Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1

635

Shillingford’s Letters, p. 143, et seq.

636

Ibid. p. 58.

637

Shillingford’s Letters, 17.

638

Ibid. pp. 67, 68.

639

Ibid. 23.

640

Shillingford’s Letters, p. 6.

641

Ibid. p. 12.

642

Ibid. p. 12-15, 63.

643

The Recorder of Exeter.

644

Shillingford’s Letters, 146.

645

Ibid. 9.

646

Ibid. 23, 150.

647

Shillingford’s Letters, 37, 38.

648

Shillingford’s Letters, 11, 47.

649

Ibid. 43, 45.

650

Ibid. 32, see 11, 14, 20.

651

His temper towards ecclesiastical interference and his urbanity in argument are admirably shown in a letter to the bishop’s counsel. The rough draft of the letter ends with a fine outburst of anger. “We would fain have an end,” he writes, and goes on to ask how it was possible for any one ever to conceive that “John Shillyng, for no dread of great words of malice, disclaunders, language, writings, nor setting up of bulls to that intent to rebuke me and to make me dull to labour for the right that I am sworn to, for truly I will not be so rebuked nor dulled, but the more boldlier.” But he struck out this vigorous passage in the second draft in favour of a less belligerent sentence – ”for ye may fully conceive that my fellows and I would fain have a good end and peace, praying you to apply your good will and favour to the same.” Shillingford’s Letters, 25.

652

Shillingford’s Letters, 52-3.

653

Ibid. 78.

654

Shillingford’s Letters, 97.

655

Ibid. 53.

656

Ibid. 66, 10, 94.

657

Shillingford’s Letters, 53.

658

Ibid. 64.

659

Ibid. 93, 104.

660

Shillingford’s Letters, 16.

661

Ibid. pp. 10, 14, 91, 99, 104.

662

Ibid. 83-4.

663

Shillingford’s Letters, 83, 84, 99. Compare Norwich, Blomefield, iii. 62. In Canterbury the murder of a citizen by a waggoner of the priory in 1313 gave rise to a hot dispute as to the jurisdiction of the city coroner. The Convent refused him admittance within the priory gates, smuggled in an alien coroner to view the body, and then had it buried by the prior’s grooms. The story is given in an Inspeximus of Richard the Second; Muniments of Canterbury.

664

The distribution of taxes was a matter of special arrangement in the different towns. By the request of the canons the ecclesiastical tenants at Grimsby were not tallaged with the burgesses (Madox, 270). In Leicester the tenants of the Bishop’s Fee just without the walls did suit and service to the Bishop of Lincoln; a compromise had been made in 1281 by which it was decided that the Bishop’s tenants should share in certain common expenses, and should in return enjoy the franchises and free customs which had been won by the Merchant Guild of Leicester; but while the burgesses had to bear the charges both of “the community of the town,” and “the community of the guild,” the bishop’s tenants only paid for such matters as touched “the community of the guild,” and were not liable for the general town taxes. (Gross, ii. 140-1.) As early as 1189 the Guild of Nottingham obtained the right to raise contributions to the ferm rent from tenants of all fees whatsoever. In Norwich this was given in 1229 (Norwich Doc., Stanley v. Mayor, etc., 5, 6). But the question of collection still remained a burning one, and the itinerant justices having failed in 1239 to settle matters between the convent and the city, the King himself went to Norwich to insist on an agreement in 1241. (Blomefield, iii. 46.) See p. 357, note 4.

665

Shillingford’s Letters, p. 13.

666

Ibid. 79.

667

Shillingford’s Letters, 96.

668

Ibid. pp. 98, 108.

669

For the mayor’s defence, see p. x. 107-9.

