Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1

501

For the evils of liveries and maintenance under Richard the Second, see Richard the Redeless, Pass. i. 55 &c., ii. 74 &c., iii. 309 &c. The wearing of liveries was forbidden in Shrewsbury lest “when any affray or trouble fall in the said town each man having livery would draw to his master or to his fellow and not to the bailiffs.” (Owen, i. 217.) From the towns these evils seem to have been rigorously and effectually banished by ordinances from 1309 (Freeman’s Exeter, 165, 143) throughout the two following centuries. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 557; Eng. Gilds, 385, 388-9, 393, 333; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, page 16.) The cases of trouble which occur are rare. (Nott. Records, ii. 384; iii. 37, 344-5. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 415. Hunt’s Bristol, 103-5.)

502

Leicester shows the comparatively slow growth of freedom in one of the most favoured towns dependent on a great lord. Its great charter given by Edmund Crouchback in 1277, and translated into English under Henry the Sixth, was mainly concerned with the ordering of legal procedure for the burghers; and it was not till 1376 that the town bought from its earl the right to appoint its own bailiff, and to receive the annual profits of its courts, and various other dues and fines. The town property was simply a tenement, a chamber, and a small place yielding a few pence yearly till 1393, when it was allowed to hold a little property for the repair of the bridges; and not till 1435 were the mayor and the corporation given the right to acquire lands and rents for the sustenation of the town and mayoralty. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 404, 412, 413, 414. Thompson, Mun. Hist., 74. A pamphlet on the Origin of the Leicester Corporation by J. D. Paul gives a translation of Crouchback’s charter.) Doncaster belonged to the family of De Mauley till the middle of the fifteenth century, when it passed for a few years to the Duke of Northumberland, and in 1461 was taken into the possession of the Crown. Edward the Fourth made it a free borough and gave it a common seal. Henry the Seventh in 1505 granted to the corporation all the property which the Crown had acquired at Doncaster on the attainder of Percy in 1461, and for a yearly rent of £74 13s. 11½d. secured to it the rights which had belonged to the ancient feudal lords. (Hunter’s History of the Deanery of Doncaster, i. 13-15.)

503

Picton’s Municipal Rec. of Liverpool, i. 1-4.

504

Picton’s Municipal Rec. of Liverpool, i. 5-7.

505

Ibid. 13, 14, 16. From this time leases of the ferm were very numerous and were constantly granted to one or more individuals; between 1354 and 1374 Richard de Aynesargh and William Adamson, who were often mayors, took such leases for several terms. (Picton’s Memorials of Liverpool, ii. 54.)

506

Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 35-36.

507

Ibid. i. 27-28.

508

In 1413 the burgesses presented a petition complaining that their privileges were infringed upon by the shire officers coming into the borough and holding courts by force, by which “the said burgesses are grievously molested, vexed, and disturbed, to the great hindrance and detriment of the said borough and the disinheriting of the burgesses.” It was declared on the other side, that the mayor and bailiffs had held the King’s Courts without authority and received the tolls and profits. It is not known how the case ended. Ibid. i. 31-2. Picton’s Mun. Records, i. 20.

509

The revenue from Liverpool in 1296 was £25: it then had 168 inhabited houses. (Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 20.) In 1342 the personalty of the burgesses taxed was £110 13s. 3d., that is, the average personalty of each was about one mark (25). The revenue in 1327 was £30; in 1346 it was £38 (26), and remained the same in 1394 (31). In 1444 it was reduced to £21; in 1455 to £17 16s. 8d.; and under Edward the Fourth to £14 (36-7). In 1515 an inquiry was made as to the decay of the revenue (38), and the Act of 1544 put Liverpool in the list of towns which had wholly fallen into decay (45). Two plagues, one in 1540, another in 1548, probably carried off half its population (47); and in 1565 it had but 138 inhabited houses, and probably seven or eight hundred inhabitants, and twelve vessels navigated on an average by six men each (55). There were five streets under Edward the Third, and seven under Elizabeth (62).

510

Fortified in 1406. Picton’s Mun. Records, i. 21, 22.

511

A little thatched building in the High Street which had to serve as toll house, town hall, and gaol, but the greater number of criminals were imprisoned and judged in the Stanley and Molyneux Castles. Picton’s Memorials, ii. 25-6.

512

Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 32-3.

513

Picton’s Mem. of Liverpool, i. 36, 37.

514

Ibid. i. 37, 38, 46, 48-9.

515

Picton, i. 63.

516

As an illustration of the reverse process, showing the impulse given to municipal liberty when a borough was transferred from private ownership to the State, see the case of Sandwich (Ch. XII.).

517

See charter to Beverley; Stubbs’ Charters, 105; Lambert’s Gild Life, 73-6, York; Stubbs’ Charters, 304, Salisbury; Gross’ Gild Merchant, ii. 209-10.

518

Pol. Poems and Songs (Rolls’ Series). Ed. Wright, i. 327, 334.

