[556] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 224.
[557] Gross, ii. 208.
[558] Coates’s Reading, 49-50.
[559] Gross, ii. 202-4.
[560] Some of the fines levied were doubtless used for the townsmen’s benefit. For example, there were nineteen bridges within the limits of the borough, which after the dissolution of the monastery fell into decay and were repaired in the time of Elizabeth with the stones from the abbey walls. (Coates’s Reading, 64.) But material advantages did not take the place of political freedom.
[561] Gross, i., 90-1. The number of burghers in the Guild seems to have been very small. In 1486, 28 burghers paid chepin gavell; in 1487, 22 burgesses; and in 1490-93, 31 burgesses. In 1510 there were 45 burgesses. (Coates’s Reading, 58.) There were many who paid fines and dues to the abbot who were of the town and not of the Guild, and this class was doubtless encouraged by the convent, following the same policy as the bishop in Lynn. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 172, 175-6.)
[562] The Guilds were naturally looked on with very little favour by the ecclesiastical lords in such cases. There was a conflict between abbot and town at Malmesbury in the time of Edward the First. The burghers claimed to have a Guild of their own people, who alone had a right to trade in the town, and to take certain taxes for the support of the Guild from all traders who were not of it. The abbot refused to allow them to use their rights. The town fell back on its liberties when it had been a royal borough, and appealed to the King. (Gross, ii. 173.) See also the precautions taken by the Bishop about the Guild at Salisbury. (Ibid. 209-10.)
[563] Coates’s Reading, 53.
[564] They got afterwards from Henry the Eighth the church of the Grey Friars for their Guild Hall.
[565] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 172-3.