History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0208/02085.txt

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XI}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{tenants
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XI

     William, the compiler informs us, having heard some of the Danish laws,
was disposed to confirm them in preference to those of England; but yielded to
the supplication of the delegates, omnes compatriotae, qui leges narraverant,
that he would permit them to retain the customs of their ancestors, imploring
him by the soul of King Edward, cujus erant leges, nec aliorum exterorum.  The
king at length gave way, by the advice and request of his barons, consilio et
precatu baronum.  These of course were Normans; but what inference can be
drawn in favor of parliamentary representation in England from the behavior of
the rest?  They were supplicants, not legislators.]

     We find nothing that can arrest our attention, in searching out the
origin of county representation, till we come to a writ in the fifteenth year
of John, directed to all the sheriffs in the following terms: Rex Vicecomiti
N., salutem.  Praecipimus tibi quod omnes milites ballivae, tuae qui summoniti
fuerunt esse apud Oxonian ad Nos a die Omnium Sanctorum in quindecim dies
venire facias cum armis suis: corpora vero baronum sine armis singulariter, et
quatuor discretos milites de comitatu tuo, illuc venire facias ad eundem
terminum, ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni nostri.  For the explanation
of this obscure writ I must refer to what Prynne has said; ^x but it remains
problematical whether these four knights (the only clause which concerns our
purpose) were to be elected by the county or returned in the nature of a jury,
at the discretion of the sheriff.  Since there is no sufficient proof whereon
to decide, we can only say with hesitation, that there may have been an
instance of county representation in the fifteenth year of John.

[Footnote x: 2 Prynne's Register, p. 16.]

     We may next advert to a practice, of which there is very clear proof in
the reign of Henry III.  Subsidies granted in parliament were assessed, not as
in former times by the justices upon their circuits, but by knights freely
chosen in the county court.  This appears by two writs, one of the fourth and
one of the ninth year of Henry III. ^y At a subsequent period, by a provision
of the Oxford parliament in 1258, every county elected four knights to inquire
into grievances, and deliver their inquisition into parliament. ^z

[Footnote y: Brady's Introduction, Appendix, pp. 41 and 44.  "The language of
these writs implies a distinction between such as were styled barons,
apparently including the earls and the four knights who were to come from the
several counties ad loquendum, and who were also distinguished from the
knights summoned to attend with arms, in performance, it should seem, of the
military service due by their respective tenures; and the writs, therefore,
apparently distinguished certain tenants in chief by knight-service from
barons, if the knights so summoned to attend with arms were required to attend
by reason of their respective tenures in chief of the king.  How the four
knights of each county who were thus summoned to confer with the king were to
be chosen, whether by the county, or according to the mere will of the
sheriff, does not appear; but it seems most probable that they were intended
by the king as representatives of the freeholders of each county, and to
balance the power of the hostile nobles, who were then leagued against him;
and the measure might lead to conciliate the minds of those who would
otherwise have had no voice in the legislative assembly." Report of Lords'
Committee, p. 61.

     This would be a remarkable fact, and the motive is by no means
improbable, being perhaps that which led to the large provisions for summoning
tenants in chief, contained in the charter of John, and afterwards passed
over.  But this parley of the four knights from each county, for they are only
summoned ad loquendum, may not amount to bestowing on them any legislative
power.  It is nevertheless to be remembered that the word parliament meant, by
its etymology, nothing more; and the words, ad loquendum, may have been used
in reference to that.  It is probable that these writs were not obeyed; we
have no evidence that they were, and it was a season of great confusion, very
little before the granting of the charter of Henry III.]

[Footnote z: Brady's Hist. of England, vol. i.  Appendix, p. 227.]

