CHAPTER XII

CONFEDERATION

THE fact that the English burghers took so impatiently the one hindrance that lay in their path to independence and supremacy is itself a proof of the habit of prosperity and success which they were accustomed to accept as part of their natural heritage in the pleasant place where their lot had fallen. How little they had at any time to reckon with opposition is obvious from the striking fact that they never found themselves compelled to form any kind of union or alliance for common purposes. Here the story of English boroughs is in vivid contrast to that of the continental towns. The powerful confederations formed in European countries by towns battling against tremendous odds to protect their commerce, liberty, and law, had no parallel among the comparatively peaceful and regular conditions of English life, where self-government was so easily attained, and where trade was so generally secure, that the necessity never arose for the creation of any such associations. Towns on the royal demesne stood in no need of any combined effort to defend their freedom; and the towns on ecclesiastical lands or feudal estates that had grievances to complain of were few, scattered, and subject to so many different lords that combination among them would have been wholly impossible. Organized common action was therefore practically unknown among the English boroughs; for the loose tie of affiliation which bound together communities of which one had adopted the charter and copied the customs of another was a bond so slight as to be scarcely recognized,[722] and implied no mutual obligations whatever. In moments of excited strife or rapid constitutional growth a borough might undoubtedly become fired by the example of a near neighbour, or catch the contagion which spread from some community more advanced in its experiments and daring in its pretensions; but these movements of sympathy, of voluntary affiliation, of emulation, never resulted in any kind of federation or alliance. For the developement of its liberties each borough was ultimately left to depend only on its own resources; while such societies as were constituted in later days in England for trading purposes took the form of federations of men not of towns.[723]

There was but one exception to this general rule, and in the Confederation of the Cinque Ports we have the single illustration in England of an association of towns created and maintained for common interests. From Seaford in Sussex to Brightlingsea in Essex ports and villages were bound together into one society. To the original group of the Five Ports—Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe, whose alliance probably reaches back to the time when the English learned war and commerce from Danish masters—the two Ancient Towns, Winchelsea and Rye, had been added immediately after the Norman Conquest; and what with the desire of these seven to divide their burdens of taxation and war charges with the neighbouring villages, and the readiness of the villages on their side to seek admission to the Port privileges,[724] an association had in course of time been evolved consisting of seven head Ports with eight corporate and twenty-four non-corporate members,[725] all gathered under the rule of the Lord Warden. To the last they bore traces of foreign influences in the name of Jurats by which they called their “portmen,” and of Barons which they gave to their “freemen.” But amid the curious vicissitudes of their history, and the odd incidents of their ownership in times when it seemed natural and simple to grant away the very frontier defences of England to Norman counts and Breton dukes and abbots of Fécamp and monks of Canterbury,[726] and in later days after English kings had realised the advantages of themselves owning the main gates by which their country opened on the European world,[727] these communities remained firmly united under their federal government.[728] The King’s writ did not run in the Ports unless it bore the seal of the Lord Warden. Exempt by charter from serving on juries, assizes, or recognizances outside their own territory,[729] the freemen could be impleaded only in their own courts.[730] No prisoner from the Ports could be summoned by the Judges to Westminster, and in the case of an express order from the King “some demur should be made to the first mandate till it be known with certainty it is his pleasure,”[731] while on the other hand any stranger who committed a crime within their liberties might be claimed by the mayor and jurats from any lordship in the realm, even from the King himself.[732] They had even, after a fight which lasted for generations, successfully resisted all attempts to bring their local jurisdiction within the general judicial system of the kingdom, and the Justices Itinerant were shut out from crossing their boundaries or sitting at their Court of Shepway.[733] Ancient privileges were jealously guarded. “New Acts of Parliament,” they said, “ought not to alter the free customs.”[734] No deodand was given to the Crown “because it never was the custom here.”[735] If an ecclesiastical officer came from Canterbury to make an inventory of the goods of a Sandwich man who had died without a will, he was not allowed to act because it was contrary to the ancient customs and liberties of the town.[736] Their corporate dignity was officially recognized on great occasions of State, such as the coronation of a King or the consecration of an Archbishop, when the envoys of the Cinque Ports were treated with special honour and sat at the right hand table in the hall; and each of the Ports in turn sent representatives to carry the canopy over the newly-crowned King, and after the ceremony to bear it back with its silk hangings, its spears, and its silver bells, as the town’s spoils.[737]

As to the idea or principle which held this society of towns together and the purpose which it was meant to serve, the definition given by a minister of the Crown would probably have been very different from that given by a baron of the Ports. To a statesman the confederation of the Cinque Ports was organized in the interests of the whole country, and maintained as the bulwark of national safety; and the policy of West Saxon rulers, of Danish conquerors, of Norman kings, of Angevin statesmen, had all alike aimed at the increasing of its public utility. Holding their posts in the first line of defence against invasion, the Cinque Port towns were bound to keep a sufficient number of men within their walls for defence against the enemy, and watch that inhabitants were not driven away by the imposition of undue local taxes; they had to bear heavy costs for ordnance, ammunition, fortifications; to set a nightly watch in every borough and at every dangerous creek or harbour; to have armed forces ready to meet the first brunt of attack, while their citizens might expect in time of war to see their houses sacked and burned again and again. They had to provide every year fifty-seven ships and 1,197 men with provisions for the defence of the kingdom,[738] and if these were not enough in number or in size greater ones and more were required of them. If they hesitated to comply with such demands, or if they were shown not to have held firm against the invader, they were roughly reminded of the bargain on the terms of which alone all their privileges were held, and saw their charters and franchises seized into the King’s hand.[739]

This view of the organization of the Cinque Ports for the public service was visibly represented in the rule of the King’s officer, the Lord Warden of the Ports and Constable of Dover Castle. His authority the men of the Cinque Ports were never for a moment allowed to forget; and the Lieutenant of Dover or his messengers, continually riding round the Ports with message or proclamation or to “make inquisition,”[740] were everywhere helped on their way by dinners, breakfasts, pipes of wine, or a play at the public expense. From Dover came proclamations “warning us of the Danes”; ordering “that no man should quarrel with other for none old sores”; commanding “to arrest the men who came from beyond sea without leave and without billets”; or to seize ships for crossing over to Flanders; calling out vessels “to watch the sea”; or to serve the King in siege or battle during the French war; summoning men “to keep the Castle of Dover”; or decreeing the amount of benevolences to be paid to the King.[741] The subjection of the whole confederation to his rule was publicly recognized every year in the Court of Shepway, when at his summons there came from every port the mayor and a little group of jurats carrying with them the required gifts and dues, wine and swans and fish and spices to furnish breakfast for officials and suitors at the court; or costly offerings to soften the hearts of wardens and judges, and induce them on their first entering into office to look favourably on their subjects. Before them as they sat on either side of the Warden on the open plain near Lympne[742] proclamation was made as to the taxes to be raised by the confederation, the special military services required of the freemen, or the new decrees issued by the Government; and special offences against the Crown were judged. A whole community might be charged with a breach of the King’s peace,[743] or an aggrieved corporation made application that officers of the Ports should be sent to help in the arrest and punishment of some stranger who had committed a crime in their town; and prisoners from the various towns accused of coining false money, treason, or counterfeiting the King’s seal,[744] were tried, and if found guilty were forthwith tied on a sledge, drawn round the circuit of Shepway, and hanged on the spot.[745]

Nor did the authority of the Warden end at Shepway. As Constable of the Castle he had his court-martial in Dover.[746] As Admiral he could order a “quest of the Admiralty” to be held on the sea-shore, or perhaps at some one of the Ports which had offended against the laws of the confederation—a calamity which the town at once sought to avert by negociations and bribes “that he should not hold the court.” As Chancellor he issued precepts and summonses as to the services to be performed by the Ports in return for their privileges, and exercised in his court of chancery the complicated jurisdiction that gradually arose out of these records. There were moments when the King was stirred to a recollection of his sovereignty—moments when the towns had pushed independence too far, or when the treasure in the royal coffers had fallen low; then from Westminster a writ of enquiry would come as to the privileges of the Ports, delegates were summoned from the various towns to appear before the Warden, and might find themselves kept many days and nights at Dover[747] while “inquisition was made for the King.” Sometimes they were ordered to assemble on the sea-shore. Sometimes the Warden came down the steep path of the castle hill to the tiny church of S. James, set in the first little reach of level ground below the walls of the fortification, and there the jurats came up to meet him from their lodgings in the town below, and after days of discussion probably returned home with heavy news of fines to be levied for buying a new charter, or for getting the confirmation of some doubtful privilege.

In the authority of the Warden we see the view held at Westminster about the uses of the Cinque Ports and the main object of their existence. To the people on the other hand the association had another and wholly different character. So completely was all the business of the Warden’s court at Shepway looked on by the portsmen as the King’s affair, and so slight was their sense of participation in it, that they presently gave up attending it altogether, leaving the Warden at last to preside in solitary state. In course of time even the ancient site was abandoned, and instead of the annual assembly at Shepway the president only summoned an occasional court of appeal to be held at Dover,[748] and there, surrounded by a group of lawyers to advise him, sat on the chalk cliff fronting the castle to hear certain cases immediately touching the King’s interest.[749] Meanwhile the barons of the Ports had their own tradition of independence and self-government; and the popular belief as to the object and meaning of the confederation was embodied in another court which sat on the Broad Hill, near Romney—a court where the Lord Warden had no seat.[750] It was there that the whole interest of the people centred, as turning their backs on the King’s courts and leaving him to conduct through the Lord Warden the matters which were his peculiar business, they occupied themselves with the management of their own special affairs. For to the fisherman of the coast the confederation of the villages was in its origin and working simply a great trading company of the Ports for the protection of their staple business, the herring fishery, and for the preservation of their ancient customs of harbourage and sale on the strand at the mouth of the Yare—a matter which became of absorbing importance when their monopoly was threatened by the fishermen of Yarmouth, so that from the time of John onwards they could only preserve their interests by ceaseless vigilance and by costly appeals to King and Parliament, and Council.[751] In the eyes of the barons therefore the great assembly of the confederation was that which yearly met to discuss the business of the Yarmouth fair. And this was in the strictest sense a court of the people themselves, summoned only by common consent,[752] presided over by the chief magistrate of each Port in turn, and in which every town was represented by its mayor or bailiff, three elected jurats, and three commons. The sheltered harbour of Romney formed a sort of natural centre of the Ports, and the delegates met for business on the Broad Hill or Bromhille of Dymchurch close by, whence they possibly took the name of Brodhull, a name which in later days when the first site was forsaken and forgotten and the delegates met in Romney itself, became changed into “Brothyrhill” or Brotherhood.[753]

On the first day of meeting the business, as befitted an association for trading purposes which dated back to the time when the herring fishery was the staple trade of the Ports, was invariably the Yarmouth fair, and the court heard the report of the bailiffs of the last fair who stood bare-headed before them, and elected their successors who were to govern the coming fair.[754] But other interests had grown up round the assembly hill. The seafaring population, masters and mariners of trading barges, saw in the union of Ports the power which regulated the relations of seamen on either side of the Channel. To the taxpayers it was a voluntary association for the equitable adjustment of their burdens. And all the inhabitants alike recognized its importance for maintaining against lords of other franchises the privileges which had been granted them in return for their services.[755]

On the great day when the Yarmouth fair was under discussion the Court of Brotherhood sat alone; but on the following days when other work was to be done—the distribution between the various towns of the taxation[756] ordered at Shepway, the discussion of commercial relations,[757] the care of the common corporate privileges of the confederation[758]—the Court of Brotherhood was joined by the Court of Guestling, probably a descendant of the ancient Hundred Court once held in the old town of Gestlinges near the border-line of Kent and Sussex.[759] To this court each town might send the mayor, two jurats, and two commoners; so that if all the delegates came the number of the united assemblies would be seventy-seven; as a matter of fact however in the time of Henry the Sixth the business was done by about thirty members.[760] All the important affairs of the Cinque Ports practically lay in their hands, and their decisions, registered as Acts of the Brodhull by the Common Clerk of the Cinque Ports,[761] became the law of the whole confederation.

Constantly reminded of their ancient covenant and confederation by imminent perils, arduous exertions and recurring taxes, trained to habits of vigilance and mutual support, the Cinque Ports kept a jealous watch against the slightest infraction of the privileges of their united body. But there was one matter with which the confederation had nothing whatever to do. Subject to a variety of jurisdictions, some of them depending on the King, some on the Archbishop, some on a bigger neighbouring town, the special liberties of each borough had been developed under very different conditions; and the whole association took no heed of the defence of the liberties of any single Port against its lord, or the enlargement of the privileges of any one member of their society as apart from the whole.[762] The corporate existence of the united Cinque Ports was a thing altogether apart from the corporate existence of each town within it; and indeed combination for any purpose of securing local liberties would have been out of the question in a confederacy where a certain outward uniformity was but the screen of endless diversity, and towns bound together by special duties and privileges were widely separated from one another in all the conditions of government.[763] This is very evident if we compare the situation of Sandwich and Romney—much more so if we consider the position of any of the subordinate members of the Ports.

I. For many centuries Sandwich belonged to the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, and so long as it was a humble little port powerful kings like Eadgar, Cnut, Henry the First, and Henry the Second had been content to have it so, and with indifferent acquiescence confirmed the monastic rights over the town. But when in the course of time Sandwich became the port through which almost the whole of the continental trade with England passed, when its commerce and revenue increased till it stood far before Dover in importance,[764] when it was the chief harbour from which monarchs or their ambassadors set sail for France, or from which armies were sent forth in time of war, the King began to look more seriously on the powers exercised over it by the convent. An inquest ordered by the Crown in 1227 reported in favour of the rights of Christ Church over Sandwich, but by judicious bargaining matters were finally arranged to the royal satisfaction. At the price of a grant of lands in Kent Edward the First bought the town, and though the monks were still allowed certain lands and houses free from municipal charges, and continued to receive large sums from the wharf which was known as Monkenkey with its crane for loading and unloading ships,[765] and from the warehouses enclosing it, they had to abandon their powers of taxing at discretion all passengers and goods which crossed the bounds of their territory.[766]

The Sandwich people had elected their own mayor since the beginning of the thirteenth century; while the royal interests were now looked after by a bailiff appointed by the King.[767] The townsmen however kept a jealous watch over their own prerogatives. When in 1321 Christ Church obtained a royal writ to protect their property from the town taxes the mayor and community refused to accept it because it had been issued to the King’s bailiff, and the convent had to get a new writ.[768] The bailiff’s powers were carefully defined and kept in strict subordination to those of the mayor. He collected the King’s dues on goods brought into the town;[769] and it was he who summoned the Hundred Court every three weeks to meet in S. Clement’s church for view of frankpledge, for pleas of land, questions of trespass, covenant, debt, battery, bloodshed, and so on;[770] but he could not hold the court without the mayor’s leave, nor issue the summonses without the mayor’s orders.[771] The mayor for his part, if he was elected in S. Clement’s, the church where the courts of the King were held, had his seat of government in S. Peter’s, a church that stood in the very centre of the town near the Market-place and Common Hall, and in whose tower the “Brande goose bell” hung which summoned jurats and council men to the Common Assembly, and rang out the hours for the market. He gathered the Town Council for business to S. Peter’s, and in S. Peter’s he sat every Thursday, and if business required it on other days, to judge the people.[772] Though the bailiff sat by his side and took part in the business of the court, yet for offences against the corporation the mayor and jurats might punish the freemen “without consulting the bailiff or any one else.”[773] To them belonged the entire regulation of trade and the management of weights and measures, for “the bailiff has nothing to do with this business.” In no case was he allowed to interfere with the town market; “that business belongs wholly to the mayor and jurats,” the town customs declared.[774]

II. Sandwich in fact after it had passed to the Crown enjoyed the full freedom common to the royal boroughs. Bound only by allegiance to the general law of the Cinque Ports it long maintained, as we shall see later, a real independence of local life and a vigorous democratic temper. But in Romney, in the very port where the general assembly of the Cinque Ports held its deliberations, the conditions were wholly different. For a moment Romney like other towns enjoyed its share of profits in the growing trade of the country.[775] The vintners engaged in the wine trade rose from ten in 1340 to forty-eight who headed the list of taxpayers in 1394; a new ward was called after its cloth-dealer Hollyngbroke;[776] and merchants from Prussia, Holland, Spain, and Flanders, citizens of Bristol and of London, men from York and from Dorset gathered within its walls. But a doom was already on the town. As early as 1381 it had begun its vain struggle against winds and tides which silted up its port, destroyed its river channel, and forced the Rother into a new bed. Dutch and Flemish engineers had been called over to make scientific sluices and barriers, and the whole population had been summoned out to dig a water-course, but in spite of incessant efforts the men of Romney saw their trade driven into other ports.[777] The forty-eight vintners of 1394 had sunk to forty-four in 1415, to five in 1431, and to one in 1449.[778] The burghers were being steadily ruined, and the story of their decay remains registered in the long lists of citizens who pledged their goods for debt, giving in promise of payment saddles, cups, table-cloths, helmets, cloths, which were delivered by the creditor into the hands of the bailiff for keeping in the Common Hall “according to custom,” and when the day of payment had passed were appraised by bailiff and jurats, often at half or a quarter of the value at which they had been first declared, and handed over to the creditor.[779]

Through good and evil fortune moreover Romney had to maintain a constant struggle for freedom. The Archbishop of Canterbury was lord of the manor, and appointed, subject to the ratification of the Lord Warden, the bailiff of the town,[780] choosing if it seemed good to him one of his own servants or squires, and by a curious exception from the general law having liberty to select a publican.[781] The bailiff fixed the days for holding the market. He gathered in the Archbishop’s dues, made sure that his share of any wax, or wine, or goods cast on the shore from wrecks was handed over, and that the jurats collected in proper time the capons and swans and cygnets which had to be sent to him, or that a porpoise taken by the fishermen should be duly despatched to the lord. The common horn sounded twice at the market-place and at the cross to summon the people to his court.

The question of government and of the bailiff’s position was however always in debate. The “best men of the town” rode to Archbishop Courtenay “to know his will and what he proposed to do against their liberties”; and for the following century the Romney men were always on the watch, and heavily taxed in gifts and bribes “to protect the liberty of the town that the said lord might not usurp it.”[782] The bailiff’s power indeed was strictly limited. So far as the administration of justice went he was absolutely controlled by the twelve jurats who were yearly elected “for to keep and govern the port and town;”[783] and “in case the bailiff do other execution than the sworn men have judged against the usage of the town” they might fine him £10 to the commons.[784] But this was not enough. In 1395 the jurats made suit to the Lord Archbishop to “put his bailiwick into the hands of the community of Romney at ferm,”[785] and for the century which followed they were always seeking for some means of gaining complete control of the government. For lack of better security a simple expedient was discovered. The townspeople allowed a custom to grow up that the Archbishop should not be expected to appoint a new officer every year, but that whoever was sent to the town should be understood to hold his post permanently. When in 1521 the prelate complained that the jurats would not let his bailiff enter Romney[786] they answered that when there was no bailiff in the town the Archbishop might send a new one, but that the accustomed bailiff who had been admitted seven or eight years ago was still living and was “of good name and fame,” and so the place was not void; moreover, they said, a bailiff must make his appearance with certain formalities and “be of good opinion,” but this new man had not been sent with the proper forms. The fixity of tenure[787] which the townsfolk thus raised to the dignity of a “customary” right was a real guarantee that the bailiff should no longer be a mere dependent holding his post at the pleasure of a distant master, trembling under the apprehension of hazarding his employment by preferring the interests of the commonalty to those of his lord, and only intent on heaping up treasure against the day when his credit and employment should come to an end. He became more and more identified with the townsfolk among whom he lived, and on whose approval he was made dependent by their contention that he should hold office so long as he was, in their opinion, “of good name and fame.”

