[r] Burgensis Exoniæ urbis habent extra civitatem terram duodecim carucatarum: quæ nullam consuetudinem reddunt nisi ad ipsam civitatem. Domesday, p. 100. At Canterbury the burgesses had forty-five houses without the city, de quibus ipsi habebant gablum et consuetudinem, rex autem socam et sacam; ipsi quoque burgenses habebant de rege triginta tres acras prati in gildam, suam. p. 2. In Lincoln and Stamford some resident proprietors, called Lagemanni, had jurisdiction (socam et sacam) over their tenants. But nowhere have I been able to discover any trace of municipal self-government; unless Chester may be deemed an exception, where we read of twelve judices civitatis; but by whom constituted does not appear. The word lageman seems equivalent to judex. The guild mentioned above at Canterbury was, in all probability, a voluntary association: so at Dover we find the burgesses' guildhall, gihalla burgensium. p. 1.
Many of the passages in Domesday relative to the state of burgesses are collected in Brady's History of Boroughs; a work which, if read with due suspicion of the author's honesty, will convey a great deal of knowledge.
Since the former part of this note was written, I have met with a charter granted by Henry II. to Lincoln, which seems to refer, more explicitly than any similar instrument, to municipal privileges of jurisdiction enjoyed by the citizens under Edward the Confessor. These charters, it is well known, do not always recite what is true; yet it is possible that the citizens of Lincoln, which had been one of the five Danish towns, sometimes mentioned with a sort of distinction by writers before the Conquest, might be in a more advantageous situation than the generality of burgesses. Sciatis me concessisse civibus meis Lincoln, omnes libertates et consuetudines et leges suas, quas habuerunt tempore Edwardi et Will. et Henr. regum Angliæ, et gildam suam mercatoriam de hominibus civitatis et de aliis mercatoribus comitatus, sicut illam habuerunt tempore predictorum, antecessorum nostrorum, regum Angliæ, melius et liberius. Et omnes homines qui infra quatuor divisas civitates manent et mercatum deducunt, sint ad gildas, et consuetudines et assisas civitatis, sicut melius fuerunt temp. Edw. et Will. et Hen. regum Angliæ. Rymer, t. i. p. 40 (edit. 1816).
I am indebted to the friendly remarks of the periodical critic whom I have before mentioned for reminding me of other charters of the same age, expressed in a similar manner, which in my haste I had overlooked, though printed in common books. But whether these general words ought to outweigh the silence of Domesday Book I am not prepared to decide. I have admitted below that the possession of corporate property implies an elective government for its administration, and I think it perfectly clear that the guilds made by-laws for the regulation of their members. Yet this is something different from municipal jurisdiction over all the inhabitants of a town. [[Note IV.]]
[] Madox, Hist. of Exchequer, c. 17.
[t] Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 1. There is one instance, I know not if any more could be found, of a firma burgi before the Conquest. It was at Huntingdon. Domesday, p. 203.
[] Madox, p. 12, 13.
[x] Id. p. 21.
[y] I have read somewhere that this charter was granted in 1101. But the instrument itself, which is only preserved by an Inspeximus of Edward IV., does not contain any date. Rymer, t. i. p. 11 (edit. 1816). Could it be traced so high, the circumstance would be remarkable, as the earliest charters granted by Louis VI., supposed to be the father of these institutions, are several years later.
It is said by Mr. Thorpe (Ancient Laws of England, p. 267), that, though there are ten witnesses, he only finds one who throws any light on the date: namely, Hugh Bigod, who succeeded his brother William in 1120. But Mr. Thorpe does not mention in what respect he succeeded. It was as dapifer regis; but he is not so named in the charter. Dugdale's Baronage, p. 132. The date, therefore, still seems problematical.