     The next writ now extant, that wears the appearance of parliamentary
representation, is in the thirty-eighth of Henry III.  This, after reciting
that the earls, barons, and other great men (caeteri magnates) were to meet at
London three weeks after Easter, with horses and arms, for the purpose of
sailing into Gascony, requires the sheriff to compel all within his
jurisdiction, who hold twenty pounds a year of the king in chief, or of those
in ward of the king, to appear at the same time and place.  And that besides
those mentioned he shall cause to come before the king's council at
Westminster, on the fifteenth day after Easter, two good and discreet knights
of his county, whom the men of the county shall have chosen for this purpose,
in the stead of all and each of them, to consider, along with the knights of
other counties, what aid they will grant the king in such an emergency. ^a In
the principle of election, and in the object of the assembly, which was to
grant money, this certainly resembles a summons to parliament.  There are
indeed anomalies sufficiently remarkable upon the face of the writ which
distinguish this meeting from a regular parliament. But when the scheme of
obtaining money from the commons of shires through the consent of their
representatives had once been entertained, it was easily applicable to more
formal councils of the nation. ^b

[Footnote a: 2 Prynne, p. 23.]

[Footnote b: "This writ tends strongly to show that there then existed no law
by which a representation either of the king's tenants in capite or of others,
for the purpose of constituting a legislative assembly, or for granting an
aid, was specially provided; and it seems to have been the first instance
appearing on any record now extant, of an attempt to substitute
representatives elected by bodies of men for the attendance of the individual
so to be represented, personally or by their several procurators, in an
assembly convened for the purpose of obtaining an aid." Report, p. 95.]

     A few years later there appears another writ analogous to a summons.
During the contest between Henry III. and the confederate barons in 1261, they
presumed to call a sort of parliament, summoning three knights out of every
county, secum tractaturos super communibus negotiis regni.  This we learn only
by an opposite writ issued by the king, directing the sheriff to enjoin these
knights who had been convened by the earls of Leicester and Gloucester to
their meeting at St. Albans, that they should repair instead to the king at
Windsor, and to no other place, nobiscum super praemissis colloquium
habituros. ^c It is not absolutely certain that these knights were elected by
their respective counties.  But even if they were so, this assembly has much
less the appearance of a parliament, than that in the thirty-eighth of Henry
III.

[Footnote c: 2 Prynne, p. 27.]

     At length, in the year 1265, the forty-ninth of Henry III., while he was
a captive in the hands of Simon de Montfort, writs were issued in his name to
all the sheriffs, directing them to return two knights for the body of their
county, with two citizens or burgesses for every city and borough contained
within it.  This therefore is the epoch at which the representation of the
commons becomes indisputably manifest; even should we reject altogether the
more equivocal instances of it which have just been enumerated.

     If indeed the knights were still elected by none but the king's military
tenants, if the mode of representation was merely adopted to spare them the
inconvenience of personal attendance, the immediate innovation in our polity
was not very extensive.  This is an interesting, but very obscure, topic of
inquiry.  Spelman and Brady, with other writers, have restrained the original
right of election to tenants in chief, among whom, in process of time, those
holding under mesne lords, not being readily distinguishable in the hurry of
an election, contrived to slide in, till at length their encroachments were
rendered legitimate by the statute 7 Hen. IV. c. 15, which put all suitors to
the county court on an equal footing as to the elective franchise.  The
argument on this side might be plausibly urged with the following reasoning.

