part 3, 186, 246; Gross, ii. 158.

[526] Gross, ii. 165.

[527] Gross, ii. 155; Paston Letters, ii. 86-7.

[528] Gross, ii. 155-6.

[529] See Vol. II., Chap. XIV.

[530] Blomefield, iii. 163.

[531] In 1403. Blomefield, viii. 531.

[532] Proceedings of Privy Council, vol. i., 167 (1401).

[533] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 186-7. In 1307 the mayor and community got a grant of land from the bishop for their basin for water. Ibid. 239.

[534] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 240.

[535] Ibid. 213-215.

[536] A will was proved after a proclamation by the serjeant that on such a day it would be read in the Guild Hall before the mayor, and anyone who wished to contradict it must then appear. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 153, 189.) In the earliest wills no mention is made of probate before the ordinary; in later registrations it is recorded that the will had received episcopal probate before coming before the mayor. (Ibid. 155.) The cost of this was what the people desired to avoid.

“For who so woll prove a testament, That is not all worth tenne pound, He shall pay for the parchment The third of the money all round;”

—Pol. Poems and Songs, ed. Wright, i. 323.

[537] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 207.

[538] Ibid. 205.

[539] Ibid. 189.

[540] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 188.

[541] Blomefield, iii. 513. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 189, 205.

[542] Blomefield, iii. 516-17.

[543] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 222. It would seem that in 1377 the mayor and burgesses were made responsible for the custody of the town, and were ultimately given power of distress for subsidies for its defence. (Ibid. 190, 205.)

[544] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 165.

[545] Ibid. 225.

[546] Paston Letters, ii. 86-7.

[547] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 205.

[548] Ibid. 246.

[549] Proc. Privy Council, i. 127. Beecham’s Hist. Cirencester, 154-8.

[550] In 1333 St. Alban’s brought its charter to the King’s Chancery and renounced there all the liberties contained in the said charter. The keeper of the rolls at their request broke off the seal of wax, and cancelled the enrolment in the Chancery rolls. The townsmen also brought their common seal of silver, which at their request was destroyed and the silver given to the shrine of St. Alban. (Madox, 140.) Common as it was in France for a commune to renounce its freedom, there is scarcely any instance in England save on ecclesiastical property. The case of Dunwich was peculiar and I have met with no other.

[551] Occasionally a convent drove a hard bargain. In 1440 an agreement was made between the convent of Plimpton and the commonalty of Plymouth, by which the commonalty was to pay £41 yearly, and if this rent was unpaid fifteen days after quarter day, the officers of the convent might seize all the goods and chattels of the mayor and commonalty and of any burgesses and of any others residing and abiding there which could be found within the borough and the precinct thereof. Madox, 222-3.

[552] The organization of the guild does not seem to have been at all of a democratic or “advanced” kind, but after the pattern of the oligarchic societies of the time. Four men owning goods to the value of 10 marks were elected yearly, by a committee of twelve burgesses, to hold the guild, and summoned to do their duty by two officers of the guild called “les Dyes.”

[553] Gross, ii. 29-36. Yates’ Bury S. Edmunds, 123-135.

[554] Statutes, 6 Richard II., 2, cap. 3.

[555] Coates’s Reading, 49.

[556] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 224.

[557] Gross, ii. 208.

[558] Coates’s Reading, 49-50.

[559] Gross, ii. 202-4.

[560] Some of the fines levied were doubtless used for the townsmen’s benefit. For example, there were nineteen bridges within the limits of the borough, which after the dissolution of the monastery fell into decay and were repaired in the time of Elizabeth with the stones from the abbey walls. (Coates’s Reading, 64.) But material advantages did not take the place of political freedom.

[561] Gross, i., 90-1. The number of burghers in the Guild seems to have been very small. In 1486, 28 burghers paid _chepin gavell_; in 1487, 22 burgesses; and in 1490-93, 31 burgesses. In 1510 there were 45 burgesses. (Coates’s Reading, 58.) There were many who paid fines and dues to the abbot who were of the town and not of the Guild, and this class was doubtless encouraged by the convent, following the same policy as the bishop in Lynn. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 172, 175-6.)

[562] The Guilds were naturally looked on with very little favour by the ecclesiastical lords in such cases. There was a conflict between abbot and town at Malmesbury in the time of Edward the First. The burghers claimed to have a Guild of their own people, who alone had a right to trade in the town, and to take certain taxes for the support of the Guild from all traders who were not of it. The abbot refused to allow them to use their rights. The town fell back on its liberties _when it had been a royal borough_, and appealed to the King. (Gross, ii. 173.) See also the precautions taken by the Bishop about the Guild at Salisbury. (Ibid. 209-10.)

[563] Coates’s Reading, 53.

[564] They got afterwards from Henry the Eighth the church of the Grey Friars for their Guild Hall.

[565] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 172-3.

[566] Coates’s Reading, 53, 54. All this time matters were made easier for the townspeople by constant talk of loans to the King. In 1420 the town officers went to Wallingford to discuss the matter with the King. There was a loan made in 1430, and another in 1445. Hist. MSS. Com. xi.