The next class is that of letters demanding the return of tolls and taxes levied on merchants in contempt of the Charter.
Now, the most important of the early charters, after that short and comprehensive document, the Charter of William, was that of Henry I. (see vol. ii. pt. i. ch. ii.). In this there occurs the invaluable concession which placed the London merchants above the reach of the barons, that they were to be “quit and free, they and their goods, throughout England and the ports of the sea of and from all toll and passage and listage, and all other customs.... And if any shall take toll or custom of any citizen of London, the citizens of London shall take of the borough or town where toll and custom was so taken as much as the man of London gave for toll, and as he received damage thereby.”
In other words, when the Lord of the Manor could enforce upon other traders a tax for murage, pavage, pontage, stallage, and other tolls, customs, and taxes, the London merchant alone could be called upon for none of these charges, or, if any, then only those which belonged to the general usages of trade. Many of these letters, then, are letters demanding the return of tolls and taxes levied upon merchants in contempt of the Charter. The first letter was invariably courteous, asking “for love’s sake,” and calling upon the offender to act “in such manner as they could wish their own folk to be treated in like case, or weightier.” If the first letter produced no reply they sent another called an alias, because it sometimes called upon them to remark that they should answer the letter, otherwise.... If this failed they sent a third called pluries, because several letters had now been sent without reply, and the time was come for reprisals, which would certainly be taken upon such of their own folk as might be living in London.
KNIGHTS PREPARING FOR A PASSAGE OF ARMS
Another class of letters is concerned with piracies and outrages committed at sea.
Thus in 1364 the Mayor and Aldermen demand of Baudwyn de la Heuse, Admiral of France, compensation from the towns of Rouen, Harfleur, Caen, and Bayeux, for an outrage in which certain Norman sailors called “billecoks claybakes” had captured and pillaged a ship laden with tin. Again, there was the case of Thomas de Ware, citizen of London, who loaded a ship with wine, oil, pewter vessels, spurs, etc., to the tune of £231: 0: 10 and sent it across to Bruges. While sailing on “La Sheelde” the ship was attacked and pillaged by four Flemish ships. Would the city of Bruges make compensation, or would they prefer reprisals?
It is sometimes asserted that all the carrying trade for centuries was in the hands of foreigners, and especially of the Hanseatic merchants. This is not wholly true, for there were many ships belonging to the London merchant, the Merchant Adventurer; it is undoubtedly true that the Hanseatic Merchants at one time threatened to absorb the whole of the carrying trade, but they never quite succeeded. There were the English ships, a very large fleet which sailed every year to Bordeaux and back, bringing with them some fifteen thousand tuns of wine. They went forth together, and they came home together, for fear of the pirates who swarmed in the Channel and in the North Sea. Now and then the Hanseatics put forth their strength and drove the English vessels off the seas, but they went back again. In 1348 a pirate named Vitaliani seized Bruges, a city containing English as well as German Merchants, and looted it. We remember how Mayor Sir John Philpot manned a fleet, put himself on board, and destroyed the ships of Mercer the Scottish pirate. In 1440 the Bastard Falconbridge received the thanks of the City for his services against pirates. In consequence of the losses sustained at the hands of the Breton pirates, Edward III. granted to the towns of Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Fowey, the right to carry on war with Brittany. The people of Brittany, says the poet,
“Are the greatest rovers and the greatest thieves