3oo THE ROAD TO FREEDOM
animation of the Charter Rolls shows that only very occasionally
(as at Pembroke, Nottingham and Derby) did the charter allow
simple residence as a sufficient reason. The qualifying phrases
vary, but all have the implication that the citizens are ready to
receive the outsider who has shown a willingness to accept
communal burdens, and who wishes to be part of the borough
and not a mere parasite upon it. The lawyers do not go quite as
far as this: Bracton says that freedom is acquired by dwelling
for a year and a day in any privileged town, or on the royal
demesne; and Britton and the author of Fleta at the end of the
thirteenth century say much the same.1 But the citizens and the
lawyers are not dealing with quite the same matter, though the
two things have become hopelessly entangled in subsequent dis-
cussion. Mere residence in the borough undoubtedly gave the
serf a seisin of liberty, so long as he remained there, and it is
this that the lawyers are concerned with. If he wished to be
more than this—a freeman not merely a free man—then it was
necessary for him to associate himself very closely with the
townsfolk.
And this was not always a simple matter. Sometimes there
would be a limiting clause in the town charter which refused any
such privileges to the serf. Thus at Plympton, in 1242, Baldwin,
Earl of Devon, in giving a charter to the borough definitely
excluded from its terms "our born serfs, who if they happen to
remain or sojourn in the aforesaid borough, cannot claim or usurp
any liberty by reason of the aforesaid liberty granted to our
aforesaid burgesses, without our consent".2 Similar instances
may be seen at Weymouth in 1252, and at Bridgetown Pomeroy
in I268.3 Even if there were no such clause in the charter there
was a great gulf between the citizen and the serf—a gulf which
often could not be crossed, and which, in any case, required a
deal of negotiating. At London, for example, it was comparatively
easy to obtain personal freedom, for the section of the Willelmi
Articuli Retractati quoted above was there regarded as authori-
tative and often pleaded in the courts.4 But such freedom was
1 Bracton, op. cit. f. 1906; Britton, op. cit. i, 200, 209; Fleta, in, 235.
* Devon. Assoc. xix, 561; Ballard, op. cit. n, 141, 143; Eyton, Shropshire^
x» 133- Cf. Luchaire, Communes Francoises, 58.
8 Ballard, op. cit. n, 142, 143. * Letter Books, A 170: K 90.