TOWNS PARTIALLY FREE 293
Wells were continuously at variance with their overlord; while
in countless cases the lord reserved certain rights over his men.
At Morpeth, in Northumberland, Roger de Merlai gave to his
free burgesses "all liberties and all free customs to be held and
had to them and their heirs of me and my heirs for ever,
honourably and freely and completely, as the charter of my Lord
the Bang defines'*.1 Nevertheless, from subsequent agreements
made with his heirs, we find that the men of Morpeth lacked
many of the essentials of complete freedom although they were
paying £10 yearly in rent for their franchises. For years after
this charter the lord held a common bakehouse, a mill at which
the burgesses were forced to grind the corn grown on the lord's
lands, and a stall where meat and fish were sold till noon to the
exclusion of their rights. Besides this, the lord received a fine for
every gallon of ale they brewed, and another for every one of their
cattle straying in the fields.2
Such incidents of servage still remained in many other boroughs:
we find the burgesses must ride with the lord when summoned
for an expedition; they must give tallage when required; they are
forced to render the old-time ploughings or reapings, or to do suit
of mill and oven. But even so, the situation of the burgesses
is most favourable compared with that of the villagers, for
their charter gives them great privileges—they are no longer
at the will of the lord and their services and payments are fixed
and regulated. Mr Ballard thus sums up the advantages of the
burghers' situation:
In the first place, their burgage tenure enabled the burgesses to
dispose of their houses in the borough almost as easily as their chattels,
and freed them from death duties in the shapes of heriots and reliefs.
Then, by having a court of their own.. .they were tried by their
fellow townsmen. Then, there was often some limitation of the amount
of fines that could be levied in the borough court, for instance, in the
boroughs that received the law of Breteuil, whereas there was no such
[definitely legal] limitation on the fines imposed by the manorial
court. In many cases the burgesses were free of toll, not only in the
market of the borough, but also throughout the possessions of their
lord.3
1 Hodgson, Hist. Northumberland, n, 2, 480-8.
2 Ballard, op. cit. I, 89, 91, 94, 96; II, 114-15, n6ff., 121, 122 ff.
8 Op. cit. I, xciv.