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Full text of "English local government, from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act"

ENGLISH LOCAL GOVEKNMENT 



FROM 



THE REVOLUTION 



TO 



THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS ACT 




ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERN- 
MENT FROM THE REVOLU- 
TION TO THE MUNICIPAL 
CORPORATIONS ACT: THE 
MANOR AND THE BOROUGH. 
BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE 
WEBB. PART ONE. 




LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., 39 
PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, 
NEW YORK, CALCUTTA AND BOMBAY. 
1908. 



CONTENTS 

BOOK III 
THE MANOE AND THE BOROUGH 

PAOE 

INTRODUCTION. ......... 3 

PART I 

CHAPTER I 

THE LORD'S COURT 9 

(a) THE LAWYER'S VIEW OF THE LORD'S COURT . . 11 

(6) THE COURT BARON 13 

(c) THE COURT LEET ....... 21 

CHAPTER II 

THE COURT IN RUINS . . . . . . . . 31 

(a) THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS . . . . 32 

(6) THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED ..... 50 

(c) THE COURT OF THE MANOR 64 

(i.) THE BAMBURGH COURTS 89 

v 



ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT 

PAGE 

(ii.) THE COURT LEET OF THE SAVOY ... 96 

(ill) THE COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MAN- 
CHESTER. ....... 99 

(d) THE PREVALENCE AND DECAY OK THE LORD'S COURT 114 



CHAPTER III 

THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 127 

(a) THE VILLAGE MEETING 128 

(6) THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP . 134 

(c) THE LORDLESS COURT 148 

(d) THE LORD'S BOROUGH . . . . . . . 160 

(e) THE ENFRANCHISED MANORIAL BOROUGH . . . 178 
(/) MANOR AND GILD . . . . . . .186 

(</) ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY . . . . 200 

CHAPTER IV 

THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER . .212 
(a) BURLEIGH'S CONSTITUTION . . . . .213 
(6) MUNICIPAL ATROPHY 223 

CHAPTER V 

THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 232 

(a) INCIPIENT AUTONOMY 235 

(6) THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH . . . .241 
(c) THE WELSH MUNICIPAL CORPORATION . . . 254 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER VI 

f PAGE 

THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION . . . . .261. 

(a) THE INSTRUMENT OF INCORPORATION .... 267 

(b) CORPORATE JURISDICTIONS . . . . . 275 

(c) CORPORATE OBLIGATIONS . . . . . .285 

(d) THE AREA OP THE CORPORATION . . . 288 

(e) THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORPORATION . . . 292 
(/) THE SERVANTS OF THE CORPORATION . . . 302 
(#) THE CHIEF OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION . . 306 
(h) THE HEAD OF THE CORPORATION .... 309 

(i) THE BAILIFFS 318 

(j) THE HIGH STEWARD AND THE RECORDER . . . 321 
(k) THE CHAMBERLAIN AND THE TOWN CLERK . . 324 
(I) THE COUNTY OFFICERS OF THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 328 
(m) THE MAYOR'S BRETHREN AND THE MAYOR'S COUNSELLORS 333 
(n) THE COURTS OF THE CORPORATION . . .337 

(o) COURTS OF CIVIL JURISDICTION 339 

(p) THE COURT LEET 344 

(g) THE BOROUGH COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS . . 349 
(?) COURTS OF SPECIALISED JURISDICTION . . . .358 

(fi) THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURTS OF THE MUNICIPAL 

CORPORATION 360 

(t) THE MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTIONS OF 1689 . . 367 



viii ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT 

CHAPTER VII 

PAGE 

MUNICIPAL DISINTEGRATION 384 

(a) THE RISE OF THE CORPORATE MAGISTRACY . . 384 
(6) THE DECLINE or THE COMMON COUNCIL . . .390 

(c) THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW STATUTORY AUTHORITIES 394 

(d) THE PASSING OP THE FREEMEN . . . . .396 

(e) THE MINGLING OP DECAY AND GROWTH . . . 402 



BOOK III 

THE MANOE AND THE BOEOUGH 

INTRODUCTION. 

CHAPTER I. THE LORD'S COURT. 
II. THE COURT IN RUINS. 

III. THE MANORIAL BOROUGH. 
IV. THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER. 
V. THE BOROUGHS OF WALES. 
VI. THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION. 
VII. MUNICIPAL DISINTEGRATION. 
,, VIII. ADMINISTRATION BY CLOSE CORPORATIONS. 
,, IX. ADMINISTRATION BY MUNICIPAL DEMOCRACIES. 
X. THE CITY OF LONDON. 

