[796]. York supplies a striking example of the facts stated in this chapter. In the ninth century a Danish army pressed by the Saxons took refuge within its entrenchments. The Saxons determined to attack them, seeing the weakness of the wall: as Asser says, “Murum frangere instituunt, quod et fecerunt; non enim tunc adhuc illa civitas firmos et stabilitos muros illis temporibus habebat.” An. 867. It seems quite impossible that this should refer to the Roman city of York.
[797]. Ida built Bebbanburh, Bamborough, which was at first enclosed by a hedge, and afterwards by a wall. Chron. Sax. an. 547.
[798]. The growth of a city round a monastery is well instanced in the case of Bury St. Edmund’s. The following passage is cited from Domesday (371, b) in the notes to Mr. Rokewode’s edition of Jocelyn de Brakelonde. “In the town where the glorious king and martyr St. Edmund lies buried, in the time of king Edward, Baldwin the abbot held for the sustenance of the monks one hundred and eighteen men; and they can sell and give their land; and under them fifty-two bordarii, from whom the abbot can have help; fifty-four freemen poor enough; forty-three living upon alms; each of them has one bordarius. There are now two mills and two store-ponds or fish-ponds. This town was then worth ten pounds, now twenty. It has in length one leuga and a half, and in breadth as much. And it pays to the geld, when payable in the hundred, one pound. And then the issues therefrom are sixty pence towards the sustenance of the monks; but this is to be understood of the town as it was in the time of king Edward, if it so remains; for now it contains a greater circuit of land, the which was then ploughed and sown; where, one with another, there are thirty priests, deacons and clerks, twenty-eight nuns and poor brethren who pray daily for the king and all Christian people; eighty less five bakers, brewers, seamsters, fullers, shoemakers, tailors, cooks, porters, serving-men; and these all daily minister to the saint, and abbot and brethren. Besides whom there are thirteen upon the land of the reeve, who have their dwellings in the same town, and under them five bordarii. Now there are thirty-four persons owing military service, taking French and English together, and under them twenty-two bordarii. Now in the whole there are three hundred and forty-two dwellings in the demesne of the land of St. Edmund, which was arable in the time of king Edward.” Chron. Joc. de Brakelonde, pp. 148, 149 (Camden Society). Similarly Durham and other towns grew up around cathedrals.
[799]. The “Ingang burhware” may possibly be only a selected portion of the population; as, for example, the richer inhabitants, a special burgher’s club. The argument in the text is no way affected by the pre-eminence of some particular association among the rest, and an “Ingang burhware,” even if a distinct thing, only proves the existence of a “burhwaru” besides. However it is probable that there was a general disposition to admit as many members as possible into associations whose security and influence would greatly depend upon their numbers.
[800]. The word communa occurs at almost every page of the ‘Liber de antiquis Legibus,’ to express the whole commonalty of the city of London. Glanville himself uses communa and gyldae as equivalent terms. “Item si quis nativus quiete per unum annum et unum diem in aliquâ villâ privilegiatâ manserit, ita quod in eorum communiam, scilicet gyldam, tanquam civis receptus fuerit, eo ipso a villenagio liberabitur.” Lib. v. cap. 5. The reader may consult with advantage Thierry’s history of the Communes in France, in his ‘Lettres sur l’histoire de France,’ a work which has not received in this country an attention at all commensurate to its merits, or comparable to that bestowed upon his far less sound production the ‘Conquête de l’Angleterre par les Normands.’ At the same time it would be an error to apply the example of the French Communes to our own or those of Flanders, which had frequently a very different origin. See Warnkönig, Hist. de Flandre, par Gheldolf: Bruxelles, 1835, particularly vol. ii. with its valuable appendixes.
[801]. This truly interesting and important document will be found in an appendix to this Book. In fact the principle of all society during the Saxon period is that of free association upon terms of mutual benefit,—a noble and a grand principle, to the recognition of which our own enlightened period is as yet but slowly returning.
[802]. “Ealdredesgate et Cripelesgate, i. e. portas illas, observabant custodes.” Inst. London. § 1. Thorpe, i. 300.
[803]. In the cities of the Roman empire with Jus Italicum a statute of Marsyas or Silenus was erected in the forum. Servius ad Æneid. iv. 58. “Patrique Lyæo.—Urbibus libertatis est deus, unde etiam Marsyas, minister eius, per civitates in foro positus, libertatis indicium est; qui erecta manu testatur nihil urbi deesse.” So also Æneid, iii. 20. The reader of Horace will remember the Marsyas in the Forum as symbolizing the magistrate’s jurisdiction. Whether the Germanic populations derived their pillar, figure or statue from the Roman custom seems uncertain: certain however it is that the Rolandseule, the pillar or figure of Orlando, (and, as is sometimes said, of Charlemagne) denotes equally “nihil urbi deesse.”
[804]. “Die Luft macht eigen.”
[805]. Banlieu, banni leuca, or according to some etymologists, banni locus.