[374] Custumal in History of Preston Guild, 73-78. As late as the time of James I. lords here and there were fighting to keep up old customs. An action was brought by a lord against a townsman of Melton for not baking his bread at the lord’s oven; “and the action,” wrote the steward, “is like to prove frequent, for the lord’s court there is scarce able to preserve his inheritance in this custom of baking.” Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 342-3.
[375] If a Preston burgher died suddenly, neither lord nor justices might seize his lands, which passed on to the next heir; only if he had been publicly excommunicated they were to be given in alms. Custumal. Hist. Preston Guild, 77. Compare Luchaire 248.
[376] Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvii. 471. The age was sometimes fixed at twelve, sometimes at fourteen. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 244.) The burgher had no power to leave by will any lands he held outside the town liberties, which must pass to the heir appointed by the common law. For the frauds to which this might give rise, see Hist. MSS. Com. x. 3, 87-9. Wills bequeathing land were read publicly in the borough courts (Nottingham Records, i. 96), and there enrolled by the mayor as a Court of Record. The muniments of Canterbury show that from this right the mayor went on to claim probate, possibly following the example of Lynn. The claim was perfectly illegal, but was energetically pressed.
[377] Birmingham, which under Henry the Eighth had 2,000 houselings, and was said to be “one of the fairest and most profitable towns to the King’s highness in all the shire” (English Guilds, 247-9), only counted in Doomsday nine heads of families. In 1327 these had risen to seventy-five. The burghers first won the lightening of feudal dues, when Birmingham was freed from ward and marriage, heriot and relief, so that if a burgess died the lord could only take his best weapon—a bill or a pole-axe—or forty pence. (Survey of the Borough and Manor of Birmingham, 1553. Translated by W. B. Bickley, with notes by Joseph Hill, pp. xii., 108.) The bailiff and commonalty rented the stalls in the market from the lord, and leased them out by their constables to the townsfolk, fishmongers, butchers, and tanners, and in this way secured complete control of the town market (pp. 60-61), where burgesses were exempt from toll, while strangers free of the market paid a small sum, and those not free a larger amount. After the Plague a “free burgage by fealty” grew up, with an oath to observe the customs and services of the manor. The normal holding of the villein seems to have been forty-five acres, that of the cotters less (pp. xii., xiii. See Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, i. 12, 298). As population increased new pastures in the foreign were leased out for a term of years at an annual rent, and while the increase of perpetual free tenures thus ceased the alienation of the whole domain was prevented (pp. xiv., 74, 102). Though the town was not made a borough by royal grant, it had even in the thirteenth century secured an independent life, called itself a borough and elected its officers (pp. 60-1, 108-9). Its public acts were done under the style of “bailiff and commonalty” or “bailiff and burgesses.” See also Manchester Court Leet Records, 12, 14, 169, 170. For examples of the first privileges which the townspeople sought to win see the “customs” of Newcastle under Henry I., Stubbs’ Charters, 106-8.
[378] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 491, et seq.
[379] For the injuries that might be inflicted on a community by a lord’s reeve, see Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Society.
[380] If the lord of the soil held the town as a market-town, and not as a borough, the inhabitants had to attend the Sheriff’s tourn, where their petty offences were judged by him or his deputy. In all cases which were not specially exempted they had to appear also twice a year at the court of the shire for view of frank pledge and for judgment of their more serious crimes. Manchester Court Leet Records, 14.
[381] The coroner was an officer elected in full county court, and was charged with guarding the interests of the Crown. His intrusion in the towns was much resented.
[382] When a robber from Bridport escaped from the town prison a set of girths or horse-nets was sent by the town to Dorchester to mitigate the sheriff’s anger.
[383] For abuses in appointing tax collectors, see Paston Letters, i. li.