XL THE MUNICIPAL REVOLUTION. 



VOL. II. FT. I 



INTRODUCTION 

IN a preceding volume l we have dealt with two main forms 
of English Local Government, the Parish and the County ; 
organisations which existed from one end of the kingdom to 
the other. But to the rule of the County to some slight 
extent also to the rule of the Parish there were, up and 
down England, numerous exceptions, out of which had 
developed, as it happens, not the least important, and, as some 
may think, the most picturesque parts of the Local Government 
of England between the Ee volution and the Municipal Cor- 
porations Act, namely, those connected with the Manor and 
the Borough. It does not lie within our province to inquire 
whether some or all of these exceptions to the uniform 
organisation of Parish and County may not represent a once 
universal government, either Manorial or of Village Community 
character. Whether or not this was the case, the continued 
existence of these forms after 1689 compels us to devote a 
volume to the various Exemptions, Immunities, and Franchises 
which enabled the inhabitants of particular localities to exclude 
the authority of the County at large, or that of one or other of 
its officers; and thereby to enjoy, within their own favoured 
areas, some peculiar forms of self-government. 2 

1 English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations 
Act, vol. i. The Parish and the County, 1906. 

2 It may occur to the student that there was, between 1689 and 1835, 
another kind of definitely localised local governing body, not based on 
immunities or exemptions, but wielding, within its area, new and specialised 
powers. Such authorities were, for instance, the Turnpike Trustees or the 
various types of Street Commissioners, established by Local Acts. With all 
these authorities we deal in another work. It must suffice here to note that, 
although affecting limited areas, they did not constitute exceptions to the rule 
of the County. They might, in fact, without inconsistency with the County 
or with each other, have been multiplied so as to cover the whole area. 

3 



4 THE MANOR AND THE BOROUGH 

The proportion of the Local Government of England that 
was, in 1689, carried on, whether by prescription, by Charter, 
or by statute, in the form of exemptions from or exclusions of 
County jurisdiction, was far larger than is commonly supposed. 

Thus, with a few insignificant exceptions, the whole force 
of police that then existed owed its appointment neither 
to the Parish nor the County, but to Manorial Courts or 
Municipal Corporations ; whilst the magistracy of the large 
towns was provided, not by the Commission of the Peace, but 
by the Mayors, Aldermen, and Eecorders. The suppression of 
nuisances, which comprised at that time nearly the whole 
regulative activity of local authorities, was practically 
monopolised by the Leets of private Lords and of enfranchised 
Boroughs ; for the recovery of small debts, the Court Baron of 
the Lord, or its municipal analogue, often called the Court of 
Record or the Court of Pleas, had largely ousted the Court of 
the Sheriff of the County at large. Markets and fairs were 
matters neither of Parish nor of County concern, but were 
under the control of the individual or Corporate owners of 
Franchises; whilst many lay and clerical Lords, and most 
Municipal Corporations, had their own gaols, if no longer their 
own privileges of "pit and gallows." More important than 
these common services, which, in 1689, were still small in 
extent, was the administration of the land, a service not now 
usually connected with Local Government. But even at the 
end of the seventeenth century, no small fraction of the surface 
of the Kingdom was still managed by or in connection with 
those local governing authorities that we class as Seignorial 
Franchises and Municipal Corporations. In thousands of 
rural Manors the rotation of crops, the dates at which the 
various agricultural operations should be undertaken, the 
management of the pastures, quarries, and fisheries, the care 
of the cattle, and the breeding of stock formed part of the 
business of the same open " Court " that suppressed nuisances, 
fined minor offenders, chose the local officers, and tried petty 
actions for debt and damages. In hundreds of urban districts 
the Manorial Courts or the Municipal Corporations were 
administering not only the remnant of the ancient commons, 
but also dwelling-houses, wharves, docks, quays, piers, shambles, 
and market places. The tolls and dues levied by these 



INTRODUCTION 5 

authorities, whether by Charter, prescription, or mere ownership 
of the soil, formed in the aggregate no unworthy rivals of the 
various County and Parish Rates. By 1835, it is true, the 
agricultural business of these local governing bodies had, with 
the progress of inclosure, shrunk into insignificance. The 
importance of the urban properties and the revenue from tolls 
had, on the other hand, in many places greatly increased. 