But the burghers were still dissatisfied with so precarious a tenure of independence. There was a proposal which came to nothing to unite the bailiff and jurats of the town with the bailiff and jurats of the marsh; but in 1484 the people profited by the troubles of Richard’s reign to plan a thoroughgoing revolution.[788] They set up a mayor for themselves, and sent to have a silver mace made at Canterbury under the very walls of the Cathedral precincts. The Archbishop called in the help of the Crown and the great people of the London law courts, and after much battling and negotiation the matter was ended before the year was out by a Privy Seal being sent down to Romney to depose the mayor. Before a generation had passed away however the struggle broke out again with new vigour, and in 1521 town and prelate were again quarrelling over all the old grievances.[789]

The main point of the burghers’ argument was to deny the Archbishop’s assertion that “the town is all bishopric.” The jurats contended that “from all time” they had had the privileges of one of the capital Five Ports, that their grant of “streme and strond” of the sea and all other rights came to them from the King and not the Archbishop; and that they held the greater part of their town directly from the Crown,[790] on which land the Archbishop had no right to enter, and the commonalty had rights of justice. So also the Archbishop had no right to the marsh and pasturage of four hundred acres which had once been creek and haven, but had been left dry land since about 1380 by the withdrawal of the sea a good half-mile from the town, for this “void place” left by the main course of the stream through the town belonged to the King. Arguing therefore from this fiction of being on royal soil the jurats went on to claim the popular control of justice which was used in royal boroughs, and frowardly kept the courts without the bailiff, boldly asserting in their own defence that he was at the best but a minister of the King’s courts in Romney and not a judge; for if the town courts were in fact courts of the King, they were under the royal grants and charters which ordained that mayor and jurats, or bailiff and jurats, _elected by the people_, were to hold courts, hear pleas, and have fines and amercements and other profits of leets and law-days; and therefore since the bailiff of Romney was not elected by the commons he was clearly excluded and had nothing to do in the said courts save as minister and executioner, and any record of pleas before him was void. In times past, they declared, he had merely been allowed to sit among them by favour, and not of duty. The fines raised at leets and law-days they claimed for the town’s use, saying that these had only been given to the most Reverend Father by the favour of the jurats to obtain his good lordship; but that he had never any right whatever to leet or law-day, fine or amercement. So persistent were their protestations of independence that it seems as though ultimately the Archbishop’s heavy wrath settled down to rest on the town. When Cranmer leased out the bailiwick of Hythe to the townspeople,[791] he refused to give to Romney a similar lease—a gift which it had begged of Courtenay a hundred and fifty years before. Cranmer’s lordship indeed came to an end at the Reformation, but even then Romney was for a time governed by its senior jurat, and it was not until 1563 that it seemed to have sufficiently purged its iniquity, and that Elizabeth finally allowed its people to elect a mayor.

III. From the instances of Sandwich and Romney it is evident that the bond which existed between the chief Ports only served certain definite ends, and had no influence whatever on the developement of local liberties or the intimate relations of a borough to its lord. And if this was the case with the leading Ports, still less was it possible for the subordinate members of the confederation to look for aid in their private controversies. Romney itself for example in the midst of its struggle with the Archbishop was engaged in a resolute effort to retain its own hold over its dependent town of Lydd. There also the Archbishop of Canterbury was lord of the manor, both of the town and of a great part of the grazing land round it known as Dengemarsh, in which lay the fishing-station of Lydd, Denge Ness; while the rest of Dengemarsh was divided between the Abbot of Battle, the Castle of Rochester, and Christ Church, Canterbury, all alike ready to raise at any time questions of disputed rights. As far as the Archbishop was concerned the townsmen had commuted their services at his court of Aldington for a yearly payment, and became “lords in mean” of their own borough—possibly in the time of Henry the Sixth when they first began formally to use the style of Bailiffs, Jurats, and Commonalty of Lydd; but the Archbishop’s seal with the mitre was still used in deeds for selling or letting land.[792]

But Lydd was further subject to Romney as “member of the Town and Port,” and in token of this submission their custumal was kept at Romney. If they wanted to ascertain their rights they had to send a messenger to the superior town; and an entry in the accounts of Lydd tells how the corporation paid eightpence to “the servant of Romney bringing authority of having again our franchise.” Romney claimed to make awards on disputed questions, interfered about the Lydd markets, and ordered inquisitions as to whether they had been wrongfully held.[793] Moreover as the inhabitants of Lydd “were contributors to Romney before all memory,” their officers had year after year to present themselves before the jurats of Romney in the Church of S. Nicholas carrying their accounts and such payments as were demanded by their rulers.[794] Even after the men of Lydd had been given by Edward the First the same liberties and free customs as the other barons of the Cinque Ports, the sum of their taxes was fixed by Romney.

Among many masters the corporation was kept in a perpetual ferment. The boundaries of its territory were not finally decided till 1462, and the quarrel with Battle on this point kept lawyers and town clerks busy hurrying backwards and forwards between London and Lydd, or riding to Canterbury to get the Abbot’s charter, or to Winchelsea to meet the Abbot’s counsel.[795] For a hundred years moreover the town kept up the long struggle to free itself from the supremacy of Romney. Already in 1384 deputations from both the towns met in Dover to discuss the terms of agreement between them with the Warden, and from that time lawyers were kept constantly at work, and a counsel seems to have been permanently employed in London, besides the deputations of bailiff, common clerk, and jurats sent there as well as to Dover, Sandwich, or Canterbury, and the messengers despatched with “courtesies” for the Lieutenant, the Seneschal, or the Clerk of Dover Castle, the Mayor and Clerk of Dover town, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his steward, the Common Clerk of Winchelsea and so on; while the salary of the Town Clerk, Thomas Caxton, probably a brother of the great printer, was raised again and again, so as to secure the services of the most skilful lawyer and able administrator in all the country round.[796] Even in a trifling matter of taxation it was not till 1490 that the town was able to make a composition for a fixed yearly payment.[797]

IV. In the same way Sandwich had the mastery of the little town of Fordwich,[798] which lay fifteen miles higher up the river and claimed dominion over a tiny territory reaching back from the water’s edge on either side as far as a man in a boat on the river could throw an axe of seven pounds called “Taperaxe.” The inhabitants elected every year a mayor, treasurer, and jurats to govern them and preserve the liberties of the town. The mayor with a black knotted stick as badge of his office, held his court of justice. He appointed every year four freemen to act as arbitrators in case of trespass, and if any townsman refused to accept their decision or tried to carry the cause to another court, he was fined the enormous sum of a hundred shillings, or thrown for a year into the town prison, a filthy hole of nine feet square which still exists. In capital cases the mayor could give sentence of death, and order the prosecutor if he won his suit to carry the condemned criminal to the “Thefeswell” and himself throw him into it with hands and feet tied, “knebent” as it was called.[799]

Fordwich however had been granted by the Confessor to S. Augustine’s, Canterbury.[800] The Abbot owned the soil of the town; his bailiff lived within its walls and presided over the Hundred Court which he summoned by his officer “Cachepol”; he had his own prison; he was entitled to fines and forfeitures from felons and fugitives; and he claimed certain customs on all imports, and asserted a right to control the fisheries of the river so as to supply his monks at the fasting seasons.

The convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, owned on the other hand a quay at the highest point to which ships could pass up the river; to this quay wine, alum, Caen stone, etc., were brought for the use of the monastery, and endless quarrels were developed out of its trading monopolies.[801]

As a member of the Port of Sandwich the town was subject to certain regulations and taxations which Sandwich had a right to impose. When the chief Ports met to assess and distribute taxation among themselves, the voice of the lesser members of the confederation was never heard, and the dependent towns had simply to pay such proportions of the sum due as their masters ordered, and there were naturally frequent signs of grumbling and dissatisfaction.[802] The severe protectionist laws which the Fordwich people passed against Sandwich as to the use of the common quay with the crane possibly indicates some attempt at encroachment which it was possible to resist as well as to resent.

Under the rude pressure of rival jurisdictions on every side, and from which there was no escape, the corporation needed constant vigilance in looking after its own interests. Like every other town big and little in the fifteenth century Fordwich made careful research into the true limits of its chartered rights, and the clerk wrote out new copies of their custumal and of the old record of their boundaries. In the only point where they had a chance of success its burghers fought with steady pugnacity for their privileges. Protesting that they held a monopoly of the quay where the ships were unloaded, they refused the customs demanded by S. Augustine’s, claimed the whole control of the river and of the three weirs which were made every year at the beginning of the fishing season, and at last forced a compromise which left the convent only the produce of a single weir.

If the lesser members of the Ports which were themselves corporate bodies, such as Lydd or Fordwich, could expect from their superiors no help in achieving independence, the non-corporate members were yet more completely withdrawn from the chance of assistance; for the seven great towns of the association would have looked with little tolerance on any revolt in their dependent villages.[803] Undoubtedly the inhabitants of the Cinque Ports had their full share of the democratic temper that ruled in the trading towns of the eastern coast from the Wash to the Channel. Rebellion was in the air; and the labourers and miners of Kent and Sussex had an evil reputation in the Middle Ages as being most prone to civil dissensions, “as well for that they can hardly bear injuries as for that they are desirous of novelties.”[804] There was never a rising in which they were not the most eager partizans of the revolutionary side. The men of Kent crowded after Cade. Hastings sent eleven soldiers to help him; Rye begged for his friendship; and Lydd sent its constable on horseback to meet him, wrote him a letter of excuse for not joining him, and presented him with a porpoise.[805] When Warwick took up the cry of Cade they rallied to his side; and when he brought back Henry the Sixth in 1470 they again gave him support.[806] In the internal politics of the towns we meet the same temper; and however obscure and insignificant were the struggles of the Ports and of the humble villages that gathered around them, they reveal to us the militant spirit of self-assertion which was stirring in every hamlet in England. But with this sturdy spirit of municipal freedom the question of federal organization had nothing whatever to do. We have seen that the trading privileges won in early days by the joint action of the towns were confined to the supervision of the herring fair at Yarmouth, and that the association never developed into a great commercial league after the imposing pattern of the towns of Picardy or of the Rhine. Still less did the union resemble any of the federative republics formed across the water in Ponthieu or the Laonnais for mutual aid against the enemies of their peace or liberties.[807] There is no evidence that the confederation of the Cinque Ports afforded to its members any security of municipal freedom, or any extension of the rights to be won from their several lords; and as a matter of fact this group of favoured towns does not seem to have made the slightest advance on other English boroughs, either in winning an earlier freedom, or in raising a higher standard of liberty. In fact the history of the sixteenth century was to prove that there was no more formidable opposition to the growing democracies in the Kent and Sussex towns than the respectable official company that gathered at Romney and ate together the annual feast of the Court of Brotherhood.

INDEX

A

Abbotsbury, convent at, 203

Adamson, William, lease of Liverpool ferm to, 271, _note_ 2

Admiral, appointment of mayor as, 234; his jurisdiction, _ib._, _note_ 2; of Norwich, 245; of the Cinque Ports, his jurisdiction, 392

Adventurers, Merchant, 90; their rivalry with Staple and Hanse, 94, 95; organized by charter, 95, 96; by Henry VII., 96; growth of their privileges, _ib._; settlement at Antwerp, 97, 98; struggle for free trade in cloth in the Netherlands, 99-101; struggle with the staplers, 101-103; with Hanseatic League, 103-111; organization in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, 106; supported by Henry VII., 111, 112; their triumph in the north, 114; progress from Edward III. to Henry VII., 122

“Advocantes,” 190

Alderman of the staple, 46, 48

Aldington, archbishop’s court of, 409

Aletot, tax paid by Rye to Fécamp, 387, _note_ 1

Alexandria, centre of Mediterranean traffic, 77

Alien, judicial combat in Fordwich with, 221, _note_ 2

Almshouses, 41, _note_ 2

Amusements in towns, 145-153

Andover, punishment for breach of public duty in, 181, _note_ 2

Antwerp, trade of English Adventurers at, 94; capital of the Merchant Adventurers, 97, 98; succeeds Bruges as a centre of commerce, 100; conference at, 113

Apprentices, kept only by burghers, 182

Apprenticeship, in towns, sought by country labourers, 194

Archers of Reading in 1371, 16, _note_

Arms, view of, at Bridport, 15, 16; at Reading, 16, _note_

Arrest, disputes about rights of, 351-352, 364-367, 372

Assemblies in the towns, 223

Assize of wine, bread, and ale, controversy as to, in Exeter, 358-9

Attorneys, their numbers in Norfolk and Norwich limited, 58

Augustine’s, S., convent of, Canterbury, its agreement with Christchurch, 369; disputes with the town, 371-3; owner of Fordwich, 412; compromise with Fordwich, 414

Aylesbury, evasions of watch and ward in, 133

Aynesargh, Richard de, lease of Liverpool to, 271, _note_ 2

B

Bailiff, commander of the town in war, 128; his appointment as king’s steward and marshal, 236; capital, of Hereford, 229, 319-320; election of, in Liverpool, 270; of wards in Norwich, 240, 243, 245, 246; of Romney, 404-406; of the king, in Sandwich, 400-402

Bailiff-errant, his duties, 205

Baltic, English Merchant Adventurers in, 95

Barge, the admiral’s, 245; common, of towns, 87, 140; of Ipswich, 85, _note_ 2; of London, 87, _note_ 3; of Romney, 87, 88

Barnstaple, granted to Sir John Cornwall and the Countess of Huntingdon, 253; its ferm, &c., in 1273, _ib._, _note_ 3; its traditions as borough in ancient demesne, 253-255; byelaws of, 254; “Burgesses of the Wynde” in, _ib._; complaints of lords of, about authority claimed by burghers, _ib._; inquisition as to franchises of, 255; charters, _ib._; market, 253, _note_ 3; Long Bridge, _ib._; its wealth in thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, _ib._; seal, 225, _note_

Barons of the Cinque Ports, 386

Barton, John, thief in Exeter, 354

Battle, services due from its burgesses, 171, _note_ 2; its quarrel with Lydd about boundaries, 411; abbot of, owner of land in Lydd, 409

Beaufort, Cardinal, 214

Bedford, opposition to commission of enquiry in, 268, _note_ 1

Beer, its introduction, 57; English, exported to Flanders, _ib._

Bell, the common, 161, 180; of Bristol, 314, 315; of Hereford, 127; Reading, 304; Romney, 405, _note_ 1; Brandegoose, at Sandwich, 401; of church, 153; the curfew, 324

Bell-foundries, 55

Benecke, captain of Danzig privateers, 109, _note_ 2

Bergen, staple set up by English adventurers at, 95; English expelled from, 107

Berkeley, owned by lay noble, 227; privileges leased to the burghers of, 263; relations with its lords, 264, 267; lords of, their fight with Bristol, 313-315; their trading, 316

Berkeley, Lord James, 266

Berkeley, Lord Maurice, 265, 266, 312, 314-315

Berkeley, Lord Thomas, 315

Berkeley, Lady, daughter of Mayor of Bristol, 316; her funeral, _ib._

Bernard, the goldsmith, his escape from prison, 374

Berwick, government of, given to one of the Berkeleys, 264

Bier, the parish, 202

Billeting, forbidden in Bristol, 210, _note_ 3

Birmingham, 200, _note_ 2; its bridges, 20; its guild, _ib._

Bishops as lords of towns, 281

Blackwall, entrepôt of Dinant copper-workers at, 56

Bondmen, not to be admitted to franchise in York and Bridgenorth, 196

Bonvil, Sir William, 41, _note_ 2, 267, 268, 366

“Booners,” 141

Bordeaux, its trade, 87, 118, 119, 316, _note_ 1; taken by the French, 119

Boroughs, English, their importance in fifteenth century, 1; created by Edward I., 11, _note_ 3; representation in Parliament, 24, 25; conditions of claiming the property of, 218; importance of corporate succession of, 219; classification of, 227; sympathy of king with, in questions of rival jurisdiction, 232-3; local self-government in, 233-237; extortion in, 235, _note_ 1; advantages gained by, in times of state troubles, 237; anxiety of king about democratic movement in, 247, _note_ 3; granted to nobles, 253, _note_ 2; in “ancient demesne,” 227, 246, _see_ Towns

Borough Court, or Portmote, attendance of burghers required at, 180; wills enrolled in, 200, _note_ 1; at Norwich, 239

Borough English, 222

Boston, house of the Hanseatic League at, 110

Boulogne, soldiers from Reading at, 16, _note_

Boundaries, preservation and perambulation of, 134

Boy Bishop, 148

Brass, guns made of, 55, _note_ 4

Bribes, system of, in the towns, 211-217

Brickmaking, its beginnings in England, 56

Bridges, repair of, 144; the Long, at Barnstaple, 253, _note_ 3; at Birmingham, 20; Canterbury, 19; Exeter, 144; London, _ib._; Nottingham, _ib._; Reading, 301, _note_ 2

Bridgenorth, payment to players forbidden in, 152; franchise of, 196; complaint of the jurors against the sheriff’s bailiffs, 207, _note_ 1

Bridgewater, burgages held by clergy at, 175, _note_

Bridport in the thirteenth century, 202-203; in fourteenth century, 15; in fifteenth century, 15-16; views of arms at, _ib._; fraternities in, _ib._; Toll Hall and Guildhall at, _ib._; bell foundries at, 55-56; collection for improving its harbour, 143, 144; rector and parishioners, 157; bequests for the church, 159, _note_; manufactures at, 202; payments in kind for ferm, 204-5; advantages of its obscurity and distance from court, 210

Brinklow, his political ideas, 60, _note_ 4

Bristol made a shire, 12; gives a benevolence to the king, 27, _note_ 2; disputes with Genoese merchants, 91, _note_ 2; its contribution for protection of traders, _ib._, _note_ 3; new channel dug for the Frome at, 142; billeting forbidden in, 210, _note_ 3; revolt of the Commons, 312; charter forfeited, _ib._, _note_ 1; mayor of, freed from oath to constable, 313; obtains jurisdiction over Redcliffe, 314; fight with lords of Berkeley, 313-315; difficulties as to jurisdiction of Temple fee, 313, _note_ 2; incorporation of Redcliffe with, _ib._, _note_; burgesses’ petitions to King and Parliament, 315; assault on Lord Thomas of Berkeley, _ib._; payment for confirmation of charters, _ib._; sends men to Lord Berkeley’s help at Nibley, 316; the castle fee in, 311; constable of castle, 312; grant of ferm, 238, _note_ 3; dispute about ferm, 253, _note_ 2; S. Mary’s Hall at, 316; Fellowship of Merchants, 89; paving, 18, _note_; common bell, 314, 315; gaol, 315; watch on S. John’s Eve, 149; compass first used in England by its men, 107; trade with Gascony, 119; traders from, settle in Bridport, 15; sail to Iceland, 107; Flemish weavers in, 193

Britanny, commercial treaty with, 112

Broad-cloth first mentioned, 52

Broad Hill, court held on, 394, 395

Brodhull, register of its acts, 398; _see_ Brotherhood

Brotherhood, court of, 395-398; _see_ Brodhull, Guestling

Bruges, the staple at, 45; made staple for English cloth in Flanders, 113, _note_ 3; decline of its weaving trade, 65

Building in towns in fifteenth century, 18, 19

Burgage rents, 13, _note_ 2

Burgage tenure, 170-173, 200, _note_ 2

Burgesses, in the empire, first mention of, 11, _note_ 1; decayed, in Preston, 190, _note_ 3; of the Wynde in Barnstaple, 254; their qualifications, 170, 171; craftsmen and foreigners admitted as, 173; _see_ Burghers, Citizens

Burghers, mode of admission of, 178-9; duties, 180-181; privileges, 181-185; responsibilities and services, 185-188; punishment of, for refusing to serve in municipal offices, 187, 188; their duties confined to town, 188; the exclusive character of the poorer, 195; claim to have their own courts, 220; growing importance in the country, 257; their seals, 175; _see_ Burgesses, Citizens

Burgundy, Henry VII.’s alliance with, 4; charter to Merchant Adventurers in, 96

Burgundy, Duke of, grants charter to English Merchant Adventurers, 96

C.

