Not the universities, however, but the towns, were the true strongholds of English freedom. The struggle of the English towns for municipal liberty which we have seen beginning under Henry I. was renewed under Henry II. and Richard with increased vigour and success. Henry Fitz-Empress was far too clear-sighted a statesman to undervalue the growing importance of this element in English social and political life. Most of his town-charters, however, date from the earlier years of his reign, and scarcely any of them contain anything more than a confirmation of the liberties enjoyed in his grandfather’s time, with the addition in some cases of a few new privileges, carefully defined and strictly limited.[2233] In the great commercial cities, where the municipal movement had probably received a fresh impulse from the extension of trade and intercourse with the continent which was a natural consequence of Henry’s accession to the crown, the merchant-gilds soon began openly to aim at gathering into their own hands the whole powers of local government and administration, and acquiring the position of a French “commune.” The French kings encouraged the growth of the communal principle as a possible counterpoise to the power of the feudal nobles; Henry, who had little need of it for such a purpose, saw the dangers which it threatened to his system of government and held it steadily in check. In 1170 Aylwine the Mercer, Henry Hund and “the other men of the town” paid a heavy fine to the treasury for an attempt to set up a commune at Gloucester;[2234] six years later one Thomas “From-beyond-the-Ouse” paid twenty marks for a like offence at York.[2235] Owing to the close connexion between the organization of the commune and that of the gilds, every developement of this latter institution also was watched by the Crown with jealous care; in 1164 the burghers of Totnes, those of Lidford and those of Bodmin were all fined for setting up gilds without warrant from the king;[2236] and in 1180 no less than eighteen “adulterine gilds” in London met with a similar punishment.[2237] Once established, however, they seem to have been permitted to retain their existence, for in the first Pipe Roll of Richard we find them again paying their fines “as they are set down in the twenty-sixth Roll of King Henry II.”[2238] A bakers’ gild in London, a weavers’ gild at Nottingham, one of the same craft and another of fullers at Winchester, make their appearance as authorized bodies at the opening of Henry’s reign;[2239] among the “adulterine gilds” of London were those of the butchers, goldsmiths, grocers, clothiers and pilgrims.[2240] The golden days of English borough-life, however, began with the crowning of Henry’s successor. “When History drops her drums and trumpets and learns to tell the story of Englishmen”—as he who wrote these words has told it—“it will find the significance of Richard, not in his crusade or in his weary wars along the Norman border, but in his lavish recognition of municipal life.”[2241] In his first seven years alone, we find him granting charters to Winchester, Northampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Doncaster, Carlisle, Lincoln, Scarborough and York. Some of these towns were only beginning their career of independence, and were content with the first step of all, the purchase of the firma burgi; some bought a confirmation of privileges already acquired; Lincoln in 1194 had got so far as to win from the king a formal recognition of its right to complete self-government in a clause empowering its citizens to elect their own reeve every year.[2242] King of knights-errant and troubadours as he seemed, Richard, it is plain, could read the signs of the times as clearly and act upon their warnings as promptly and as wisely as any of his race; and we may be very sure that this bold advance upon his father’s cautious policy towards the towns was dictated by a sound political instinct far more than by the mere greed of gain. John went still further in the same direction; the first fifteen years of his reign afford examples of town-charters of every type, from the elementary grant of the firma burgi and the freedom of the merchant-gild to the little Cornish borough of Helston[2243] up to the crowning privilege bestowed upon the “barons of our city of London” in 1215, of electing their own mayor every year.[2244]

From the charter of Henry I. to the establishment of the commune under Richard the constitutional history of London is shrouded in obscurity. The charter granted by Henry II. to the citizens, some time before the end of 1158, is simply a confirmation of his grandfather’s.[2245] During the first fifteen years of his reign two sheriffs of London appear annually in the Pipe Rolls; in 1171 there were four, as there had been in the thirty-first year of Henry I.; but in the twentieth year of Henry II., 1171, we find that their number was again reduced to two; and from 1182 onwards there seems to have been only one, till at Michaelmas 1189 the accounts were rendered by Richard Fitz-Reiner and Henry of Cornhill, both of whom continued in office till 1191.[2246] In that year, as we have seen, the commune won its legal recognition from John and Archbishop Walter of Rouen as representatives of the absent king;[2247] and although the charter which Richard issued to the citizens of London, shortly before his final departure from England in 1194, is a mere echo of his father’s,[2248] yet the existence of the new corporation is thenceforth a recognized fact. John’s first charter to London was issued from Normandy six weeks after his crowning. It renewed the old grant of the sheriffdom of London and Middlesex, with all rights and customs thereunto belonging, to the citizens and their heirs, to have and to hold of the king and his heirs for ever. They were to appoint as sheriffs any of their own number whom they might choose, and to remove them at their pleasure; and for this privilege they were to pay, through the said sheriffs, three hundred pounds a year to the Treasury.