1313 a complaint was made that the
prior of Christchurch had diverted the course of the stream, and
that criminals could not be executed in that way for want of
water. (Ibid. 664.) At Dover and Folkestone a thief was killed by
being thrown from a cliff, and at Winchelsea was hanged in the
salt marsh. (Lyon’s Dover, i. 231.) In others of the Cinque Port
towns when a thief was taken his ear was nailed to a post or
cartwheel and a knife put in his hand, he had to free himself by
cutting off his ear, to pay a fine, and to forswear the town. In
1470, 12d. was paid “for nailing of Thomas Norys his ear.” (Hist.
MSS. Com. v. 525, 530.)
[421] Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 407. Nottingham retained the old usage
till after the fourteenth century; Records, i. 175. Exeter till 1581;
Freeman’s Exeter, 119. The question may have partly turned on
the form of government adopted in the town and the work
required of the common assembly in which the burghers voted.

[422] It has been argued (Gneist, Constit. Communale, tr. Hippert,

i. 263; v. 275) that the State created local government in the
towns as a method of developing better administration, and that
it was therefore only accidentally and as a secondary
consequence that independence and local liberties came in the
wake of this administrative system. The facts, however, of their
story make it perfectly clear that municipal liberties were of
natural growth, and sprang out of local needs rather than out of
Court statecraft.

[423] Gross, i. 23; ii. 115.

[424] The seals of English towns of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and

fifteenth centuries were of finer workmanship than any in Europe.
They generally represented a fortress or walled town, a ship, a
patron saint, or heraldic arms, but it is interesting that in no case
is the figure of the Mayor used to typify the borough save in the
London seal, where he stands among the corporation and
citizens. Sometimes a bridge is given, as at Barnstaple; in two or
three cases the Guild Hall.

[425] A few towns, in the case of some members of the Cinque

Ports, depended on another borough.

[426] For the position of tenants on ancient demesne, see

Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, ch. iii. Mr. Maitland (Select
Pleas in Manorial Courts, ii. 99, &c.) gives an account of King’s
Ripton, a manor on ancient demesne, whose tenants when
transferred to the Abbey of Ramsey were always fighting with
their new lords as to the services due from their holdings. “The
privileged nature of the tenure had engendered a privileged race,
very tenacious of its land and of its customs” (p. 105). The study
of the way in which the customs of ancient demesne affected the
later constitution of the boroughs lies outside my subject, and is
therefore merely indicated.

[427] Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, 89. Compare the claim of

Bristol to be “founded and grounded upon franchises, liberties,
 and free ancient customs, and not upon common law.” (Ricart’s
Kalendar, 2.) For its liberties, see p. 24-5.

[428] As a matter of fact the various towns of this kind which

applied to Hereford for any information as to its customs on any
point had to pay one hundred shillings for the answer vouchsafed
to them. (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 470.)

[429] There was constant watchfulness on both sides as to their

rights. In 1400 the bailiffs of Ipswich granted land for the
building of a mill for the benefit of the corporation; the King’s
officers declared the grant to have been made without the royal
licence, and the mill was seized for the King. On the other hand,
when the sheriff of the county arrested a felon in the liberties of
Ipswich and put him in the King’s jail, the bailiffs required that he
should be given up to them. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 231, 246.)

[430] That is on the plea of lack of justice in the borough court. In

1401, when the citizens of Canterbury were summoned by the
Crown to appear at Westminster about a breach of the statutes
for the regulation of the victualling trades, they pleaded that by
their charter they could not be called to answer civil suits out of
their own city. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 167.)