“Cachepol” of abbot of S. Augustine’s, 412

Cade, Jack, his supporters in Cinque Ports, 415

Calais, the staple at, 46; captain of, 49; mint at, _ib._; Likedelers of, 90; election of governors of Merchant Adventurers held at, 96, _note_ 6

Cambridge, first notice of bricks at, 56, _note_ 3

Canal-makers, Dutch, 193

Cannyges, of Bristol, 84, _note_ 1, 89, 107

Canopy, at coronation of King, carried by representatives of Cinque Ports, 389

Canterbury, royal borough, 227; extent of its jurisdiction, 3, _note_; Henry VII. received at, 37, _note_; quarrels with Sandwich, 163, _note_; Henry VII.’s breve to enable inhabitants to resist demands of King’s purveyors, 210, _note_ 1; payment to be excused from sending ships to the war, 213, _note_ 3; relations with York and Lancaster, 215, 216; refusal of citizens to appear at the King’s Court at Westminster, 230, _note_ 2; property exempt from corporate authority, 310, _note_; dispute as to jurisdiction of city coroner, 355, _note_ 1; dispute with S. Augustine’s, 371-2; with Christ Church, 135-6, 373-382; with convent of S. Gregory, 369; bridge, 19; charters, expenses connected with, 211, _note_; cathedral, its jubilee festivals, 376; church of S. Andrew, 380; Blackfriar’s churchyard, 375; first main drain, 20; expenses of feasts, 372, _note_ 3; town festival, 149; price of admission to freedom, 178, _note_ 5; municipal debts, 140, _note_ 1; gifts, 214-216; hospitals, 369; Swan inn, 216; loans to King, 27, _note_ 2; market, 371-2, 377-80; mayor, probate claimed by, 200, _note_ 1; mace, 381; king’s mead, 371; mill, _ib._, 372, 381; minstrels, 145, _note_; paving, 18, _note_; plays, 146; protection of burghers, 185; provision for pilgrims, 375-6; punishment for drawing knife, 132, _note_ 2; extortions of sheriff, 207; Staplegate, 370; trade with Bordeaux, 118; walls and gates, 129, _note_ 1; Westgate, 370, 381; _see_ Augustine’s (S.), Christ Church

Canterbury, Archbishops of, 177, _note_ 2, 369-371, 409

Cardiff requests copy of Hereford customs, 228

Carlisle, its “frelidge,” 180; help granted towards payment of ferm in, 231, _note_ 2; liberties forfeited, 247, _note_ 4

Carpets, manufactory of, at Ramsey, 57

Castile, commercial treaty with, 120

Castle Coombe, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1

Castle, constable of, his authority, 311-12

Castle Fee, its independence of the municipality, 311

Catalonia, commercial treaty with, 120

Caxton, Thomas, town clerk of Lydd, 411

Cemetery, booths set up in, at fair-time, 362

Chaldensham, the breaking to pieces of the abbot’s gallows at, 372

Charters, power of the King to withdraw, 211-12; payments for the confirmation of, 211; of incorporation, 219, _note_ 1; _see_ Barnstaple, Bristol, Canterbury, Ipswich, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, Lynn, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Plimpton, Reading, Winchester

Chepin gavell in Reading, 299, 306

Chepstowe, its trade with Iceland and Finmark, 107, _note_ 1

Chest, the parish, 202; the common, of Reading, 305, 306

Chester, raid of Baldwin of Radington on, 130; affray at, _ib._, _note_ 1; town festival, 149; liberties forfeited, 247, _note_ 4; silting up of harbour, 270

Chester, Earl of, Liverpool granted to, 270

Children of citizens, age of taking up duties of citizenship, 194; of non-burgesses, age of beginning work, 194-5

Chimneys of tiles or brick, houses to be provided with, 194

Christ Church, Canterbury, its agreement with S. Augustine’s, 369; ownership of Sandwich, 399-400; owner of land in Lydd, 409; quarrels with Fordwich about the quay, 413; _see_ Canterbury

Christopher, the (ship), 316, _note_ 1

Church, hostile to the formation of communes, 279, _note_ 2

Church-ales at Plymouth, 160, 161; at Yaxley, 161, _note_

Churches, parish, their various uses, 153-156; apportionment of seats, 154; townspeople lay rectors of, 157; various expenses, 158-161; bequests for, 159; rebuilding of, in 15th century, 18

Churchyards and ecclesiastical precincts enclosed by walls, 335

Cinque Ports, their treaties with “French Shipmen,” 4, _note_ 1; house of elected mayor or jurat who declined to serve, pulled down, 187; jurats and barons of the, 386; confederation of, 386-399; privileges, 387-389; ownership of, 387, _notes_ 1 and 2; justices itinerant shut out from, 388; writ of error in, 388, _note_ 2; no trial by jury in, 388, _note_ 6; support Simon de Montfort, 388, _note_ 5; heavy charges for defence borne by, 389-390; payments for maintenance of liberties of, 390, _note_ 2; monopoly threatened by Yarmouth, 394; jealous watch against infractions of privileges, 398; accuser often executioner in, 412, _note_ 2; confederation affords no security to members against their lords, 414; various jurisdictions, 398; admiral of, 392; no coroner in, 388, _note_ 1; trading privileges, 414-415; confederation, unlike confederations abroad, 415; supports Cade, _ib._; supports Warwick, _ib._; courts of, _see_ Brotherhood, Guestling, Shepway

Cirencester, 295

Citizens, their busy life, 161; independence, 177; laws passed in Norwich and Worcester to compel men to become, 190; age for taking up duties, 194; outnumbered by the unenfranchised classes in the towns, 196; distinguished from “natives” in Hereford, 318; _see_ Burgesses, Burghers

Clarence, Duke of, present from Canterbury to, 215

Clergy as citizens, 175, _note_

Clisheath, fight on, 267

Clock, the town, 182

Clock-house, payments for, in Reading, 304

Cloth, altered conditions of production, 54; sold in London, _ib._, _note_ 1; taxes on, 81, _note_ 1; struggle for its free importation into Netherlands, 99, 100; undressed, its export forbidden, 110; terms of sale and finishing, granted to Henry VII. by Flanders, 113, _note_ 3; woollen, its export allowed to Portuguese, 121, _note_ 2; manufacture protected by government, 66, 67; attempt to confine its export to London, 69; dressing of, disputes about, 70; seal for sealing it, in Reading, 308; broad, 52; _see_ Trade

Cloth-workers, rivalry with wool-growers, 68

Clothiers distinguished from drapers, 67

“Clothing, Great,” of Worcester, 138, _note_

Coal, its early use in London, 55, _note_ 1

Cœur, Jacques, 114

Colchester, its condition, c. 1300, 14; progress in the 14th cent., _ib._, 15; burghers not to be appointed in any quest or assize outside the borough, 188, _note_ 2; Norwich system of government imitated by, 238, _note_ 2; gallows, 2, _note_; moot hall, 14; wool hall, _ib._

Cologne, Hanse of, 75, 76, _note_ 1

Commerce, treaties of, 66; government protection of, 66, 67; by sea, its early routes, 75-77; between England and the Baltic, 83; its two great routes, 83; in hands of foreign carriers, 83, 84; growth of private enterprise, 88, 89; transferred from foreign carrying vessels to those of English adventurers, 94; _see_ Trade, Treaties

Common, rights of, 136, 137, 181

Commons, House of, relation of boroughs to, 24; control over taxation, 25, _note_ 3; height of power in early 15th century, 26; petition for working of mines, 55, _note_ 1; _see_ Parliament

Communes, the Church hostile to the formation of, 279, _note_ 2; of France, contrast between their history and that of the English towns, 29-32

Communitas, its meaning, 167-168; early government, 169-171

Compass, its first recorded use in England, 107

Compurgation, 221, _note_ 2

Conesford Ward, Norwich, 239-40

Confederation, contrast between English boroughs and Continental towns as to, 384-385; of Cinque Ports, 386-99, 414-416

Constable, dispute about election of, in Reading, 304, 306; of the castle, his authority, 311-312

Convents, towns subject to, 227, 295

Copes, regulations about use of, at Plymouth, 158

Copper works at Dinant, 56; in England, _ib._

Cornwall, Sir John, Lord of Barnstaple, 253

Cornwall, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1; tin works, 83

Coroner, business of, 203; dispute in Exeter about the jurisdiction of, 355; of Devonshire, 355; in Cinque Ports, 388, _note_ 1

Corpus Christi, guild of, 150, 151

Coteler, J., lieutenant of mayor of Exeter, 346

Court, the papal, its demands from Canterbury cathedral, 376; _see_ Admiralty, Borough, Brotherhood, Curia Comitatus, Guestling, Hundred, King’s, Leet, Orphans, Portmote, Sheriffs, Shepway, Steward’s Hall Port, Tolbooth

Craft guilds, 150

Crafts, their formation into close companies, 195

Craftsmen, their political importance, 60; admitted as burgesses, 173

Cranmer, his refusal to lease out bailiwick of Romney to townspeople, 408-9; his lease of the bailiwick of Hythe to townspeople, 408

Cranbrooke, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1

Crete, English merchants buy wine in, 116

Criers in the towns, 161-162, 180

Cunningham, Sir Thomas, 98, _note_ 5

Curfew bell in Winchester, 324

Curia Comitatus at Norwich, 239

Customs, Hereford, 317; copy of, asked for by Cardiff, 228

D

Danzig, English cloth-dealers at, 95; English colony at, 104, _note_ 6

Dartmouth, its parish church, 157, _note_ 2

Davison, Sir W., 98, _note_ 5

Dean, Forest of, its forges, 54

Demesne, ancient, boroughs in, 227-229

Dengemarsh, 409

Denge Ness, 409

Denmark, English traders expelled from, 66; Henry VII.’s treaty with, 113

Derby, franchises of, forfeited, 247, _note_ 4

Derby, Earl of, Liverpool granted to, 270

Devon, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1

Devon, Earl of, his fight with Lord William Bonvil, 267-8

Devonshire, the coroner of, 355

Devonshire, Earls of, 266, 366; conflict of Exeter with, 339, 340

Dinant, its relation to the Hanseatic League, 82, _note_ 3; copper-workers of, their trade with England, 56

Disfranchised table, 181

Domesday, 343, 344, 345; of Ipswich, 225

Dominicans, their settlement in Winchester, 323

Doncaster, 269, _note_

Dorchester, extent of its jurisdiction, 3, _note_; sheriffs court at, 203, 204

Dorset, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1

Dover, member of Cinque Ports, 386; ownership of, 387, _note_ 1; church of S. James, 393; the Lord Warden’s court of appeal held at, 393-394; meeting of deputations from Lydd and Romney at, 411; punishment of thief, 221, _note_ 2; lieutenant of, 213, _note_ 1, 391; castle, constable of, 390, 392

Drain, at Canterbury, 20; at Exeter, 361

Drapers distinguished from clothiers, 67; of London, their first charter, 52, _note_ 3

Duel in Leicester, 221, _note_ 2; freedom from, in Lincoln, _ib._

Dunwich, 238, _note_ 3

E

Ecclesiastical estates, towns on, 227, 277-281; tenants of, their attitude in the towns, 191, 192

Edmund Crouchback, 269, _note_, 270, 271

Edmund, Bishop of Exeter, 343

Edward I., boroughs created by, 11, _note_ 3; charter to Norwich, 242; grant to Lydd, 410

Edward II., advantages to towns of disorders under, 237

Edward III., his dealings with the staple, 45, 46; relations with Florentine merchants, 78, 79; borrows money of Lübeck merchants, 83; advantages to towns of his commercial policy, 237

Edward IV., his relations with the Hanse, 109-110; grants fresh franchises to Exeter, 367, _note_ 2

Egypt, Venetians driven out of, 114

Elbing, market at, 104

Election of town officers, 224, 235

Empire, first mention of burgesses in, 11, _note_ 1

Enclosure of churchyards and ecclesiastical precincts within walls, 335

Engineers, Dutch and Flemish, employed in England, 142, 143, _note_, 403

England, its comparative unimportance in Europe in thirteenth century, 32, 33; character of its history in fifteenth century, 35-44; classes of its population c. 1453, 60

English language, prayers in, used by a Norfolk guild, 42, _note_

Escheator, the King’s, 208; appointment of mayor as, _ib._, _note_ 1; term of office, 234, _note_ 3

Essex, Dom Robert, manufactures silk at Westminster, 57, _note_ 2

Exe Island, 339

Exeter, its early government, 338; jurisdiction of Earls of Devonshire in, 339; disputes with them, 266, 339; with the cathedral, 340-368; discussion between bishop and mayor, 155; election of Shillingford as mayor, 340, 341; grant of Richard of Almayne to, 357; grants of Edward IV. to, 367, _note_ 2; almshouses at, 41, _note_ 2; right of arrest in, 364-366; assize of wine, bread, &c., 358-9; bridge at, 144; Broad Gate, 353; great drain, 361; Canon’s-street, 360; controversy as to common use of cathedral, 362-364; as to jurisdiction of coroner, 355; cathedral close, 352, 353, 355; provision for ferm in, 359; Fish-street, 360; price of admission to freedom, 178, _note_ 5; gates, dispute for control of, 361, 362; Guildhall, 341, 351, 356; hospitals, 41, _note_ 2; law against livery, 339; market, _ib._, 359, 360; St. Martin’s-street, 360; paving of, 18, _note_; bishop’s prison, 362; St. Peter’s fee, 357; Recorder, 345, 347; maces, 339, 367; Black Roll, 345; S. Stephen’s fee, 343; town-hall, 344; great tower, 361-2; warden of the poor, 41, _note_ 2; controversy as to watch and ward, 357, 358; wine gavell, 359

Exeter, Edmund, bishop of, 343

Exmouth, port, 346, 359

Export trade, revenue from, under Henry VII. and VIII., 58; industrial changes occasioned by, 67; disputes caused by, between merchants and artizans, 70; _see_ Trade

Extortion in the boroughs, 235, _note_ 1

F

Fairs and markets forbidden to be held in sanctuaries, 156; forbidden on Sundays and feast days, 156, _note_; of Ripon, 130; of Tetbury, 314; St. Giles’s, at Winchester, 324, 329; at Yarmouth, 395, 396, 415

Fastolf, Sir John, 259, _note_ 2, 267, _note_ 1

Faversham, its incorporation under mayor and jurats, 398, _note_ 2

Fécamp, abbey of, its relations to Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye, 387, _note_ 1

Fees on admission to freedom of town, 178; in kind at Wells, _ib._

Fellowship, Merchants’, in Bristol, 89; in London, attempt to monopolize the export of cloth, 69; of the mayor of Exeter, 346, 353, 366

Felon, dispute about the seizure of the goods of, in Exeter, 354

Ferm of towns, collection of, 205; settlement of, connected with election of mayor, 218, _note_; provision for payment of, 231, _note_ 1, 244, 359; leasing out of, 238, _note_ 3, 247, _note_ 4

Festivals, local, 149; complaints of their decay, 151; jubilee, at Canterbury cathedral, 376

Feudal estates, condition of towns on, 250, 251; lords, struggle of the boroughs with, 198-200, 255-257

Finance of towns, 138-141

Fines paid to be free of holding municipal offices, 187, _note_ 1; of borough or manor courts, granted to citizens, 231

Fineux, Master John, justiciar, 214

Florence adopts free trade, 117; Henry VII.’s commercial treaty with, _ib._; its trading importance, 78; loans of its merchants to Edward III., _ib._, 79; commercial revival after acquisition of Leghorn, 79

Folkestone, punishment of thief at, 221, _note_ 2

Fordwich, 227, 369; under mastership of Sandwich, 411, 412; extent of its territory, 412; jurisdiction of Abbot of S. Augustine’s, _ib._, 413; quarrels with Christ Church about quay, _ib._; regulations and taxations imposed by Sandwich on, _ib._; compromise with S. Augustine’s as to control of river and weirs, 414; capital punishment in, 412; judicial combat with alien in, 221, _note_ 2; Hundred court, 412; jurisdiction of mayor, _ib._; its officers, _ib._; prisons, _ib._; Thefeswell, _ib._

Foreigners, admitted as burgesses, 173, 178, _note_ 5; limitation of their rights, 184

Forfeiture of town privileges, 247, _note_ 4; of citizenship, 179, 180

Fortescue, Sir John, chief justice, 59, 346

France, condition of people in, as described by Fortescue, 59

Franchise forfeited by forsaking town for a year and a day, 179; refusal to take up, 186, 328; to be confined to members of craft guild, 195, 196; bondmen born not to be admitted to, in York and Bridgenorth, 196; of Lynn, controlled by the Bishop of Norwich, 286; _see_ Freedom

Franciscans in Winchester, 323

Frankpledge, view of, dispute in Lynn about, 290, 294

Fraternities at Bridport, 16

Freedom, municipal, ways of winning, 177, _note_ 1; mode and terms of admission to, 178, 179; lost by breach of public duty, 180; mode of recovery in Hereford, 180, _note_ 3; classes shut out from, 189, 190

Freemen, their decrease in Romney and Winchester, 190

Freeman’s prison, 185

Free-traders, their settlement outside the towns, 192, 193

“Frelidge” at Carlisle, 180

G

Gallows and pit, right of, 2, _note_

Gallows of prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, 373; the abbot’s, at Chaldensham, 372; of Colchester, 2, _note_; Southampton, _ib._; Worcester, 310

Gaol, the common, of Bristol, 315

Gascony, its trade with England, 119

Gates, dispute about control of, in Exeter, 362; in Winchester, 324

Gate, the Broad, of Exeter, 353

Gaunt, John of, 253, _note_ 2, 260, _note_ 2, 270

Gavell, the wine, in Exeter, 359; _see_ Chepin

Genoa, its trade, 79, 80; bank of S. George, 80; relations of its traders with England, 114, _note_, 115; proposal to forbid trade with, 116; disputes of its merchants with those of Bristol, 91, _note_ 2

Germin, treasurer of Exeter, 346

Gestling, drowning of felons in the, 221, _note_ 2

Glass, English, forbidden in Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick, 56, _note_ 4

Glass-painting, early English, 56

Gloucester made a shire, 12; owned by King, 227; custody of, given to one of the Berkeleys, 264; bell foundries at, 55, 56; paving of, 18, _note_

Gloucester, Duke of, at York, 216, 217

Gloucester, Earl of, his gallows at Worcester, 310

Godbeate, liberty of, in Winchester, 324

Goldsmiths of London, their wealth, 58

Grendon, Simon, Mayor of Exeter, 41, _note_ 2

Griffith, David ap, grant of ferm of Liverpool to, 275

Grimsby, regulation as to taxes in, 355, _note_ 2

Guestling, courts of, 397; _see_ Brotherhood

Guild at Birmingham, 20; of Corpus Christi, 150, 151; of Young Men at S. Edmundsbury, 296, 297; shipmen’s, at Hull, 89, _note_ 2; of merchants at Lynn, 89; at Malmesbury, dispute about, 302, _note_ 2; of Nottingham, rights of taxation given to, 355, _note_ 2; of Totnes, 251, 252; of Our Lady and S. George at Plymouth, 158; at York, 42, _note_, 89, _note_ 2

Guilds, festivals of, 150

Guild Hall, _see_ Hall

Guild Merchant, its importance in dependent towns, 302, 303; of Ipswich, 224, 225; Leicester, 355, _note_ 2; Liverpool, 270; Lynn, 286, 288; Reading, 300, 303, 304; Totnes, 175, _note_; claimed by S. Edmundsbury, 297, 298

Guns, English-made, their superiority, 55

H

Hadley, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1

Hall, the common, of Romney, 129, _note_ 2, 403, 405, _note_ 1; of Sandwich, 401; the guild, of Bridport, 16; Exeter, 341, 351, 356; London, 378, _note_ 2; Lynn, 283; Reading, 300, 304, 305; Winchester, 324

Hanse of Cologne, 75, 76, _note_ 1; Flemish, in London, 76

Hanseatic League, 81, 82; its carrying trade, 83; disputes with Lynn merchants, 91, _note_ 2; struggle with English Merchant Adventurers, 103-111; gathers fleet against England, 109; supports Edward IV., _ib._; Edward IV.’s treaty with, 110; its guildhall in London, _ib._; house at Boston and Lynn, _ib._; its decline, _ib._, 111; negotiations with Henry VII. at Antwerp, 113; expels English traders from Denmark, 66; succeeds Hanse of Cologne in the carrying trade, 77

Harbledown, hospital of S. Nicholas at, 369

Harbours, making and improving, 142-144

“Harry Grâce à Dieu,” the, 84, _note_ 1

Hastings, 386; castle, 387, _note_ 1

Haute, William, lord of the manor of Bishopsbourne, 216, _note_ 2

Hemp, grown at Bridport, 202

Henry III., advantages to towns of his reign, 237; charter to Liverpool, 270; to Norwich, 242

Henry IV. supports the Merchant Adventurers, 95, 96, 105, 106; advantages to towns of his political insecurity, 237; charter to Norwich, 245-6

Henry V. forbids English trade with Iceland, 106; plans a royal navy, 86; advantages to towns of his financial needs, 237

Henry VI., Canterbury associated with the party of, 215; advantages to towns of tumults of his reign, 237; charter to Barnstaple, 255

Henry VII., his position among English sovereigns, 73, 74; received at Canterbury, 37, _note_; enforces Navigation Act, 94; patron of the Merchant Adventurers, 96, 111, 112; international treaties of commerce, 66; renews treaty with Brittany, 112; treaties with Burgundy, 4; commercial treaty with Florence, 117; with Riga, 113; with Scandinavia, _ib._; with Venice, 118; confirms treaty of Utrecht, 112; negotiations with Hanseatic League at Antwerp, 113; treatment of Lombards, 116; secures protection for English merchants in Bordeaux, 119; stipulations for free trade with Spain, 120

Herbert, bishop of Norwich, 282

Hereford, municipal almshouse at, 41, _note_ 2; duties of its citizens to their chief magistrate, 126; town bell, 127; mode of recovery of freedom, 180, _note_ 3; the burghers’ account of their freedom, 199, 200; law against maintainers or protectors, 220, 221; trial by combat abolished, _ib._; customs, 317; relations with lay and ecclesiastical lords and their tenants within its liberties, 317-320; distinction drawn between “citizens” and “natives,” 318; authority over those privileged to trade in town, 318, 319; capital bailiff, 229, 319, 320; punishment of a vagabond, 319, 320; tenants of various fees allowed to plead in the courts of, 320; refusal to give Cardiff copy of customs, 228, 229

Highway, the king’s, sale of merchandise in, 156

Holcraft, Thomas, ferm of Liverpool let to, 275

Holland, engineers from, employed at Hythe, 142, 143, _note_; at Sandwich, 142

“Holland” linen made in England, 57

Hollingbroke, ward in Romney named after, 402, 403

Horn, the common, 161; at Dover, 178, _note_ 5; of S. Edmundsbury, 296; of Romney, 404, 405, _note_ 1

