Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1

So also the question of taxes caused much wrangling. Christ Church, which owned within the franchise £200 of rent and five acres of land,705 claimed to be free from any contribution for maintaining the walls of the city706 after their circuit had been completed by Archbishop Sudbury and left to the people’s care; and this dispute was not settled till 1492, when the convent, having got possession of a part of the wall, undertook to keep that section of it in repair.707 With regard to the costs of levying soldiers for the royal service708 the citizens decided in 1327 to charge a part of this tax on lands held by the convent. The tax seems to have been required only from property in the city, and the archbishop was inclined to give way after discussion with his counsel, “however much those of our Church may wish to do otherwise,” but the prior resolutely held out and got a letter of special protection from the King for Church property.709 At this the city was stirred to the utmost fury. The people held a meeting in Blackfriars’ churchyard, and passed a resolution that if the convent still refused they would break their windows in Burgate, disable their mills, drive their tenants out of their houses; that they would allow no one to give, sell, or lend meat or drink to monks, and would seize carts and horses carrying food from their manors and sell them in the market; that they would arrest any monk coming out of the monastery into the city and take his clothes and property; that the monastery should be cut off from the world by a deep trench dug in front of its gate, and that no pilgrim should be allowed to enter the cathedral until he had taken an oath not to make the smallest offering. Finally every man at the meeting swore that he would have from S. Thomas’s shrine a gold ring for a finger of each hand.710 The threat of interference with their pilgrims was a serious matter to the convent, since the whole charge of providing for the comfort and safety of the pilgrims lay with the mayor. Not only was it his office to see that sufficient food was laid up in the city for the pilgrims and to have all the special directions which he judged necessary for their victuals and lodgings set forth on a post which stood before the court hall, but he was further responsible for keeping order among them, and there were occasions when travellers would set out on their journey with just apprehension unless, as happened at Lydd, official messengers from the town were sent before to Canterbury to arrange that its pilgrims might come and go in safety without danger of arrest, and won favour of the mayor’s wife by the gift of a quart of malmsey.711 The corporation had in fact power to make a visit to the shrine so difficult and unpleasant as seriously to affect the flow of offering to the treasury of the saint, and this at a time when the anxiety of the convent about profits was heightened by the pressing demands of the Papal Court for a share in the spoils of its great Jubilee festivals.712 Money quarrels in fact never failed on either side, and at the very end of the fifteenth century it would seem that Cardinal Morton saw in the old feuds a chance for making Canterbury pay its full tribute to the royal treasury; when in 1494 he issued demands for aid in money or in men for the Scotch war he seems to have sent several blank copies of the summons to his friend Prior Selling to be filled up by him and issued to corporations and citizens whom he thought rich enough to pay. Probably in his directions to the tax-gatherer Prior Selling did not forget old enemies of the convent.713

The quarrel as to the town market also lasted on throughout the fifteenth century. There the city magistrates had indeed undisputed control, but it was not always easy to enforce their control on the clever people of the convent. Sometimes the monks attempted to escape from the regulations and tolls of the burgesses by sending to buy their fish at the seaside; and the townsmen protected themselves by seizing any fish so bought on its way to the priory.714 Other questions arose as to houses belonging to Christ Church which opened inwards on the precincts but had windows looking outwards on the market-place in Burgate just outside the priory gate, from which houses shutters and windows could be let down for the inhabitants to display their wares on market-day, whereat the town was doubly aggrieved both by losing the rent of stalls and by seeing the increasing rent of the houses pass away into the convent treasury. At last in 1493 convent and city sought to make a final settlement of the question. The boundaries of the monastery were defined, including many houses of laymen, and within these limits the town renounced all jurisdiction except over houses and shops which had doors or windows opening on the street; while the convent was allowed to distrain on any houses that belonged to it in the city. But in 1500 the quarrel broke out with intenser bitterness, and the mayor violently shifted the market from the prior’s gate to the open space near the city church, so that no house held by the convent should have the advantage of opening out upon it. Then ecclesiastical tenants refused to sell in the new market, and city stall-holders treated the convent servants with little courtesy. The citizens fell on the caterer of Christ Church as he was carrying a halibut he had bought from the market to the priory gate, and took it from him, “contrary to all right and good conscience;” and when the prior sent to the seaside for fish, it was seized at the entrance of the town by the citizens, “disappointing in the same the brethren of the place of their dinners.”715 The prior brought his grievances before the London courts, upon which the whole town took up the question with ardour, and the burgesses collected a voluntary subscription to defend their cause. The mayor was charged with the conduct of the suit in London. Ten or twelve citizens were perpetually riding backwards and forwards and hanging about the courts, and the usual expenses entered in the town records for drink, supper, horse-meat, hire of horses to Rochester and hire of barges and cloaks for the travellers from thence to London, down to “threepence paid at Sittingbourne in washing of my shirts.”716 Master Poynings, being at last commissioned by the King to take evidence on the spot, was entertained at a splendid banquet, and finally an exemplification of the market was sent up to the King’s Council in London. In 1501 a new messenger from the King “came to the city and tarried not because of death,717 but spake with Mr. Mayor at S. Andrew’s Church, the which showed him the market and so he departed to Dover,” followed by a messenger of the mayor hurrying after him with presents of fish, game, poultry, and wine. Then new ambassadors were sent from the city to the King at Richmond, and the paying of fees, and costs for eating and drinking went on merrily. But the citizens won the day in the end, for the Canterbury market is still held by S. Andrew’s Church and was never brought back to the priory gate.