670

The tenants of the hospital of S. John in Worcester refused to aid in tallages, to submit to the assize of bread and beer, under the town’s officers, and to keep watch and ward. In 1221 they were ordered to do all these things. (Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Soc. p. 97.) In 1331 Norwich resisted the handing over of three houses to the prior and convent “for that a very great part of the same city which is inhabited, is in the hands of the prior and convent and of other religious persons, whereby the inhabitants are at their distress, and cannot be tallaged to the tallages and aids of the lord the King and of the city aforesaid as tenants should be, nor can they be in assizes, juries, and recognizances, whereby others dwelling in the same city are burdened and grieved more than usual by such gifts and assignments.” (Norwich Documents, Stanley v. Mayor, pr. 1884, 24, 25).

671

Shillingford’s Letters, 44-45.

672

Ibid. 52.

673

Shillingford’s Letters, 91-2, 104-5.

674

Ibid. 92.

675

Ibid. 100, 109.

676

Shillingford’s Letters, 84-5, 99.

677

In Canterbury also the Convent was bent on getting possession of that part of the covered way which lay along its territory, and the city wall itself so far as it touched the Cathedral precincts. Their first step was taken in 1160, and their final success was not assured till 1492, when the city resigned to the Convent the wall and covered way between Burgate and Northgate with the waste land adjoining, and the chapter was allowed to make a postern and to build a bridge across the foss. Such an arrangement was of course only possible at a time when peace with France, and the close of civil wars and riots at home had freed the town from danger of siege or revolution. (Lit. Cant., i. 60-2, iii. 318-20.) See also Davies’ Walks through York, 11, 12.

678

Shillingford’s Letters, 88, 89, 96.

679

Shillingford’s Letters, 93, 94.

680

Shillingford’s Letters, pp. 85, 86, 101, 110.

681

Ibid. 9.

682

Ibid. 20.

683

Shillingford’s Letters, 12.

684

Ibid. 10, 19.

685

The Commons had perhaps some reason to ask in 1371 that none but a layman should have charge of the seal. (Campbell’s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, i. 262.) This system, however only lasted till 1378, and in the next hundred years, out of 35 chancellors only eight were laymen.

686

Shillingford’s Letters, 11.

687

Shillingford, 136-140.

688

In 1463 when Edward granted the city fresh franchises and powers he exempted the close from civic jurisdiction. Freeman’s Exeter, 91.

689

In 1452 the judges held their assize in the hall of the bishop’s palace; the King being in the town it was proved to him that holding of assize in the bishop’s hall was a breach of the privileges of the church; two traitors who had been condemned were therefore pardoned by the King. Ibid. 89.

690

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 150.

691

Ibid. 169.

692

Lit. Cant. i., lxi. Sandwich and Stonor were the two ports of London and therefore of considerable consequence. For the history of Stonor see Boys’ Sandwich, 552-5, 658-62.

693

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172-3.

694

Ibid. 150.

695

Ibid. 172-3, 141.

696

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 139, 145.

697

Ibid. 173.

698

The cost was entered on the chamberlain’s accounts, but there is nothing more to tell how the matter ended. Ibid. 144.

699

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169-70.

700

Ibid. 170.

701

The details as to the costs of many of these feasts are preserved – the claret and wines white and red, and the beer and ale, which recommended a dinner made up for example of a swan, five capons, two geese, a side of brawn, two lambs, four rabbits, beef, marrow bones, a jowl of salmon, gurnards, roach, bread, spices, salt, vinegar, butter, milk, eggs, lard, and suet. Sacks of coal were always bought for the cooking of these great dinners, either charcoal sold in sacks, or “sea-cole” sold by the tub. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 146, 163.

702

Ibid. 143-4.

703

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 77.

704

Ibid. 112.

705

Lit. Cant. i. 216.

706

Ibid. iii. 379, 380.

707

Ibid. 318-320; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433-4.

708

These charges were heavy in the southern towns. For example, Canterbury and Sandwich had to provide Warwick and his garrison with victuals in Calais in 1457. Oman’s Warwick, 64.

709

Lit. Cant. i. 213-222. This quarrel was 100 years old at this time. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433.

710

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 98.

711

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 521.