Hospital at Exeter, 41, _note_ 2; at Sandwich, _ib._; the Magdalen, Winchester, 328, 329; of S. Nicholas, Harbledown, 369

Hospital of S. John, Worcester, refusal of its tenants to aid in taxes, &c., 357, _note_ 4

House built by burgher as security on admission to freedom, 179; of burgher must be kept in proper repair, _ib._, 180; of stone, 193; the Queen’s, at Winchester, 323

Hull, shipbuilding at, 89; shipmen’s guild at, 89, _note_ 2

Hundred, freedom from officers of, 232, 233

Hundred court in Fordwich, 412; Sandwich, 401

Huntingdon, perambulation of its boundaries, 134, _note_

Huntingdon, Countess of, owner of Barnstaple, 253

Huy, burgesses at, 11, _note_ 1

Hythe, ownership of, 227, 387, _note_ 1; member of Cinque Ports, 386; payment towards renewal of Cinque Ports charters, 390, _note_ 2; Cranmer’s lease of bailiwick to townspeople, 408; appointment of bailiff, _ib._, _note_; grant of mayor to, _ib._; new harbour made at (1412), 142, 143; subscriptions for new steeple, 160, _note_

I

Iceland, English Adventurers in, 106, 107

Income-tax in towns, 139

Incorporation, charters of, 219, _note_ 1

Industry, revolution in, during 14th and 15th centuries, 39, 40, 44, 45; changes in, 67, 70, 71; relations of government to, 67, 70-72; state protection of, 72, 73

Inferiores, in Lynn, 193, _note_

Inns of London, 378, _note_ 2; bailiffs and jurats allowed to hold, in Romney, 404, _note_ 2; the “Swan” at Canterbury, 216

_Intercursus Magnus_, 112

Ipswich, archbishop of Canterbury given right to trade in, 177, _note_ 2; general assembly, 224; barge, 85, _note_ 2; charter from John, 223, 224; charter withdrawn, 247, _note_ 4; Domesday Roll, 225; election of officers, 224; Guild Merchant, _ib._, 224, 225; ordinances, 224; arrest of Scotch priests, 230, _note_ 3; common seal, 225; guardianship of sea, 234, _note_ 2

Ireland, its trade with Liverpool, 270

Irishmen, feeling against, in the towns, 173, 174, _note_ 1

Iron, trade in England, 54; increase in price, 55; imported from Sweden and Spain, 55

Italy, merchants of, their privileges in England, 78; expulsion from London, 329, 330; hire houses in Winchester, 330; settle in Southampton, _ib._

J

Jewry of Bishop’s Lynn, 283

John, advantages to towns of his money difficulties, 237; charter to Ipswich, 223; to Liverpool, 270; to Lynn, 283

Jurats of the Cinque Ports, 386

Jury, citizens from twelve years old might serve on, 184; exemption from serving on, granted to burghers of Reading, 306; payments to “friendly,” 212; no trial by, in Cinque Ports, 388, _note_ 6

Justices, itinerant, shut out from Cinque Ports, 388; of the Peace, 247

K

Kent, men of, their evil reputation in Middle Ages, 415

Kiln of feudal lord, 199

King, the, and Commons, 25, _note_ 3, 26; his sovereign rights, 207-209; various officers of, who visited the towns, 208-210; power of, to withdraw or question the value of charters and ancient customs, 211, 212; as lord of manor, 229-232; his sympathy with borough in questions as to rival jurisdictions, 232, 233; his difficulty in finding sufficient officers, 234; power of granting privileges beyond that of other lords, 263, _note_ 2; loans to, 27, _note_ 2, 305, _note_ 1

King’s court, 208

L

Labour, division of, 67; forced, in towns, 141, 142

Landowners, unfavourable conditions of life of, 258-268

Language, English, prayers in, used by a Norfolk guild, 42, _note_

Laonnais, federative republic of, 415

Law, king’s, and town law, 236, _note_

Law day, business done at, 203

Law Merchant, 48

Lawsuits, increase caused by growth of trade, 58; of nobles, 266

Leet in Norwich, 240, 242, 243

Leet court, 336; in Lynn, 288, 294; in Norwich, 230, _note_ 3; in Nottingham, 336, _note_ 3

Leghorn won by Florence, 79

Leicester, owned by lay noble, 227; dispute about election of mayor, 235, _note_ 2; town property, 269, _note_; charter from Edmund Crouchback, _ib._; regulations as to taxes, 355, _note_ 2; Guild Merchant, _ib._; duel in, 221, _note_ 2; petition for abolition of “borough English” in, 222

“Libel of English Policy,” 61, 62; the second, 62-64

Likedelers of Calais, 90

Lincoln, charter of, 238, _note_ 2; complaint about trials in, 336, 337; freedom from duel, 221, _note_ 2

Linen manufacture, its beginnings in England, 57

Lisbon, commercial treaty with, 121

Lisle, Lord, his death at Nibley Green, 267

Liverpool, burgages in, 172; takes place of Chester as landing place, 270; trade with Ireland, _ib._; common seal, _ib._; election of bailiffs, _ib._; charter from John, _ib._; from Henry III., _ib._; granted to constable of Lancaster Castle, _ib._; resumed by John, _ib._; to Earl of Chester, _ib._; to Earl of Derby, _ib._; to Edmund Crouchback, _ib._; passed by marriage to John of Gaunt, _ib._; Quo Warranto in, _ib._, 271; first mayor, 218, _note_, 271; leases of fee form, 218, _note_, 270, 271; liberties usurped by Edmund Crouchback, 271; dependence on lord, 272; reverts to crown, _ib._; petition of burgesses, _ib._, _note_ 3; relations with Molyneux and Stanley, 273-276; grant of ferm to David ap Griffith, 275; ferm let to Thomas Holcraft, _ib._; granted to corporation, _ib._; revenue, 273, _note_ 1

Livery, 339; town laws against, 257, 268; supplied from lord’s estate, 260

Loans, voluntary, from towns to the king, 27, _note_ 2

Lombards settled in London, 81; their relations with Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry VII., 116; persecution of, in London, _ib._

London hires out its common barge, 87, _note_ 3; bell foundries in, 55, 56; first notice of bricks in, 56, _note_ 3; bridge of, 144; drapers of, 52, _note_ 3; cloth sold in, 54, _note_ 1; use of coal in, 55, _note_ 1; wealth of its goldsmiths, 58; guildhall, 378, _note_ 2; Flemish Hanse of, 76; guildhall of Hanseatic League, 110; inns, 378, _note_ 2; Italian merchants expelled from, 329, 330; Lombards in, 81, 116; house of Cologne merchants in, 76, _note_ 1; Merchants’ Fellowship of, its attempt to monopolize export of cloth, 69; annexes Middlesex, 219, _note_ 3; Recorder of, 372, 378, _note_ 2; silk manufacture in, 57, _note_ 2; settlers from, at Rye, 17; effort to concentrate oreign trade in, 69; paviour from, employed at Southampton, 18, _note_; great play acted in, 145

Longport, Canterbury, disputes about rights of arrest in, 372

Lübeck, head of the Hanseatic League, 81, 82; succeeds to financial importance of Florence, 79; its merchants farm the English wool tax, 83; lend money to Edward III., _ib._; rent English mines, _ib._

Lucas, Hugh, arrest of, in Exeter, 351

Lydd, expenses incurred in war, 415, _note_ 4; fine for refusing to take journey on town business in, 187; incorporation under mayor and jurats, 398, _note_ 2; assessment of income tax, 139, _note_ 2; imitates Romney jetty, 143, _note_; liberties given by Edward I. to, 410; quarrel with Battle about boundaries, 411; loan to Thomas Dygon, 139; minstrels at, 147; plays, &c., at, 148; provision for poor in, 41, _note_ 2; Portuguese in, 122, _note_; use of archbishop’s seal in, 410; its services at archbishop’s court commuted for yearly payment, 409, 410; its hired ships, 87; style under Henry VI., 410; subjection to Romney, 410, 411; town clerk, 411; watch on S. John’s Eve, 148

Lynn under Bishop of Norwich, 227, 282; granted by Bishop Herbert to monks of Norwich, 282; repurchased, 283-4; charters from John, 283; of 1335, 289; from bishop, 290; struggle between bishop and town, 287-294; petition for relief from demands of king’s bailiffs, 285, _note_ 1; expenses of bribes, 214, _note_ 3; Church of St. Margaret, 283; disputes with the lords of Castle Rising, 284-5 various courts held by the Bishop of Norwich, 285-6; courts leased by bishop to burghers, 294; municipal debt, 140, _note_ 1; franchise controlled by the Bishop of Norwich, 286; dispute about the view of frankpledge, 290, 294; guildhall, 283; guild of merchants, 89; Guild Merchant, 286, 288; house of the Hanseatic League, 110; cross set up by hermit at, 175, _note_; “Inferiores,” 193, _note_; Jewry, 283; Leet court, 288, 294; Tolbooth court, 286, 288; the authority of the mayor limited by the Bishop of Norwich, 286; disputes of merchants with the Hanse, 91, _note_ 2; lends money to the king, 27, _note_ 2; payment of players, 145, _note_; growth of shipping, 87; taxation for Church expenses, 158, _note_ 3; trade with Iceland forbidden, 107, _note_ 1; wealth in the thirteenth century, 286; proving of wills at, 289

“Lyvelode,” 139

M

Maces, at Canterbury, 381; Exeter, 339, 367; Norwich, 246; Reading, 306; Romney, 406

Maintenance, statute of, 221, _note_ 1; town laws against, 257

Malmesbury, dispute about guild at, 302, _note_ 2

“Maltodes,” 139

Malvern, fifteenth century glass at, 56, _note_ 4

Manchester, qualifications of burghers in, 170, _note_ 2; charter, 181, _note_ 3

Mancroft, ward in Norwich, 240

Manufactures, growth of, in England in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 44, 45, 67; of cloth, 52-54; of wool, in Normandy, 119

Manufacturers, rivalry with merchants, 68

Marienburg, treaty of commerce made at, 104, _note_ 6

Mariners of England and France, agreement between, 396, _note_ 3

Market, the king’s clerk of, 208; payments for freedom of, 192; market at Barnstaple, 253, _note_ 3; Canterbury, 371-2, 377-380; Exeter, 359, 360

Marshal of king’s house, extent of his jurisdiction, 209

Mastez in Sandwich, 184, _note_ 5

Matthyessone, Gerard, Dutch engineer employed at Romney, 143, _note_

Mayor, election of, 12; its connexion with settlement of fee-farm rent, 218, _note_ 1; various offices given to, 231, 233, 234, 236; position between the king and townspeople, 236-7; of Bristol, charter to the, 313; his daughter’s marriage with Lord Berkeley, 316; of Canterbury, his office respecting pilgrims, 376; of Exeter, his dependence on the Earl of Devonshire, 339; of Fordwich, his jurisdiction, 412; of Hythe, 408, _note_; of Leicester, dispute about election of, 235, _note_ 2; of Liverpool, first election of, 218, _note_, 271; of Lydd, 398, _note_ 2; of Lynn, his authority limited by Bishop of Norwich, 286; dispute with the Bishop about jurisdiction, 289-94; his sword, 293; of Norwich, rights of jurisdiction given to, in 1403, 245-6; made mayor of Staple, 245; his salary, _ib._; his sword and maces, 246; appointed King’s Escheator in Norwich, _ib._; of Reading, provision for his salary, 300, 304, 305; his mace, 306; disputes about election, _ib._, 307; of Romney, 409; deposed by Privy Seal, 407; of Sandwich, 400; his power to arrest on suspicion, 184, _note_ 5; of Winchester, 325; of the Staple, 46, 48

Mediterranean, its trade, 77, 78

Melton, action against townsmen for not baking bread at lord’s oven in, 199, _note_ 1

Memling’s Last Judgement, its adventures, 109, _note_ 2

Mendip, mines in, 55

Mercers of York, 89, _note_ 2

Merchant Guild, _see_ Guild Merchant

Merchants, their aversion from foreign war, 64; rivalry with manufacturers, 68; associations of, 88; increase in their number, 89; Fellowship of, at Bristol, _ib._; guild of, at Lynn, _ib._; Italian, their privileges in England, 78; of London, seek to monopolize foreign trade, 69; Statute of, 156

Middlesex annexed to London, 219, _note_ 3

Mill of feudal lord, 199; at Canterbury, 371-2, 380-1

Mines, English, 55; rented by Lübeck merchants, 83

Miners of Mendip, riot of, 55; of Sussex, 415

Minstrels, 147; of Canterbury, 145

Mint at Calais, 49

Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, his Libel of English Policy, 61, 62

Molyneux, Sir Richard, his relations with Liverpool, 273-276

Monkenkey, Sandwich, owned by Christ Church, Canterbury, 400

Montault, Robert of, his struggle with Lynn, 284-5

Montfort, Simon de, Norwich and Winchester against, 242; supported by Cinque Ports, 388, _note_ 5

Moot Hall at Colchester, 14

Morgespeche of Guild of Reading, 303

Morpeth, 227

Mortmain, Statute of, 219, 246-7; extended to cities and boroughs, 219, _note_ 2

Morton, Cardinal, 211, _note_, 376-7

Music, its developement in England in fifteenth century, 44

N

“Natives,” their distinction from citizens in Hereford, 318

Navigation Act, the first, 84; put in force by Henry VII., 94; of 1489, 112, 119

Navy, mediæval idea of its origin and use, 75; planned by Henry V., 86; merchant, its character, 92; its inefficiency as a royal navy, 93

Netherlands, rivalry with England in the cloth trade, 65, 66; English traders in, 98-101

Newgate, leet of, in Norwich, 242, 243

Nicholas of the Tower (ship), 89

Nibley Green, battle of, 267, 316

Nobles, their patronage sought by towns, 216; honours paid to, 256; dress and state, _ib._, 257; decay and poverty, 257; stores of treasure, 259; money difficulties, _ib._; dependents, 260; borrowing and debts, 261-2; leasing out privileges to townspeople, 263; frequent absences from home, 264, 265; heavy consequences of rebellions and civil wars to, 265-266; feuds and lawsuits, 266-268

Non-burgesses, 193-196

Norfolk, cloth-making in, 52, _note_ 1; worsted manufacture, 54; increase of lawsuits, 58; traders robbed by Danes, 91

Normandy, beginning of its woollen manufactures, 119; Henry I.’s charters to towns in, 172, _note_ 1

Northampton, charter of, 238, _note_ 2; collection of arrears of ferm, 205-6

Norton Mandeville, cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1

Norwich, its condition before Henry II.’s time, 238; charter of Richard I., _ib._; of Henry III., 242; of Edward I., _ib._; of Henry IV., 245-6; sided with king against De Montfort, 242; authority exercised by Parliament over, 235, _note_ 2; liberties forfeited, 243, 247, _note_ 4; petition in 1307, 243-4; made county, 245; made staple town, 245; sues for repayment of a loan to the king, 27, _note_ 2; twelve of its citizens distrained for the city’s debt to the king, 140; action in Wars of the Roses, 37, _note_; under the protection of Suffolk, 216; rivalry with Yarmouth, 163, _note_; admiral appointed in, 245; its burghers freed from arrest for debt, 242; four bailiffs, 240, 245, 246; bell foundries, 55, 56; Borough Court, 239; castle fee and its tenants, 240, 241, 244, 245, 313; law passed to compel men to become citizens, 190; church of S. George, 243; exemption from clerk of the market, 208, _note_ 2, 245; ditch, 242; exports in 1374, 88, _note_ 2; ferm, 238; provision for, 244; guild of S. George, 150; system of government imitated by Yarmouth and Colchester, 238, _note_ 2; inhabitants in thirteenth century, 171, _note_ 3; increase of lawsuits in, 58; four leets, 240; leet of Newgate, 242, 243; amercements ordered by Leet Court, 230, _note_ 3; mayor of, his salary, 208, _note_ 1; his rights of jurisdiction, 245-6; his sword and maces, 246; made mayor of Staple, _ib._; made King’s Escheator, _ib._; payment for charter, 238; petition against players, 152; Provost, 238, 239; seal, 246; sheriffs, _ib._; municipal taxation, royal interference with, 219, _note_ 4, 241, 355, _note_ 2; adventures of a thief, 243; tollbooth, 239; four wards, 239, 240; towers and walls, provision for repairing, 245, _note_ 4

Norwich, Bishops of, _see_ Herbert, Lynn

Nottingham, borough in ancient demesne, 227; charter, 238, _note_ 2; franchise forfeited, 247, _note_ 4; foreigners to pay £10 for admission to freedom, 178, _note_ 5; payment for liberties, 232, _note_ 1; rights of taxation given to the guild, 355, _note_ 2; “booners” in, 141; “borough English,” 222, _note_ 1; bridge, 144; burgages, 172; court leet, 336, _note_ 3; pledges, 178, _note_ 4; pleas concerning trade, 58

Novgorod, 77, 111

O

Official, the Master, of the archdeacon at Nottingham, 336, _note_ 3

Onterdel, Dutch engineer employed at Romney, 143, _note_

Oporto, commercial treaty with, 121

Orphans, Court of, 41, _note_ 2

Outbutchery built in Reading, 304

Oven of feudal lord, 199; of householders at Preston, _ib._

Oxford, first notice of bricks in, 56, _note_ 3

P

Palmer, John, of Exeter, 41, _note_ 2

Parliament, representation of towns in, 4, 7, 24, 25; Brinklow’s criticism on, 60, _note_ 4; authority exercised by, in Norwich, 235, _note_ 2; expenses of members of, in Winchester, 329; _see_ Commons

Paston family, stores in their house, 259, _note_ 2

Paston, Sir John, 260, 265

Paston, Judge, 265

Pavilion, the, in Winchester, 322

Paving of towns, 18, _note_

Payments from towns for the confirmation of charters, 211, 303; for liberties, 232, 238; for deliverance from feudal obligations, 198; in kind at Bridport, 204-5

Peasant Revolt, 196, 237

“Penny prykke,” game of, 363

Pershore, Abbot of, his gallows in Worcester, 310

Philip, Archduke, makes Bruges the staple for English cloth in Flanders, 113, _note_ 3

Picardy, commercial league of, 415

“Piers Ploughman,” picture of English life in, 21; dealings with the social problems of the day, 22; his theory of King and Commons, 25, _note_ 3, 26

Pilgrims to Canterbury, provision for the safety and comfort of, 375, 376

Pillory, 252, 315

Pit and gallows, right of, 2, _note_

Pirates attack English Adventurers, 90, 91

Pisa, English wool merchants at, 117

Plays, 145-148

Players, petition against, in Norwich, 152

Pledges required of candidates for citizenship, 178

Plimpton, charter of Baldwin of Redvers to, 263, _note_ 2; agreement of the convent of, with Plymouth, 296, _note_; rope yarn made at, 202

Plumpton family, their money difficulties, 261

Plumpton, Sir John, 130

Plumpton, Sir William, 265, 266, _note_ 1

Plymouth, its agreement with the convent of Plimpton, 296, _note_; money collected for S. Andrew’s by church ales, 160, 161; regulations about the use of copes, 158; the guild of our Lady and S. George, _ib._; of Corpus Christi, 151; incorporation of tailors, _ib._

Ponthieu, federative republic of, 415

Portmanbrok in Reading, 300, 304

Portmen in Ipswich, 224

Portmote, _see_ Borough Court

Portugal succeeds Venice in the Eastern trade, 121; commercial treaty with, _ib._

Pratt, William, builds the first main drain at Canterbury, 19, 20

Preston, its various lords, 253, _note_ 2; qualifications of burghers, 170, _note_ 2; their privileges, 190, _note_ 3, 198, 199; punishment for breach of public duty, 181

Prison of the bishop, in Exeter, 362; freeman’s, 185; the abbot’s, at Fordwich, 412

Privy Seal, _see_ Seal

Probate, claimed by the Mayor of Canterbury, 200, _note_ 1; at Lynn, 289

Provost of Norwich, his election, 238; his duties, 239; replaced by four bailiffs, 240

Prussia, English traders banished from, 66

Purveyors, the king’s, 210

Q

Quay at Fordwich, quarrels about the, 413; of Sandwich, agreement between Christ Church and Sandwich about, 400, _note_ 2

“Queke,” game of, 363

Quo Warranto in Liverpool, 270

R

Radford, Recorder of Exeter, 345, 347

Radington, Baldwin of, 130

Ramsey, carpet and tapestry manufactories at, 57; tenants of King’s Ripton transferred to the Abbey of, 228, _note_

