[71] Hales, Percy Folio, i. 264-73.
Beginnings of Municipal Government
But how did the men live who inhabited Coventry, who were neither warriors nor monks, but the rank and file of the townsfolk, the mere tillers of the ground and retailers of food and clothing, farmers, bakers, butchers, shoemakers, weavers, and the like? These men owed fealty, according to the position of the land they held, either to the prior or the Earl of Chester. It is with the earl's burghers that the main part of our story lies. It was they who won, after many checks and struggles, such liberties of trading and self-rule as helped to make their city rich and famous in after days. For wherever townspeople found that their lord, whether he were a noble or the King himself, had need of their money or support, they bargained with him for a charter, a duly written and attested document giving them the power to exercise certain rights, such as the collecting of their own taxes or the managing of their own courts, without the interference of his officials. Just as the barons of England gained Magna Charta from John in his need and weakness, or forced Edward I. to confirm the same ere they would give him money to prosecute his wars, so the townsfolk played out the same play in their own much humbler theatre, and drove their bargain with this or that great owner of estates.
For towns on the royal demesne the question resolved itself into one of mere traffic. Was the town rich enough to induce the King to grant a charter to the inhabitants conferring on them the liberties of which they stood in need? If so, the money was paid, and the town started on its career of independence. Nobles, too, were often willing to forego their manorial privileges for the sake of a substantial sum of money. But with churchmen and religious corporations the case was different. They were unwilling, under any circumstances, to part with the rights of the Church, "for fear," as the Coventry monks said, "of blemishing their consciences." In growing and prosperous communities, where men suffered by the restrictions laid upon their trade or persons, the attitude of the religious community, which stood to them in place of feudal lord, gave rise to great bitterness of feeling among the tenants. Discontent was in many cases the precursor of riot and bloodshed, showing how fierce was the spirit of resistance among these men, and with what tenacity they clung to the idea of freedom.
The condition of the men of S. Alban's, or those of any town where the inhabitants were serfs, was often miserable, or at best precarious.[72] A serf must perform for his lord frequent and often unlimited service. His offences were punished in his lord's courts of justice. He could not sell or depart from his holding or marry his children without licence. He must grind his corn at his lord's mill, and bake his loaves at his lord's oven.
But from these most oppressive burdens the Coventry men were free. They had in ancient custom a guarantee that their lord could not urge such claims upon them, for they held of him "in free burgage";[73] that is to say, they were quit of all personal service, and merely paid a money rent for house and land. They were not compelled to leave their business to carry in the crops on the lord's demesne, or follow him for a great distance to war, or bake at his oven, a custom the men of Melton observed until the days of James I.[74] Still, although they were not entirely at the mercy of their feudal superior, the men of Coventry had, as yet, no voice in the town government. They owed obedience to three powers—the Earl of Chester, the King, and the Prior of Coventry. For any fault or misdemeanour they were summoned to appear at the earl's castle, where the constable fixed their punishment, and the fine they paid passed into the earl's hand. The author of any grave or serious crime was answerable to the sheriff, the King's officer. While the prior, the lord of the soil in the Cross Cheaping, regulated all matters connected with the traffic of the market.
The townsfolk were neither rich nor strong enough to free themselves from the sheriff's jurisdiction, or their trade from the prior's surveillance. But in the reign of Henry II. they struck a bargain with Ranulf Blondvil, Earl of Chester, a great founder of towns, whereby they obtained certain rights and privileges, and some measure of self-government. In his charter the earl granted to his burgesses of Coventry the same customs as those enjoyed by the men of Lincoln, for it was usual for townsfolk to ask that their constitution might be modelled on that of some freer or more important place.[75] Lincoln,[76] in common with most of the larger towns in England, borrowed certain customs from London, and Coventry, in its turn, was to serve as model to other towns later in acquiring freedom.[77]