712

The last Jubilee, when the oblations amounted to £600, was celebrated in 1470. In 1520 the Pope demanded a half of the gross receipts, but the archbishop and chapter not being disposed to grant this no Jubilee was held. Literæ Cantuar. iii. xxxv., xxxvi.

713

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145-146.

714

Ibid. v. 433.

715

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433-4.

716

Ibid. ix. 146-7. The chamberlain’s accounts give the costs of one visit to London of mayor and aldermen on business of the town. Three counsel were paid 10s.; one of them “in the cloister at Paul’s when he corrected the copy,” got 3s. 4d. and his clerk 12d. The mayor gathered together all the witnesses in a house beside Paul’s to rehearse their evidence “against they came into the Star Chamber,” and paid for bread and drink and house room for them 16d. At Westminster Hall the three counsel got 3s. 4d. each, and for the three days following the same fees were daily paid. In the Star Chamber Master Roydon paid for examination of sixteen persons at 2s. 4d. a man, 37s. 4d.; two days after fees were again paid to two counsel, and a breakfast given to Sir Matthew Browne. Master Fisher was paid for the fees of the Hilary term 19s. Warrants of attorney cost 4s., and copies of the panels 2s. The counsel had to be looked up in their country houses, and messengers were always crossing Tilbury Ferry to look for “Master Raimond,” and give him a retaining fee “to be our counsel,” or going to Finchley to seek “Master Frowick,” perhaps to find that “he was then ridden to Walsingham, so the said Thomas came to London homeward again.” The Master Recorder of London was met coming to the Temple and besought “to be good master to the city,” and retained at a cost of 6s. 8d. with a breakfast to his servants in Fleet Street. Then a messenger waited at the Guild Hall for the recorder, and again watched for him “the same day at afternoon at Milord Dawbeny’s place, there waiting till the said Master Recorder had supped, and when he came out we besought him to speed us, for the time of the forfeit passed not three days; which answered that he was sore occupied and might not entende it so shortly, where we took him 6s. 8d., and then he bade us wait on him on the morrow in the Temple. The next day when Mr. Recorder had contrived the bill and corrected it, for his reward 6s. 8d. Paid for a pike given to Master Mordaunt 3s. 4d.” The mayor then sent to Canterbury to direct that some gift should be sent up which might be used in “making friends”; and several members of the Common Council travelled up with two trouts (one trout cost about 10s.) and ten capons. The witnesses examined in the Star Chamber each got 6s. 8d. and their travelling expenses; after their examination they adjourned to the buttery for an entertainment, and paid “in reward to the officers of the King’s buttery for their good cheer 12d. and to the cook of the King’s kitchen 8d.” Besides all this there was a great deal of feasting and drinking in eight of the London inns, in Southwark, Cheap, Fleet Street, Paul’s Chain, and Holborn. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 147.

717

The Plague. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 147.

718

Ibid. 150.

719

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 433-4.

720

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 434.

721

The dispute in Norwich was brought before the king’s court in 1512. Documents, Stanley v. Mayor, &c., pr. 1884, 50-64.

722

Gross, i. 241-281.

723

See the saying of Bacon quoted by Anderson in his Origin of Commerce, ii. 232. “I confess I did ever think that trading in companies is most agreeable to the English nature, which wanteth that same general vein of a republic which runneth in the Dutch and serves them instead of a company; and therefore I dare not advise to adventure this great trade of the kingdom, which hath been so long under government, in a free or loose trade.”

724

Boys’ Sandwich, 770. The Custumals of Dover, Sandwich, Romney, Rye, and Winchelsea, are given in Lyon’s Dover, ii. 267-387.

725

The Ports with corporate members were: – Hastings: (Seaford, Pevensey). Sandwich: (Fordwich, Deal). Dover: (Folkestone, Faversham). Romney: (Lydd). Rye: (Tenterden). Hastings had six non-corporate members; Sandwich six; Dover seven; Romney four; and Hythe one; each of which was governed by a Deputy sent by the head Port.