     The spirit of a feudal monarchy, which compelled every lord to act by the
advice and assent of his immediate vassals, established no relation between
him and those who held nothing at his hands.  They were included, so far as he
was concerned, in their superiors; and the feudal incidents were due to him
from the whole of his vassal's fief, whatever tenants might possess it by
subinfeudation.  In England the tenants in chief alone were called to the
great councils before representation was thought of, as is evident both by the
charter of John, and by the language of many records; nor were any others
concerned in levying aids or escuages, which were only due by virtue of their
tenure.  These military tenants were become, in the reign of Henry III., far
more numerous than they had been under the Conqueror.  If we include those who
held of the king ut de honore, that is, the tenants of baronies escheated or
in ward, who may probably have enjoyed the same privileges, being subject in
general to the same burdens, their number will be greatly augmented, and form
no inconsiderable portion of the freeholders of the kingdom.  After the
statute commonly called Quia emptores in the eighteenth of Edward I. they were
likely to increase much more, as every licensed alienation of any portion of a
fief by a tenant in chief would create a new freehold immediately depending
upon the crown. Many of these tenants in capite held very small fractions of
knight's fees, and were consequently not called upon to receive knighthood.
They were plain freeholders holding in chief, and the liberi homines or libere
tenentes of those writs which have been already quoted.  The common form
indeed of writs to the sheriff directs the knights to be chosen de communitate
comitatus.  But the word communitas, as in boroughs, denotes only the superior
part; it is not unusual to find mention in records of communitas populi or
omnes de regno, where none are intended but the barons, or at most the tenants
in chief.  If we look attentively at the earliest instance of summoning
knights of shires to parliament, that in 38 Henry III., which has been noticed
above, it will appear that they could only have been chosen by military
tenants in chief.  The object of calling this parliament, if parliament it
were, was to obtain an aid from the military tenants, who, holding less than a
knight's fee, were not required to do personal service.  None then, surely,
but the tenants in chief could be electors upon this occasion, which merely
respected their feudal duties. Again, to come much lower down, we find a
series of petitions in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., which seem
to lead us to a conclusion that only tenants in chief were represented by the
knights of shires.  The writ for wages directed the sheriff to levy them on
the commons of the county, both within franchises and without (tam intra
libertates quam extra).  But the tenants of lords holding by barony endeavored
to exempt themselves from this burden, in which they seem to have been
countenanced by the king. This led to frequent remonstrances from the commons,
who finally procured a statute, that all lands which had been accustomed to
contribute towards the wages of members should continue to do so, even though
they should be purchased by a lord. ^d But, if these mesne tenants had
possessed equal rights of voting with tenants in chief, it is impossible to
conceive that they would have thought of claiming so unreasonable an
exemption.  Yet, as it would appear harsh to make any distinction between the
rights of those who sustained an equal burden, we may perceive how the
freeholders holding of mesne lords might on that account obtain after the
statute a participation in the privilege of tenants in chief.  And without
supposing any partiality or connivance, it is easy to comprehend that, while
the nature of tenures and services was so obscure as to give rise to continual
disputes, of which the ancient records of the King's Bench are full, no
sheriff could be very accurate in rejecting the votes of common freeholders
repairing to the county court, and undistinguishable, as must be allowed, from
tenants in capite upon other occasions, such as serving on juries, or voting
on the election of coroners.  To all this it yields some corroboration, that a
neighboring though long hostile kingdom, who borrowed much of her law from our
own, has never admitted any freeholders, except tenants in chief of the crown,
to a suffrage in county elections.  These attended the parliament of Scotland
in person till 1428, when a law of James I. permitted them to send
representatives. ^e

[Footnote d: 12 Rich. II. c 12.  Prynne's 4th Register.]

[Footnote e: Pinkerton's Hist. of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 120, 357.  But this
law was not regularly acted upon till 1587.  P. 368.]

