The story of Coventry. Mary Dormer Harris
appears to have been some ill-feeling arising from a trading jealousy between Earl's-folk and Prior's-folk. The former were disposed, as early as the days of Henry II., to entertain some grudge with regard to the ordering of the market in the Prior's-half,[97] but we know no particulars of the grievance. So hotly, however, did the quarrel rage between them, that there were "debates, contentions, namelie killing of divers men,"[98] in the streets. Doubtless, in the interests of peace, it was better that one or other of the contending parties should become predominant within the town, and force the other to consent to a compromise. The last Earl of Chester being dead, and his successors, the De Montalts, men of little mark, the chance lay with S. Mary's convent; and an enterprising prior, William of Brightwalton, was not slow to avail himself of the opportunity. Hoping, so the convent folk afterwards declared, to allay the strife by uniting the two manors whereof the town was composed under one lord, he proposed to purchase the earl's estate, a scheme to which Roger de Montalt, being in need of money for a Crusade, was fain to agree. So in 1249 the latter resigned the manor into the prior's hand in return for a yearly rent of £100, with ten marks to the nuns of Polesworth, and by this means the head of the convent became lord of the Earl's-half,[99] Prior's-men and Earl's-men alike holding of him house and land, and owing him rent and accustomed services. Thus the lay lords of this great family slip out of the city's history; the ruling power in the town is the great religious corporation which owed its existence to Saxon piety.
Whatever changes this transfer may have brought about, one thing is certain, it did not establish peace in Coventry. Twenty years later the old jealousy flamed up anew. About 1267 both townsmen and convent took advantage of Henry III.'s necessities to negotiate for a charter, but with a different result. The former obtained a bare confirmation of their ancient liberties,[100] the prior, on the other hand, owing, belike, to his superior command of the purse, or in return for help he may have rendered the King in the late wars, was able to purchase fresh concessions for himself and his men. He was allowed to appoint coroners for the town, and further, licence was given to form a merchant guild among his tenants.[101] The grant of these graces brought about an outbreak in the Earl's-half. Hitherto, it may be supposed, Earl's-folk and Prior's-folk had carried on their trade on fairly equal terms, but the new charter would bring about a revolution. The object of the formation of a merchant guild was to confine the trade of the district to its members; they would become local commercial monopolists. No wonder the Earl's-men resisted the foundation of this society. If it were once established, and they were excluded from its ranks, what a blow would be dealt to their prosperity.
The guildsmen would make it impossible for them to trade under anything like favourable conditions. They might be mulcted by tolls; subjected to the annoying supervision of the guild officials in respect to the weight or quality of their goods; restrictions affecting the time, place, or manner of their selling might be imposed on them; or they might have to relinquish bargains they had closed in favour of the members of the guild merchant.
So when the terms of this new charter were known the Earl's-folk rose in tumult, withstood the priory coroner when he attempted to see the body of a man, slain, no doubt, in these brawls, and prevented their neighbours in the Convent-half from forming the guild according to the permission vouchsafed to them. Nor could the sheriff's officer, sent by the royal order at the prior's request to proclaim these charters and liberties in Coventry, bring the unruly townspeople to obedience. "Certain men, we learn," ran the King's writ, "from those parts with others, armed with force, took Gilbert, clerk to the said sheriff, sent thither to this end, and imprisoned him, and broke" the royal "rolls and charters, and beat and ill-treated the men of the prior and convent."[102] What was the end of the tumult, or the fate of the luckless clerk, we cannot tell, but, as we hear no more of the prior's guild, it seems that this outbreak of the Coventry men "with others" prevented its establishment.
We now enter upon a fresh phase of the quarrel. It is no longer the Prior's-men but the prior himself who is the Earl's-men's enemy. Their whole energy is absorbed in the effort to free their trade from the restrictions the present lord of the Earl's-half has laid down for them to observe. For the Earl's-men appeared ill-content with the change of masters. Did the prior encroach upon the rights of the townsfolk? Probably not; previously established customs founded on the charter of Ranulf would bar his claims. But though the law may not alter, the interpretation of it may vary from time to time; so may the circumstances under which it is administered. It was so with the customs which had hitherto regulated the Earl's-men's lives. They and their present masters were disposed to differ as to the meaning these could bear, and hence a way was opened for numerous quarrels and lawsuits. Moreover, restraints, which had been borne without complaint in early days under the Chester lordship, were found unendurable when the townsfolk's commerce, and with it their desire for freedom, had increased.
The matter of the merchant guild was only the forerunner of more serious trouble. The townspeople were rapidly growing rich, whether by soap-making,[103] or the manufacture of woollen cloth, or the entertainment of travellers, or a happy combination of all three sources of wealth. Under Edward I. they were able to pave their city,[104] which had now risen to a sufficiently important position to be accounted a borough, and to return two members to the Parliament of 1295.[105] Its prosperity attracted the notice of Edward I., who in 1303 summoned two Coventry merchants to attend a council;[106] and of Edward II., who asked the inhabitants for a loan of 500 marks for the prosecution of the Scotch war. It is small wonder if the townsfolk were jealous lest this growing prosperity should be checked by the petty regulations the prior chose to lay on them. Was their wealth to be curtailed because, forsooth, the convent officials charged them, not to sell here, or make there, to relinquish a favourable bargain, or never to open stall or shop for sale of goods during certain hours of the day?
The prior in the days of Edward II. was Henry Irreys, and his hand lay heavy on the townsmen. They were not able to live, they complained, "by reason of his oppression." Moreover, like the jolly, illiterate Abbot of S. Alban's named Hugh, who "feared nothing so much as the Latin tongue,"[107] and so oppressed his tenants, Prior Irreys was an ally of Edward II., for it was by "maintenance of the King and of Spencer, Earl of Winchester" (i.e. Despenser), that he was enabled to keep the malcontents in check. In his days arose a second dispute concerning traffic, but at what date we cannot tell. The Friday market had always been held in the Prior's-half, and there only were the Earl's-men permitted to sell their wares on that day.[108] Now certain of them broke through the prior's order, and sold openly in their own houses[109] during market hours. Appeal was made to the law. In vain the townsmen pleaded that by virtue of the clause in Ranulf's charter, giving them the same liberties as the Lincoln folk, they were free to sell their goods when or where they would. Vainly, too, they tried to strengthen their case by declaring that before the prior had purchased the Chester estate they had been wont to hold a fair in the Earl Street, where now their shops stood. These pleas availed nothing, and a verdict was returned for the prior with £60 damages, the Earl's men being forbidden to sell anywhere but in the Prior's-half during market hours. The prescribed payment must have well-nigh ruined William Grauntpee and other traders concerned in the struggle, for £60 was then accounted a great sum.[110]
It was in 1323 that the townsfolk sought, after a very novel