Reading, originally on royal demesne, 299; its subjection to the Abbot, _ib._, 227; struggle with him, 300, 301, 303-308; confirmation of charters, 303; archers, 16, _note_; view of arms, _ib._; bell, 304; nineteen bridges, 301, _note_ 2; the Hallowed Brook, 304; chepin gavell in, 299, 306; common chest, 305, 306; constable, 304, 306; guild merchant, 300, 303, 304; guildhall, 303, 304, 305; exemption from serving on juries granted to burghers, 306; loans to the king, 305, _note_ 1; the mayor, his salary, 304, 305; his mace, 306; disputes about his election, 306, 307; register of his acts, 305; Morgespeche, 303; Outbutchery, 304; Portmanbrok, 300, 304; seal for cloth, 308; contribution of soldiers under Edward VI., 16, _note_

Reap-silver, 171, _note_ 2

Recorder of Exeter, 345, 347; of London, 372, 378, _note_ 2

Redcliffe, dispute about ownership of, 314, 315; incorporated with Bristol, 314, _note_

Redvers, Baldwin of, his charter to Plimpton, 263, _note_ 2

Religion among English townsfolk in 15th century, 42

Rhine, commercial league of the, 415

Ricart of Bristol, his notices of political events, 37, _note_

Richard I., advantages to towns of his money difficulties, 237; his charters to towns, 238

Richard III.’s dealings with York, 27, _note_ 2

Richard of Almayne, his grant to Exeter, 357

Riga, Henry VII.’s commercial treaty with, 113

Ripon, its fair, 130; fight at, in 1441, _ib._

Ripton, King’s, tenants of, transferred to the abbey of Ramsey, 228, _note_

Rising, Castle, disputes between the lords of, and the bishop of Norwich, 284; its rights in Lynn pass to Edward III., 285

Roan, John, Flemish engineer employed at Romney, 143, _note_

Rochelle, its wine trade with Romney, 88

Rochester, the King’s hackney-men in, 209, _note_ 3; castle of, owner of land in Lydd, 409

Roll, the Black, of Exeter, 345

Romney under Archbishop of Canterbury, 227; member of Cinque Ports, 386; ownership of, 387, _note_ 1; struggle for freedom, 404-409; claim to be a royal borough, 407-408; struggle with Lydd, 409, 411; auditing of town accounts, 139, _note_ 2; bailiff, 404-406; bell, 405, _note_ 1; Cranmer’s refusal to lease out bailiwick to townspeople, 408-409; common barges, 87, 88; decay of burghers, 403; book of customs, 405, _note_ 1; commerce, 87, 88; common hall, 129, _note_ 2, 403, 405, _note_ 1; common horn, 404, 405, _note_ 1; care of common lands, 136, 137; decrease of freemen, 190; bailiffs and jurats allowed to hold inns, 404, _note_ 2; government by senior jurat, 409; places of assembly of jurats, 405, _note_ 1; grant of mayor, 409; mayor deposed by Privy Seal, 407; silver mace, 406; payment for maintenance of liberties of Cinque Ports, 390, _note_ 2; plays at, 148; silting up of its port, 403; punishment of elected mayor or jurat who refused to serve, 188; seal, 405, _note_ 1; sluices, 143, _note_; assessment of taxes, 402, _note_ 4; trade, 402-403, 88; wards, 402, _note_ 4

Roofs of tiles or brick, houses to be provided with, 194

Ropes, made at Bridport, 202

Rosiers, at Canterbury, dispute for jurisdiction over, 135, 136

Rother, river, 403

Rotherham college, its red brick, 56, _note_ 3

Rowley, William, 120, _note_

Russia, Henry VII.’s attempt to secure trade with, 113

Rye, ownership of, 387, _note_ 1; member of Cinque Ports, 386; growth, 17; auditing of its accounts, 139, _note_ 2; expenses for war, 415, _note_ 4; tax for its fortification, 129, _note_ 1; London merchants in, 17; building of its quay, 142, _note_ 2; rights of sanctuary forbidden in, 338; its “schipwrite,” 88, _note_ 2; trade, 88; gifts to poor, 41, _note_ 2; wards, 17

S

Sailors, in seaports, 194

St. Albans, ownership of, 227; renounces its liberties, 295, _note_ 2; its seal, _ib._

St. Edmundsbury, its agricultural services, 171, _note_ 2; dispute with abbot, 296-298; Guild of Young Men, 296, 297; claims a merchant guild, 297, 298; common horn, 296; seal, 298

Salford, qualification for citizenship in, 170, _note_ 2

Salisbury, bell foundries at, 55, 56; cloth sold at, 54, _note_ 1; relations between citizens and bishop, 281, _note_

Sanctuary, question of, 337-8; in Canterbury Cathedral, 374; rights of, forbidden in Rye, 338

Sandwich, member of Cinque Ports, 386; port of London, 369, _note_ 3; ownership, 387, _note_ 1, 399, 400; freedom as royal borough, 402; refuses loan to the king, 27, _note_ 2; quarrels with Canterbury, 163, _note_; mastery of Fordwich, 411-413; common assembly, 401; Hundred court, _ib._; powers of King’s bailiff in, 400-402; church of S. Clements, 401; of S. Peter, _ib._; engages a Dutchman to make a new dyke, 142; harbour, 369; privilege of burghers, 185; market-place and common hall, 401; the Mastez in, 184, _note_ 5; its mayor manager of the hospitals, 41, _note_ 2; his power to arrest on suspicion, 184, _note_ 5; mayor and jurats, 400-402; Monkenkey, 400; punishment of men charged with homicide or theft, 221, _note_ 2; of elected treasurer who refused to serve, 188; penalty for wounding in, 132, _note_ 2

Scarborough, its complaint about ferm, 247, _note_ 4

“Scavadge,” 142, _note_ 1

Scot-ales, 206, 207

Scotland, war with, Morton’s demands for, 376, 377

Scots traders at Veere, 98, _note_ 5

Schonen, English cloth dealers at, 95

Seaford, 386, _note_ 2

Seaports, their duties, 128, 129

Seals, 175-6; English, their fine workmanship, 225, _note_; of Archbishop of Canterbury used in Lydd, 410; of Barnstaple, 225, _note_; of Doncaster, 269, _note_; Ipswich, 225; Liverpool, 270; Norwich, 246; for sealing the cloth in Reading, 308; of Romney, 405, _note_ 1; St. Albans, 295, _note_ 2; of S. Edmundsbury, 298; of Lord Warden of Cinque Ports, necessary to make King’s writ valid, 387; the Great, request that only laymen should have charge of, 365, _note_ 3; the Privy, writ of, 341; mayor of Romney deposed by, 407

Security required by town on admission of man to freedom, 179

Self-government in the towns, 1-3, 218

Selling, Prior, of Christ Church, Canterbury, 377

Serfs, conditions of their emancipation in towns, 174, _note_ 3

Shepway, court of, 388, 391-394, 396, _note_ 2

Sheriff, jurisdiction of the, 203-4; appointment of deputy by, 204; assessor and collector of royal taxes and rents, _ib._; duties as head of shire forces, _ib._; tyranny and extortion of, 206; hatred of, expressed in popular ballads and books, 207; term of office, 234, _note_ 3; business at Bridport, 204; modes of extortion in Canterbury and Bridgenorth, 207; court at Dorchester, 203, 204; of Norfolk, his Curia Comitatus at Norwich, 239; jurisdiction there, 246; of Norwich, 246

“Shewage,” 142, _note_ 1

Shillingford, John, 338, 340-341, 346-348, 350

Shipbuilding for aliens, 86; at Hull, 89; at Woolwich, 84, _note_ 1; its costliness, 87

Shipmen’s guild at Hull, 89, _note_ 2

Shipping, native and foreign, regulation of, 84; its conditions in England, 85, 86; growth in seaport towns, 87; trade taken under State protection (1489), 112

Ships, English and foreign, sizes of, 84, _note_ 1; English, dispute with Flemish, 92, _note_ 2; _see_ Christopher, Grâce, Harry, Nicholas, Trinity

Shire officers, 203-207; freedom from them, 232-3

Shrewsbury, wearing of liveries forbidden in, 268, _note_ 2

Shrewsbury, Countess of, her agreement with James, Lord of Berkeley, 266

Silk, its importation forbidden, 110; manufacture, its beginning in England, 57; carried on by women in London, _ib._, _note_ 2

Silver mines in England, 55, _note_ 1

Skenes, Irish, 351

Soke, the bishop’s at Winchester, 322

Soldiers, charges of levying for royal service, 374

Somerset, its silver mines, 55, _note_ 1

Southampton, owned by King, 227; burgess imprisoned for its rent, 140, 141; liberties forfeited, 247, _note_ 4; its aqueduct and water supply, 19, _note_; constable of castle, 312; gallows, 2, _note_; licence to buy and sell during S. Giles’ Fair, 329; Italian merchants at, 78, 81, 330; paving, 18, _note_; provision for poor, 41, _note_ 2; ship, 85, _note_ 2; rights of Bishop of Winchester in, during fair of S. Giles, 324, _note_ 3

Spain, English trade with, 120, 121

Stalls, in Exeter market place, 360; the Queen’s, in Winchester, 323

Stanley, John of, 130

Stanley, Sir John, his relations with Liverpool, 273-276

Staple, the, 45; its wanderings under Edward III., _ib._, 46; fixed at Calais, _ib._; mayors and aldermen of, _ib._, 48; English towns of, 46; rules, 46-48; authority, 48; merchants of, monopolize export of wool, 49; of Calais, its money transactions with the captain and the Government, _ib._, 50; decline, 51; struggle against Merchant Adventurers, 101-103; Mediterranean merchants freed from its control, 78; appointment of mayor as mayor of, 234; set up by English adventurers at Bergen, 95; for English cloth in Flanders, placed at Bruges by Archduke Philip, 113, _note_ 3

Staplegate at Canterbury, 370

Statute of Maintenance, 221, _note_ 1; of Merchants, 156; of Mortmain, 219, 246-7

Steel-yard, the, 83, 109, 110

Steward of King’s house, his jurisdiction, 209

Steward’s Hall Port of Lynn, 294

Stonor, harbour of, 369

Sturgeon, Nicholas, 44, _note_ 1

Sturmys of Bristol, sends a ship to the East, 115

Sturry, 369

Sudbury, Archbishop, 374

Suffolk, Duke of, 216

Sussex, miners of, their evil reputation in Middle Ages, 415

Swithun, S., the convent of, at Winchester, 322, 323, _see_ Winchester

Sword, of mayor of Norwich, 246; of mayor of Lynn, 293

T

Tailors at Plymouth incorporated, 151

Taperaxe, 412

Tapestry factory at Ramsey, 57

Taverner, John, builds a “carrack” at Hull, 89

Tax on wool farmed by Lübeck merchants, 83

Taxation, changes in, 27, _note_ 1; of cloth, 81, _note_ 1; illegal, controlled by Commons, 25, _note_ 3; internal, of towns, 139, 355-357; interference with, in Norwich, 219, _note_ 4

Temple Fee, Bristol, 313, _note_ 2

Tennis, game of, 363

Tetbury fair, 314

Teutonic Order banishes English traders from Prussia, 66

“Thefeswell” in Fordwich, 412

Thiefdown, 221, _note_ 2

Thomas, S., feast of translation of, 370

Tin-works, Cornish, rented by Lübeck merchants, 83

Tolbooth at Norwich, 239; Court at Lynn, 286, 288; Port, at Lynn, 294

Toll hall at Bridport, 16

Tolls of cloth-exporters and staplers compared, 52; on export, 90, _note_ 2; for Merchant Adventurers, fixed by charter in Burgundy, 96; freedom from, granted to burghers, 183

Topsham, 359

Totnes, jurisdiction of the lord’s bailiff in, 252-3; disputes between lord and tenants, 252; poverty in 1449, 159; wooden belfry replaced by stone tower, 160; Guild under Henry II. and John, 251; rights claimed by, 251-2; Merchant Guild, 175, _note_; water-bearers, 157, _note_

Towns, English, their importance in fifteenth century, 1; significance of their history, 8-10; beginning of municipal history, 11; contrast of their history with that of French communes, 29-32; their lowly beginnings, 33; relation to the Government, 27; importance of their internal administration, 20; their contribution to the reorganization of society, 23, 24; progress up to fourteenth century, 10-12; in fourteenth century, 13; place in history of fifteenth century, 40-44; fallen condition in 1835, 5, 6; attitude in Wars of Roses, 164; ratify Henry VII.’s treaties with Burgundy, 4; their self-contained and self-dependent life, 125; changes in their condition through increase of industry and commerce, 171; amusements in, 145-153; assemblies, 223; “common barges,” 140; preservation of boundaries and “liberties,” 134; common lands, 136, 137; common revenue, 139; competition and commercial jealousy in, 163; corporate property, 138; criers, 161, 162, 180; duties, 4; duty of citizens to chief magistrate and community, 126; military duties, 129-131; military discipline, 127, 128; freedom of election, 5; its decay, 6, 7; festivals, 149, 152, 153; financial responsibility, 140, 165-167; refusal to take up the franchise, 186; forced labour in, 141, 142; extent of their jurisdiction, 3, 190-193, 333-8; right of criminal jurisdiction in, 2; election of mayor, 12; officers’ duties and responsibilities, 186; representation in Parliament, 4, 7, 24, 25; patronage of nobles sought by, 216; paving of, 18, _note_; political feeling in, 60, 61; privileges forfeited, 247, _note_ 3; their protection extended to men who were not free citizens, 189; provisions for relief of the poor, 41, _note_ 2; ranks and classes of men in, 189-196; conflicting rights in, 309-311; their self-government, 1-3; self-taxation, 2; distribution of taxes in, 355, _note_ 2; regulation of trade, 2, 3; watch and ward, 132, 133; water-supply in, 19; condition of the working classes in, 195; public works, 141; on ancient demesne, 227-229; dependent on other boroughs, 227, _note_; on ecclesiastical estates, 227, 277-281; on feudal estates, 250-1; subject to monastic rule, 295; seaport, their duties during Hundred Years’ War, 128, 129; of the Staple, 46; _see_ Boroughs

Townspeople lay rectors of parish church, 157; their temper in the fifteenth century, 165

Tracy, Henry de, holder of Barnstaple, 253, _note_ 3

Trade, its regulation in towns, 2, 3; early associations for protection of, 32; increase of lawsuits concerning, 58; revolution in fifteenth century, 51; endeavour to exclude foreigners from, 73; attempts to protect it from piracy, 91; right of, given to burghers, 182; payment for rights of, 189; with the East, monopolized by Italians, 114; diverted from Venice to Portugal, 121; English, with Bordeaux, 118, 119, 316, _note_ 1; with Genoa, proposal to forbid, 116; with the North, 106, 107, 114; of Florence, 78, 79; foreign, Bishop Moleyns’s views of, 61, 62; an anonymous “Libeller” on, 62-64; London attempts to monopolize, 69; injured by war with France, 64, _note_; of Romney, 403; free, adopted by Florence, 117; of the country, formidable rival to protected trade of towns, 193; between Liverpool and Ireland, 270; of the Mediterranean, 77, 78; State protection of, 72, 73; its results at Venice, 80; by sea, its early routes, 75, 77; Venetian, bill against, proposed in Parliament, 115; of Winchester, 324, 328; in beer, with Flanders, 57; in cloth, its rise, 51-54, 94, 95; rivalry in, between England and Flanders, 65-66; in iron, 54; in wool, 45, 49, 51; in wine, between Aquitaine and England, 118-120; from Rochelle to Romney, 88; struggle between England and Venice for, 116-118; licenses for trade given to lords of Berkeley, 316, _note_ 1

Traders in the towns, 189-192; privileged, living outside towns, 192-3

Treaties of commerce, Henry VII.’s, 66; with Brittany, 112; with Castile and Catalonia, 120; Henry VII.’s, with Florence, 117; with Portugal, 121; with Riga and Scandinavia, 113; of Marienburg, 104, _note_ 6; of Utrecht, 110; of 1475, 1486, 1495, 119, _note_ 2; of 1496 (_Intercursus Magnus_), 112

Trials, complaint about, in Lincoln, 336-7

Trinity of Berkeley (ship), 316, _note_ 1

Tumbril, 252, 315

U

Under-sheriff, appointed by sheriff, 204

Unenfranchised class, increase of, in towns, 196

Utrecht, treaty with the Hanse made at (1474), 110; confirmed by Henry VII., 112

V

Veere, depôt of Scottish traders at, 98, _note_ 5

Venice, its state-protected trade, 80; its trade with Southampton, 81; diverted to Portugal, 121; bill to forbid its carrying trade proposed in Parliament, 115; driven out of Egypt, 114; struggle of English merchants with, 116; Henry VII.’s agreement with, 118

Vitalien Brüder, 90

W

Waits, 145

Walls, provision for repairing in Norwich, 245, _note_ 4

Wards in Norwich, 239, 240; in Romney, 402, _note_ 4; in Rye, 17

Warden, the Lord, of the Cinque Ports, towns under the rule of, 386; his authority, 390-394; powers as Constable of Dover Castle, as Admiral, as Chancellor, 392; his seal, necessary to make King’s writs valid, 387

Warden of the Poor at Exeter, 41, _note_ 2

Warwick, its various lords, 309, 310

Warwick, Earl of, the Kingmaker, 257-8, 415

Watch and ward, 132, 133; controversy about in Exeter, 357-8

Water supply in towns, 19, _note_

Wayneflete, Bishop of Winchester, 326, _note_

Weald, iron trade in, 54

Weavers of Chester, their riot in 1399, 130, _note_ 1; English and foreign, their rivalry, 65; Flemish, their struggle against importation of English cloth, 99-101; in Bristol, 193

Weights and Measures, Act of 1429, 3, _note_

Wells, under Bishop of Wells, 227; fees in kind at, 178

Westgate, Canterbury, 381; Archbishop’s tenants of, 370

Westminster, silk manufactory at, 57, _note_ 2; Abbot of, his gallows in Worcester, 310

Westwick, ward in Norwich, 240

Weymouth, ownership of, 227

Whitstable, rights claimed by Archbishop of Canterbury’s tenants, of, 371

Wikham, John, “schipwrite” of Rye, 88, _note_ 2

Wills, enrolled in borough courts, 200, _note_ 1; probate of, at Lynn, 289; claimed by Mayor of Canterbury, 200, _note_ 1

Winchelsea, ownership of, 387, _note_ 1; member of Cinque Ports, 386; punishment of thief at, 221, _note_ 2

Winchester, owned by King, 227; charter, 238, _note_ 2; sided with King against De Montfort, 242; its reputed antiquity, 321; poverty, 190; decrease of freemen, _ib._; dispute between bishops and burghers, 323; fight between citizens and monks, 324, _note_ 2; distress and poverty in fifteenth century, 326-330; Lancastrian sympathies, 326, _note_; heavy burdens, 327-9; petition of burghers to Henry VI., 328, 329; ferm, fines, and expenses in 1450, _ib._; grant of forty marks to, from ulnage and subsidies of cloths, 329; various alien bodies within its liberties, 322-324; common assembly, 321; boundaries, 322; castle, _ib._; corporation, 321; curfew bell, 324; S. Giles’ fair, 324, 329; fraternity of S. John, its payment towards maintenance of walls and bridges, 329, _note_ 2; provision for ferm, 328, _note_ 2; franchise refused, 328; experiment in free-trade, _ib._; friars, 323; Magdalen hospital, 328, 329; mayor, 325; control of gates, 324; liberty of Godbeate, _ib._; Guildhall, 324; High Street, 322, 323; Italian merchants in, 330; King’s officers in, 325; town officers, 321, 322; expenses of burgesses to Parliament, 329; Pavilion, 322; perambulation of liberties, _ib._; the Queen’s House, 323; Queen’s stalls, _ib._; convent of S. Swithun, 322; Bishop of, bribes to, 214; his authority over trade, 324; palace, 322; rights of his tenants, 322-3; Soke, 322

Windsor, Dean of, gift from Canterbury to, 214

Wines, variety of, 215; Rhine, ordered to be carried only in English ships, 110; _see_ Trade

“Wine gavell” in Exeter, 359

Wingham, Archbishop of Canterbury’s tenants of, 370-1

Women carry on silk manufacture in London, 57, _note_ 2; their management of great estates, 265

Wool, beginning of its manufacture in Normandy, 119; export of, 45, 49; under Edward III., 50; decrease in fifteenth century, 51; tax on, 49; farmed by Lübeck merchants, 83

Wool Hall at Colchester, 14

Wool-growers, rivalry with cloth-manufacturers, 68

Woolwich, ship built at, 84, _note_ 1

Worcester, protection of burghers, 184; law passed to compel men to become citizens, 190; common coffer, 138, _note_; “Great Clothing,” _ib._; gallows, 310; hospital of S. John, 357, _note_ 4

Working-classes in towns, condition of the, 195

Worsted manufacture in Norfolk, 54

Wynde, burgesses of the, in Barnstaple, 254

Y

Yarmouth, owned by King, 227; rivalry with Norwich, 163, _note_; made staple town, _ib._; imitates Norwich system of government, 238, _note_ 2; riotous population of sailors, 194; threatens monopoly of Cinque Ports, 394; its fair, 395, 396, 415

Yaxley, church-ales at, 161, _note_

Year gift, 206

York, owned by King, 227; its corporation made justiciars for preserving rivers, 234, _note_ 2; dealings with Richard III., 27, _note_ 2; reception of Duke of Gloucester, 216, 217; guilds at, 42, _note_, 89, _note_ 2; mercers at, 89, _note_ 2; territory, 3, _note_; its franchise, 196; dispute about payment of troops, 131, _note_ 3; riot about common lands, 137, _note_ 2

York, Archbishop of, his attack on Ripon in 1441, 130

York, Duchess of, gifts from Canterbury to, 215

Yorkshire, early brick buildings in, 56, _note_ 3

Ypres, decline of its weaving trade, 65

END OF VOL. I.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BUNGAY.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The right of pit and gallows was never formally revoked. The last case was under Charles I. (Rogers’s Agriculture and Prices, i. 132). The gallows at Southampton stood on the common; in Colchester at the end of East Street.