726

Dover had always remained in the King’s hands, but Hythe and Romney belonged to the Archbishop, while Sandwich had been given to Christ Church, Canterbury, and Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye had been handed over to the Abbey of Fécamp. A few details about the relations of Fécamp to its possessions at Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye, may be found in Leroux de Lincy’s Abbaye de Fécamp, pp. 289, 294, 300, 327, 331; and a notice of the tax called aletot which was paid by the inhabitants of Rye to Fécamp, p. 299. The two parish churches of Hastings, being part of the alien priory of Fécamp, were never appropriate or belonging either to the College of S. Mary or to the Priory. They were afterwards granted away by Henry the Eighth (Horsfield’s Hastings, i. 448). The Counts of Eu held the Castle with the whole of the rape of Hastings and the manor till their estates were forfeited by rebellion about 1245 and given by Henry the Third to his son Edward. Moss’ Hastings, 3-4, 63.

727

There was a considerable change in the century that followed the complete political separation of England from the Continent. Henry the Third got back Rye and Winchelsea, and at least the Castle of Hastings if not more; and Edward the First Sandwich; while Hythe and Romney remained with the Archbishop.

728

For rights possessed in the time of Henry the Second see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 454.

729

Confirmed by Edward the First, 1293. Rot. Parl. i. 101. There were no coroners in the Cinque Ports except the mayors of the various towns. Lyon’s Dover, ii. 269, 347, 371, 303.

730

A writ of error lay to the Shepway Court only from any of the Ports; but from the Shepway finally there might be an appeal to the King’s Bench. (Boys’ Sandwich, 697, 771.) A mayor of Sandwich accused of assaulting the sheriff’s bailiff refused to answer except at the Court of Shepway. (Ibid. 661.)

731

Lyon’s Dover, ii. 304. See Rot. Parl. i. 332. For the charter of Edward the Third see Boys’ Sandwich, 568-9.

732

Boys, 470-1.

733

Montagu Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 73-4. The Cinque Ports joined Simon de Montfort against the King. Possibly this revolt was due to the limits fixed to their territory by Henry in 1259-60, for a little later the Barons’ party extended those limits. (Ibid. 107.) It was in this war too that they finally secured freedom from summons before the King’s Justices.

734

Boys’ Sandwich, 445. “Within the Cinque Ports there is no trial by jury as in other places.” Ibid. 452. For the system of compurgation see p. 465.

735

Ibid. 468.

736

Boys, 681.

737

Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 425; v. 496; ix. 151.

738

Boys’ Sandwich, 682.

739

In 1395 Romney contributed nearly £10 to the maintenance of the liberties of the Cinque Ports, and in 1407, 1408, and 1409, it had to spend over £5 each year in payment for such purposes. The renewal of these charters on one occasion cost Hythe £17 as its share. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535, 537.) These payments were over and above the sums which had to be given for the charters of each separate Port, and which were also a heavy cost.

740

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.

741

Ibid. 525, 494, 517-18, 520.

742

The usual number was four or five. Lyon’s Dover, i. 251. Romney sent six. Ibid. ii. 342. For the capons, geese, etc., with which they came laden see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534.

743

In 1281 the mayor and townsmen of Sandwich were accused of assaulting the sheriff’s bailiffs. Boys’ Sandwich, 661.

744

Ibid. 462.

745

Lyon’s Dover, i. 254.

746

Ibid. i. 260-1.

747

In 1410 jurats from Romney spent three days and three nights at Dover at such an inquisition. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 538.

748

From about 1471 the court only met at Shepway for the installation of the Lord Warden and the presentation of the courtesy of £100 offered him on the occasion by his subjects. Montagu Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 186. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539.

749

It only took cognizance of five points, high treason, falsifying money, failure of ship service, false judgment, and treasure box.

750

Montagu Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 66-7, 73-5. See the agreement of the Ports drawn up in 1358. Boys’ Sandwich, 560-3.

751

See Rot. Parl. i. 32, 332.

