[781] D. B. ii. 116. See also the case of Thetford (D. B. ii. 119), where there had been numerous burgesses who could choose their lords.
[782] D. B. i. 280.
[783] D. B. i. 336 b.
[784] D. B. ii. 117.
[785] D. B. i. 2. In 923 (K. v. p. 186) we hear of land outside Canterbury called Burhuuare bocaceras, apparently acres booked to [certain] burgesses.
[786] D. B. i. 100.
[787] D. B. ii. 107: ‘In commune burgensum iiii. xx. acrae terrae; et circa murum viii. percae; de quo toto per annum habent burgenses lx. sol. ad servicium regis si opus fuerit, sin autem, in commune dividunt.’ As to this most difficult passage, see Round, Antiquary, vol. vi. (1882) p. 97. Perhaps the most natural interpretation of it is that the community or commune of the burgesses holds this land and receives by way of rent from tenants, to whom it is let, the sum of 60 shillings a year, which, if this be necessary, goes to make up what the borough has to pay to the king, or otherwise is divisible among the burgesses. But, as Mr Round rightly remarks, 60 shillings for this land would be a large rent.
[788] D. B. i. 2: ‘Ipsi quoque burgenses habebant de rege 33 acras terrae in gildam suam.’ Another version says, ‘33 agros terre quos burgenses semper habuerunt in gilda eorum de donis omnium regum.’ The document here cited is preserved in a cartulary of St Augustin, and is printed in Larking, Domesday of Kent, App. 35. It is closely connected with the Domesday Survey and is of the highest interest.
[789] Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 37.
[790] We do not even know for certain that when our record says that the burgesses and the clerks held land ‘in gildam suam,’ more was meant than that the land was part of their geldable property. See Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 189. In the Exon Domesday the geld is gildum.