[2] The Inquisition de quo Warranto, Ed. I., proves that S. Martin’s and other villages were under the jurisdiction of Canterbury; inquests at these places were held by the city coroner. York had a territory of 2,700 acres. (Agric. and Prices, iv. 579.) The burgesses of Dorchester claimed the right to weigh all goods within twelve miles of the town. A special statute was passed in 1430 “that they shall not be disturbed of their right,” in consequence of the Act of 1429 ordering weights and measures in every town. (9th Henry VI. cap. vi.) Other instances, such as Norwich, Nottingham, &c., are too numerous to give.

[3] The mariners of the Cinque Ports drew up treaties with “French shipmen,” as to ransom for mariners, sailors, or fishing boats that might be captured on either side; the people of the coast were to be set free without charge, while “gentlemen” and merchants were to pay whatever the captors chose to ask. The shipowners and merchants of each port signed the compact; and all the towns of the coast from Southampton to Thanet joined the league. The document which was drawn up was handed over to the keeping of the Lord Warden in Dover, and in case of dispute messengers from the Ports rode there to see its provisions, or to make a copy for their own guidance. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 537-8; iv. i. 434.

[4] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 146; xi. 3, pp. 12-13, 171, 113. For 1340 see Ashley’s Arteveldes, 126-7.

[5] Stubbs Const. Hist. iii. 484-488. Hallam Const. Hist. iii. 36. Gneist, who gives different figures, considers that one of the greatest dangers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the irrational and meaningless increase of town representation. (Constitution Communale, tr. by Hippert, i. 333, 338; ii. 9.)

[6] Rep. of Com. on Mun. Corp., 1835, 20, 21; 29-34; Papers relating to Parl. Representation, 93, 94. Vol. ix. No. 92. ii.; 31 x.

[7] See Paston Letters, i. 160-1, 337, 339-40; ii. 78, 28, 31, 35-36; iii. 52-3. Richard the Redeless, passus iv. The great people occasionally exercised influence in towns; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 497; ix. 138. For various modes of voting in towns see Lynn, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 146-151; Chichester, Gross. Gild Merchant, ii. 48; Reading, Coates, 459; Sandwich, Boys, 402; Exeter, Freeman, 152; Worcester, Eng. Guilds, 373, 393; Bristol, Hunt, 86; Cinque Ports, Boy’s Sandwich, 774, 796.

[8] The first mention of burgesses in the Empire is in 1066 at Huy, in the bishopric of Liege. Pirenne, Dinant, 18.

[9] Dr. Gross gives a list of 150 towns which had gained the right of having a merchant gild—most of them in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

[10] Edward the First in the thirty years of his rule created fifty-four new boroughs. In the first eighty years of the fifteenth century the kings only issued nine charters of this kind.

[11] London was not apparently before other cities in the winning of liberties. (Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 372.) There were reasons enough for especial caution of Henry the Second in the matter of London.

[12] Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 73, note; Archæologia, vii. p. 337-347; Stubbs, ii. 486.

[13] Burgage rents in the earliest times were accounted for by the officers not in a lump sum but “as the pennies come in.” Rep. on Markets, 13.

[14] Cutt’s Colchester, 111-117, 126-7.

[15] Two other innkeepers had much the same stock-in-trade.

[16] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. part i. 491-2, 478, 489. In Reading at the muster roll of 1311 there appeared eight men armed with sword, bow, arrows, and knife; thirty-three with bows, arrows, and knives; and over two hundred and thirty-five (besides some names lost at the foot of the roll) with hatchets and knives. In 1371 the town was able to raise a body of archers for service abroad; and under Edward the Sixth it sent fifty soldiers armed with bills, swords, daggers, bows, and arrows, and paid each soldier forty pence “for the King’s affairs into Boulogne.” Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 171, 182.

[17] Ibid. v. 497.

[18] Act of Parliament for paving Gloucester, 1455; Fosbrooke’s Gloucestershire, i. 157. For Exeter in 1466; Freeman’s Exeter, 91. For Canterbury in 1474, because the “evil report” carried away by pilgrims “would be stopped if the roads were properly pitched with boulders and Folkestone stone”; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 168, 144, 174. For Southampton in 1477, after a century of vain attempts to pave the streets; Davies, 119, 120; in 1384 a tax was levied for pavage; in 1441 accounts were rendered of paving stones provided; payments were made in 1457 to a London paviour. By the Act each citizen was ordered to pave before his own door as far as the middle of the street since “the town was full feebly paved and full perilous and jeopardous to ride or go therein, and in especial in the High Street,” so that “strangers thither resorting have been oftentimes greatly hurt and in peril of their lives.” For Bristol in 1491 when the whole town seems to have been new paved. Ricart, 47-48.

[19] To take a single instance, in 1421 the water-supply of Southampton was undertaken by the council, and new leaden pipes provided by the grant of a burgess who had thus bequeathed his money “for the good of his soul.” An aqueduct was made at considerable expense in 1428; 261 days’ work at it was paid at from 4_d._ to 6_d._ a day; over £12 more was spent on an iron grating for it, and 27_s._ 2_d._ given to the plumber who fixed it; great stones from Wathe called “scaplyd stonys” were carried, with loads of chalk, quicklime, pitch, rosin, solder, wax, and wood. In 1490 a new well was made with a “watering-place for horse and a washing-place for women.” Davies, 115, 117; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 138-40. In many towns wells were repaired, enclosed with a wall and covered with a roof and put under the care of wardens.

[20] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 137, 145. See Paston, i. 434; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 169; x. 4, 529-30.

[21] English Guilds, 241, 249.

[22] For the contrast in this respect between the shire and the borough see Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 356-7.

[23] Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 22-25. See Piers Ploughman, passus i. 139-146; ii. 90-99; ix. 19-76; x. 223-227.

[24] Piers Ploughman, passus xvi. 248-255.

[25]

“The Jews that were gentlemen, Jesus they despised, Both his lore and his law, now are they low churls, As wide as the world is woneth (dwelleth) there none But under tribute and tallage as tikes and churls. And those that become Christian by counsel of the Baptist Are franklins and free.... And gentlemen with Jesus.”

(Piers Ploughman, ed. by W. Skeat for Early English Text Society, part iii.; pass. xxii. 34.) I have ventured to give quotations from mediæval writers in modern spelling, as I am here concerned neither with philology nor the history of literature: and there are many to whom the old methods of spelling only serve to obscure the sense.

[26] Stubbs, ii. 137-144, 239-244.

[27] Ibid. ii. 560, 671.

[28] Stubbs, ii. 332-4.

[29] Ibid. ii. 257; iii. 16.

[30] The former devices for illegal taxation on the King’s part broke down when the commons looked so sharply after these matters that no attempt at unauthorised taxation of merchandise was made after the accession of Richard the Second. Stubbs, ii. 574-578. How completely the relation of King and commons had been reasoned out by the people we see in Langland’s writings.

“Then came there a King, and ‘by his crown,’ said, ‘I am a king with crown the commons to rule, And holy Church and clergy from cursed men to defend. And if me lacketh to live by, the law wills that I take There I may have it hastelokest; (quickest) for I am head of law, And ye be both members, and I above all.’

* * * * *

‘On condition,’ quoth conscience, ‘that thou conne defend And rule thy realm in reason right well, and in truth; Then, that thou have thine asking as the law asketh; _Omnia sunt tua ad defendendum, sed non ad deprehendendum_.’”

(Piers Ploughman, passus xxii. 467-472, 478-481.)

[31] Stubbs, iii. 77; Rogers, Agric. and Prices, iv. viii.

[32] See the description of a session of Parliament in Richard the Redeless, passus iii. A.D. 1399.

[33] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. 376, &c.

[34] Ibid. passus v. 176.

[35] Ibid. passus vi. 181. M. Jusserand (Epopée Mystique du Moyen Age, 101-118), justly points out what a typical representative of common opinion Langland was. Compare the popular manifesto of 1450. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 267.) “They say the King should live upon his commons, and that their bodies and goods are his; the contrary is true, for then needed him never to set Parliament and to ask good of them.”

[36] The burden of taxation was gradually being transferred from one class to another as subsidies on moveables, and customs on import and export were found more productive and more easily managed. Stubbs, ii. 570.

[37] Reductions of rent are too numerous to give; they occurred everywhere, and were sometimes apparently bought at a considerable price. (See Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 366.) Loans from the towns seem to have been voluntary. In 1435 the Sandwich commonalty refused to lend money to the King; and further excused themselves from sending him soldiers for the defence of Calais, “having all the men they can spare already employed in the service of the Duke of York.” (Boys, 672.) A grant to the King was again refused in 1486. (Ibid. 678.) The Norwich citizens got into trouble for instituting a suit to have their loan returned (Blomefield, iii. 147, 152). In 1424 Lynn lent 400 marks, and in 1428 the council agreed that burgesses of parliament should receive from executors of the late king a hundred pounds for a pledged circlet of gold because they could not get more (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 161). In 1491 the king was at Bristol, where he had a benevolence of £1,800 (Ricart, 47-48). At the coming of Richard the Third in 1484, York, to gain a reduction of the fee-ferm, agreed to give him 100 marks in a cup of gold, and to the queen £100 in a dish. A list is given of the citizens who subscribed—the mayor giving £20, the recorder £100, and so on. The whole sum subscribed was £437 (Davis’ York, 167-9, 174). It would be quite impossible to mention all the loans, but the instance of Canterbury is curious as the first foreshadowing of the national debt. In 1438 £40 was lent to the king, and in 1443 £50; in these cases private individuals advanced the money in various amounts according to their taste for speculation, and probably got certificates promising interest and redemption at par (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. part 1, 139).

[38] Luchaire, 288-9.

[39] Luchaire, 64, 137.

[40] M. Jusserand in his Epopée Mystique du Moyen Age has well pointed out that the war with France was royal rather than national. Pp. 7-9, 117.

[41] Stubbs, Lectures on Mediæval History, p. 342; Friedman, Anne Boleyn, i. pp. 1-4; Gneist, La Constitution Communale, trans. by Hippert, i. p. 334, &c. “England at the accession of Henry the Seventh was far behind the England of the thirteenth century.” (Denton, Lectures on the Fifteenth Century, 120, 118.) “This low and material view of domestic life had led to an equally low and material view of political life, and the cruelty which stained the Wars of the Roses was but the outcome of a state of society in which no man cared much for anything except his own greatness and enjoyment. The ideal which shaped itself in the minds of the men of the middle class was a king acting as a kind of chief constable, who, by keeping great men in order, would allow their inferiors to make money in peace.” (Gardiner’s Student’s History, 330-1.) “The despondency of the English people, when their dream of conquest in France was dissipated, was attended with a complete decay of thought, with civil war, and with a standing still or perhaps a decline of population, and to a less degree of wealth.” (National Life and Character, by Charles Pearson, p. 130-1.) “There are few more pitiful episodes in history. Thirty-five years of a war that was as unjust as it was unfortunate had both soured and demoralised the nation.” “England had entirely ceased to count as a naval power.” As for the burgesses, “if not actively mischievous they were sordidly inert.” (Oman’s Warwick, 4-11, 67, 133.)

[42] In Ricart’s Calendar in Bristol he enters duly the fact that a battle had been fought and that one side or other was victorious without further comment. He misplaces the date of the murder of Suffolk three years, though he might well have remembered it; and he writes as a sort of after-thought in the margin of his record, “and this year the two sons of King Edward were put to silence in the Tower of London.” (Ricart, 40-46.) In 1460 Norwich had its captain and 120 soldiers with King Henry in the north, and all the rest of its available forces had to hurry off to Edward at his accession. (Blomefield iii. 162-163.) The city raised £160 for the coming of Richard the Third to the city, and £140 for the coming of Henry the Seventh. (Ibid. 173-174.) For Nottingham, see vol. ii. There is no mention of Bosworth in Canterbury, and Henry the Seventh was received with the same pomp as former kings. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145.) For Bosworth, where men stood afar off waiting to join the victorious side, see Fabyan, 672-673. The policy of the burghers was the same in this respect as that of the great Churchmen, who were entirely passive in the real crises of the civil war, and so ready to serve every king, that not one of them suffered loss from fidelity to any side. (Rogers’ Agricul. and Prices, iv. 9, 10.) The people in general were equally indifferent. “I have read thousands of documents penned during the heat of the strife, and have found only one allusion to the character of the times in the earlier, and one about the later war of 1470-1.” (Ibid., 19.) An interesting parallel to the indifference of the trading communities of the fifteenth century during the Wars of the Roses may be seen in the action of the Merchants’ Company in the civil wars of the seventeenth century. (Lambert’s Gild Life, 177-178.)

[43] See vol. ii. ch. i.

[44] In Lydd corn was given to the poor at Christmas and Easter, and gifts to lepers; payments made from 1480-1485 for Goderynge’s daughter, “poor maid,” “hosen, shoes, her keep, kertyl-cloth and for making thereof;” also in 1490, “paid to the poor man keeping the poor child 12 pence.” After a long list of expenses for a thief and making stocks for him and a halter, “paid for one pair of shoes to his daughter 3_d._,” and “given to the quest of women 4_d._”; summoned perhaps in reference to the daughter. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 527, 526.) In Rye sums were paid to the poor on opening the box of maltotes. (Ibid. 494.) For Southampton, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 112; the steward’s book in 1441 contains a list of alms, £4 2_s._ 1_d._, given away every week to poor men and women. (Davies, 294.) According to the usual calculation at this time in almshouses of a penny a day for living, this sum would mean that the corporation paid weekly for the mere subsistence of 140 persons. For Bristol, Ricart’s Kalendar, 72-80, 82, &c. For Chester, Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 371. For Romney, Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535-6. The Mayor of Sandwich had to manage the hospitals of S. Bartholomew and S. John, to appoint their officers, to audit their accounts, and administer their estates made up of innumerable parcels of land and houses left by pious people. (Boys, 17-21, 526.) The municipal council of Exeter appointed every year a Warden of the Poor to look after their many charitable foundations. It had charge of Magdalen Hospital, of the Ten Cells Hospital for Poor, founded in 1406 by Simon Grendon, Mayor; the Combrew Almshouse, founded by Sir William Bonville, 1408; and an almshouse founded by John Palmer. (Freeman’s Exeter, 175-6.) There was a municipal almshouse in Hereford supported by way of payment to the corporation from ecclesiastical tenants for a share in the city’s privileges. (Arch. Ass. Journ. xxvii. 481.) In the fifteenth century bequests by burgesses for these purposes were very frequent and were usually left to the management of the corporation. In all large towns the mayor and aldermen presided over the court of orphans. (Davies’s Southampton, 239.) The indications of poor relief by the towns must modify Mr. Ashley’s conclusion (Economic History, I. part ii. 338) that “no attempt was made by the State as a whole, _or by any secular public authority_, to relieve distress. The work was left _entirely_ to the Church, and to the action of religious motives upon the minds of individuals.” It seems difficult to follow in this connexion his distinction drawn between the craft associations which had or had not grown out of religious fraternities (p. 325).

[45] Besides the customary Latin prayers a Norfolk guild used English prayers for Church and State, harvest and travellers, like our Litany. (English Guilds, 111-114.) The play of the Lord’s Prayer was performed by a York guild. “They are bound to find one candle-bearer, with seven lights, in token of the seven supplications in the Lord’s Prayer.” “Also they are bound to make, and as often as need be to renew, a table showing the whole meaning and use of the Lord’s Prayer, and to keep this hanging against a pillar in the said cathedral church near to the aforesaid candle-bearer.” (Ibid. 137-9.) See also Hibbert’s Shrewsbury Guilds, 62. For Pecok as “the first author of the Middle Ages who propounded reason as a judge of faith,” and one who “might be claimed as at once the forerunner of the Erastian theory of the church, and of the Rationalist interpretation of its theology”; and for the place now given to general councils see Rogers’s Agriculture and Prices, iv. 11-13. For the first signs that the revenues of monastic houses were to be devoted to other purposes. (Ibid. 101.)

[46] Agriculture remained stationary during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was in fact but little changed from the time when Walter of Henley published his treatise until the time when Fitz Herbert wrote his work about 1523 embodying most of the rules which Walter had given before him. The real progress lay not in the country but in the town.

[47] Nott. Records, ii. 143, 145, 167, 179, 191; iii. 21, 29.

[48] Clément, Jacques Cœur, 196-7. Nicholas Sturgeon was ordered by the Privy Council in 1442 “to go and choose six singers of England such as the messenger that is come from the Emperor will desire for to go to the Emperor.” Proceedings and Ordinances of Privy Council, ed. Sir Harris Nicholas, 1834, v. 218.

[49] Mr. Jacobs tells me that he has found no direct evidence of Jews lending to townspeople in the twelfth century; there are only some indications such as that they sought for debtors in S. Paul’s; (The Jews of Angevin England, p. 45) and that they claimed to attend the assizes at Bury. (Ibid. 142.) If their business lay, as it seems, with nobles and landowners, it would prove the absence of any demand for capital in the towns.

[50] For an account of the Staple see Schanz, i. 327 et seq.; von Ochenkowski, Englands Wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 220; Stubbs, ii. 446-8.

[51] Schanz, i. 329, &c.

[52] Ibid. 657.

[53] Schanz, i. 543; von Ochenkowski, 216-7. For the Law Merchant see Mr. Maitland’s Pleas in Manorial Courts (Selden Soc.), p. 137. For Staple Statutes see 14 R. II. cap. 3, 4.

[54] Schanz, i. 332, 338.

[55] See Paston Letters, iii. 166.

[56] Schanz, i. 501.

[57] Von Ochenkowski, 202, 210; Schanz, 495-500. Petition of merchants in 1442 to be relieved from these rules refused. Proc. Privy Council, v. 217.

[58] In 1442 the merchants of the Staple of Calais begged that payment should be made to the soldiers for the surety of the merchants’ wools. (Proceedings of Privy Council, v. 215, 216.) When the lords seized Calais in 1459, “they shifted with the Staple of Calais for £18,000” to carry on the war with. After Edward’s accession, in 1462, the merchants claimed repayment. Edward refused, and after long efforts the merchant who represented them and had borne the chief charges died a ruined man in sanctuary at Westminster (Fabyan, 635, 652-3).

[59] A sack was 364 lbs. of 16 oz. each (Schanz, ii. 569).

[60] Stubbs, iii. 69, Stat. 27, H. VI. c. 2.

[61] Schanz, ii. 15.

[62] Under the system of paying a fixed sum in good and bad years alike the poor merchants became bankrupt, and in the middle of the sixteenth century the number of wool exporters fell enormously (Schanz, ii. 17). An extremely interesting statement by the Staplers of the causes of their decay is given by Schanz in vol. ii. 565-9.

[63] In the years from 1485 to 1546 general trade had increased by one-third, while the wool trade had decreased by one-third (Schanz, ii. 12).

[64] In the Paston Letters there is even in the fifteenth century complaint of the quality of Norfolk cloth, i. 83.

[65] Ashley’s Woollen Industry, 39, afterwards expanded in his Economic History, part ii., chap. iii. This book was published after these pages had been printed. Riley’s Mem. London, 149-50; Schanz, i. 436-440, 588-9.

[66] The first charter to the company of drapers or dealers in cloth in London was in 1364.

[67] This statement is made by Schanz, i. 441, and his reasons are given, ii. 1-7. 31 H. VI. c. 8.

[68] 4 H. VII. c. 11; Schanz, i. 449.

[69] Schanz, i. 11; ii. 17, 18.

[70] Schanz, ii. 571-2.

[71] In 1472 the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, buys from a London alderman two pieces of cloth for gentleman’s livery, nine for yeoman’s, and five for groom’s, the price, £39 14_s._; from a “raymaker” in New Salisbury he buys similar cloths in 1475 and 1480; again from Hadley, in 1499, he got eighteen pieces, and russet cloths from a Cranbrooke clothier. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 436-7, 459.) Fastolfe bought cloth for his soldiers at Castlecoombe, Wilts (Paston Letters). The Warden of Merton, Bishop Fitz James, bought for his fellows and himself at Norton Mandeville in Essex. (Rogers’ Economic Interpretation of History, 151.)

