Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1

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.

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.