The charter, rendered into modern English, runs as follows:—
"William, King, greets William, Bishop, and Gosfregdh, Portreeve, and all the burgesses within London, French and English, friendly. And I give you to know that I will that ye be all those laws worthy that ye were in King Eadward's day.[82] And I will that every child be his father's heir after his father's day and I will not suffer that any man offer you any wrong. God keep you."
The terms of the charter are worthy of study. They are primarily remarkable as indicating that the City of London was, at the time, subject to a government which combined the secular authority of the port-reeve with the ecclesiastical authority of the bishop. It was said, indeed, to have been greatly due to the latter's intercession that the charter was[pg 035] granted at all, and, in this belief, the mayor and aldermen were long accustomed to pay a solemn visit to the bishop's tomb in St. Paul's church, there to hear a De profundis on the day when the new mayor took his oath of office before the Barons of the Exchequer.[83]
The office of port-reeve.
As regards the port-reeve—the port-gerefa, i.e., reeve of the port or town of London[84]—the nature and extent of his duties and authority, much uncertainty exists. Whilst, in many respects, his position in a borough was analogous no doubt to the shire-reeve or sheriff of a county, there were, on the other hand, duties belonging to and exercised by the one which were not exercised by the other. Thus, for instance, the port-reeve, unlike the sheriff, exercised no judicial functions in a criminal court, nor presided over court-leets in the city as the sheriff did in his county by turn, the latter being held independently by the alderman of each ward.[85]
The foreign element already existing in the City.
Its increase after the Conquest.
The charter makes no new grant.
In the next place the charter brings prominently to our notice the fact that there was already existing within the City's walls a strong Norman element, existing side by side with the older English burgesses,[pg 036] which the Conqueror did well not to ignore. The descendants of the foreign merchants from France and Normandy, for whose protection Ethelred had legislated more than half a century before, had continued to carry on their commercial intercourse with the Londoners, and were looking forward to a freer interchange of merchandise now that the two countries were under one sovereign. Their expectation was justified. No sooner had London submitted to the Norman Conqueror than, we are told, "many of the citizens of Rouen and Caen passed over thither, preferring to be dwellers in that city, inasmuch as it was fitter for their trading, and better stored with the merchandise in which they were wont to traffic."[86] But by far the most important clause in the charter is that which places the citizens of London in the same position respecting the law of the land as they enjoyed in the days of their late king, Edward the Confessor. Here there is distinct evidence that the Conqueror had come "neither to destroy, nor to found, but to continue."[87] The charter granted nothing new; it only ratified and set the royal seal[88] to the rights and privileges of the citizens already in existence.
William's other charter granting the sheriffwick of London.