If we compare this Abingdon consuetudinary of 1185 with the Peterborough Black Book of 1128, the main result seems to be this: the Abingdon dues are quite as heavy, if not heavier, but the labour-services are much lighter. We must not indeed assume that the difference is wholly owing to progress made during the half-century which elapsed between the compilation of the two books; the customs of different localities varied in all ages, and those of Abingdon may never have been so hard as those of Peterborough. On the estates of the bishop of Durham, on the other hand, when Hugh of Puiset took account of his dues in 1183, the old labour-rents and customs seem to have subsisted almost without alteration. A large proportion of the villeins on the bishop’s manors were holders of two bovates or oxgangs of thirty acres each, for which each man paid two shillings and sixpence for scot-pennies, half a chalder of oats, sixteen pence for aver-pennies, five cart-loads of wood, two hens and ten eggs; he had to work for the lord three days every week throughout the year except Easter-week, Whitsun-week and the twelve days of Christmas; moreover, he and all his family, except the house-wife, had to do in autumn four days boon-work in reaping; besides this, he had to reap three roods of averipe (ripe oats), and plough and harrow three roods of averere (oat-stubble). Each villein plough had to plough and harrow two acres; on this occasion the villeins had a corrody from the bishop, and so they had on occasion of a great boon-work. They were to harrow whenever required; to perform services of carting, for which they got every man a loaf; to make each one booth for the fair of S. Cuthbert; “and when they make lodges” (possibly for the bishop’s hunting) “and cart wood, they are free of other work.” These were the services due from twenty-two out of the thirty-six tenants on the manor of Boldon. Of the remainder, twelve were “cotmen,” holding each twelve acres and working throughout the year, except at the above-named seasons, two days a week, and rendering twelve hens and sixty eggs. One man held two oxgangs of thirty-seven acres, at a rent of half a mark; another was the pounder, who held twelve acres, received from each plough one thrave of corn, and rendered twenty-four hens and five hundred eggs. The mill paid five marks and a half. The villeins were bound to give their labour every year, if required, for the building of a house (perhaps a hunting-lodge) forty feet long and fifteen feet wide; in that case they were forgiven fourpence for aver-pennies. The whole township rendered seventeen shillings for cornage, and one cow.[2272] Clevedon and Whitburn contained twenty-eight villeins and twelve cotmen whose services were the same as at Boldon; besides these and the pounder, there were four other tenants; one held two bovates of twenty-four acres at a rent of sixteenpence, and “went on the bishop’s errands”; one held sixty acres and a toft at eightpence, and fulfilled the same duty; the other two held their lands at a money-rent only.[2273] At Sedgefield there were fifty-one tenants, of whom twenty were villeins holding and labouring on the same terms as their brethren at Boldon; twenty more were “farmers,” holding two bovates apiece, paying five shillings, ploughing and harrowing half an acre, and finding two men to mow, two to reap, and two to make hay, for two days, and also one cart for two days to carry corn, and the same to cart hay; they also did four days’ boon-work in autumn with all their families except the housewives. The reeve, the smith and the carpenter held land by their service; the pounder got his thraves of corn and paid his dues in hens and eggs as on the other manors. Five bordarii held five tofts, paid five shillings, and did four days’ boon-work. William of Oldacres and Uhtred of Butterwick held lands, whose extent is not specified, at a rent of sixteen shillings and half a mark respectively.[2274] At Norton there were thirty villeins holding and labouring like those of Boldon, save that for lack of pasture-land they owed no cornage; and twenty farmers, whose tenure was much the same as that of the farmers of Sedgefield. Alan of Normanton held one carucate for ten shillings, and had to find thirty-two men for a day’s work when required, four carts for one day or two for two days for carrying corn, and the same for carting hay; besides which his men, if he had any, were to work four boon-days in autumn with all their families except the housewives, but Alan himself and his own household were free of this service. Adam, son of Gilbert of Hardwick, held a large piece of land by a money-rent. There was a mill, with eight acres and a meadow, and rendering twenty marks; a pounder, holding on the usual terms; and there were twelve cotmen, holding tofts and crofts, and paying partly in money, partly in work.[2275] The palatine bishopric, it is clear, was an old-fashioned district where innovations of any kind were slow to penetrate. Even here, however, the newer system of money-payment in commutation of service was beginning to make its appearance. The tenures on the manor of Whickham had undergone a sweeping change, apparently not long before Bishop Hugh’s survey was drawn up. On this manor there were thirty-five villeins, holding each an oxgang of fifteen acres. Each of these had been wont to pay sixteenpence, and to work three days a week throughout the year, three boon-days in autumn with all his family except his wife, and a fourth boon-day with two men; in their ordinary work they had to mow the grass, to cut and carry the hay, to reap and carry the corn; and over and above this, they had to plough and harrow two acres of averere with each plough; for this, however, they had a corrody. They had also, in the course of their work, to “make a house” forty feet long and fifteen feet wide, to make three fisheries in the Tyne, and to do carting and carrying like the villeins of Boldon; they gave nine shillings cornage, one cow, and for every oxgang one hen and ten eggs. “Now, however,” adds the record, “the said manor of Whickham is at farm”—demesne, villeins, mill, fisheries and all:—it may possibly, like its neighbour Ryton, have been let at farm to the tenants themselves; but at any rate, its entire services and dues, except a small tribute of hens and eggs, were commuted for a rent of six-and-twenty pounds.[2276]