     Such is, I think, a fair statement of the arguments that might be alleged
by those who would restrain the right of election to tenants of the crown.  It
may be urged on the other side that the genius of the feudal system was never
completely displayed in England; much less can we make use of that policy to
explain institutions that prevailed under Edward I. Instead of aids and
scutages levied upon the king's military tenants, the crown found ample
resources in subsidies upon movables, from which no class of men was exempted.
But the statute that abolished all unparliamentary taxation led, at least in
theoretical principle, to extend the elective franchise to as large a mass of
the people as could conveniently exercise it.  It was even in the mouth of our
kings that what concerned all should be approved by all.  Nor is the language
of all extant writs less adverse to the supposition that the right of suffrage
in county elections was limited to tenants in chief.  It seems extraordinary
that such a restriction, if it existed, should never be deducible from these
instruments; that their terms should invariably be large enough to comprise
all freeholders.  Yet no more is ever required of the sheriff than to return
two knights chosen by the body of the county.  For they are not only said to
be returned pro communitate, but "per communitatem," and "de assensu totius
communitatis." Nor is it satisfactory to allege, without any proof, that this
word should be restricted to the tenants in chief, contrary to what must
appear to be its obvious meaning. ^f Certainly, if these tenants of the crown
had found inferior freeholds usurping a right of suffrage, we might expect to
find it the subject of some legislative provision, or at least of some
petition and complaint.  And, on the other hand, it would have been considered
as unreasonable to levy the wages due to knights of the shire for their
service in parliament on those who had no share in their election.  But it
appears by writs at the very beginning of Edward II.'s reign, that wages were
levied "de communitate comitatus." ^g It will scarcely be contended that no
one was to contribute under this writ but tenants in chief; and yet the word
communitas can hardly be applied to different persons, when it occurs in the
same instrument and upon the same matter.  The series of petitions above
mentioned relative to the payment of wages rather tends to support a
conclusion that all mesne tenants had the right of suffrage, if they thought
fit to exercise it, since it was earnestly contended that they were liable to
contribute towards that expense.  Nor does there appear any reason to doubt
that all freeholders, except those within particular franchises, were suitors
to the county court - an institution of no feudal nature, and in which
elections were to be made by those present.  As to the meeting to which
knights of shires were summoned in 38 Henry III., it ought not to be reckoned
a parliament, but rather one of those anomalous conventions which sometimes
occurred in the unfixed state of government.  It is at least the earliest
known instance of representation, and leads us to no conclusion in respect of
later times, when the commons had become an essential part of the legislature,
and their consent was required to all public burdens.

[Footnote f: What can one who adopts this opinion of Dr. Brady say to the
following record?  Rex militibus, liberis hominibus, et toti communitati
comitatus Wygorniae tam intra libertates quam extra, salutem.  Cum comites,
barones, milites, liberi homines, et communitates comitatuum regni nostri
vicesimam omnium bonorum suorum mobilium, civesque et burgenses et
communitates omnium civitatum et burgorum ejusdem regni, necnon tenentes de
antiquis dominicis coronae quindecimam bonorum suorum mobilium nobis
concesserunt.  Pat. Rot. 1 E II. in Rot. Parl. vol. i. p. 442.  See also p.
241 and p. 269.  If the word communitas is here used in any precise sense,
which, when possible, we are to suppose in construing a legal instrument, it
must designate, not the tenants in chief, but the inferior class, who, though
neither freeholders nor free burgesses, were yet contributable to the subsidy
on their goods.]

[Footnote g: Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 99 and p. 102, note Z.]

     This question, upon the whole, is certainly not free from considerable
difficulty.  The legal antiquaries are divided.  Prynne does not seem to have
doubted but that the knights were "elected in the full county, by and for the
whole county," without respect to the tenure of the freeholders. ^h But Brady
and Carte are of a different opinion. ^i Yet their disposition to narrow the
basis of the constitution is so strong, that it creates a sort of prejudice
against their authority.  And if I might offer an opinion on so obscure a
subject, I should be much inclined to believe that, even from the reign of
Henry III., the election of knights by all freeholders in the county court,
without regard to tenure, was little, if at all, different from what it is at
present. ^j

[Footnote h: Prynne's 2d Register, p. 50.]

[Footnote i: Carte's Hist. of England, ii. 250.]

[Footnote j: The present question has been discussed with much ability in the
Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. p. 341.  [Note XVIII.]]

