Having traced in ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ the fortunes of the long struggle between the citizens and the Crown over the amount of their firma—fixed at £300 by Henry the First’s charter, but raised by Henry II. to over £500—I was led to test the chroniclers’ statements as to 1191 by turning to the Pipe Rolls to see if the citizens’ triumph enabled them to secure that reduction on which they insisted throughout. In the Roll of 1 Richard I. we find the firma, as under Henry II., to be between £520 and £530,[488] but in the Roll of two years later (1191) we suddenly meet with this bold entry: “Cives Londoniæ—Willelmus de Haverhull et Johannes Bucuinte pro eis—reddunt compotum de ccc libris blancis pro hoc anno.” This sudden return to the old figure was effected at the very time of the change which the chroniclers describe. The fact is as striking as it is welcome where all is so obscure. In the following year (4 Ric. I.) we find the firma again amounting to about £300; but the difficulty of ascertaining its sum where this is not given is, unfortunately, so great that until the Pipe Rolls of the reign are in print we cannot speak positively as to the endurance of this amount. In the Pipe Roll, however, of the ninth year (1197) we find the account headed (as in 1191): “Cives Lund[oniæ]—Nicholas Duket et Robertus Blund pro eis—reddunt compotum de ccc libris blancis de firma Lond[onie] et Middelsexe,” and in that of the tenth year the sum is similarly stated to be £300 “blanch.” It is clear, therefore, that at the close of Richard’s reign the citizens had made good their claim to farm the city and county for £300 a year, as they had recommenced to do in 1191. The explanation of their gaining from Richard the confirmation of that success is probably to be found in their payment of £1,000, thus recorded on the roll of 1195 (7 Ric. I.):
Cives Lond[onie] M et D marcas de dono suo pro benevolentia domini Regis, et pro libertatibus suis conservandis, et de auxilio suo ad redemptionem domini Regis.
In that case the king would have dealt with the firma, as he is known to have dealt with the sheriffwicks of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, etc., and simply sold it to the citizens for a lump sum down. In this year (7 Ric. I.), accordingly, it is again the “Cives Lond[onie],” who, through their two representatives, account for the ferm.
It follows from this that when the citizens paid John £2,000 “pro habendo confirmationem Regis de libertatibus suis,” they did not obtain, as I had gathered from his charter, for the first time a reduction of the firma to £300, but a confirmation of the reduction they had won at the crisis of 1191.
This, then, up to now has been the sum total of our knowledge: a commune was granted to London in October, 1191; the ferm of the city was, simultaneously, reduced from over £500 to the old £300, as granted by Henry I.; and the Mayor of London first meets us in the spring of 1193. Of the nature of the commune we know nothing; of its very existence after the autumn of 1191, we are in equal ignorance.
It is at this point that the document which follows comes to our help with a flood of light, proving, as it does, that London, in 1193, possessed a fully developed commune of the continental pattern.
“Sacramentum commune tempore regis Ricardi quando detentus erat Alemaniam (sic).[489]
Quod fidem portabunt domino regi Ricardo de vita sua et de membris et de terreno honore suo contra omnes homines et feminas qui vivere possunt aut mori et quod pacem suam servabunt et adjuvabunt servare, et quod communam tenebunt et obedientes erunt maiori civitatis Lond[onie] et skivin[is][490] ejusdem commune in fide regis et quod sequentur et tenebunt considerationem maioris et skivinorum et aliorum proborum hominum qui cum illis erunt salvo honore dei et sancte ecclesie et fide domini regis Ricardi et salvis per omnia libertatibus civitatis Lond[onie]. Et quod pro mercede nec pro parentela nec pro aliqua re omittent quin jus in omnibus rebus [pro]sequentur et teneant pro posse suo et scientia et quod ipsi communiter in fide domini regis Ricardi sustinebunt bonum et malum et ad vitam et ad mortem. Et si quis presumeret pacem domini regis et regni perturbare ipsi consilio domine[491] et domini Rothomagensis[492] et aliorum justiciarum domini regis juvabunt fideles domini regis et illos qui pacem servare volunt pro posse suo et pro scientia sua salvis semper in omnibus libertatibus Lond[onie].”
Before discussing this document one may well compare it with the Freeman’s oath at the present day, as taken by the latest honorary freeman, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum (4th November, 1898):