On the whole, the glimpses which we get of the condition of the rural population of England under the Angevin kings seem to indicate that they were by no means excluded from a share in the progress of the kingdom at large. Even if their dues had grown heavier, this surely points to an advance in agricultural prosperity and of the material ease and comfort which are its natural results. The spread of industry shewed itself in many ways. In the towns we can trace it in the growing importance of the handicraftsmen, proved by the jealousy with which their gilds were regarded by the central government and still more by the civic authorities. The weavers seem to have been special objects of civic dislike; in most of the great towns they were treated as a sort of outcasts by the governing body; and in 1201 the London citizens bought of John, at the price of twenty silver marks a year and sixty marks down, a charter authorizing them to turn the weavers out of the city altogether. The sequel of this bargain is eminently characteristic of John; but it is equally significant of the growing influence of the craftsmen. The king took the citizens’ money and gave them the charter which they desired, but he made it null and void by granting his protection to the weavers as before, merely exacting from them an annual payment of twenty marks instead of eighteen.[2277]

Hand in hand with the growth of industry went the growth of trade. Markets and fairs were springing up everywhere, and a keen commercial rivalry sprang up with them. The little borough of S. Edmund’s set up a “merchant-gild,” whose members insisted that all who did not belong to it must pay toll in their market.[2278] The great success of Abingdon fair in Henry’s early years stirred up the jealousy of both Wallingford and Oxford, and their remonstrances compelled the king to order that inquisition should be made, through twenty-four of the old men of the shire “who were living in his grandfather’s time,” whether the obnoxious little township had in those days enjoyed the privilege of a market. The case was tried in full shire-moot at Farnborough; the twenty-four elders were duly elected, and swore that Abingdon had had a full market in the time of King Henry the First. The jurors were however challenged by the opposing party, whereupon Henry ordered “the men of Wallingford and the whole county of Berkshire” to meet before his justices at Oxford, and there to choose fresh recognitors. This time the jury could not agree among themselves. The Wallingford jurors swore that they remembered nothing sold at Abingdon in the first King Henry’s reign except bread and ale; the Oxford men admitted more than this, but not a “full market”—nothing brought by cart or boat (there was an old-standing quarrel between Oxford and Abingdon about boat-cargoes and river-tolls); the shiremen acknowledged that there had been a “full market,” but doubted whether goods were carried thither by any boats save those belonging to the abbot himself. The justiciar, Earl Robert of Leicester, who was presiding over the court in person, transmitted these various opinions to the king without venturing to decide the case. As it chanced, however, he could—so at least the Abingdon story ran—add to them an useful reminiscence of his own childhood: he had himself seen a full market at Abingdon not only in the days of King Henry I., but as far back as the days of King William, when he, Earl Robert, was a little boy in the abbey-school. And so the men of Abingdon won their case.[2279]

Disputes of this kind, however, were not always so peacefully settled. Some forty years later—in 1201—the monks of Ely set up, under the protection of a royal charter, a market at Lakenheath, within the “liberties” of S. Edmund’s abbey. The chapter of S. Edmund’s, “together with their friends and neighbours,” sent to Ely an amicable remonstrance against this proceeding, adding that they would willingly make good the fifteen marks which the monks of Ely had paid for their charter, if these latter would consent to forego the use of it. The remonstrance however produced no effect. The brotherhood of S. Edmund’s therefore demanded a recognition to declare whether the new market had been set up to their injury, and to the injury of the market at their own town. The verdict of the recognitors decided that it was so. The next step was to inform the king, and ascertain from him the exact tenour of his charter to Ely; search was made in the royal register, and it was found that the market had been granted only on condition that it should not damage the interests of other markets in the neighbourhood. Hereupon the king, for a promise of forty marks, gave to S. Edmund’s a charter providing that no market should thenceforth be set up within the liberties of the abbey save by the abbot’s consent; and he issued orders to the justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, for the abolition of the market at Lakenheath. The justiciar sent on the order to the sheriff of Suffolk; and the sheriff, having no jurisdiction within the liberties of S. Edmund’s, forwarded it to the abbot for execution. Next market-day the hundred-reeve came to Lakenheath, and shewing the letters of king and sheriff, supported by the testimony of the freemen, forbade the market in the king’s name; he was however met with nothing but contempt