Part 15

On the other hand, the earlier part of this paper does, I hope, demonstrate that the accepted view of the order of events in the year 1191 must be altogether abandoned. This, of course, involves the correction of no fewer than four works in the Master of the Rolls’ series, and of every modern history of England which deals with the period in any detail. Yet the chief interest of the enquiry will be found in its bearing on historical probability and in its demonstration of the value of minute critical study.[462]

XI

The Commune of London

When in 1893, the seventh centenary of the year in which a Mayor of London first appears, I read before the Royal Archæological Institute a paper on “The origin of the Mayoralty of London,”[463] I expressed the hope that some document might yet be discovered which would throw further light upon the Mayor and on his connection with the “Commune” of 1191. Such a document I have since found. Its confirmation of the fact that a “Commune” was actually established in London is as welcome as it is important; but the essential fact which it enables us to determine is that this foreign organization was transplanted bodily to London. It has hitherto been supposed that the only change involved by the erection of the “Commune” was the appearance of its typical officer, the “Mayor,” as an addition to the pre-existent sheriffs and the aldermen of the city wards. It can, however, now be shown that the aldermen of the wards had no part in the “communal” organization, which was modelled exclusively on foreign lines, and was wholly unconnected with the old and English system.

The historian’s time can be profitably spent on minute and thorough examination of London institutions in the 12th century. For the origin and development in England of municipal liberties is still, in spite of their paramount interest, involved in much obscurity. As Dr. Stubbs has truly observed:

London claims the first place in any such investigation, as the greatest municipality, as the model on which by their charters of liberties the other large towns of the country were allowed or charged to adjust their usages, and as the most active, the most political, and the most ambitious. London has also a pre-eminence in municipal history, owing to the strength of the conflicting elements which so much affected her constitutional progress.[464]

And yet, as he reminded his hearers in one of his Oxford lectures, “Mediæval London still waits for its constitutional historian.”

Occupying as it did, among English towns, a position apart, in wealth as in importance, London had a municipal development of her own, a development of which our best historians can only tell us that it is “obscure.” That obscurity, however, has been sadly increased by the careless study and the misapprehension of her great charters of liberties. Broadly speaking, and disregarding for the moment the statements of our accepted authorities, the great want of London, in her early days, was an efficient, homogeneous government of her own. The City--for the City was then London--found itself in fact, during the Norman period, in the same plight as greater London found itself in our own days. “The ordinary system of the parish and the township,” as an accomplished writer has observed, “the special franchises and jurisdictions of the great individual landowners, of the churches, of the gilds--all these were loosely bundled together.” For the cause of this state of things we should have to go back to the origins of our history, to show that the genius of the Anglo-Saxon system was ill-adapted, or rather, wholly unsuitable, to urban life; that, while of unconquerable persistence and strength in small, manageable rural communities, it was bound to, and did, break down when applied to large and growing towns, whose life lay not in agriculture, but in trade. In a parish, a “Hundred,” the Englishman was at home; but in a town, and still more in such a town as London, he found himself, for administrative purposes, at his wits’ end.

Putting aside the “English Knightengild,”--the position of which as a governing body has been far too rashly assumed,[465] and rests upon no foundation,--the only institutions of which we can be sure are the “folkesmote” and the weekly “husteng” of Henry I.’s charter, and the Shrievalty. The “folkesmote” was the immemorial open-air gathering, corresponding with the “shire-moot” or “hundred-moot” of the country, the “borough-moot” or “portman-moot” of the town. The small “husteng,” as is obvious from its name, was a Danish development, akin to the “lawmen” of the Danish boroughs. If these represented, in London, a kind of legal unity, the shrievalty, on the other hand, involved a kind of financial unity. If, however, as I have urged in my study on the early shrievalty,[466] the administrative development of London had proceeded upon these lines, it would no more have brought about a true municipal unity than the sheriff and the county court could evolve it in the shire; a “Corporation” was wholly alien to administration on county principles.