     The progress of towns in several continental countries, from a condition
bordering upon servitude to wealth and liberty, has more than once attracted
our attention in other parts of the present work.  Their growth in England,
both from general causes and imitative policy, was very similar and nearly
coincident.  Under the Anglo-Saxon line of sovereigns we scarcely can discover
in our scanty records the condition of their inhabitants, except
retrospectively from the great survey of Domesday Book, which displays the
state of England under Edward the Confessor.  Some attention to commerce had
been shown by Alfred and Athelstan; and a merchant who had made three voyages
beyond sea was raised by law of the latter monarch to the dignity of a Thane.
^k This privilege was not perhaps often claimed; but the burgesses of towns
were already a distinct class from the ceorls or rustics, and, though hardly
free according to our estimation, seem to have laid the foundation of more
extensive immunities. It is probable, at least, that the English towns had
made full as great advances towards emancipation as those of France.  At the
Conquest we find the burgesses or inhabitants of towns living under the
superiority or protection of the king, or of some other lord, to whom they
paid annual rents, and determinate dues or customs.  Sometimes they belonged
to different lords, and sometimes the same burgess paid customs to one master,
while he was under the jurisdiction of another.  They frequently enjoyed
special privileges as to inheritance; and in two or three instances they seem
to have possessed common property, belonging to a sort of guild or
corporation, and in some instances, perhaps, had a municipal administration by
magistrates of their own choice. ^l Besides the regular payments, which were
in general not heavy, they were liable to tallages at the discretion of their
lords.  This burden continued for two centuries, with no limitation, except
that the barons were latterly forced to ask permission of the king before they
set a tallage on their tenants, which was commonly done when he imposed one
upon his own. ^m Still the towns became considerably richer; for the profits
of their traffic were undiminished by competition, and the consciousness that
they could not be individually despoiled of their possessions, like the
villeins of the country around, inspired an industry and perseverance which
all the rapacity of Norman kings and barons was unable to daunt or overcome.

[Footnote k: Wilkins, p. 71.]

[Footnote l: Burgensis Exoniae urbis habent extra civitatem terram duodecim
carucatarum: quae nullam consuetudinem reddunt nisi ad ipsam civitatem.
Domesday, p. 100.  At Canterbury the burgesses had forty-five houses without
the city, de quibus ipsi habebant gablum et consuetudinem, rex autem socam et
sacam; ipsi quoque burgenses habebant de rege triginta tres acras prati in
gildam, suam. P. 2.  In Lincoln and Stamford some resident proprietors, called
Lagemanni, had jurisdiction (socam et sacam) over their tenants.  But nowhere
have I been able to discover any trace of municipal self-government; unless
Chester may be deemed an exception, where we read of twelve judices civitatis;
but by whom constituted does not appear.  The word lageman seems equivalent to
judex.  The guild mentioned above at Canterbury was, in all probability, a
voluntary association: so at Dover we find the burgesses' guildhall, gihalla
burgensium.  P. 1.

     Many of the passages in Domesday relative to the state of burgesses are
collected in Brady's History of Boroughs; a work which, if read with due
suspicion of the author's honesty, will convey a great deal of knowledge.

     Since the former part of this note was written, I have met with a charter
granted by Henry II. to Lincoln, which seems to refer, more explicitly than
any similar instrument, to municipal privileges of jurisdiction enjoyed by the
citizens under Edward the Confessor.  These charters, it is well known, do not
always recite what is true; yet it is possible that the citizens of Lincoln,
which had been one of the five Danish towns, sometimes mentioned with a sort
of distinction by writers before the Conquest, might be in a more advantageous
situation than the generality of burgesses.  Sciatis me concessisse civibus
meis Lincoln, omnes libertates et consuetudines et leges suas, quas habuerunt
tempore Edwardi et Will. et Henr. regum Angliae et gildam suam mercatoriam de
hominibus civitatis et de aliis mercatoribus comitatus, sicut illam habuerunt
tempore predictorum, antecessorum nostrorum, regum Angliae, melius et
liberius.  Et omnes homines qui infra quatuor divisas civitates manent et
mercatum deducunt, sint ad gildas, et consuetudines et assisas civitatis,
sicut melius fuerunt temp. Edw. et Will. et Hen. regum Angliae. Rymer, t. i.
p. 40 (edit. 1816).