[431] In 1299 the amercements ordered by the Leet Court of

Norwich amounted to £72 18s. 10d.; the amount accounted for
by the collectors was £17 0s. 2d. (Hudson’s Leet Jurisd. of
Norwich, Selden Soc. xl.) Where there was profit to be made the
King was, however, always on the alert. In Piers Ploughman,
Passus v., 169, he complains bitterly of the lawyers; “through
your law I believe I lose my escheats!”; and it was often late
before he made the mayor escheator. In 1492 two Scotch priests
were arrested in Ipswich for treasonable talk, and the King
granted their chattels to one of his own serjeants. The bailiffs
sent the Town Clerk to Henry to represent that the forfeited
goods of felons rightly belonged to the town; to which the King
answered that he would not for a thousand pounds infringe in the
least degree their charters, but that the community had really no
right to these particular chattels, since the priests, being Scotch
and not the King’s subjects, could not fairly be accused of
treason, and had a perfect right to talk as they chose. On this
plea he kept the goods. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 247.)
[432] This was strictly enforced, and the town charter forfeited if
the rent fell into arrears. (Madox, 139, 161-2.) The towns
therefore made careful provision for the discharge of the debt,
sometimes setting apart a mill or some valuable property for its
payment (Madox, Firma Burgi, 251-2; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 198-9;
Nott. Rec. i. 313), or assigning certain tolls or customs;
(Shillingford’s Letters, 92); or collecting it as rent from house to
house. (Custumal in Hist. Preston Guild, 75.)

[433] When the ferm of Carlisle was raised from £60 to £80 the
citizens were granted, as a help towards its payment, all fines,
inflicted by the King’s judges within their walls. (Hist. MSS. Com.
ix. 198, 200.) See also Norwich Documents, 16, 17.

[434] Thus the Nottingham men paid 13s. 4d. a year to Henry the
Sixth, at least from 1454, for liberties granted them. There is no
entry of this in the King’s accounts, and the only evidence of it is
in the Nottingham Records (iii. 133). The loyal theory of Hereford
was that “our goods and chattels are to be taken and taxed at his
pleasure, saving unto ourselves a competent quantity for our
sustentation and tuition of our city.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 471.)

[435] Nott. Rec. i. 225, 227, 413, 421.

[436] The agreement made in the fourteenth century which fixed

the tenths and fifteenths for the towns at a permanent fixed sum,
made it easy for the King to give over to local officials the levying
of this tax without fear of injury to the Exchequer. (Stubbs, ii.
599, 600.)

[437] Blomefield, iii. 137.

[438] The Admiral and his deputy had jurisdiction over everything
done on the sea and the great rivers up to the first bridge. (13
Richard II. St. 1, cap. 5; 15 Richard II., cap. 3; Blomefield, iii.
103; Davies’ Southampton, 239-40.) In 1487 the commonalty of
Ipswich by a covenant with the King bound themselves to take
surety of every owner, master, or purser of every English ship to
twice the value of the ship, that the mariners should keep the
peace on the sea; that if the surety by any means became less
than twice the value of ship, tackle, and victuals, new security
should be taken; and that the town should strive to arrest every
robber and spoiler in the sea or the streams thereof. (Hist. MSS.
Com. ix. 259-60.) In 1463 a charter was given to the corporation
 of York, constituting them the King’s justiciaries for overlooking
and preserving the main rivers of Yorkshire. For the expenses and
difficulties which this involved, see Davies’ York, 59-63, 82, &c.

[439] As an illustration of his difficulties, see the statute allowing

sheriffs and escheators to remain for four years in office, because
owing to pestilence and wars there was not a sufficiency of
persons to occupy these offices. (9 Henry V. St. 1, cap. 5.)

[440] In the lack of officials to carry out the regulations for the
control of trade a number of private people got royal letters
appointing them surveyors and correctors of victuallers in various
cities and boroughs, and freely used their privileges for extortion
and oppression, and the taking of heavy fines and ransoms; their
patents were gradually withdrawn; and in 1472 an Act was
passed that all such letters and patents should be void, and that
the duty of searching and surveying victuals should rest wholly
with the mayor or bailiff. (12 Edward IV. cap. 8.)

[441] In this matter the King was not allowed to interfere. In 1489
there was a dispute in Leicester between the Town Council and
the Commons about the election of a Mayor. The matter was
referred to the King, who issued a precept under the seal of the
Duchy of Lancaster, showing that it was as Lord of the Manor and
not as King that he interfered. He set aside both candidates and
reappointed the last Mayor. The next year the question was
settled by Act of Parliament. (Thomson, Mun. Hist., 84.) For
authority exercised by Parliament see Norwich (Doc. Stanley v.
Mayor, &c. 30.) When the citizens applied in 1378 to the King and
Council for a renewal of their ancient liberty that no stranger
should have power to buy or sell by retail, they were answered
that it would not be valid “without Parliament”; they therefore
pray for a grant by charter.