But in the meanwhile, the great movement in favour of municipal liberties, which was so prominent a feature of the stirring 12th century, was spreading like wildfire through France and Flanders, and London, which, since the coming of the Normans, had become far more cosmopolitan, was steadily imbibing from foreign traders the spirit and enthusiasm of the age. But this by no means suited the views, at the time, of the Crown, which, here as in Germany, looked askance on this alarming and, too often, revolutionary movement. When the history of London at this period comes to be properly studied, it will be found that the growing power of the Londoners, who had practically seated Stephen on the throne, and had chevied the Empress Matilda from their midst, were sharply checked by her son Henry, whose policy, in this respect at least, was faithfully followed by his successor, Richard the First. The assumption, therefore, that the Mayoralty of London dates from Richard’s accession (1189) is an absolute perversion of history. There is record evidence which completely confirms the memorable words of Richard of Devizes, who declares that on no terms whatever would king Richard or his father have ever assented to the establishment of the “Commune” in London.[467]

Writing mainly for experts, I need scarcely explain that the “sworn Commune,” to give it its right name--for the oath sworn by its members was its essential feature--was the association or ‘conspiracy’ as we choose to regard it, formed by the inhabitants of a town that desired to obtain its independence. And the head of this Association or “Commune” was given, abroad, the title of “Maire.” It was at about the same time that the “Commune” and its “Maire” were triumphantly reaching Dijon in one direction and Bordeaux in another, that they took a northern flight and descended upon London. Not for the first time in her history the Crown’s difficulty was London’s opportunity. Even so early as 1141, when the fortunes of the Crown hung in the balance between rival claimants, we find the citizens forming an effective “conjuratio,”[468] the very term applied to their “Commune,” half a century later, by Richard of Devizes.[469] Moreover, earlier in the same year (April), William of Malmesbury applies to their government the term “communio,” in which the keen eye of the bishop of Oxford detected “a description of municipal unity which suggests that the communal idea was already in existence as a basis of civic organization.”[470] But he failed, it would seem, to observe the passage which follows and which speaks of “omnes barones, qui in eorum communionem jamdudum recepti fuerant.” For in this allusion we discover a distinctive practice of the “sworn commune,” from that of Le Mans (1073),[471] to that of London, now to be dealt with.

When, in the crisis of October, 1191, the administration found itself paralysed by the conflict between John, as the king’s brother, and Longchamp, as the king’s representative, London, finding that she held the scales, promptly named the “Commune” as the price of her support. The chroniclers of the day enable us to picture to ourselves the scene, as the excited citizens who had poured forth overnight, with lanterns and torches, to welcome John to the capital, streamed together on the morning of the eventful 8th October, at the well-known sound of the great bell, swinging out from its campanile in St. Paul’s churchyard. There they heard John take the oath to the “Commune,” like a French king or lord; and then London for the first time had a municipality of her own.

This much at least we may deem certain; but what the chroniclers tell us has proved to be only enough to whet the appetite for more. Of the character of the “Commune” so granted, of its ultimate fate, and of the part it played in the municipal development of London, nothing has been really known. The only fact of importance ascertained from other sources has been the appearance of a Mayor of London at or about the same time as the grant of a “Commune.” It cannot, indeed, be proved that, as has sometimes been supposed, the two phenomena were synchronistic; for no mention of the Mayor of London, after long research, is known to me earlier than the spring of the year 1193.[472] But there is, of course, the strongest presumption that the grant of a “Commune” involved a Mayor, and already in 1194 we find a citizen accused of boasting that “come what may, the Londoners shall have no king but their Mayor.” It was precisely in the same spirit that the ‘Comuneros’ of Salamanca exclaimed of their leader in 1521: “Juras à Dios no haber mas Rey ni Papa que Valloria.”

Before I explain my discoveries on the “Commune” granted to London, it may be desirable to show how great a discrepancy of opinion has hitherto prevailed on this important but admittedly obscure subject.

