Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1

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

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.