[72] Paston Letters, ii. 235. 1465.

[73] Debate between the Heralds of France and England, probably published from 1458 to 1461, translated by Pyne, p. 61. Published in French by the Société des Anciens Textes Français. In 1454 the commons petitioned that silver mines in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, should be worked (Schanz, i. 493). For coal see Paston, iii. 363. Nottingham Records, i. 145. In 1307 there were complaints about the corruption of London air by use of coal. Cruden’s Gravesend, 84-5.

[74] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 347.

[75] Rogers’ Econ. Interpretation, 276.

[76] Brazen pieces, invented 1340 or 1370, were first used in England at the siege of Berwick, 1405 (Eng. Chron. 1377-1461, p. 184); not known in France so well (Three books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, 9-10 Camden Society). For the Lydd gun of 1456 the gunmakers were paid 11s. 8d.; the binding and iron for it cost 18s. “Guns with six chambers” mentioned as early as 1456 in Cinque Port towns. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. xvii.)

[77] Journ. of Archæl. Association, 1871, p. 416; Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 489.

[78] Pirenne, Dinant, 102, 94, 95. In the fifteenth century the Dinant traders sent their wares by Antwerp, not by Damme.

[79] For English brick building see Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, iv. 440. First notice of bricks at Cambridge 1449, in London 1453, in Oxford 1461; common in eastern counties before end of fifteenth century. Ibid. iii. 432, 433. The proverb, “as red as Rotherham College,” refers to one of the first brick buildings in Yorkshire.

[80] There is good fifteenth century English glass at Malvern and elsewhere. But according to Dugdale English glass was forbidden in the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick.

[81] Turner’s Domestic Architecture, 98.

[82] Silk manufacture in London in the fifteenth century was carried on by women; their complaints of the Lombard merchants noticed in Act of 1454 (33 H. VI. c. 5). A bill with the royal sign manual prays that the king would grant to Dom. Robert Essex his frames “ordeigned and made for the makyng of sylkes,” with their instruments which now “stondith unoccupyed within your Monastery of Westminster,” and he will ordain workmen to use them. Temp. Edward the Fourth, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. I, 177.

[83] Libel of English Policy. (Political Poems and Songs, composed between 1327 and 1483, ii. ed. Wright Rolls Series.) For export of English beer to Flanders, see Fœdera, xii. 471 1492. Beer was a “malt liquor flavoured with bitter herbs,” as distinct from ale, made before 1445, though commonly ascribed to a century later.

[84] Blomfield, iii. 160. 33 H. VI. cap. vii.

[85] Piers Ploughman, Introduction to Text C, xxxi.

[86] Schanz, ii. 35, 36.

[87] Italian Relation, 42-3 (Camden Soc.); Schanz, i. 513; Heralds’ Debate, 65.

[88] Plummer’s Fortescue, 114-5, 132. Compare Bacon’s Henry the Seventh, 71-72.

[89] Heralds’ Debate, 61, 1453-1461.

[90] Richard the Redeless, passus iii. 172.

[91] Brinklow’s Tracts, published in the first half of the sixteenth century, afford interesting illustrations of the type of radical politician formed in the towns. His proposal for a single chamber and the list of reforms sketched out are not more significant than his criticism of parliamentary despotism and inefficiency, “This is the thirteenth article of our creed added of late, that whatsoever the Parliament doth must needs be well done. and the Parliament, or any proclamation out of the parliament time cannot err ... then have ye brought Rome home to your own doors and given the authority to the King and Parliament that the cardinal bishops gave unto the Pope ... if this be so, it is all vain to look for any amendment of anything.” Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Society, 35. See also pp. 8, 12.

[92] Libel of English Policy (Political Poems and Songs, ii. 157-205. Roll’s series, ed. Wright). The Libel was probably written after 1436. The Bishop was murdered in 1450. (Agric. and Prices, iv. 533.)

[93] Wright’s Pol. Poems, ii. 282-7. Schanz, i. 446.

[94] Compare the very similar expression of faith in a modern labour paper. “To this island, small as it is, has been given the work of leading the industrial organization of the world; that is to say, of governing and ordering the affairs of the world.” Trade Unionist, Dec. 26, 1891.

[95] Compare Paston Letters, i. 531; Brinklow’s Complaynt 11.

[96] Pauli, Drei volkswirtschaftliche Denkschriften, s. 61, 75.

[97] In 1447 exactions in England were so heavy “as that the minds of men were not set upon foreign war, but vexed above measure how to repel private and domestical injuries, and that therefore neither pay for the soldier nor supply for the army were as need required put in readiness.” (Polydore Vergil, 77 Camden Soc.) For interruption of trade by the war, Paston, i. 425-6. Davies’ Southampton, 252-3. The Staplers complain that before the war the French bought yearly 2,000 sacks of wool, now only 400 (Schanz, ii. 568). For effect of the war on the salt trade, Rogers’ Econ. Interpretation of History, 100. For the wine trade, &c., Schanz, i. 299-300, 643-50. “It cannot be brought to pass by any mean that a French man born will much love an English man, or, contrary, that an English will love a French man; such is the hatred that hath sprung of contention for honour and empire.” (Pol. Vergil, 82.)

[98] Schanz, i. 32-33.

[99] See the series of statutes with which the reign of Edward the Fourth opens. 4, Ed. IV. c. 1-8. Schanz, i. 447.

[100] Ashley’s Wool. Ind. 81-2; expanded in his Economic History, part ii. Schanz, i. 445.

[101] Schanz, i. 446. “The caryage out of wolle to the Stapul ys a grete hurte to the pepul of Englond; though hyt be profitabul both to the prynce and to the marchant also.” (Starkey, England in the Reign of Henry the Eighth. Early English Text Society, p. 173.)

[102] Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Soc. p. 11. Schanz, i. 479, note.

[103] The fellowship of the mercers and other merchants and adventurers living in London “by confederacy made among themselves of their uncharitable and inordinate covetous for their singular profit and lucre contrary to every Englishman’s liberty, and to the liberty of the Mart there” made an ordinance and constitution that every Englishman trading with the marts of Flanders or under the Archduke of Burgundy should first pay a fine to the Merchants’ Fellowship in London on pain of forfeiture of all their wares bought and sold. The fine was at first half an old noble, and demanded by a colour of a fraternity of S. Thomas at Canterbury, and “so by colour of such feigned holiness it hath been suffered to be taken for a few years past.” Finally, however, the London Fellowship raised the fine to £20, then the other merchants began to withdraw from the marts and the cloth trade to suffer. On the complaint of the merchant adventurers living outside London Parliament ordered that the fine should only be ten marks. (12 Henry VII., cap. 6.) For the complaint of the Hull traders against the merchant adventurers of London in 1622 see Lambert’s Gild Life, 171-2.

[104] Schanz, i. 342.

[105] Schanz, ii. 571.

[106] 3 Ed. IV. c. 4.

[107] Schanz, i. 618-19.

[108] Bacon’s History of Henry the Seventh, 38.

[109] The men of Cologne had a house in London as early as 1157.

[110] Founded before 1240 (Schanz, i. 291-3). Some interesting details are given in Mr. Hudson’s Notes on Norwich (Norfolk Archæology, xii. 25; see section on madder and woad.) For merchants of Lorraine, Denmark, &c., Liber Custumarum, Nunimenta Gildhallæ Londiniensis (Rolls Series), vol. ii. part 1, xxxiv. &c.

[111] In the beginning of the fourteenth century (Schanz, i. 113-8).

[112] See Keutgen, Die Beziehungen der Hanse zu England, 40.

[113] Boys’ Sandwich, 375; Paston, iii. 436. The foreign trade is illustrated by some of the things in Fastolf’s house; the Seeland cloth, i. 481; iii. 405—brass pots and chafferns of French making, i. 481—silver Paris cups, 475; iii. 270-1, 297-8—blue glasses, i. 486—habergeons of Milan, 487—”overpayn of Raines,” 489—cloth of Arras, 479—harness from Almayne, iii. 405—German girdles, iii. 270-1—the treacle-pots of Genoa, ii. 293-4, bought of the apothecary. The merchant’s marks were especially noted for fear of adulteration. The grocer, or dealer in foreign fruits, also sold hawks, iii. 55-6. In the reign of Henry the Eighth about a dozen shops in London sold French or Milan cups, glasses, knives, daggers, swords, girdles, and such things. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 93. “A discourse of the commonwealth of this Realme of England.”

[114] Libel of English Policy; Political Poems and Songs (Rolls Series), ii. 173, 172. Fabyan, 630. See petition of burghers against the Lombards, 1455, in Rot. Parl. v. 334

[115] Schanz, i. 65. Strangers exporting wool had to pay 43_s._ 4_d._ a sack, English merchants only 5 nobles or 33_s._ 4_d._ (Fabyan, 594-5).

[116] In 1372 there is a receipt by two of the company of the Strozzi for money from Archbishop Langham. Hist. MSS. Com. iv. part 1, 186.

[117] Clement, Jacques Cœur, 23-4.

[118] For the failure of this company in 1437 and its effect on English traders, see Bekynton’s Corres. i. 248-50, 254.

[119] Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 172.

[120] Schanz, i. 124-6.

[121] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 11, 87. 11 H. IV. c. 7. Yarn and unfulled cloths paid only subsidy—finished cloths paid also customs and measuring tax. Schanz, i. 448, note.

[122] Davies’ Southampton, 254.

[123] Denton’s Lectures, 192; Paston Letters, iii. 269.

[124] Pauli’s Pictures, 126-132.

[125] Keutgen, 41.

[126] Keutgen, 41. Dinant was the only town outside German-speaking countries that belonged to the Hanseatic League. It entered the League in the middle of the fourteenth century as a sort of external member—only _sharing its privileges in England_ and never voting in its assemblies—tolerated rather than holding its right by formal grant. Pirenne, Dinant, 97-102.

[127] Keutgen, 5, 30.

[128] Keutgen, 14-18.

[129] For a description of the Steel-yard see Pauli’s Pictures.

[130] The ordinary size of French ships seems to have been 1,000 or 1,200 tons. (Heralds’ Debate, 51-2.) Cannyngs, of Bristol, had in his little fleet vessels of 900, 500, or 400 tons. (Cruden’s Gravesend, 131.) The “Harry Grace à Dieu,” built at Woolwich, 1512, was of 1,500 tons, and cost £6,472. (Ibid. 143-9.)

[131] 1382; 5 Richard II., Stat. 1, c. 3. See Schanz, i. 360, for the scope of this law.

[132] 6 Richard II., Stat. 1, c. 8.

[133] A small war vessel with probably about forty sailors, ten men-at-arms, and ten archers. Nott. Rec. i. 444.

[134] Southampton had to keep a ship, “le Grâce de Dieu,” at its own expense for the king’s service. In the last year of Henry the Sixth its master received from the mayor £31 10_s._ 0_d._ In the first year of Edward the Fourth the mayor paid for the victualling and custody of the ship £68 5_s._ 10_d._ In 1470 there was a great deal of difficulty about the matter. The king ordered certain payments to be made for the ship which the town for some months absolutely refused to carry out. The sheriff at last stepped into the breach and paid the sums due from money in his own office, and the next year the town was forced by the king to refund what he had spent. Three successive sheriffs were in difficulties about this dispute between the king and the town. They made payments as best they could, and were afterwards given indemnity for the sums they spent. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 98-100; Davies, 77. See also H.M.C. xi. 3, 215-16, 188-191, 221-2; Ibid. iv. 1, p. 426, 429-31; Ibid. v. 517-18, 521, 494; Boys’ Sandwich, 663; Nottingham Records, i. 196; Paston Letters, ii. 100-105; Rot. Parl. i. 414, ii. 306-7.) Full accounts of the making of a barge in Ipswich in 1295 are given in Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 257-8.

[135] Schanz, i. 356-7, 362, 367. On page 357 he quotes from a petition of the commons in 1371 (Rot. Parl. ii. 306-7) to prove that the one result of the foreign policy of Edward the First was the _narrowing of town franchises_, and consequent decline of the navy. If the petition is read to the close the passage seems to be merely a piece of fine writing to arrest attention, and the town franchises are not mentioned again when the king asks to have the real grievances stated. In the second petition (Rot. Parl. ii. 332) the gist of the complaint is that foreign merchants are allowed to sell and buy in England, which is represented as a loss of all their franchises.

[136] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 501.

[137] Edward the Fourth made one futile attempt to revive the protection of English shipping, but the Act only lasted three years. (3 Ed. IV. c. i.)

[138] Schanz, i. 328.

[139] Heralds’ Debate, 51-2.

[140] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 528. See the hiring out of the London barge; loss by accident from tempest or enemies to fall on the commonalty; Mem. Lond., 478.

[141] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 215-16, 221-2, 188-191.

[142] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534-540.

[143] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 496. Rye kept its own “schipwrite,” John Wikham, who had the freedom of the town for sixteen years while building the ships of the port, and at last left in 1392 with a glowing testimonial from the mayor and barons of Rye. Along with other towns it had made profit by selling ships to aliens, which might afterwards be used by the enemies of England, and a proclamation was sent to Rye in 1390 forbidding such sales. For the export of eggs from Norwich in 1374, as well as butter and cheese and corn, and possibly oysters, see Hudson’s Norwich Leet Jurisdiction (Selden Society), 62, 63, 65. The practice of forestalling, carried to so great an extent as is here and elsewhere described, doubtless implied buying for the foreign market.

[144] Hunt’s Bristol, 74, 94-96.

[145] Schanz, i. 328. For St. Mary’s Gild in York see Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109, 110. This “mystery of Mercers,” or “Community of Mercers” in York formed into a body with a governor in 1430—in fact, became a company of Merchant Adventurers. (Gross, ii. 280.) The Shipmen’s Guild of Holy Trinity in Hull drew up its constitution in 1369, but got its first royal grant in 1443. The Merchant Guild of S. George also dates from the fifteenth century. (Lambert’s Guild Life, 128-131, 156-161.)

[146] In 1422 a writ was issued by the Privy Council to permit a Bristol merchant to take two vessels laden with cloth, wine, salt, and other merchandise not belonging to the Staple. The cloth and wine were to be sold, and meat, hides, salmon, herrings, and fish to be bought, and the salt used for salting these provisions. Proc. Privy Council, ii. 322-3.

[147] When Taverner built his ship for the Mediterranean trade he got no reduction of tolls, but had to pay the high export dues fixed for foreigners. Schanz, i. 367.

[148] Keutgen, 79; Plummer’s Fortescue, 232-3.

[149] Eng. Chron. 1387-1461, 113. French pirates “whirling on the coasts so that there dare no fishers go out,” (Paston Letters, iii. 81) behave “as homely as they were Englishmen.” (Ibid. i. 114-116.)

[150] For the frequent disputes in the reign of Henry the Fourth see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443. In 1419, when some Bristol merchants had seized vessels belonging to the Genoese, the King sent a messenger to choose for him a portion of the prize, for which, however, he promised honestly to pay the merchants. Proc. Privy Council, ii. 267. The mayor of Lynn attended by two proctors travelled with the King’s embassy to Bruges in 1435 “for the worship of the town” as its representative to declare the wrongs done to Lynn merchants “by the master of Pruce and his subjects and by them of the Hanse.” Hist. MSS. Com., xi. 3, 163; Polydore Vergil, 159; Davies’ Southampton, 252-3, 275, 475.

[151] Stubbs, ii. 314, iii. 57, 65; Plummer’s Fortescue, 235-7. From time to time money was collected for the protection of trade; (Nott. Rec. ii. 34-36). In 1454 Bristol gave £150 for this purpose—the largest sum given by any town save London. (Hunt’s Bristol, 97-8.)

[152] Rymer’s Fœdera, viii. 470.

[153] Debate of Heralds, 49. In 1488 a letter from London to the money-changer Frescobaldo, at Venice, told that Flanders galleys which left Antwerp for Hampton fell in with three English ships, who commanded them to strike sail, and though they said they were friends, forced them to fight. Eighteen English were killed. But on the complaint of the captain of the galleys the King sent the Bishop of Winchester to say he need not fear, as those who had been killed must bear their own loss and a pot of wine would settle the matter. Davies’ Southampton, 475.

[154] See Libel of English Policy, Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 164-5. For complaints in 1444 and 1485 see Rot. Parl. v. 113.

[155] Libel of English Policy, Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 159. Capgrave de Illust. Henricis, 135. A man at Canterbury was accused in 1448 of saying that the king was not able to bear the fleur-de-lys nor the ship in his noble. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 455.)

[156] Heralds’ Debate, 17.

[157] Schanz, ii. 27.

[158] 4 H. VII. cap. x.; Schanz, i. 368-9. Encouragement was also given to building of English ships—as for example by remission of tolls on the first voyage (Schanz, ii. 591).

[159] Keutgen, 55, etc.

[160] Ibid. 54.

[161] Schanz, i. 332; ii. 575. A list of the charters granted to them follows, ibid. 575-8. See also treaty given, ibid. 159.

[162] Ibid. i. 339, 340.

[163] Ibid. ii. 162.

[164] Ibid. i. 340.

[165] 1500; Schanz, ii. 545-7.

[166] In 1505. Henry VII. issued regulations for the Merchant Adventurers. They might meet _in Calais_ to elect governors; and they were at the same time to elect a council of twenty-four called “assistants,” who were to have jurisdiction over all members and power to make statutes, and to appoint officers both in England and in Calais to levy fines and to imprison offenders. The council filled up its own vacancies. Every merchant using the dealings of a Merchant Adventurer was not only to pay its tolls and taxes, but must enter the fellowship and pay his ten marks. The Calais officials were to proclaim the marts whenever required to do so. The Adventurers might appoint their own weighers and packers, and have nothing to say to the royal officers. (Schanz, ii. 549-553.)

[167] Schanz notes the settlement in Antwerp as one of the most critical turning points of English industrial and commercial history (i. 339). The movement had well begun in the fourteenth and early part of the fifteenth centuries, but the real influx of English traders was from 1442-4 (ibid. i. 9). For the treaties with the Duke of Burgundy in 1407 concerning English traders in Flanders, Rymer’s Fœdera, viii. 469-78.

[168] Schanz, ii. 577, 581, 582.

[169] Ibid. i. 343, 344.

[170] 12 Henry VII. c. 6.

[171] Wheeler, Treatise of Commerce, 19, 23.

[172] “Déjà au quinzième siècle les Écossais avaient à Veere en Zélande un dépôt pour leurs marchandises, administré par un ‘Conservator.’ Sir Thomas Cunningham remplit cet office jusqu’à sa mort en 1655, et ce ne fut que le 28 novembre, 1661 (_sic_), que Sir W. Davison en fut chargé; il demeura de temps en temps à Amsterdam, où il eut des querelles à l’occasion des impôts municipaux. Plus tard, il eut des différends avec le pasteur épiscopal Mowbray, qui par suite fut déplacé, et enfin avec les Écossais de Veere eux-mêmes. En 1668 Davison fit un traité avec la ville de Dordrecht, pour y transporter les affaires d’Écosse; mais comme les Écossais ne voulurent pas s’y conformer, Davison fut contraint de prendre son congé en mai 1671; Veere resta le dépôt du commerce écossais. Consultez encore l’ouvrage très rare. “An account of the Scotch Trade in the Netherlands, and of the Staple Port in Campvere. By James Yair, Minister of the Scotch Church in Campvere. London, 1776.” (Œuvres Complètes de Huygens. Amsterdam, 1893. Note on a letter from R. Moray to Huygens, Jan. 30, 1665.)

[173] Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 180, 181. See Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 445-6. William Mucklow, merchant at London, sent commissions to his son Richard at Antwerp; a Richard Mucklow was warden of S. Helen’s, Worcester, either in 1510 or 1519 (446). An account book of Wm. Mucklow, merchant, “in the Passe Mart at Barro, Middleburg, in the Synxon Mart at Antwerp, in the Cold Mart and in Bamys Mart,” in 1511 records sales of white drapery and purchase of various goods—a ball battery, fustian, buckram, knives, sugar, brushes, satin, damask, sarsenet, velvet, pepper, Yssyngham cloth, spectacles, swan’s feathers, girdles, “socket,” treacle, green ginger, ribands, brown paper, Brabant cloth, pouches, leather, buckets, “antony belles,” “sacke belles,” sheets, &c.; and the names of the vessels in which the goods were shipped.

[174] Rot. Parl. iv. 126; Schanz, i. 443-445. For English reprisals, 27 H. VI. cap. i.; 28 H. VI. cap. i.; 4 Ed. IV. cap. 5.

[175] Schanz, ii. 191-3, 203-6. Negotiations were still going on in 1499 as to the trade disputes between Henry the Seventh, the Archduke, and the Staple at Calais (Schanz, ii. 195-202). The main point in dispute was allowing English cloths to be cut in the Netherlands for making clothes.