519

The Bishop of Salisbury by a royal charter of 1304 got the right to tallage the townspeople of Salisbury, while the burghers were given municipal privileges the same as those of Winchester. In 1305, however, the burghers, rather than pay tallage to the bishop, surrendered their municipal privileges to the King, and promised to give up to him their common seal. (Rot. Parl. i. 174-6.) But in the composition made the next year between the lord bishop and the citizens, those who had shared in the revolt and had not made their submission were utterly separated and removed from privileges of trade or government. (Gross, ii. 209-10.) In 1396 there was again a quarrel between the bishop and the citizens, and the case was carried to the King’s Council, when the mayor and commonalty entered into a recognizance to the King in £20,000 to behave well to the bishop, and two hundred of the citizens entered into recognizances to the bishop, each one in the sum of £1,000. In the agreement, however, certain provisions were made to prevent the ecclesiastics from taking advantage in any way of this treaty. (Madox, 142.)

The Commons in giving the grant of 1435 pray that no prelate may be a collector, adding that the dioceses of bishops and the neighbourhood of abbeys were greatly oppressed by ecclesiastical lords. (Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, iv. 164.)

520

Our Borough, by E. M. Beloe, 1-3.

521

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 185-6.

522

For the troubles of the mayor and community in trying to carry out the King’s laws in the presence of this divided jurisdiction, see Rot. Parl. i. 331.

523

There had been trouble the year before which Robert’s soft words failed to dissipate. “Know, dear friends,” he writes, “that I am surely concerned for your trouble, and if I could give you ease or alleviation of your trouble I would do it most readily, but assuredly, dear friends, I am at present in such misfortune of money that … wherefore I pray you, my dear friends, that you put me in possession of my moneys as speedily as you can, since of a truth I can no longer dispense with them which much troubles me. And with respect to the wrong that was done to my bailiff, you have sent me word that the parties are in agreement. Know you that though peace be made between them the contempt done to me is not redressed, wherefore, I pray you, dear sirs, that you will take order amongst yourselves that amends may be made to me for the aforesaid contempt. Adieu, dear friends! May he give you happy and long life!” Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 241-4.

524

For the King’s bailiffs, see the petition in 1382 to the Lord Chancellor for relief from extortionate demands of the bailiffs of the Tolbooth. The bailiffs were perhaps not to blame; in 1396 and 1397 they had to pay 20 marks of silver out of receipts to the Duke of Britanny; in 1398, 10 marks to the Duke of York; in 1400, 8½ to the Duke of Lancaster. Ibid. 244-5.

525

The charter of 1268 granted the right to elect a mayor in accordance with the former charter of the bishop. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 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 parchmentThe 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. part 7, 173, 174.

567

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 174.

568

Under Henry the Eighth, he received £10. (Coates’s Reading, 55, 56.) A woman of the town left three silver cups and one gilt cup for the mayoralty in 1479. Public dinners at each election began in 1492, and feasts for the burgesses at Christmas and Shrovetide. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 180-1, 176.)

569

Ibid. 180.

570

Eng. Guilds, 298.

571

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 175, 180.

572

Ibid. 212.

573

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 176.

574

Coates’s Reading, 52, 53.

575

Coates’s Reading, 54-5. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 168-9.

576

Miller’s Parishes of Worcester, vol. I. Rot. Hun., p. 282, 3 Edward I. In Canterbury there were still in 1835 not less than fifteen precincts within the limits of the corporate authority but exempt from its jurisdiction (Rep. on Mun. Corpor., 31). For crown property in York not under municipal law, see Davies’ Walks through York, 27-28.

577

Ricart’s Kalendar, 117.

578

In 1285 the Bristol charter was forfeited because of encroachments on the rights of the constable of the castle. Seyer’s Bristol, ii. 74.

579

Seyer’s Bristol, ii. 88-109.

580

Norwich Doc., Stanley v. Mayor, &c., 25. Here the fee was given to the citizens as early as 1346.

581

There were also occasional difficulties as to the jurisdiction of Bristol over the Temple fee, which first belonged to the Templars, then to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and was not finally incorporated with the city till 1543. (Seyer’s Bristol, i. 134-6.)

582

In 1240 the inhabitants of Redcliffe were combined and incorporated with the town of Bristol; and the ground of S. Austin’s by the river was granted to the commonalty by the abbot for certain money paid by the said commonalty. Ricart, 28.

583

Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 177, 196-201.

584

They took to trading about 1367. Berkeleys, i. 365-6. Ibid. i. 23. Thomas Berkeley got leave from Henry the Sixth “for three of his factors to go with the ship called the Cristopher with any lawful merchandise, and to sell the same and return and go again. And the year before, this Thomas and two of his partners had the like licence to go with their ship called the Trinity of Berkeley, to Bordeaux, and there to unload and load again, and bring any merchandise into England.” Ibid. ii. 83, 136.