Even the control of the river brought its troubles, for whenever a question arose as to embanking and straightening the bed of the stream, the prior and the mayor met in the meadows about Chatham with their followers and carried on consultations refreshed by the usual supply of meat and drink. Business however was done at these parties, and the river turned from its meandering course from one side of the valley to the other into the straight channel in which it now flows.718 The question of the mills was less easy to settle, with the dependent problems as to damming the water and dredging the shallows. A settlement made in 1431 to prevent the injury of the city mill failed to end disputes, and in 1499 the prior dug a trench which drew away the water from it, upon which the citizens destroyed the trench and proceeded to make a dam for the conservation of the water running to their mill. The prior in his turn cut the dam; whereupon the mayor called out his posse to fight the matter out in the meadows by the river, apparently routed the enemy’s forces, seizing their arms, and the next day in his wrath removed the market to its new place, as we have seen.719

So ended the fifteenth century in Canterbury amid a storm of invective and free fighting. The mayor protested that the prior, in addition to all his other crimes, had taken away the mace from the city serjeant, and had allowed the city ditch to be befouled. The prior retorted by accusing the mayor of riotous conduct, and breaking of boundaries and building of bridges and diverting of water-courses to his damage, and not only this, but of having for malice and grudge to the prior and convent broken the old custom of the citizens’ gathering at Christmas at the tomb of Sudbury to pray for his soul for the great acts he had done for the city, so that they now withdrew their prayers from thence to hold their service under the prison house called Westgate. Indeed they even refused to join the noblemen who brought the King’s offering to S. Thomas at the Christmastide feast.

As usual, however, all this mighty turmoil ended in nothing. The mayor was indicted by the convent for riot, and the verdict of the jury went against him, but no particular result seems to have followed; and though the persevering prior then had the case brought before the Star Chamber in 1501, it was passed over for want of leisure.720

Practically the same story was repeated at Canterbury as at Exeter and in every other city where there was a similar conflict.721 Money and skill and labour and passion were expended without measure, and finally the courts adjudged that all must remain as it had been when the municipality scarcely existed three hundred years before, an order which statesmen possibly thought the safest course in the presence of opposing forces, neither of whom was strong enough to win, and neither of whom could dare to lose. But this was not the end of the matter. Through these three hundred years the towns had gathered strength, perfected their machinery of government, and realized their own might. Wealthy, highly organized, very centres of rationalism in politics and common sense in business, their controversy with the Church, singularly free as it was from theological pre-occupation, was inevitably in all questions of temporal government more keen and resolute in the fifteenth century than ever before. It was vain to renew attempts in one town after another to appease irreconcilable quarrels by arbitrations and compromises which left the real problem untouched, and the century before the Reformation was everywhere a time of restless dissatisfaction, and of spasmodic revolts against the alien ecclesiastical settlements which throve on the town’s wealth, and could never be absorbed into the town’s life. For a little space matters hung in the balance, and then came the crash of the Reformation. In the bitterness of feeling that grew out of the long struggle of the burghers, we have a measure of that temper of virile independence which created the boroughs of the Middle Ages; and as we stand now under the walls of Canterbury Cathedral and see its glory shattered and its carved work broken in pieces, we may well wonder whether in that great ruin there was no other motive at work than the fanaticism of a religious awakening.

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 Lympne742 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 Dover747 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