[442] See Hudson’s Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. xxvii. xc. “For
he doth represent to us the body of our King.” (Journ. Arch. Ass.
xxvii. 462.) See the proclamation of the London Mayor: “We do
command, on behalf of our Lord the King, that no dyer or weaver
shall be so daring,” &c. —”Memorials of London,” p. 309. An
illustration of how the King’s law and the town law ran side by
side may be seen in the fines for the breach of certain rules, as,
for instance, the rule against liveries, which had to be paid both
to the King and to the town. (English Guilds, 388-9.)
[443] Piers Ploughman, Passus ii. 156, 157.

[444] Warkworth’s Chronicle, 2.

[445] See Gross, ii. 245.

[446] The instances of similar grants made to various towns at

almost the same date are too numerous to give, but they would
form a striking list.

[447] Charter of Lincoln the same year; that of Winchester, 1190.

(Stubb’s Charters, 257-8). Nottingham and Northampton in 1200
(ibid. 301-3). The system of government adopted at Norwich was
followed or imitated a little later by the neighbouring towns of
Yarmouth and Colchester.

[448] Norwich Doc. Stanley v. Mayor, &c. p. 3. In the great majority

of cases this grant was made once for all; but occasionally it was
renewed from time to time. Thus Henry the Sixth in 1437 gave
the mayor and burgesses of Bristol a lease of the town and its
profits for a term of twenty years. In 1446 he granted a new
lease for sixty years. In 1461 Edward the Fourth renewed the
lease, not for a term of years, but for ever. (Seyer’s Charters of
Bristol, 105.) The ferm was granted in the same way for a term of
years in the case of Dunwich, a royal town, where it was let out
to the highest bidder. Here, however, the collection of rent was
peculiarly uncertain from special circumstances (Madox, 235-8,
241); and in 1325 Dunwich, ruined by the filling up of its port,
prayed to have the town taken into the King’s hand and a
guardian appointed. (Rot. Parl. i. 426.) For the inconvenience of
this letting out to the highest bidder, see Madox, 251.

[449] Hudson, Municipal Organisation in Norwich, 20; Leet Jur. in

Norwich, Selden Society, xvi. lxxii.

[450] Hudson’s Notes about Norwich, Norfolk Arch. vol. xii. p. 25.

[451] In 1288 the four bailiffs presided over the courts of these
leets. (Hudson, Municipal Organisation, 16, 21.)

[452] Norwich Doc., Stanley v. Mayor, &c., p. 5.

[453] Ibid. 6, 8, 10. Blomefield, iii. 46, 62.

[454] The convent sided with De Montfort. For the state of affairs in
the city, see Blomefield, iii. 52, &c.

[455] Blomefield, iii. 49.

[456] Norwich Doc., Stanley v. Mayor, &c., 7.

[457] Norwich Doc., Stanley v. Mayor, &c., 16, 17.

[458] Ibid. 10-12.

[459] This meant that it was the town bailiff who was to return the
certificate of what he had done in execution of a writ addressed
to him, instead of this being returned, as formerly, by the sheriff.

[460] Norwich Documents, 16, 18.

[461] Norwich Documents, 25.

[462] Ibid. 26.

[463] Blomefield’s Hist. of Norfolk, iii. 103.

[464] Ibid. iii. 81, 94-5. In 1393 the corporation was granted shops
and houses held of the King and worth £10 yearly, the profits of
which were to be spent on repairing the walls and towers. For
this licence they had to pay the King £100. Norwich Documents,
32.

[465] Ibid. 33-37.

[466] Gross, i. 240-267.

[467] Report on Municipal Corporations, 1835, pp. 16-17. Gross, i.

94, note 1.