[2249] The establishment of the commune had reduced the sheriffs to the rank of mere financial officers, and the real head of the civic administration was the mayor. The first mayor of London, Henry Fitz-Aylwine, retained his office for life; and his life extended beyond the limits of our present story. Yet the true significance of that story is strikingly illustrated by the next step in the history of London, a step which followed two years after Fitz-Aylwine’s death. On May 9, 1215, John granted to the “barons of the city of London” the right of annually electing their mayor.[2250] Five weeks later the barons of England compelled him to sign, in the meadows of Runnymede, the Great Charter which secured the liberties not of one city only but of the whole English people; and among the five-and-twenty men whom they chose from among themselves to enforce its execution was Serlo the Mercer, mayor of London.[2251]

Little, indeed, as the burghers themselves may have dreamed of any such thing, the highest importance of their struggle for municipal liberty lies in this, that its fruits were to be reaped by a far larger community than was inclosed within the town-walls. It was from the burghers that their brethren in the rural districts caught once more the spirit of freedom which ages of oppression had well-nigh crushed out of their hearts. “‘Ketel’s case’” at Bury S. Edmund’s—the case of a tenant of the abbey who, dwelling “outside the gate,” was hanged for a theft of which he had been found guilty by the Norman process of the judicial duel usual in the manor-courts, and over whose fate the townsmen, rejoicing in the Old-English right of compurgation which they still retained, grew so bitterly sarcastic that the abbot and the “saner part of the convent” were driven by terror of a peasant revolt to admit their rural tenants to a share in the judicial franchise of the town[2252]—was in all probability only one out of many. The history of this same abbey of S. Edmund’s shews us how even the villeins were rising into a position more like that of their free brethren, how the old badges of serfdom, the heavy labour-rents, the hard customs, were vanishing one by one, and how in this process of enfranchisement the boroughs led the way.[2253] “The ancient customs belonging to the cellarer’s office, as we have seen them”—that is, as Jocelyn of Brakelond, who was a monk of S. Edmund’s from 1172 to 1211, had seen them in the old custom-roll of the house—“were these: The cellarer had his messuage and barn by the well of Scurun, where he solemnly held his court for the trial of thieves and of all pleas and quarrels; and there he received the pledges of his men, and enrolled them, and renewed them every year, and got gain by it, as the reeve did in the portmannimot. This messuage was the homestead of Beodric, who of old time was lord of this township, whence it was called Beodricesworth; whose demesne lands are now in the demesne of the cellarer; and what is now called the aver-land was the land of his rustics. Now the sum of his tenements and those of his men was three hundred and thirty acres, which are lands still belonging to the township, whereof the services, when the town was made free, were divided into two parts; so that the sacristan or the reeve should receive the quit-rent, that is, twopence on every acre; and the cellarer should have the ploughings and other services, that is, the ploughing of one rood for every acre, without food (which custom is observed still); he was also to have the folds wherein all the men of the township (except the seneschal, who has his own fold) were bound to put their sheep (this custom, too, is observed still). He was also to have the aver-penny,[2254] that is twopence for every thirty acres; this custom was changed before the death of Abbot Hugh (1180). For the men of the township had to go at the cellarer’s bidding to Lakenheath, to fetch a load of eels from Southrey, and often they came back with their carts empty, and so they had their trouble without any benefit to the cellarer; wherefore it was agreed between them that every thirty acres should pay a penny a year, and the men should stay at home. At the present time, however, these lands are so cut up that scarcely anybody knows from whom the payment is due; so that whereas I have seen the cellarer receive twenty-seven pence in a year, now he can hardly get tenpence farthing. Moreover, the cellarer used to have control over the roads outside the township, so that no one might dig chalk or clay without his leave. He was also wont to summon the fullers of the township to lend cloths for carrying his salt; otherwise he would forbid them the use of the waters, and seize whatever cloths he found there; which customs are observed unto this day.” “Moreover the cellarer alone ought, or used, to have one bull free in the fields of this township; but now several persons have them.” “Moreover the cellarer used to warrant those who owed service to his court, so that they were exempt from scot and tallage; but now it is not so, because the burghers say that those who do service at the court ought to be exempt for their service, but not for the burgage which they hold in the town, and forasmuch as they and their wives do publicly buy and sell in the market.”[2255] After the affair of Ketel, in fact, the cellarer’s court was merged in that of the town; “it was decreed that his men should come to the toll-house with the others, and there renew their pledges, and be written in the reeve’s roll, and there give to the reeve the penny which is called borth-silver, and the cellarer should have half of it (but he gets nothing at all of it now); and all this was done, that all might enjoy equal liberty.”[2256]