752

Every year a letter was sent to each Port asking “whether a Brotherhood or Guestling is necessary to be arreared this year,” and when the common consent was given the summonses were issued. Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 177.

753

Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 427.

754

These four bailiffs aided by a provost chosen by the Yarmouth commonalty, took over the keys of the prison, issued all ordinances and held pleas. This went on till 1663. (See Hist. MSS. Com. v. 553, 533, 535, 539-43.) Boys’ Sandwich, 576-7. But the question of the Yarmouth fair gradually declined in importance, and in the fifteenth century became relatively of so little consequence that the Brodhull decreed in 1515 that the yearly report of their bailiffs sent to Yarmouth might be dispensed with. (Lyon’s Dover i. xii.)

755

Lyon’s Dover i. iv. v.

756

It was already well established in the fourteenth century, and possibly much earlier, that orders of the Court of Shepway as to the taxes required for the King or for the general purposes of the Ports became the basis of agreements made between the Ports at the Brodhull concerning the share of taxes to be paid by each Port. See Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 180-1.

757

In 1412 a curious agreement between the mariners of France and England was signed by Romney and Lydd, and probably by all the ports from Southampton to Thanet. It provided that if any master or mariner were captured the only ransom to be asked on either side should be six nobles for the master and three for the mariner with 20 pence a week board for each; a fishing boat with nets and tackles was to be set free for 40 pence; any man taken on either coast should be charged no ransom, but a gentleman or merchant who was taken might be charged any ransom that his captor chose. In case of any dispute, arbitrators were appointed; if these were disobeyed 100s. was to be paid on one side to S. Nicholas at Romney, on the other side to the Church of Hope All Saints. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 537-538.) The arrangement as to the place of payment of the fine was doubtless different in each town of the league. The common serjeant of Hythe in the same year rode to Dover to get a copy of the composition for his own town. In a disputed case when the plaintiff and defendant seem to have been of Romney, questions touching the “Law of Oleron,” i. e., the Law Maritime, were decided “by the judgment of the masters of ships and boats of the vills of Hastings, Winchelsea, Sandwich, and Dover,” that is, a majority of the seven towns. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 543.)

758

At any time the court might be summoned to redress a wrong, and not only the jurats and commonalty of a town but any aggrieved person whatever in the whole confederation might claim that a Brodhull should be summoned if he was wronged on any point touching the charters, usages, or franchises of the Ports. Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 181.

759

Ibid. 177-8. The Guestling sometimes sat separately for special business, generally perhaps at Winchelsea, for the affairs of the three Sussex Ports. For an instance in 1477 see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489.

760

Moss’s Hastings, 21. The importance of the Guestling Court gradually declined and in 1601 the Brotherhood Court (then near its own extinction) passed a decree that the yearly Guestling might be abolished. Lyon’s Dover i. xii.

761

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539.

762

Burrows (Cinque Ports, 238) suggests that Lydd, like the supposed case of Faversham, might have owed its incorporation under a mayor and jurats to the Court of Shepway. He does not give any reasons for this supposition. Lydd was under the Archbishop; Faversham under the abbot until the suppression of the abbey. Ibid. 234.

763

Dover and Sandwich were the first of the Ports to have a mayor, the mayors of Sandwich being continuous from 1226. Then came Rye and Winchelsea about 1297. The other three, Hastings, Hythe, and Romney, were ruled by bailiffs till the time of Elizabeth.

764

For goods imported into Sandwich see Boys, 435-9, 658-9. Iron was brought from Spain and Cologne and wine from Genoa; all kinds of skins, and furs, with silk, spices, and frankincense from the Levant. For the taxes on merchandise, cellars, and warehouses see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 458. Under Edward the Third it fitted out for the King’s service 22 ships with 504 mariners. Boys, 783-4.

765

Literæ Cant. i. lxix. – lxxii. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 74. Boys’ Sandwich, 663. Edward the Third completed the process in 1364. Ibid. 669.

766