[468] This change was evident from the time of Richard the
Second, when the powers of the Justices were rapidly enlarged.
See Statutes, 12 Richard II. cap. 10; 13 Richard II., 1, cap. 8; 13
Richard II., 1, cap. 13; 13 Henry IV. cap. 7; 2 Henry V. cap. 4; 2
Henry V., 1, cap. 8; 2 Henry VI. cap. 12; 2 Henry VI. cap. 14; 2
Henry VI. cap. 18; 6 Henry VI. cap. 3; 18 Henry VI. cap. 11.

[469] Southampton, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 104. Cases of

interference occur in the unpublished records of Coventry. For
Romney see Lyon’s Dover, 313. In 1489 there was some such
trouble in Leicester (Thompson, Mun. Hist., 84). And in 1512
there is another instance in Nottingham (Records, iii. 341-2).
From the time of Richard the Third there seems evidence of the
growth of a new anxiety in the central government about the
democratic movement in the boroughs, and a determination to
reserve power in the hands of a small corporation. An earlier
instance may perhaps be found in the Exeter quarrel from 1477
to 1482 (English Guilds, 305, &c.); and in York in 1482 (Davies,
122-4).

[470] There were many cases in which a town’s privileges were

forfeited, whether for arrears of rent (Madox, 139, 161-2) or for
other causes (154-5, 157). The franchises of Nottingham were
twice forfeited for some unknown cause—in 1283 for three years
(Records, i. 56), and in 1330 for a short time. (Ibid. 102.) In the
same year Edward the First seized the franchises of Derby
because of exactions of the Merchant Guild, but restored them on
payment of a fine. (Gross, ii. 53.) For the case of Sandwich (Boys,
661, 676). Ipswich charter withdrawn, 1285; regranted, 1291.
 (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 230, 239, 243.) Chester in 1409.
(Hemingway’s Chester, i. 137.) The liberties of Carlisle were
forfeited for a short time for some irregularity in the town courts
in the thirteenth century. (Gross, ii. 38.) Southampton lost its
freedom in 1276 and 1285, and again in the next century for
letting the French into the town. (Davies’ Southampton, 33, 35,
79.) Norwich suffered several times; for its attack on the Priory in
1272; for an accusation of having exceeded its powers in
punishing crime in 1286; for riots about the election of mayor in
1437; and for Gladman’s insurrection in 1443. (Stanley v. Mayor,
&c., Norwich Doc., 9-12. Proceedings, Privy Council, v. 45. Hist.
MSS. Com. i. 103.) In these cases a royal officer was appointed to
rule the town; and the complaint of Scarborough, when Edward
the Second in 1324 deprived it of the right of direct payment to
the Exchequer, shows how a town suffered when its ferm was
leased out. (Rot. Parl. i. 423.) The loss of liberty was always
temporary, lasting from a few months to five or six years, and
had no political significance as in France, where it formed part of
a settled policy and had results which to the English mind seem
of peculiar importance in the history of constitutional
development.

[471] Gross, ii. 235-243.

[472] Occasionally a borough was granted to a great noble or court

favourite; but more commonly as time went on the grant merely
meant giving a charge on the rent of the town. Thus before 1339
Preston had been granted at various times to neighbouring lords.
In 1361 John of Gaunt held the manor, but long before this the
rights of the lord were so reduced that they are practically never
mentioned in the history of the town. (Hewitson’s History of
Preston, 7-8.) For the troubles to which the nobles’ claims to rent
might lead, see Davies’ Southampton, 112. Edward the Fourth
granted the ferm of Bristol to the Queen for her life. The
treasurer of the King’s chamber declared it had been assigned to
him in payment of a debt and brought an action for it against the
Bristol sheriff. Bristol proved the money had been paid to the
Queen and gained the case, 1465. (Madox, 227-8.)