585

Ibid. ii. 68.

586

Ibid. ii. 113-4.

587

The new marquis was very angry at the unworthiness of such a match with so mean blood, and made it an excuse for disinheriting him. Ibid. ii. 172, 173.

588

Berkeleys, ii. 175, 176.

589

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 461.

590

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 480.

591

Ibid. 481.

592

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 467.

593

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 480.

594

Gross, ii. 265.

595

Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 601. Gross, ii. 254.

596

The bailiff of the Soke was sometimes called the Mayor of the Soke to emphasize his independence.

597

Gross, ii. 254. For the way in which a bit of the town under ecclesiastical and not under municipal control might serve as a sort of sanctuary against the tax gatherers, see the complaint of the Bristol commonalty about Temple Street. (Rot. Parl. i. 434.)

598

They had once been occupied by “good citizens,” but all through the Middle Ages were filled by a very poor population. (Kitchin’s Winchester, 75.)

599

Kitchin’s Winchester, 46-7, 75-7.

600

In 1264 there was a violent fray near the King’s Gate, the citizens fighting to keep the monks from admitting the followers of De Montfort. (Ibid. 130.) The convent kept control of the King’s Gate till 1520. (Ibid. 132.)

601

For the bishop’s rights during the fair such as tronage, authority to take all weights and measures and bear them to the Pavilion and there make assay, to demand that the people of the city should come to the Pavilion to present cry raised and bloodshed, and other things touching the peace of our Lord the King, see Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 595-605. Compare his powers in Southampton during the same fair. There he might send his bailiff to see that only food was weighed or sold in the town, that no merchant whether resident or not ventured to sell anything except food, that there was no weighing or measuring, that merchants who came with their goods swore they did not bring them to sell at this time. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, pp. 67, 68.) The convent also had its own home and foreign trade on a very large scale. (Kitchin’s Winchester, 161.)

602

English Guilds, 353, &c. 358. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 495-605.)

603

This custom, once common (Madox, 152-3), was abandoned in Ipswich as early as 1317, and seems to have generally died out in the fourteenth century, though Gloucester sent its bailiffs to Westminster till 1483.

604

In 1244 a mayor who had obeyed the King’s orders to shut the city gates against a bishop whose election the King opposed, was severely punished by the bishop when he gained possession of his see and palace. (Kitchin’s Winchester, 121.) The mayor was thrown into a London prison because a state prisoner had escaped from Winchester. (Ibid. 139.)

605

Compare the action of Norwich. In the Wars of the Roses the Winchester people were, like their bishop Wayneflete, Lancastrian, but they had neither energy nor power to play any important part. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 147.)

606

Archæologia, i. 91, 93-4.

607

Gross, ii. 260-1.

608

Payments for stalls went to the King’s ferm. (Ibid. 262.) The question was therefore one of revenue and not one of protection.

609

Archæologia, i. 102.

610

The fraternity of St. John allowed nearly £35 a year towards the maintenance of the bridge and walls.

611

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 77.

612

Ibid. vi. 595-605.

613

Gregory’s Chronicle of London, ed. Gairdner, Early English Text Soc. 199.

614

A charter of Edward the Fourth still speaks of Winchester as now being “quite unable to pay the fee-farm rent of 100 marks.” (Kitchin’s Winchester, 174.)

615

See the case of Lincoln, Rot. Parl. i. 156-7.

616

Hudson’s Leet Jurisdiction of Norwich (Selden Soc.).

617

Cutts’ Colchester, 149. Hudson’s Norwich Leet-Jurisdiction (Selden Soc.), 17. See pp. xxxvii., xli. The constables of Nottingham at the court leet present the “Master Official (of the archdeacon) for excessive and extorcious taking of fees” for probate of testaments, and for over assessing poor folks and men’s servants at Easter for their tythes. (Records, iii. 364.)

618

13 Richard the Second, 1, c. 18. Statute 4 Henry the Fifth, c. 5, repeats with some alterations that of Richard.

619

1454, Cutts’ Colchester, 150-1.

620

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 496.

621

Freeman’s Exeter, 165.

622

Freeman’s Exeter, 84-5, 165-6.

623

Shillingford’s Letters (Camden Society), p. 68. An order of the town had been issued in 1339 that no clerk of the consistory court was to be chosen mayor or bailiff or allowed to meddle with the elections. Freeman’s Exeter, 147.

624

The bishop had taken an action years before in 1432-3. Shillingford’s Letters, xiv.

625

Shillingford’s Letters, xxii. – iv.

626

Ibid. 98.

627

Ibid. xiv.

628

Shillingford’s Letters, 86-7.

629

Shillingford’s Letters, 75-6.

630

Ibid. p. 95-6.

631

Ibid. p. 1, 43.

632

Ibid. 10.

633

Shillingford’s Letters, p. 43, 44.

634

Ibid. xiv. – xvi.; Freeman’s Exeter, 158-60.