It was even a place for public penance. Perjury was punished by imprisonment until the next Husting, when the offender was placed upon a high stool before all the people while his crime was read aloud. After this, he was set at liberty.

In this Court deeds and wills were enrolled.

In this Court land was conveyed by a method “described by Blackstone as a kind of real contract, whereby the bargainer for some pecuniary consideration bargains and sells, that is, contracts to convey the land to the bargainee, and becomes by such bargain a trustee for, or seised to the use of the bargainee, and then the Statute of Uses completes the purchase; in other words the bargain first vests the use, and then the statute vests the possession.” (Calendar of Wills, i. 23.)

Probate of Will naturally belonged to the Court which enrolled Wills.

The Court undertook the guardianship of orphans. The citizen of London had the right of devising part only of his property; a certain part of it going, with or without his wish, to his widow and children. This restriction was only removed by the 2nd Act of George the First. The widow, for instance, by the custom of the City, was entitled to one-third of his estate, the children to another third, the residue was at the free disposal of the testator and was known as the legatory or the dead man’s portion.

Among the wills enrolled in the Court of Husting, Sharpe mentions the following:—

“1. John de Kyrkeby, Bishop of Ely, who endowed his see with houses, vines, and gardens situate at Holborn, whose gift is remembered at the present day by the names of Ely Place, Vine Street, and Kirby Street, and whose gardens, part and parcel of the gift, call to mind the well-known lines put into the mouth of the Duke of Gloucester by Shakespeare (Richard III., Act iii. sc. 4):—

‘My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,

I saw good strawberries in your garden there.’

2. William de Farndon, Alderman of Farringdon Ward, to which he gave its name, and Nicholas [le Fevre?], who married his daughter, took his name, and became Alderman of his Ward, which he afterwards disposed of by will to John de Pulteneye, although the latter appears never to have been de facto Alderman of the Ward.

FACSIMILE OF HEADING OF ACCOUNT, 1575-1576, SHOWING COOPER AT WORK
From Coopers’ Company Illustrations.

A larger image is available [here].

3. William de Elsing, the founder of Elsing Spital, on the site of which was afterwards built Sion College with its almhouses, one of the few picturesque relics of Old London which till lately remained to us, but now vanished.

4. William Walworth, whose prowess when Mayor against the rebel Wat Tyler at Smithfield is sufficiently well known.

5. Sir John Philpot, who was appointed joint treasurer with Walworth for receiving the subsidy granted to Richard II. on his accession, and who received the honour of knighthood with Walworth, Nicholas Brembre, and others.

6. John Northampton and Nicholas Exton, so long rivals of one another, the latter supporting Nicholas Brembre in his endeavour to sustain the monopoly enjoyed by the free fishmongers of the City, in opposition to the former.

7. Richard Whityngton, four times Mayor of London, whose munificent gifts and charitable acts need not be recorded here, as they are already household words.

8. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, Sir Andrew Judde, Sir Andrew Laxton, and many others whose names are associated with the cause of education, not only within the City of London, but in all parts of the country.

9. Sir Martin Bowes, the wealthy and charitable goldsmith, whose almhouses at Woolwich still bear witness to his generosity, and who bequeathed to the Mayor of the City of London for the time being and his successors a goodly cross of gold set with pearls and precious stones to hang at the collar of gold worn by the Mayor at high feasts, ‘as mentioned in the Repertory.’

10. And, lastly, Sir Thomas Gresham (not to mention numerous others), the founder of the College within the City which still bears his name, and to whose munificence the merchants of the City were indebted for their first bourse, or Royal Exchange.” (Calendar of Wills, ii. 2-4.)

The Courts of the City, therefore, were the Folk Mote and the Court of Husting, which gave the City a sense of unity though as yet there was no collective governing body and no Head or Chief to stand for the City.

There was, next, the Ward Mote, for the local business of each ward.

“The Wardmote is so called as being a meeting together by summons of all inhabitants of a Ward, in presence of its head, the Alderman, or else his deputy, for the correction of defaults, the removal of nuisances, and the promotion of the well-being of such Ward. The meetings that we call ‘Wardmotes,’ the Romans called plebiscita; the same in fact that were styled folkesmot by the Saxons in ancient times. The Aldermen were in the habit also, by virtue of warrants by the Mayor for the time being to them directed, to hold their Wardmotes, twice at least, or oftener, in the year; on which occasions enquiry used to be made as to the condition and tranquillity of the Ward, and such defaults as were presented were corrected by the Alderman, as hereafter will be shown.