The first historian, so far as I know, to treat the subject in the modern spirit was the present bishop of Oxford; and it is a striking testimony to his almost infallible judgment that what he wrote on the subject a quarter of a century ago is the explanation that, to this day, has held the field. In his ‘Select Charters’ (1870), he expressed the view that

the establishment of the ‘Communa’ of the citizens of London, which is recorded by the historians to have been specially confirmed by the Barons and Justiciar on the occasion of Longchamp’s deposition from the Justiciarship is a matter of some difficulty, as the word ‘Communa’ is not found in English town charters, and no formal record of the act of confirmation is now preserved. Interpreted, however, by foreign usage, and by the later meaning of the word ‘communitas,’ it must be understood to signify a corporate identity of the municipality, which it may have claimed before, and which may even have been occasionally recognised, but was now firmly established; a sort of consolidation into a single organized body of the variety of franchises, guilds, and other departments of local jurisdiction. It was probably connected with and perhaps implied by the nomination of a _Mayor_, who now appears for the first time. It cannot, however, be defined with certainty (p. 257).

And in his ‘Constitutional History’ he holds that it practically “gave completeness to a municipal constitution which had long been struggling for recognition.” These comments, on the whole, suggest rather a development of existing conditions than the introduction of a foreign institution.

Mr. Coote, the next to approach the subject, contended that Dr. Stubbs’ “view falls very far short of the reality.” In his able paper “A Lost Charter,”[473] he insisted that a charter was actually granted in 1191 to the Londoners empowering them to elect a Mayor, and that this is what the chroniclers meant when they spoke of the grant of “Commune,” for the citizens, he urged, had possessed all the rights of a “Commune” from the days of the Conqueror. With Mr. Loftie’s work came the inevitable reaction. Wholly ignoring the definite and contemporary statement as to the grant of a “Commune,” he deemed it “far safer to adopt the received and old-fashioned opinion,” and to date the Mayoralty from 1189, while, as for the “Commune,” he deemed it to have been of gradual growth, and to have been practically recognised by the charter of Henry I.

Now, whatever the grant of “Commune” implied, it certainly implied something, and something of importance. “Upon this point there is,” as Mr. Coote justly observed, “a cloud of contemporary evidence, clear, exact and positive.” He put together the versions of the chroniclers,[474] contemporary and well-informed, and their harmony is complete. The fact, moreover, that the Commune was extorted at a great crisis, proved that only when the government was weak could so great a concession be wrung from it. Lastly, the phrase of Richard of Devizes: “Concessa est ipsa die et instituta Communia Londinensium,” and that of Giraldus: “Communa seu Communia eis concessa,” correspond exactly with the formal phrases in the French charters of “Commune.” In the case of Senlis (1173) it was “Communiam fieri concessimus”; in that of Compiègne (1153): “Burgensibus villæ concessimus Communiam”; in that of Abbeville (1185) “concessi eis Communiam habendam”; in that which Queen Eleanor granted to Poitiers (1199): “Sciatis nos concessisse ... universis hominibus de Pictavi et eorum heredibus communiam juratam apud Pictavim.” But if any doubt were yet possible, it would be finally removed by the words of Richard of Devizes:

Nunc primum, indulta sibi conjuratione, regno regem deesse cognovit Londonia, quam nec rex ipse Ricardus nec prædecessor et pater ejus Henricus pro mille millibus marcis argenti fieri permississet.

There is no escaping from these words, and Mr. Loftie’s theory is, consequently, out of court.[475]

But what of Mr. Coote’s? With great confidence he wrote that the “Commune,” in the case of London, which had acquired all other things, expressed for its citizens the mayoralty only; “nothing else was asked or desired by them, for it was the sole privilege which was wanting to their burghal independence” (p. 287). We find, however, that on the Continent the word ‘Commune’ did not of necessity imply a Mayor, for Beauvais and Compiègne, though constituted ‘Communes,’ appear to have had no Mayor during most of the 12th century. The chroniclers, therefore, had they only meant to speak of the privilege of electing a Mayor, would not have all employed a word which did not connote it, but would have said what they meant. Moreover, his theory rests on the assumption, common till now to all historians, that the citizens had continuously possessed, from the beginning of the 12th century, the privileges granted in the charter of Henry I. But I have shown, in my ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ that these privileges were not renewed by Henry II. or Richard I., and that this fact strikingly confirms the explicit words of Richard of Devizes, when he states that neither the one nor the other would have allowed the Londoners to form a ‘Commune’ even for a million of marcs.

In ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ (pp. 357–9) I insisted on the necessity of keeping steadily in view the annual _firma_ of London and Middlesex, and showed that it was due in respect of the two jointly, and not, as has been alleged of Middlesex, apart from London. The further publication of the Pipe Rolls has enabled me to develop this position. While the citizens, as I showed, strenuously claimed to hold the city and county at ferm for £300, as in the charter of Henry I., the Crown no less persistently strove to exact a _firma_ of more than £500. The exact amount of the high _firma_ is first recorded at the change of shrievalty in 1169. The four outgoing sheriffs at Easter of that year account for £250 “blank” and £11 “numero,” as the half-year’s _firma_. This represents a total for the year of £500 “blank” and £22 “numero,” which is also precisely the sum accounted for in 1173–4.[476] The whole sum would thus amount to £547 “numero,” by the Exchequer system. But at Midsummer, 1174, there was a great and a sudden change. Brichtmer de Haverhelle and Peter Fitz Walter came into office not as sheriffs, but “ut custodes,” in the Exchequer phrase,[477] and at Michaelmas they accounted not “de firma,” but “de exitu firme.”[478]

The sheriff farmed his county and answered for a fixed _firma_, as a tenant is responsible for his rent; the ‘custos,’ acting for the Crown, like a bailiff for a landowner, was responsible only for the actual proceeds (_exitus_). This distinction meets us even on the earliest Pipe Roll (1130).[479] It is obvious that, on the _firma_ system, the sheriff might make a profit or a loss, according as the sources of the ferm provided more or less than the rent for which he had to account. But the point on which I am anxious to insist is that the sources of his ferm were by no means so elastic as is alleged.[480] As Professor Maitland observes:

The king’s rights are pecuniary rights; he is entitled to collect numerous small sums. Instead of these he may be willing to take a fixed sum every year, or, in other words, to let his rights to farm.

He further describes these rights, in the case of a borough, as “the profits of the market and of the borough court,” together with “the king’s burgage rents.” Each of these sources, again, could be sub-farmed.[481] This being so, I cannot agree with Dr. Stubbs in holding that

the sheriff was answerable to the Crown for a certain sum, and ... nothing was easier than to exact the whole of the legal sum from the rich burghers, and take for himself the profits of the shire; or to demand such sums as he pleased of either, without rendering any account.[482]

For the sources of the ferm were well defined: they were limited to certain “rights.” The burgage rents were fixed; so, we believe, were the tolls; and the fines arising from the courts cannot have varied much. Outside these sources the sheriff had no right to “exact” anything from the burghers.

Here we have the explanation of an otherwise singular phenomenon. The Crown, which was receiving, as has been shown, £547 “numero” a year from the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, obtained less than half that amount when its own _custodes_ were in charge! The proceeds for the first whole year were £238 5_s._ 7_d._ “numero,” and out of this, moreover, it had to pay Peter Fitz Walter £20 for his services, and the clerks and serjeants (_servientes_) employed under him £8 10_s._; thus the net receipts were only some £200 “de exitu firme de Londonia et de Middilsexa.”[483] I infer from this that the _ferm_ extorted for London and Middlesex had been shamefully high,[484] and that this was the cause of the sheriffs being often laden with debt when they went out of office,[485] as they had to make good, out of their own pockets, the difference between the proceeds of the dues and the ferm exacted by the Crown. It is possible that this was indeed the reason of four sheriffs, as in 1130, being so often appointed; the loss would thus be spread over a wider area, and the chance of recovering the debt greater. The system, on this hypothesis, was strangely analogous to that by which, at the present day, appointment as sheriff of a county is equivalent to exaction of a fine by the Crown. Combining, as I have elsewhere suggested, the fact that in 1130 each of the four sheriffs gave £12 to the Crown to be quit of his office with the clause in the earliest charter to Rouen that no citizen should be compelled to serve as sheriff against his will, we may certainly conclude that such sheriffs were the victims of Crown extortion. But obscurity must still surround the manner of their appointment.

