The story of Coventry. Mary Dormer Harris
Earl Hugh's death, and 1189, the date of the death of Henry II., who confirmed it. I am inclined to think that the charter should be assigned to 1181–2, in which year the men of Coventry paid 20 marks to the king.
[79] Corp. MS. B. 2. The charter is dated "apud Merlebergam" = Marlborough. This charter was first printed by the late Mary Bateson in "Laws of Breteuil," Eng. Hist. Rev., xvi. 98–9.
[80] The townsfolk had not yet power to commute the fines and forfeitures for a fixed sum, called fee-ferm.
[81] For the association of the feudal lord's representative and the chosen official of the townsfolk in a town court see the case of Totnes (Green, Town Life, i. 252).
[82] We infer from analogy that presentments were made by a jury in this court. Norwich was—for judicial purposes—divided into four leets. Each leet was divided into sub-leets, these latter divisions being composed of as many parishes as would furnish twelve tithings. The head-man, or "capital pledge" of every tithing—a band of ten, twelve, or more citizens responsible for one another—made the presentment of anything, which had happened in his tithing, which came under the cognizance of the court. See Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich (Selden Soc., vol. v.), xii.-xxvi.
[83] It is not clear whether the townsfolk at this period attended the earl's leet or the sheriff's court. They certainly attended the latter court in the time of Edward III. (Madox, Firma Burgi, 108–9).
[84] i.e. has to be amerced, or fined.
[85] i.e. appear with five of her neighbours, who swear that she is not guilty. This method of clearing the character by oath of the neighbours was called compurgation.
[86] Shillings and pence were used as weights. We still speak of "pennyweights" (Maitland).
[87] Because no neighbours could be found to swear, therefore he is guilty.
[88] Pledges or sureties for the fine. These cases are all imaginary, but drawn from analogous ones to be found in the Selden Society's publications, the Nottingham Records, etc. I am by no means sure that such cases as the last two would come within the purview of the portmanmote. On the difficult question of the line between manorial and regal jurisdiction see Hearnshaw, Court Leet of Southampton.
[89] So called because the parchment on which the two deeds were written was so cut (indented) that they would exactly fit or dovetail into one another when put together at any future time. Hundreds of these documents are now at Coventry. See Section C of Mr. J.C. Jeaffreson's catalogue of Corp. MSS.
[90] In cases where the lord of the manor was entitled to hold a leet or view of frankpledge, the tenants were exempt from attendance at the hundred court. In the "view of frank- pledge" each testified that they were enrolled in a tithing or body of mutually responsible persons.
[91] The direct ancestor of our modern Grand Jury.
[92] The conditions under which strangers were admitted into a town differed with the particular locality. A free craftsman would be admitted to citizenship by purchase. If a serf escaped from his master's estate, and lived unclaimed for a year and a day, he was as a general rule permitted to continue in the town. In Lincoln it was necessary that he should pay the town taxes during that period (Stubbs, Select Charters, 159).
[93] Dugdale, Warw., i. 161.
[94] Cole, Documents Illustrative of Eng. Hist., 309–19.
CHAPTER V
Prior's-half and Earl's-half
In Coventry we now enter upon a period where the townsmen not only sought to make good the privileges they had already won, but strove to gain, either by fair means or foul, such fresh concessions as they deemed necessary for their comfort and prosperity. The story of the struggle for liberty in English towns, though little known, is one of great interest. Though the whole thing is on a small scale, yet the narrative of events is no less stirring than the account of the revolt of a great nation. There was as fierce a conflict at S. Alban's among a score or two of men in 1327 as among tens of thousands in Paris at the Revolution. Few leaders of forlorn hopes have shown more desperate courage than the good folk of Dunstable, who were ready to brave not only the terrors of punishment in this world, but in the world to come, for, being cursed with bell, book, and candle by the bishop and their prior, they said that they recked nothing of this excommunication, but were resolved rather "to descend into hell altogether" than submit to the prior's extortions. And conceiving that they were likely to be worsted in the quarrel, they covenanted with a neighbouring lord for forty acres of land, preparing to leave their houses and live in tents ere they would pay the arbitrary tolls and taxes the prior had laid upon them.[95] It is true there were no philosophic fervour about the mediæval burgher, no enthusiasm about liberty in the abstract. What he wanted was some small practical advantage his masters denied him.[96] All the townsman of S. Alban's asked at the beginning of the quarrel was, that he should be allowed to grind his corn at home instead of at the abbot's mill. But wanting this strongly and sorely, and seeing a chance of victory, he was willing to fight for it perhaps to the death.
The struggle for freedom is, in Coventry, at first interwoven with an old quarrel existing between the tenants of the two lords who held the town between them: for we have seen that Coventry was divided into two lordships; on the one hand lay the property of the earls of Chester, the Earl's-half; on the other the Prior's-half, or the convent estate. The government of these two manors was absolutely distinct. The Prior's-men had no lot or part in the privileges conferred in Ranulf's charter, and the Earl's-men none in those the convent won from Henry III. The customs practised by the Earl's-men on one side of the street, and those followed by the prior's tenants on the other, might differ to a considerable extent. They attended different courts; some were compelled to pay dues from which their neighbours were exempt; the prior's tenants might be forced to carry their lord's harvest, or work on his estate; while the Earl's-men, as free burghers, had long since discontinued feudal labour. A priory tenant would stand in his lord's pillory, or hang on his gallows; an Earl's-man met his punishment at the castle, or the sheriff's court. While the convent tenants could very likely bring their butter, horse provender, or coarse cloth to sell in the market free of toll, another owing the earl fealty might have to pay a penny or more before his stall could be set up in the market-place. These differences of tenure, custom, and privilege, naturally bred disputes among the townsfolk, a frequent occurrence in those places wherein different lords held sway, dividing the allegiance of the inhabitants.
40 far Gosford St.
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