Si maior sic electus officium suum recipere noluit, primo et secundo et tercio monitus, tota communitas ibit ad capitale messuagium suum, si habuerit proprium, et illud cum armis omnimodo quo poterit prosternat usque ad terram.... Similiter quicunque juratus fuerit electus, et jurare noluerit, simile judicium.[1]
Although the custom of house demolition is apparently, as I have said, peculiar in England to the Cinque Ports, it was of widespread occurrence abroad. Thither, therefore, we must turn our steps in order to investigate its history.
It is in Flanders and in Northern France, and in Picardy, most of all, that we find this singular custom prevailing, and discover its inseparable connection with the institution of the Commune. It would seem that the penalty of house demolition was originally decreed for offences against the commune in its corporate capacity. Thierry, basing his conclusions mainly on the charters of the commune of Amiens and the daughter-charter of Abbeville writes:
Celui qui se soustrait à la justice de la Commune est puni de banissement, et sa maison est abattue. Celui qui tient des propos injurieux contre la Commune encourt la même peine. Voilà pour les dispositions communes aux chartes d'Amiens et d'Abbeville, c'est-à-dire pour celles qui authentiquement sont plus anciennes que l'acte royal de 1190. Si l'on ne s'y arrête pas et qu'on relève dans cet acte d'autres dispositions, probablement primitives aussi, on trouvera les peines du crime politique, l'abatis de maison et le banissement, appliquées à celui qui viole sciemment les constitutions de la Commune et à celui qui, blessé dans une querelle, refuse la composition en justice et refuse pareillement de donner sécurité à son adversaire.
Une peine moindre, car elle se réduit à ce que la maison du délinquant soit abattue s'il n'aime mieux en payer la valeur, est appliquée à celui qui addresse des injures au Maire dans l'exercice de ses fonctions, et à celui qui frappe un de ses Jurés devant les magistrats, en pleine audience. Ainsi l'abatis de maison, vengeance de la Commune lésée ou offensée, était à la fois un châtiment par lui-même et le signe qui rendait plus terrible aux imaginations la sentence de banissement conditionnel ou absolu. Il avait lieu dans la plupart ... des communes du nord de la France avec un appareil sombre et imposant; en présence des citoyens, convoqués à son de cloche, le Maire frappait un coup de marteau contre la demeure du condamné, et des ouvriers, requis pour service public, procédaient à la démolition qu'ils poursuivaient jusqu'à ce qu'il ne restât plus pierre sur pierre.[2]
The public character of the ceremony, which was no less marked at Sandwich (vide supra), is well illustrated in the Ordonnances of Philip of Alsace (circ. 1178) on the powers of his baillis in Flanders:
Domus diruenda Judicio Scabinorum, post quindenam a scabinis indultam, quandocunque comes præceperit, aut ballivus ejus, diruetur a communia villæ, campana pulsata per Scabinos; et qui ad diruendam illam non venerit, in forisfacto erit, etc., etc.
This ringing of the communal bell—parallel to the moot-bell of England—is an important feature in the matter. Without insisting upon a stray allusion, one may ask whether an entry in the Colchester records in the sixteenth century, threatening that if an offending burgess does not make amends, the town will 'ring him out of his freedom', may not be explained by this practice.
There are plenty of other early instances of this house demolition in recognized Communes. At Bruges we read (circ. 1190): 'Si scabini voluerint domum eius prosternere, poterunt', etc., etc. So, too, at Roye, the charter (circ. 1183) provides: 'Domus forisfactoris diruetur si Major voluerit, et si Major redempcionem accipiet de domibus diruendis', etc., etc.... 'Si quis extraneus ... forisfactum fecerit ... Major et homines ville ad diruendam domum ejus exeant; quæ si sit adeo fortis ut vi Burgensium dirui non possit, ad eam diruendam vim et auxilium conferemus'.[3] So essential was the power of distraint, as we might term it, given to the community over its members, by the possession of a house, that it was sometimes made compulsory on a new member to become possessed of a house within a year of his joining. This was the case at Laon, one of the oldest of the Communes, the charter of Louis VI (1128) providing that 'Quicunque autem in Pace ista recipiatur, infra anni spatium aut domum sibi edificet, aut vineas emet ... per que justiciari possit, si quid forte in eum querele evenerit'. Where, in the absence of such provision, the culprit had no house to be demolished, it would seem that, in some cases, he had to procure one, for the express purpose of being demolished, before he could be restored to his membership. Thus, at Abbeville, the charter of Commune provides that 'si domum non habuerit, antequam villam intret, domum centum solidorum, quam communia prosternat, inveniet'.
Thierry pointed out how the 'commune' of north-eastern France found its way, through its adoption in Normandy, to the opposite corner of the country 'sur les terres de la domination Anglaise'.[4] The form 'jurats' adopted by the Cinque Ports for the members of their governing body suggests, indeed, some connection with Gascony, to which region, as Thierry observed, it more especially belongs.[5] I was much struck, when visiting Bayonne, with its interesting municipal history. Thierry alludes to its peculiar character;[6] and, as the town had commercial relations with the Cinque Ports, and illustrates, moreover, the tendency of a commercial port to adopt, from other regions, a constitution peculiar to itself, I shall here give from its local customs the provisions as to house demolition.
Appended to John's charter granting a communa to Bayonne (April 19, 1215) we find a code of communal ordinances based partly on those in the Rouen and Falaise charters and partly on the customs of La Rochelle. In this code the penalty of destroying the offender's house was decreed for a magistrate who accepted bribes,[7] for a citizen who shirked his military service,[8] for a perjured man,[9] for a thief.[10]