[176] In 1493; Schanz, i. 17, 18.

[177] Schanz, ii. 582-5.

[178] Ibid. i. 7-11.

[179] Schanz, i. 31, 32.

[180] Ibid. i. 339.

[181] Schanz, i. 345; ii. 561, 562.

[182] Instances, Schanz, ii. 557, 558.

[183] Ibid. ii. 564.

[184] Ibid. ii. 543.

[185] From Antwerp Archives; Schanz, ii. 539-43.

[186] In November, 1504, the Staplers and Adventurers appeared before the Star Chamber. The Staplers pleaded a charter which declared them free from the jurisdiction of the Adventurers. The Star Chamber decided that every Stapler who dealt or traded as an Adventurer was to be subject to the courts and dues of the Adventurers: and every Adventurer dealing as a Stapler in like manner to be subject to the Staple (Schanz, ii. 547). This decision seemed to imply the ruin of Staplers, but the next year it was explained that the authentic interpretation was simply that “the merchants of the Staple at Calais using the feate of a Merchant Adventurer passing to the marts at Calais should _in those things_ be contributories to such impositions and charges” as the Adventurers had fixed (ibid. 549); and that they could not be compelled to join the Adventurers’ company. In 1510 Henry the Eighth repeated the decree of Henry the Seventh that the Adventurers must not force Staplers to join their body (555). For the pleadings before the Star Chamber under Henry the Eighth see Schanz, ii. 556-564.

[187] Schanz, i. 249.

[188] Keutgen, 42, 51-54.

[189] Schanz, i. 251.

[190] Keutgen, 30, 81.

[191] Ibid. 44, &c.

[192] Pauli’s Pictures, 172, 185. Keutgen, 10-43. Richard the Second complained to the Grand Master that traders were forced to carry their cloth to Elbing instead of Danzig (ibid. 72). In 1388 three citizens of London and York were sent to Marienberg with an interpreter to make a treaty of commerce with the “general master of the house of S. Mary of Teutonia.” (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109.) In 1397, however, trade with the Easterlings was practically stopped. The English imposed enormous duties on German imports; the Germans forbade traffic in English cloth. For the negotiations carried on by Henry the Fourth see Literæ Cantuarienses, iii. xxviii.-xxxi., and the various letters on the subject. The English colony in Danzig increased greatly after the peace of Marienberg. (Schanz, i. 231.) In 1392 more than 300 English came into Danzig to carry corn. (Keutgen, 71.) But the resistance of the Danzig burghers to English trade was strenuous. They were less jealous of the Netherlands manufacturers, and the Teutonic Order in the fifteenth century sent to Dinant for the rough cloth needed for the Baltic trade. (Pirenne, Dinant, 97; Keutgen, 81-83.)

[193] Pauli’s Pictures, 135-8.

[194] 8 H. VI. c. 2; Proc. Privy Council, iv. 208; Schanz, ii. 170.

[195] In 1425 there were letters from Henry the Sixth to the King of Dacia, Norwegia, and Swecia, concerning the merchants of Lynn who traded with the parts of North Berne; (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 203). In 1427 he wrote to the English merchants “in partibus Prucie, Dacie, Norweie, Hanse, and Swethie commorantes,” to assemble in a sufficient place, elect governors and make ordinances for self-government in mercantile matters, and for reasonable punishment of any merchants disobedient (203). At times the English even forced compensation from the Hanse merchants for outrages (Schanz, i. 250). In 1438 rye was brought from Prussia “by the providence of Stephen Browne,” the mayor, at a time of famine in England, when a bushel of corn was sold for 3s. 4d., and the people were making bread of vetches, peas, beans, and fern-roots. (Fabyan, 612.)

[196] Schanz, i. 254.

[197] Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 191. The bailiffs and community of Chepstowe did trade with Iceland and Finmark. (Proc. Privy Council, iv. 208.) In 1426 Lynn forbade trade with Iceland to its inhabitants and the whole community sent a petition against the trade to the King’s Council. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 160.)

[198] Hunt’s Bristol, 94-6. In 1491 fishing-smacks starting for Iceland had to get leave to sail, after finding surety that they would not carry more grain nor any other forbidden thing than sufficed for their own food. Paston Letters, iii. 367-9.

[199] Keutgen, 30.

[200] Ibid. 84-5, 70-71. For these negotiations see Rymer’s Fœdera, x. 656-7, 666-70, 753. Bekynton, i. 215.

[201] In 1439. Bekynton’s Corres. i. 183-4.

[202] “Whereof the payment was kept secret from writers” (Fabyan, 657.)

[203] The fortunes of Memling’s Last Judgement now at Danzig give a curious illustration of this war and the trade complications of the time. Ordered at Bruges through the Florentine agents there (the Portinari), probably by Julian and Lorenzo de Medici, the picture could not be carried to Florence on account of this war begun in 1468. At last in 1473 it was sent off from Sluys in a British-built ship, which had been bought by English merchants as a French prize, chartered by Florentines in Bruges for a voyage to London, registered in the name of the Portinari, commissioned by a French captain, and navigated under the Burgundian flag for greater security against capture. It was, however, taken off Southampton by a privateer sailing under the Danzig flag and commanded by a noted captain Benecke. In spite of a bull issued by Sixtus the Fourth the cargo was sold at Stade and the picture brought by the owners of the ship to Danzig. (Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Early Flemish Painters, 257-260.)

[204] Henry the Sixth, on the other hand, brought the help of the Genoese. Possibly the excessive price of fish mentioned in the Paston Letters in 1471 may have been caused by the political troubles (iii. 22, 254).

[205] Schanz, i. 172-9; ii. 388-396. Pauli’s Pictures, 185-7.

[206] Schanz, i, 186.

[207] Schanz, i. 294.

[208] Schanz, i. 257.

[209] Schanz, i. 237-42.

[210] For the negotiations between the Easterlings and the English merchants, see Schanz, ii. 397-430; i. 179-201. In 1498 Archduke Philip, seeing the utter ruin into which Bruges had fallen, tried to revive it by ordering that all foreign merchants should do their business there only, by improving the harbour, _and by making it the Staple for English cloths in Flanders_. (Schanz, i. 26-27.) In 1501 Philip made Bruges a Staple where English cloth might be sold in Flanders under strict conditions. (Ibid. ii. 203-6.) In 1506 Henry won from the Archduke the right to sell cloth by the yard and to have the manufacture of it finished in all his dominions except Flanders. (Ibid. i. 31.)

[211] The friendly way in which the English merchants even in 1405 looked on Genoese traders is illustrated in the story told by Fabyan (571), of three carracks of Genoa laden with merchandise plundered by English lords. The Genoese merchants made suit to the King for compensation, and meanwhile borrowed from English merchants goods amounting unto great and noble sums. When their suit was seen to be in vain they made off with their spoils “to the undoing” of many merchants.

[212] Hunt’s Bristol, 97-8.

[213] For the anxiety as to the friendship of powerful maritime states see the French boast of the alliance of Spain and Genoa; Heralds’ Debate, 59. It is interesting to notice that both Edward the Fourth and Henry the Seventh preferred Florence to Venice. Disputes about the Venetian wool trade under Henry the Sixth are mentioned in Bekynton’s Corresp. i. 126-9.

[214] The price of wine had been raised in England by new rules about measures.

[215] A pilgrim to Rome in 1477 got letters in London on the bank of Jacobo di Medici. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 361.)

[216] 1. English merchants might trade freely with Florence in all kinds of wares of home or foreign origin.

2. The Florentines promised to buy no wool save from English ships. The English on their side were bound to carry yearly to Pisa an average quantity for all the Italian states save Venice. In Pisa they were to have all the privileges of inhabitants and to have land for a building.

3. The English were to be free from personal services and from taxes which might be raised on trade.

4. The merchants might form a corporation in Pisa.

5. Quarrels between Englishmen to be settled by their own head. Quarrels between an Englishman and a foreigner to be decided by the municipality and the English consul. Criminal cases by the municipality alone.

6. The English to share all advantages the Florentines might win by trading treaties.

7. The wishes of the English to be considered in all new privileges granted in the Florentine dominions.

8. The English King was to allow no stranger to carry wool out of England. The Venetians only might carry 600 sacks.

9. The wool was to be of good quality and well packed. (Schanz, i. 126-137.)

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

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

[219] Schanz, i. 298.

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

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

[222] Schanz, i. 275-7.

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

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

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

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

—Pass. xxii. 364-386.

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

[227] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. 386.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[234] Plumpton Correspondence, liv. lxii.

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Passus iv. 254-8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[251] See p. 41, note 2.

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

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

[254] Davies, 111, 37.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[268] Ibid. pass. viii. 98.

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

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

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

[272] Eng. Guilds, 430.

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

[274] See vol. ii.

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

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

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

[278] Ibid. ix. 173.

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

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

[281] Ibid. x. 4, 426.

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

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

[284] Paston Letters, iii. 436.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[299] In Bridport the bequests for the church from 1450 to 1460 consist of such things as a brass crock, a ring, small sums of money, and more often one or two sheep or lambs. Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 494. Manorial Pleas (Selden Soc.), 150. Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 524, 529, 531. Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 345.

[300] Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 345, 346. When Hythe set up its new steeple in 1480 the twelve jurats headed the list of subscriptions, the greatest sum given by them being 10s. Then came the commons giving from 20s. down to 1d., that is, a day’s subsistence. (Ibid. iv. 1, 433.)

[301] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 273. Money was collected for the church at Yaxley, in Suffolk, in 1485 and the following years, by a similar custom of the yearly “church ale,” the usual amount contributed from each householder for his bread and drink being about 4_s._ or 5_s._ (Ibid. x. 4, 465.)

[302] Boys’ Sandwich, 784.

[303] In 1327 a violent quarrel broke out between Sandwich and Canterbury. The convent was put to great inconvenience, and the prior wrote to “the mayor and bailiff of Sandwich” asking to be allowed to buy food and wax, as they had been put to great straits. The Sandwich men agreed on condition that the monks should in no manner relieve or give supplies to the Canterbury citizens. (Lit. Cantuar. i. 248-254.) There was great jealousy between Norwich and Yarmouth. Yarmouth was made a Staple town in 1369, in spite of all the efforts of Norwich. In 1390 Norwich paid large sums to have the wool staple at Norwich again. (Blomefield, iii. 96, 113.) In the fifteenth century Yarmouth set up a crane, which the Norwich men forced it to take down again.

[304] 1478. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 88.

[305] The towns were not wholly untouched by the struggle but their interest was very languid. Many, like London, were divided in sympathy. (Polydore Vergil, 106; English Chronicle, 1377-1461, 20-1, 67, 95; Fabyan, 638.) During this queasy season the Mayor of London feigned him sick and kept his house a great season. (Ibid. 660; see also Warkworth’s Chronicle, 12-22.) Bristol and Colchester were Yorkist (Hunt’s Bristol, 97-100, 102; Cutts’ Colchester, 131-2). For Nottingham see vol. ii. The chief interest was probably felt in Kent and Sussex. (English Chronicle, 1377-1461, 84, 91-4.) Canterbury was against Cade and Lancastrian in sympathy (ibid. 84-95; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140-3, 168, 170, 176-7); but in 1464 entered in its accounts presents to the brothers of the king “nunc.” The city suffered severely. The Cinque Ports went generally for Warwick and York. Lydd sent Cade a porpoise to London, and a letter to have his friendship in case he succeeded. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 518, 520, 523, 525.) For Romney, ibid. 543, 545; Rye, ibid. 492-4; Sandwich, Boys, 676.

[306] The agricultural tenants and labourers on a manor were accustomed to elect from among themselves a “Provost” to be head over them and to stand between them and their lord, whom they were pledged to obey in all things, and who on his side undertook to answer for them to their master. Bound by the closest ties of mutual responsibility, their fortunes were inseparably connected. If the lord suffered any loss, small or great, by the tenant’s fault, the provost had to pay the value, recovering it afterwards as best he could from the servant who was to blame; and on the other hand if the damage had come through the provost’s neglect, and he had not of his own property the wherewithal to make it good, all those of the township who elected him had to pay for him; and hence people and lord alike in self-protection upheld the rule that the provost must be no stranger of doubtful character or property, but chosen “from their own men,” and that “by election of the tenants.” (Walter of Henley, edited by E. Lamond, Husbandry, 65.) It is easy to see the similarity between the simple methods of rural government and the organization of municipal independence under an elected mayor. An admirable illustration is given in Mr. Maitland’s Manorial Pleas, Selden Society, 161-175.

[307] A citizen of Preston was obliged to show a frontage of twelve feet to the street; in Manchester or Salford he was bound to own at least an acre of land. Custumal in Hist. of Preston Guild, 75. Thomson’s Mun. Hist. 165; Gross, i. 71, note.

[308] Ipswich, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. p. 244. Otherwise he was not allowed to be of the common council of the town.

[309] At Bury S. Edmunds there were seventy-five tradesmen of various kinds, bakers, tailors, shoemakers, &c., who were bound to cut corn in harvest, the services being commuted for a rent called reap silver when the place became a borough. At Battle, under Henry the Second, 115 burgage tenements were occupied by tradesmen who had to work in the meadows or at the mill, but were called burgesses “on account of the superior dignity of the place’s excellence.” Rep. on Markets, 17, note.

[310] From examination of the names of the Norwich inhabitants in the Conveyance Rolls, Mr. Hudson thinks it certainly within the mark to assume “that the city of Norwich, towards the close of the thirteenth century, had attracted within its sheltering walls natives of at least four hundred Norfolk, and perhaps sixty Suffolk, towns, villages, and manors.” Notes on Norwich, Norfolk Archæology, vol. xii. p. 46.

[311] Picton’s Mun. Rec., i. 10-12. For the survival in Wareham of these burgages of various sizes, Hutchins’ Dorsetshire, i. 77. Henry the First of England gave charters to some of his towns in Normandy early in the twelfth century, by which the burgess was obliged to own a house, and was originally granted three acres and a garden, but with the right of creating other burgesses by giving up to them a part of his land. Flach, Origines de l’Ancienne France, ii. 347-8.

[312] In Nottingham a subsidy roll in 1472 gives a list of the 154 owners of freehold property in the town, headed by one the tenth of whose property was assessed at 74s. 7½d.; then came one whose tenth was worth 67s. 7½d.; six others paid sums from 30s. to 20s.; and a great number paid from 5s. to 2s. At the bottom of the list came three men whose tenth was assessed, one at 1¼d. and one at ¼_d._ Nott. Records, ii. 285-297.

[313] The old feeling about burgage property is shown in the custom of Nottingham that when a man sold land his nearest heirs might redeem it if they made an offer in the Guild Hall within a year and a day of the sale to pay to the buyer the price he had given; and they might thus redeem even if the buyer refused to accept their offer. Cases of a messuage and a butcher’s booth thus redeemed (Nott. Rec. i. 70, 100). See also at Dover (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 274). In Lincoln and Torksey no burgess could sell his burgage tenement save to a burgess or a kinsman without leave (Rep. on Markets, 35). The mayor and jurats of Rye might compel a tenant to keep his house in proper order, “at the request of him that is in the reversion.” (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 362.)

[314] For London rules in 1319 see Lib. Cust. 269-70.

[315] As, for example, John de Ypres at Romney (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 542. Ibid. iv. i. 427). Foreigners no longer lived separately, as in towns of the Conqueror’s time, but tended to become completely united with the English in customs and law. See Nott. Rec. i. 109; Norwich documents, printed 1884, in the case of Stanley _v._ Mayor, p. 1.

[316] Ricart, The Mayor of Bristol’s Kalendar, Camden Society, 41. In 1439 two severe ordinances were passed by the Bristol Council that no Irishman born might be admitted to the Council by the Mayor under penalty of £20 each from the Mayor and from the Irishman. In Canterbury also the Irish were busy and unpopular traders (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173). When Irishmen were ordered out of England in 1422, burgesses and inhabitants of boroughs of good reputation were excepted. (Statutes 1st Henry VI. cap. 3.)

[317] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 468. There was constant communication between various towns about the character of new settlers who offered themselves, and the testimonials preserved to us show how careful the towns were in such matters. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 488. Piers Ploughman, edited by Skeat, Part iii. passus iv. 108-116.) No one of illegitimate birth might be a burgess. Nott. Rec. ii. 66.

[318] A bondman born could in many if not in most towns win the freedom of the city, as in Norwich where serfs were admitted to the franchise; but it is clear that here certainly mere residence without admission to citizenship was no protection against the claims of a feudal lord. (Norf. Arch. vol. xii.; Hudson’s Notes on Norwich, Sec. xi.) It is most probable that the common phrases of “dwelling in the town a year and a day, and holding land in it and being in lot and scot,” or of being “in the Merchant Guild,” or of “remaining in the town _without challenge_,” were in fact equivalent to having been received as burghers; and in such cases emancipation was won not by a year’s residence but by a year’s citizenship. In Norwich a serf had to produce his lord’s license. (Hudson’s Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. lxxxv.-vi.) For a similar instance of feudal claims urged by a lord over his serf dwelling in a city, see Owen’s Shrewsbury, i. 133. Compare the references given by Gross, i. 30. There were exceptions, as in London, where men who held land in villeinage of the Bishop of London were not allowed in 1305 to be freemen of the City (Riley’s Mem. 58-9). And after the Peasant Revolt some towns withdrew the privilege (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109).

[319] A chaplain and four parsons of churches in Norwich were presented before the Leet Court of Norwich for various offences in 1292, in 1374, and in 1390. One of them had occupied himself with a large brewing business, another traded as a wool merchant, and two were charged with not being citizens. There were in all towns plenty of “clerici” who were citizens. (Hudson’s Norwich Leet Jurisdiction, Selden Soc. pp. 45, 63, 65, 76.) For burgages owned by parsons and clerics in Southampton, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 65, 70, 71, 75, 81. In Romney, where “the freedom” seems to have meant more than the right to trade, it was given to the vicar and others. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 540, 542, 546-7.) Monks and heads of religious houses were, according to Dr. Gross, excluded from citizenship (i. 66) though given rights of trade; but from the Charter Rolls, John, 1215, it appears that in Bridgewater the brethren of the Hospital of S. John were to be capable of taking up burgages in the town and to have the same liberties within and without the town as burgesses. This instance, has been kindly given to me by Miss Greenwood from her study of the muniments of the town; she adds that in the documents at Bridgewater there are many instances of houses and market-stalls being held by clergy. In all the bills of sale _stalls in High Street_ are named burgages, and a lawsuit shows that a wool-stall there was sold to the abbot of Michelney. For Ipswich, Gross, ii. 123; and Andover, ibid. 321. Local customs doubtless differed. The Guild Merchant at Lynn allowed no “spiritual person” to work on their quay—that is, to trade there (ibid. ii. 166)—a circumstance which reflects the greater credit on the hermit who about 1349 lived in the Bishop’s marsh by Lynn and set up at his own great cost a certain remarkable cross of the height of 110 feet, of great service for all shipping coming that way (Blomefield viii. 514). When the burgesses of Totnes admitted the abbot and convent of Buckfastleigh into the Merchants’ Guild, so as to make all their purchases like the burgesses, all sales that they might attempt to make “by way of trading” were excepted. Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 343.

[320] In Bristol; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 327. In Rye, “by the Common Seal of the Barons of the Ville of Rye;” ibid. v. 513, 499. For the old custom of sealing through rush rings see ibid. ix. 234-5.

[321] For the various ways of winning municipal freedom see First Rep. of the Commissioners on Mun. Corporations, 1835, 19, and especially the table given on page 93. Even towns as closely connected as the Cinque Ports differed much in their willingness to admit new burgesses. The freedom of Sandwich might be acquired in six ways—by birth, by marriage with a free woman, by buying a free tenement, by seven years’ apprenticeship, by purchase, by gift of the Corporation. In New Romney freedom could only be acquired by birthright in the male line, and grant of the Corporation; while in Hythe all children born after the father’s admission to freedom were entitled to the freedom, and daughters could convey it upon their marriage (Boys’ Sandwich, 787, 796, 799, 812, 821). The same differences existed in other towns. See Davies’ Southampton, 140; Boase’s Oxford, 48; English Guilds, 390; Freeman’s Exeter, 142; Hereford, Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 471, 468.

[322] Leet Jur. in Norwich, Selden Soc. xxxvii. I have met with but one instance in which the King interfered—when Edward the Second by Royal Letters Patent granted the right of burgesses at Southampton to John de London of Bordeaux, and in 1312 extended them to his wife and children. (Davies, 190.) Henry the Fourth granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury the right to trade in Ipswich; but this right carried with it no political privileges in the town. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 246.) For the granting of franchises by French kings, see Luchaire, Les Communes Françaises, 56-7.

[323] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. III, 114.

[324] Hereford; Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii. 468.

[325] Gross, ii. 257.

[326] Totnes, Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 342, 343. Preston Guild Rolls, xvi.,