There remains the salient fact that the Crown undoubtedly suffered a heavy annual loss by the substitution of _custodes_ for sheriffs in 1174. As this is a fact new to historians, one is tempted to seek an explanation. The Crown’s loss being the city’s gain, it is at least worth consideration that the change virtually synchronized with the king’s arrival in London at the crisis of the feudal revolt. He was welcomed, Fantosme tells us, by the citizens, and reminded

Ke nul peiist le Lundreis traïtres apeler. Ne fereient traïsun pur les membres colper.

In the previous year he had been assured that they were

La plus leale gent de tut vostre regné. Ni ad nul en la vile ki seit de tel eë Ki puisse porter armes, ne seit très bien armé.

This testimony is in harmony with the fact they gave the Crown that year (1173) a _novum donum_ of 1,000 marcs, supplemented by 100 marcs apiece from three leading citizens. It is, therefore, perfectly possible that, as Rouen obtained from Henry II. a charter increasing its privileges, as a reward for its attitude in the rebellion, London may have been similarly rewarded by what was in practice financial relief.

But the change did not last. After two years of the _custodes_, they went out of office at Midsummer, 1176, their returns, “de exitu ejusdem civitatis,” even lower than before.[486] Their place was taken by William Fitz Isabel, whose account for the three months’ _firma_ at Michaelmas shows that it, at once, leapt up to the huge sum formerly exacted.[487]

Having traced in ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ the fortunes of the long struggle between the citizens and the Crown over the amount of their _firma_--fixed at £300 by Henry the First’s charter, but raised by Henry II. to over £500--I was led to test the chroniclers’ statements as to 1191 by turning to the Pipe Rolls to see if the citizens’ triumph enabled them to secure that reduction on which they insisted throughout. In the Roll of 1 Richard I. we find the _firma_, as under Henry II., to be between £520 and £530,[488] but in the Roll of two years later (1191) we suddenly meet with this bold entry: “Cives Londoniæ--Willelmus de Haverhull et Johannes Bucuinte pro eis--reddunt compotum de ccc libris blancis pro hoc anno.” This sudden return to the old figure was effected at the very time of the change which the chroniclers describe. The fact is as striking as it is welcome where all is so obscure. In the following year (4 Ric. I.) we find the _firma_ again amounting to about £300; but the difficulty of ascertaining its sum where this is not given is, unfortunately, so great that until the Pipe Rolls of the reign are in print we cannot speak positively as to the endurance of this amount. In the Pipe Roll, however, of the ninth year (1197) we find the account headed (as in 1191): “Cives Lund[oniæ]--Nicholas Duket et Robertus Blund pro eis--reddunt compotum de ccc libris blancis de firma Lond[onie] et Middelsexe,” and in that of the tenth year the sum is similarly stated to be £300 “blanch.” It is clear, therefore, that at the close of Richard’s reign the citizens had made good their claim to farm the city and county for £300 a year, as they had recommenced to do in 1191. The explanation of their gaining from Richard the confirmation of that success is probably to be found in their payment of £1,000, thus recorded on the roll of 1195 (7 Ric. I.):

Cives Lond[onie] M et D marcas de dono suo pro benevolentia domini Regis, _et pro libertatibus suis conservandis_, et de auxilio suo ad redemptionem domini Regis.

In that case the king would have dealt with the _firma_, as he is known to have dealt with the sheriffwicks of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, etc., and simply sold it to the citizens for a lump sum down. In this year (7 Ric. I.), accordingly, it is again the “Cives Lond[onie],” who, through their two representatives, account for the ferm.