“That all might enjoy equal liberty”—Jocelyn’s words had a significance wider and deeper than he himself could know, wider and deeper than could be known perhaps even to his abbot from whom they were probably echoed; although it is clear from almost every page of Jocelyn’s story that Abbot Sampson of S. Edmund’s was a far more enlightened and far-seeing statesman than most of the great landowners of his day, whether secular or tonsured. The rural tenants of S. Edmund in his time had evidently made a good deal more progress towards enfranchisement than those of some other great houses, such as, for example, the abbey of Abingdon. In 1185, on the death of Abbot Roger of Abingdon, a dispute between the “obedientiaries,” or officers of the convent to whose support various portions of its revenues were assigned, and the steward appointed by the king to take charge of the abbot’s property during the vacancy of his office, led to the drawing-up of a consuetudinary,[2257] which it would be interesting to compare with the earlier “Black Book” of Peterborough. A large proportion of the tenants’ dues were paid in money; but there were still considerable remnants of the older system. The chamberlain of the abbey, for instance, had an acre of land at Culham, which the men of that township were bound to reap and carry to make beds for the monks. The hay to be laid “under the monks’ feet when they bathed” was supplied in like manner from a meadow at Stockgrave. A tenant named Daniel of Colebrook was bound, besides paying a rent of five shillings, to furnish the chamberlain whenever he went to London with hay for his horses, with wood and salt, and with straw for his bed. At Welsford, near Newbury, there were twenty-two “cotset-lands,” whose tenants held them by their services as swineherds, bedels (or messengers of the chamberlain’s court), shepherds, hedgewards and such like. Of eleven rent-paying tenants in the same township, one owed, besides his rent of twenty-seven pence, his personal service for getting in hay and stacking corn in August. As the whole township was in demesne, its inhabitants paid a tribute to the lord—in this case the chamberlain of the abbey—for the pannage of their pigs; they had also to furnish the services of one man for harvesting in August, and to lend their ploughs for bene-work. The men of Boxhole, Benham, Easton and Weston did the like. At Boxhole, out of twelve tenants, eight were bound, besides paying their rent, to plough an acre of the demesne and sow it with their own seed; and seven of these had moreover to carry hay and corn. One Berner and his sons held a “cotset-land” by a rent of six sextaries of honey to the cellarer and thirty-one pence to the chamberlain.[2258] There were twenty-six tenants withdrawn from demesne, of whom six owed work in August, in addition to their rent; and there were five acres of meadow which had to be mowed and carried by five men of the township. At Benham, out of twenty-four tenants, eleven were “cotsetles”; three of these were servants of the chamberlain, holding their lands by their service; the rest were to hold by rent or by work, as the lord might choose[2259]—an arrangement which applied also to the cotters of Boxhole.[2260] Of the remaining thirteen tenants at Benham, six paid rent only; the rest were bound also to plough and sow an acre or half an acre apiece, and to carry corn and hay.[2261] One was excused the ploughing and sowing, doubtless in consideration of her sex and condition—she was “Ernive a widow.”[2262] The whole township owed a customary payment or church-shot of forty-six hens.[2263]

On the manor of Weston the dues were thus distributed: Robert of Pont-de-l’Arche held four acres of the abbot “by the service of half a knight.” One acre belonged to the church of the township; half a hide was held by John of S. Helen’s, on what terms we are not told. Of the remainder, over which the chamberlain was lord, half a hide was in demesne; the rest was distributed in ten portions, held by thirteen tenants—a hide or half a hide being in three cases held by two persons conjointly. Two hides and a half were for work or for gavel, at the option of the lord; in actual practice, however, there were only two cotters who owed labour instead of, or in addition to, their money-rent. On the other hand, the right of poundage, or exemption from impounding of cattle, was paid for in this village by the ploughing of two acres.[2264] The township of Berton and several others were bound to furnish sumpter-horses for conveying fish to the abbey-kitchen thrice a year; the persons responsible for this service had to pay their own travelling expenses and those of their horses; but they got each a loaf from the abbey when they left; and those who could not fulfil the service were allowed to compound for it with the kitchener “as best they could.” The same manors rendered each five hundred eggs on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, at Christmas, Easter, Rogation-tide and Pentecost; and three hundred at Candlemas and Quinquagesima, besides eighteen hens apiece at the festivals of S. Martin and at Christmas. They also gave on the Wednesday before Easter a hundred herrings, which on the following Thursday were distributed to the poor;[2265] and each of them sent moreover to the monks’ kitchen, in the course of the year, besides the eggs and hens already enumerated, twenty-four bushels of beans.[2266] Eight fisheries were bound to furnish each a certain number of eels on Ash-Wednesday;[2267] the fishermen who carried the eels to the hall were entitled to receive thence two loaves apiece.[2268] From another fishery a money-rent of seventeen shillings was due, paid in three terms; and its holder owed church-shot of twelve hens.[2269] Berton furnished five loads of straw, and Culham as many of hay, three times a year—on Christmas Eve, Easter Eve, and All Saints’ Eve—for strewing the refectory.[2270] When the chamberlain went to Winchelcombe fair, the men of Dumbleton were bound to bring home for him whatever he purchased there; the same duty fell to the tenantry of Welford when he went to the fair at Winchester.[2271]