In our history of the County we showed that, in 1689, 
practically its whole business, from one end of England to 
the other, was transacted by judicial process, in open Courts 
of Justice, in the guise of enforcing fixed personal obligations. 
By 1835, as we have seen, this had been silently transformed 
into administration by committees, meeting in private, appoint- 
ing, instructing, and controlling a salaried staff of officers 
according to a variable policy decided on from time to time 
by the committees themselves. The Seignorial Franchises 
and Municipal Corporations seem, at first sight, to admit of 
no such simple generalisation. We shall, indeed, describe the 
successive stages of what appears to us to be an analogous 
evolution. But instead of being able to trace this evolution, 
within the very period with which we are dealing, in the life- 
history of one vigorous organism, what we have is rather 
a collection of apparently heterogeneous individuals, showing 
signs of having been arrested in their development at different 
stages of their growth ; some remaining in a rudimentary state ; 
some even reverting to simpler types; and some, again, stand- 
ing still at what seems full maturity. Those local governing 
authorities that we describe in our chapters on " The Lord's 
Court " and " The Court in Euins " never developed, from first 
to last, anything beyond the machinery of a judicial tribunal, 
designed to enforce pre-existing rights and obligations. In 
subsequent chapters we shall describe, under the terms the 
" Lordless Court," the " Lord's Borough," and the " Enfranchised 
Manorial Borough," organisations marked by the possession of 
specialised administrative structure of various grades of com- 
plexity, from the mere creation of one or two new officers 
and the custody of a common purse up to a full equipment 
of Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councillors, but exhibiting 
during the whole century and a half little or no development, 
aud in some cases even retrograding to the simpler form of 



6 THE MANOR AND THE BOROUGH 

a Lord's Court. The more highly organised bodies that we 
analyse in our various chapters on Municipal Corporations 
usually, we may observe, exhibiting no great tendency to 
develop have in their constitutions the administrative 
structure predominant, whilst the judicial tribunals and 
judicial processes have sunk to a subordinate, and sometimes 
to an insignificant position. It adds to the complexity, and, 
as we think, to the impression produced of arrested development, 
that, so far as the period between 1689 and 1835 is concerned, 
we find all the different types coexisting in each successive 
decade. In 1835 there were still rural Manors in which 
the archaic Lord's Court provided the local services by the 
enforcement of ancient personal obligations. Already, in 
1689, the Corporation of the City of London was transacting 
its extensive business by an administrative apparatus more 
highly developed than that of the most advanced County a 
hundred and fifty years later apparatus more complicated 
than any modern constitution can show. 

Yet in face of this apparent heterogeneity, and of what we 
may call the sluggishness of development among our various 
individuals, the very multitude of the specimens, and their 
variety in detail, enables us to set them out in such an order 
that they are seen, alike in constitution and in function, to 
pass almost imperceptibly one into another. Nor is it only 
between the separate organisms themselves that there are no 
sharp dividing lines. In particular instances we may see the 
Court Leet and View of Frankpledge becoming inextricably 
confused with the General Sessions of the Peace ; the Court 
Baron or Customary Court with the Borough Court of Eecord 
or Court of Pleas ; and the Jury of either or both of these 
Manorial Courts with the Court of Common Council. The 
student, we suggest, will find it impracticable to regard the 
various individuals otherwise than as members of one and the 
same genus ; nor, we must add, otherwise than as units in an 
ascending series. There is, in fact, no logical stopping point, 
when all the specimens are reviewed, between the most 
insignificant Court of a petty Lord of the Manor, held once 
or twice a year at his Hall, for the admission of a new tenant 
or the appoiutment of the Constable, and the many-chartered 
Corporation of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the 



INTRODUCTION ^ 

City of London ; an all-embracing government in perpetual 
session ; a County of itself, controlling the services of the most 
important mercantile port in the world ; administering a 
revenue of regal magnificence ; and exercising judicial and 
even legislative functions, asserted to be independent of the 
High Court of Parliament itself. 

We do not wish to assert that this ascending series 
of surviving specimens necessarily represents the successive 
stages in the life-history of the most fully-developed Chartered 
Municipality. Such a hypothesis we leave to be tested by 
the historians of the Manor and the Borough. It is, indeed, 
plain, even on a survey of what existed between 1689 and 
1835, that part of the Municipal structure and some Municipal 
functions are not to be found, even in germ, in any Manorial 
origin. The historian must take account of those ancient 
shire towns distinguished by heterogeneity of tenure. 1 Also 
the remnant of Gild organisation clinging to many eighteenth 
century Municipalities possibly even the frequent admission 
to the Freedom of the Corporation by Servitude of Apprentice- 
ship points to an ancestry unconnected with the Manor. 
We must, moreover, not forget the working of the imitative 
faculty, and of the tendency to assimilation. A constitution 
which had, by custom and by law, developed out of one form 
of association may be subsequently adopted by, or imposed 
upon, other groups of persons associated together for quite 
other reasons. But whether or not our classification suggests 
any plausible theory of the growth of the Manor and the 
development of the Borough, some such classification of the 
ascending series of franchises and immunities, exemptions and 
privileges, customs and powers, that existed between 1689 
and 1835 outside the County and over and above the Parish, 
is indispensable to any adequate survey of English Local 
Government. 