[473] In 1273 Henry de Tracy held the borough from the King in
chief at a ferm of about £5 14s. 2d. There were 36 tenants
whose rent amounted to 23s. 8d. and some tenants in a suburb
who paid an uncertain rent, but generally about 6s. 8d. A market
 was held every Friday which yielded in tolls to the lord about £3 a
year, and a yearly fair gave 10s. Fines, reliefs, &c., came to about
13s. 4d. a year. The wealth of the town increased after the
building of the “Long Bridge” in 1280 over “the great hugy,
mighty, perylous, and dreadful water named Taw,” and the
increase of the cloth trade about 1321. Towards the close of the
fourteenth century the legacies and accounts show that the
burghers were laying up considerable wealth and doing a thriving
trade. Hence probably the dispute as to the claim to profits. Hist.
MSS. Com. ix. 206-213. See also case of Bridgewater, ibid. iii.
310-14.

[474] They even claimed the right of infang theof and outfang
theof, and to be impleaded only in their own court. Hist. MSS.
Com. ix. 206.

[475] Rich. Redeless, ed. Skeat, Early English Text Society, Text C,
Pass. iii. 177, &c.

[476] Book of Precedence, E. E. Text Society, 105-108. Langland in

Richard the Redeless describes the noble who “keepeth no coin
that cometh to their hands, but changeth it for chains that in
Cheap hangeth, and setteth all their silver in samites and horns;”
and

“That hangeth on his hips more than he winneth

And doubteth no debt so dukes them praise.”
Richard the Redeless, Passus iii. 137-40, 147-8.

[477] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 467. Nott. Rec. ii. 425.

[478] The landowner of the fifteenth century was usually a mere

landlord subsisting on his rents and not interested in the produce
of the soil except as a consumer. He was only occasionally a
trader. (Rogers’ Agriculture and Prices, iv. 2; see Berkeleys, i.
365-6; ii. 23; Paston, i., lxxxviii-ix., 416, 430, 431, 454; ii. 70,
106; iii. 430; Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 263; iv. 1, 464.) The really
important classes were the new proprietors who rented land for
trading purposes.

[479] See Fastolf, Paston Letters, i. 187-8.

[480] Treasures were apparently stored in different quarters for

greater security. See Fastolf’s stores at Caistor. (Paston Letters, i.
 416, 473-475; S. Benet’s, 468, 508; S. Paul’s, London, 493;
Bermondsey, 474; White Friars, Norwich, ii. 56.) The religious
houses had their reward in the form of benefactions for which
masses were sung for the donor. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 461.) In
the Paston house there was stored away over 16,000 ounces of
silver plate, nearly 900 yards of cloth, about 300 yards of linen,
and coats and hats without number. See also Hist. MSS. Com. vii.
537; viii. 93; Berkeleys, ii. 212. Plumpton Corresp. 10-11, 13, 37.

[481] Berkeleys, i. 167.

[482] John of Gaunt retained Rankyn d’Ypres to dwell with him for
peace and war for the term of his life, granting him board and
twenty-five marks a year from the ferm of Liverpool, in time of
peace. (Picton’s Municipal Records of Liverpool, i. 16.) For the
management of a great house with the giving out of wool for
spinning and weaving and accounts audited by a master clothier,
see Berkeleys, i. 167; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 330; Denton’s Lectures,
293; Paston, ii. 354-5; Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, p. 297. Often they
supplied their own livery. (Brinklow’s Complaynt, 45; Paston, ii.
139.)

[483] Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 63.

[484] Plumpton’s Correspondence, 13, 20-1, 41, 71, 72, 97, 99,
148, 194, 206, 187, 198-9. The abbot of Fountains had to write a
severe letter to order that a wine-seller in Ripon shall be paid for
a tun of wine. (Ibid. 62.) For courtiers who “paid on their pawns
when their pence lacked,” Richard the Redeless, Pass. i. 53-4;
Paston Letters, ii. 333-5, 349-50; iii. 99.

“Butt drapers and eke skynners in the town

For such folk han a special orison
That florisshed is with curses here and there
And ay shall till they be payd of their here.”
Book of Precedence, Early English Text Society, 107.

[485] Paston Letters, iii. 326, 194, 219, 358.

[486] Ibid. iii. 6-7, 20, 23, 24, 35, 46, 49, 114-5, 219, 258.

[487] Lives of the Berkeleys, ii., v.; Brinklow’s Complaynt, 40.

[488] Richard the Redeless, Pass. iii. 172.

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