and abuse. The abbot, who was in London at the time, after consulting with some “wise men” there, wrote to his bailiffs bidding them assemble all the men of S. Edmund’s with their horses and arms, overthrow the market by force, and take prisoners as many of the buyers and sellers as they could. In the middle of the night some six hundred well-armed men set out from S. Edmund’s for Lakenheath. When they reached it the market was deserted; all the stall-holders had fled. The prior of Ely was at Lakenheath with his bailiffs, having come that same night in expectation of the intended attack; but he “would not come out of his house”; so the bailiffs of S. Edmund’s, after vainly demanding pledges from him that he would “stand to right” in the abbey-court, seized the butchers’ trestles and the planks which formed the stalls, as well as the cart-horses, sheep and oxen, “yea, and all the beasts of the field,” and carried them away to Icklingham. The prior’s bailiffs hurried in pursuit, and begged to have their goods on pledge for fifteen days, which was granted. Within the fifteen days came a writ summoning the abbot to answer for this affair at the Exchequer, and to restore the captured animals. “For the bishop of Ely, who was a man of ready and eloquent speech, had complained in his own person to the justiciar and the great men of England, saying that an unheard-of insult had been done to S. Etheldreda in time of peace; wherefore many were greatly stirred up against the abbot.”[2280]

The developement of foreign commerce, resulting from the wide-spread relations of the Angevin kings with lands on both sides of the sea which encompassed their island-realm, woke a rivalry no less keen between some of the great trading cities, although they might shew it in less rough and ready fashion than the champions of the mercantile privileges of S. Edmund’s. One interesting illustration has recently come to light, in a writ of Henry II. to the bailiffs of Dublin in favour of the citizens of Chester. Henry, as we know, had granted to the men of Bristol the right of colonizing Dublin and holding it of him and his heirs with the same liberties and privileges as were enjoyed by Bristol itself. Bristol and Chester had for ages been rivals in the trade with Ireland; Chester now saw itself in imminent danger of being altogether shut out of that trade, an exclusion which would have meant little less than ruin to the city. We can hardly doubt that its citizens appealed to the king for a reservation of their commercial privileges in Dublin as against the Bristol merchants. At any rate, Henry in 1175 or 1176 issued a writ to the bailiffs of Dublin commanding that the burghers of Chester should be free to buy and sell at Dublin as they had been wont to do, and should have the same rights, liberties and free customs there as they had had in his grandfather’s days.[2281] Yet more important than the trade of the western seaports with Ireland was that of the eastern coast, not only with the continental dominions of the Angevin house, but with almost the whole of Europe. Not the least beneficial result of the Angevins’ renewal of the old political ties between England and the Empire was the increase of trade which it helped to bring from the merchant-cities of northern Germany and the Low Countries to the port of London. Nor were the kings themselves blind to the advantage of these commercial relations. Richard on the eve of his return from captivity in 1194 granted to the citizens of Cöln a gildhall in London, “with all their other customs and demands,” for an annual payment of two shillings.[2282] The hall of the other Teutonic merchants—famous in later days under the name of the Steel-yard—was probably established about the same period; and early in the following century we find an elaborate and interesting code of regulations for the trade of the Lorrainers, the “men of the Emperor of Germany,” the Danes and the Norwegians.[2283] The developement of commerce brought with it a corresponding growth of riches, and of the material comforts and refinements of life. Domestic architecture began to improve. Henry Fitz-Aylwine issued at the opening of his mayoralty an “Assize” which has been described as “the earliest English Building Act,” and which at any rate shews that the civic authorities were earnestly endeavouring to secure health and comfort in the houses within their jurisdiction, and also to guard against the risk of fire which had ruined so many citizens in times past.[2284] Ecclesiastical architecture progressed still more rapidly; church-building or rebuilding went on all over the country on a scale which proves how great was the advance, both in artistic taste and material wealth, which England had made under the just rule and peaceful administration of her first Angevin king. At the opening of John’s reign the citizens of London were contemplating an important architectural work of another kind: they were planning to replace the wooden bridge over the Thames with a bridge of stone. Degenerate representative as he was in more important respects of the “great builders” of Anjou, John had yet inherited a sufficient share of their tastes to feel interested in such an undertaking as this; and in April 1202 we find him writing to the mayor and citizens of London to recommend them an architect, Isenbert, master of the schools at Saintes, whose skill in the construction of bridges had been lately proved at Saintes and at La Rochelle.[2285] The citizens however seem not to have adopted the king’s suggestion; they found an architect among themselves, in the person of Peter, chaplain or curate of S. Mary Colechurch—the little church beneath whose shadow S. Thomas the martyr was born. It was Peter who “began the stone bridge at London”; and in a chapel on that bridge his body found its appropriate resting-place when he died in 1205.[2286]