Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1

In 1422 an agreement was made that the corporation should go in and out on the quay freely, and use the monks’ gate, “to provide for the guard and the defence of the town.” The ground along the quay was to be deemed a highway. Ibid. 671.

767

Under a patent of white wax because Sandwich would not obey an Exchequer patent under green wax. Boys, 441, 404, 435-457.

768

Literæ Cant., i. 46-48. In 1324 the convent however repeated the offence. Ibid. 118-120.

769

Boys’ Sandwich, 435.

770

Pleas of the Crown were held at Sandown in a place called the Mastez either on the Monday of the Hundred Court or any other Monday. Ibid. 443.

771

Ibid. 457.

772

Ibid. 311, 501. The mayor is the judge and gives such judgment as he thinks proper, whereas the bailiff has nothing further to do with the business than to receive the amercements. Ibid. 459.

773

Boys’ Sandwich, 527. See also 450.

774

Ibid. 510, 536-7.

775

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 533-4, 535,537, 539,541-2. In 1340 Romney was divided into thirteen wards, and 941 persons above fifteen were assessed to the subsidy granted to the King that year. The whole sum assessed was £48 9s. 6d. Forty-five persons were assessed in Old Romney at 43s. 6d. The receipts from taxes, rents, etc., in 1381 seem to have been nearly £180. (Boys, 799-801.) Romney seems to have come to the height of its prosperity about 1386. One barge was built 1386; one in 1396; one in 1400; one hired in 1420. (Ibid. 535-40.)

776

This was an old family in the town, for in 1314-15 complaint was made that Hugh Holyligebroke and the community were sheltering and defending robbers and felons so that the country could not get justice on them. Rot. Parl. i. 324.

777

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535-42.

778

Ibid. 535-42.

779

Ibid. vi. 543-4.

780

Hist. MSS. Com. iv. I, 425, 429; Ibid. vi. 541.

781

Bailiff and jurats were allowed to hold taverns of wine and ale “notwithstanding their office, so that they do not sell more dear on account of their office.” Lyon’s Dover, ii. 337.

782

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534, 535, 539, 543, 544.

783

The twelve jurats were summoned by the common horn to assemble for business in the parish church until they hired a room in 1410 to hold their meetings and to store the goods of the community; in 1421 they built or repaired a common house with thatched roof and glass windows, an exchequer table covered with green cloth, and a bell to ring for the election of jurats. A book of customs was probably drawn up under Richard the Second, a small seal made in 1389, and a bell in 1424. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534, 537, 540, 541, 546.

784

Lyon’s Dover, ii. 313-14.

785

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535.

786

Boys’ Sandwich, 806-8.

787

One bailiff appointed in 1415 was only ratified in 1421. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 429.) The contrast with the habit in other boroughs is very striking.

788

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 547.

789

Boys’ Sandwich, 806-8.

790

For notices in Domesday on this point see Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 48.

791

In 1412 Hythe sent two of its citizens to London to see the Archbishop and the Lord Chancellor and succeeded in winning some relief from the ancient customary services to the King. In the fifteenth century the Archbishop sometimes appointed the bailiff of Hythe, and sometimes leased out the appointment to the town for a term of years. Cranmer leased it out for ninety-nine years. It only got a mayor under Elizabeth. (Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 215, 217-218; Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 434, 429. Boys’ Sandwich, 811.) One man was bailiff for six years from 1389; and a wealthy publican for two years from 1421.

792

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 531-2.

793

Ibid. 525-6, 532, 536.

794

In 1403 “Jurats of Lydd and Dengemarsh made account in the church of S. Nicholas at Romney before the Jurats there of all their outlays and expenses.” Ibid. 536.

795

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 524-5.

796

Ibid. 522, 524, 526, 528.

797

Ibid. 516, 532.

798

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 606-7.

799

It was a common custom in the Cinque Ports for the accuser to be executioner. Burrows’ Cinque Ports, 76.

800

The customs levied by S. Augustine’s on the imports at Fordwich quay were to be the same as those collected by Christ Church at Sandwich. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443.

801

Literæ Cant. iii. 358. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 326.

802

See case of Old Romney. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 544.

803

For the difficulties which attended the government of a group of dependent villages by the head town see Lyon’s Dover, i. 26-29. See also the relations of Sandwich and Stonor. Boys’ Sandwich, 547-8.

804

Polydore Vergil, 84.

805

Archæologia Cantiana, vii. 234; Hist MSS. Com. v. 520.

806

See especially the account of Canterbury in Hist. MSS. Com. IX. 176-7. Lydd incurred heavy expenses in the war of 1460. In Rye there is an entry of 19s. 3d. for the expenses of the mayor, bailiff, common clerk and four jurats at Dover, “going and returning on carrying the men’s quarters, when the mayor and bailiff with four jurats were sent under the heaviest penalty, and on pain of contempt of our lord the King.” Another two pence was spent in giving them a drink of malmsey before dinner (Hist. MSS Com. v. 492, 493); and the same year “the men of the Lord Warwick entered the town with a strong band and took down the quarter of the man and buried it in the churchyard.” In 1470 Romney and the other Cinque Ports supported Warwick against Edward, 1469-70. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 545.) For Lydd, p. 525; and Sandwich, Boys’ Sandwich, 676. At the return of Henry the Sixth from October 1470 to April 1471, an entry in Lydd records “on the second Sunday after the feast of St. Michael the Archangel in the year of King Henry the Sixth.” (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 525.) The clerk did not know what year to call it. For the sufferings of Kent in the war see Warkworth’s Chronicle, 21-22.

807

Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 77, etc.