[14] Essai sur l'Histoire du Tiers-Etat, p. 240. (The italics are my own.)
[15] The Danish 'Five Boroughs' stand apart, as a temporary confederation, the character of which we do not know.
[16] Professor Burrows makes light of this name, asserting that 'it is hard to say when the French form came into common use' (p. 56). But 'the five Cinque Ports', which he admits to be the correct style, is a pleonasm which proves the 'Cinque' to be older than the 'Five'.
[17] 'London and the Cinque Ports stand isolated from their fellows in the common absence of the institution' (Burrows, p. 43).
[18] 'The same may be said of the office of "Alderman" ... The term seems to be only accidentally, if not erroneously, used' (ibid., p. 44).
[19] The mayor and his twelve pairs, jurats (or jurés) or échevins, were an essential feature of the commune, and spread with the communal movement.
[20] Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France, xi. 231, 237, 245, 277, 291, 308, 315. The text must now be modified in the light of my further criticism, in the next paper, of the early date alleged for the confederation of the Ports.
[21] This was written in reliance on the statement by Mr Howlett (Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, vol. iii., p. xl) that an interesting writ he quoted from 'the cartulary of St Benet-at-Hulme' was 'safely attributable to the year 1137'. It is a writ of Robert, Earl of Leicester, acting as justiciary, and 'gives', says Mr Howlett, 'a clear idea of the Earl's position at the opening of the reign'. As he has made himself master of the period, and has specially studied its manuscript sources, I accepted his assurance without question. But as it subsequently struck me that such a writ was more likely to be issued by the Earl when justiciary under Henry II, I referred to the cartulary and found that the writ contained the words 'avi regis', proving it, of course, to belong to the reign, not of Stephen, but of Henry II:
'R. Com(es) leg(recestriæ) Baronibus regis de Hastingg' salutem. Precipio quod abbas et monachi de Hulmo teneant bene et in pace et juste terras suas in Gernemut ... sicut eas melius tenuerunt tempore Regis H. avi regis ... T. R. Basset per breve regis de ultra mare' (Galba E. 2, fo. 33b).
We can only, therefore, say of its date that it is previous to the Earl's death in 1168. In any case, however, it is of much interest as connecting Yarmouth with Hastings alone, not, as alleged, with the Cinque Ports as a whole. This is in perfect accordance with the fact that John's charter to Hastings in 1205 duly mentions its rights at Yarmouth, of which there is no mention in his charters to the other ports.