     I am indebted to the friendly remarks of the periodical critic whom I
have before mentioned for reminding me of other charters of the same age,
expressed in a similar manner, which in my haste I have overlooked, though
printed in common books.  But whether these general words ought to outweigh
the silence of Domesday Book I am not prepared to decide.  I have admitted
below that the possession of corporate property implies an elective government
for its administration, and I think it perfectly clear that the guilds made
by-laws for the regulation of their members.  Yet this is something different
from municipal jurisdiction over all the inhabitants of a town.  [Note XIX.]]

[Footnote m: Madox, Hist. of Exchequer, c. 17.]

     One of the earliest and most important changes in the condition of the
burgesses was the conversion of their individual tributes into a perpetual
rent from the whole borough.  The town was then said to be affirmed, or let in
fee-farm, to the burgesses and their successors forever. ^n Previously to such
a grant the lord held the town in his demesne, and was the legal proprietor of
the soil and tenements; though I by no means apprehend that the burgesses were
destitute of a certain estate in their possessions.  But of a town in a
fee-farm he only kept the superiority and the inheritance of the annual rent,
which he might recover by distress. ^o The burgesses held their lands by
burgage-tenure, nearly analogous to, or rather a species of, free socage. ^p
Perhaps before the grant they might correspond to modern copyholders.  It is
of some importance to observe that the lord, by such a grant of the town in
fee-farm, whatever we may think of its previous condition, divested himself of
his property, or lucrative dominion over the soil, in return for the perpetual
rent; so that tallages subsequently set at his own discretion upon the
inhabitants, however common, can hardly be considered as a just exercise of
the rights of proprietorship.

[Footnote n: Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 1.  There is one instance, I know not if
any more could be found, of a firma burgi before the Conquest.  It was at
Huntingdon.  Domesday, p. 203.]

[Footnote o: Id., p. 12, 13.]

[Footnote p: Id., p. 21.]

     Under such a system of arbitrary taxation, however, it was evident to the
most selfish tyrant that the wealth of his burgesses was his wealth, and their
prosperity his interest; much more were liberal and sagacious monarchs, like
Henry II., inclined to encourage them by privileges.  From the time of William
Rufus there was no reign in which charters were not granted to different towns
of exemption from tolls on rivers and at markets, those lighter manacles of
feudal tyranny; or of commercial franchises; or of immunity from the ordinary
jurisdictions; or, lastly, of internal self-regulation.  Thus the original
charter of Henry I. to the city of London ^q concedes to the citizens, in
addition to valuable commercial and fiscal immunities, the right of choosing
their own sheriff and justice, to the exclusion of every foreign jurisdiction.
^r These grants, however, were not in general so extensive till the reign of
John. ^s Before that time the interior arrangement of towns had received a new
organization.  In the Saxon period we find voluntary associations, sometimes
religious, sometimes secular; in some cases for mutual defence against injury,
in others for mutual relief in poverty.  These were called guilds, from the
Saxon verb gildan, to pay or contribute, and exhibited the natural, if not the
legal, character of corporations. ^* At the time of the Conquest, as has been
mentioned above, such voluntary incorporations of the burgesses possessed in
some towns either landed property of their own, or rights of superiority over
that of others.  An internal elective government seems to have been required
for the administration of a common revenue, and of other business incident to
their association. ^t They became more numerous and more peculiarly commercial
after that era, as well from the increase of trade as through imitation of
similar fraternities existing in many towns of France.  The spirit of monopoly
gave strength to those institutions, each class of traders forming itself into
a body, in order to exclude competition.  Thus were established the companies
in corporate towns, that of the Weavers in London being perhaps the earliest;
^u and these were successively consolidated and sanctioned by charters from
the crown.  In towns not large enough to admit of distinct companies, one
merchant guild comprehended the traders in general, or the chief of them; and
this, from the reign of Henry II. downwards, became the subject of
incorporating charters.  The management of their internal concerns, previously
to any incorporation, fell naturally enough into a sort of oligarchy, which
the tenor of the charter generally preserved.  Though the immunities might be
very extensive, the powers were more or less restrained to a small number.
Except in a few places, the right of choosing magistrates was first given by
King John; and certainly must rather be ascribed to his poverty than to any
enlarged policy, of which he was utterly incapable. ^v

[Footnote q: I have read somewhere that this charter was granted in 1101. But
the instrument itself, which is only preserved by an Inspeximus of Edward IV.,
does not contain any date.  Rymer, t. i. p. 11 (edit. 1816). Could it be
traced so high, the circumstances would be remarkable, as the earliest
charters granted by Louis VI., supposed to be the father of these
institutions, are several years later.

     It is said by Mr. Thorpe (Ancient Laws of England, p. 267), that, though
there are ten witnesses, he only finds one who throws any light on the date:
namely, Hugh Bigod, who succeeded his brother William in 1120. But Mr. Thorpe
does not mention in what respect he succeeded.  It was as dapifer regis; but
he is not so named in the charter.  Dugdale's Baronage, p. 132.  The date,
therefore, still seems problematical.] [Footnote r: This did not, however,
save the citizens from paying one hundred marks to the king for this
privilege.  Mag. Rot. 5 Steph. apud Madox, Hist. Exchequer, t. xi.  I do not
know that the charter of Henry I. can be suspected; but Brady, in his treatise
of Boroughs (p. 38, edit. 1777), does not think proper once to mention it; and
indeed uses many expressions incompatible with its existence.]

[Footnote s: Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 16, says that Henry I.
granted the same privileges by charter to Norwich in 1122 which London
possessed.  Yet it appears that the king named the portreeve or provost; but
Blomefield suggests that he was probably recommended by the citizens, the
office being annual.]

[Footnote *: Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 23.  Hickes has given us a bond of
fellowship among the thanes of Cambridgeshire, containing several curious
particulars.  A composition of eight pounds, exclusive, I conceive, of the
usual weregild, was to be enforced from the slayer of any fellow.  If a fellow
(gilda) killed a man of 1,200 shillings weregild, each of the society was to
contribute half a marc; for a ceorl, two orae (perhaps ten shillings); for a
Welshman, one.  If, however, this act was committed wantonly, the fellow had
no right to call on the society for contribution. If one fellow killed
another, he was to pay the legal weregild to his kindred, and also eight
pounds to the society.  Harsh words used by one fellow towards another, or
even towards a stranger, incurred a fine.  No one was to eat or drink in the
company of one who had killed his brother fellow, unless in the presence of
the king, bishop, or alderman. Dissertatio Epistolaris, p. 21.

     We find in Wilkins' Anglo-Saxon Laws, p. 65, a number of ordinances sworn
to by persons both of noble and ignoble rank (ge eorlisce ge ceorlisce), and
confirmed by King Athelstan.  These are in the nature of by-laws for the
regulation of certain societies that had been formed for the preservation of
public order.  Their remedy was rather violent: to kill and seize the effects
of all who should rob any member of the association. This property, after
deducting the value of the things stolen, was to be divided into two parts;
one given to the criminal's wife if not an accomplice, the other shared
between the king and the society.

     In another fraternity among the clergy and laity of Exeter every fellow
was entitled to a contribution in case of taking a journey, or if his house
was burned.  Thus they resembled, in some degree, our friendly societies; and
display an interesting picture of manners, which has induced me to insert this
note, though not greatly to the present purpose.  See more of the Anglo-Saxon
guilds in Turner's History, vol. ii. p. 102. Societies of the same kind, for
purposes of religion, charity, or mutual assistance, rather than trade, may be
found long afterwards.  Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk, vol. iii. p. 494.]

[Footnote t: See a grant from Turstin, Archbishop of York, in the reign of
Henry I., to the burgesses of Beverly, that they may have their hanshus (i. e.
guildhall) like those of York, et ibi sua statuta pertractent ad honorem Dei,
&c.  Rymer, t. i. p. 10 edit. 1816.]

[Footnote u: Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 189.]

[Footnote v: Idem, passim.  A few of an earlier date may be found in the new
edition of Rymer.]