A thoroughly intelligent description of these Seignorial 
Franchises and Municipal Corporations, even as they existed 
in 1689, would require an historical erudition that we do not 
possess. Already in the seventeenth century these mediseval 
institutions had fallen more or less into decay, leaving, in the 

1 Township and Borough, by Trof. F. W. Maitland, 1898 ; The Domesday 
Boroughs, by A. Ballard, 1906. 



8 THE MANOR AND THE BOROUGH 

majority of cases, only disconnected fragments of what we may 
assume to have once been a complicated if not a systematic 
structure. Without an adequate knowledge of what exactly 
was the Manor in its prime, and of the part played by the 
Borough in the local government of the twelfth century, it is 
difficult, and sometimes impossible, to trace and to understand 
the significance of such remnants as remained at the end of 
the seventeenth century. Our lack of knowledge of what the 
organism in its maturity was and did necessarily hampers our 
interpretation of its remains. A further difficulty is caused 
by the fact that these remnants, in many cases, did not remain 
unaltered. In the Municipal Corporation in particular, the 
new growths of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are 
often found inextricably twined about the old structure the 
gain by accretion coming, in some specimens, to be more than 
equivalent to the loss by decay. In the case of some of the 
larger and more populous Chartered Municipalities, such as 
Norwich and Bristol, Nottingham and Southampton, the 
development of a Corporate Magistracy so completely sub- 
merged the more ancient structure, whether Gild or Manorial, 
that we might almost have described them as particular 
varieties of a specialised form of the County ; whilst in the 
exceptional instance of the City of London, one or more of its 
outgrowths its so-called Commission of Sewers, if not also its 
Corporation of the Poor might, in addition, have conveniently 
been classed with the Statutory Bodies for Special Purposes 
that we shall describe in the succeeding volume. 



CHAPTEE I 

THE LORD'S COURT 

IN many parishes of England, town as well as country, we 
find existing, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, 
a sort of local governing authority that was neither Parish 
Vestry nor County Justices, neither Statutory Body nor 
Municipal Corporation, but one or other tattered remnant of 
the old jurisdiction of the Manor. Here and there would 
be found public officers exercising peculiar functions under 
strange titles. An Aleconner or a Pinder, a Swine-ringer or a 
Burleyman, a Common Driver or a Constable sometimes 
even a vaguely influential potentate called a Portreeve or a 
Boroughreeve derived his authority neither from the meet- 
ing of the inhabitants in Vestry assembled, nor from the 
Justices of the Peace ; neither from Statute nor from Charter. 
Once or twice a year a " Court " would be held, to which 
people would resort, for purposes they scarcely knew what. 
At this " Court Leet," or " Halmot Court," or " Soke Court," 
or " Court Baron," or " Forest Court," or " Hundred Court," or 
"Swainmoot," or "Lawday," as it was variously styled in 
different instances, all sorts of matters of common interest, 
as well as questions connected with individual property rights, 
might be dealt with. In one place all transfers of copyhold 
property, on death or on alienation, would be registered with 
quaint ceremonies, accompanied by the exaction of customary 
fines and fees. In another, various arrangements about the 
commonfield agriculture, the " town bull and boar," the use of 
the " town's plough," or the management of the common 
pasture would form the bulk of the business. In others, 
flgain, the presentment of nuisances and the condemnation 





io THE LORD'S COURT 

of offenders to a fine would seem to fill the greatest place. 
It was in such a Court, as Butler tells us in Hudibras, that 
the villagers would 

. . . impeach a broken hedge, 

And pigs un ringed ; at Vis. Franc. Pledge, 

Discover thieves, bawds, and recusants, 

Tell who did play at games unlawful, 
And who filled pots of ale but half-full. 1 

What was invariable in such a Court was the appointment of 
one or more officers ; and the plain citizen, to whom the 
Manor had seemed but a harmless antiquity, might discover 
that he had been summarily chosen to discharge some onerous 
public function without fee or reward, or that he had been 
condemned to pay a small fine for this or that offence against 
the well-being of the little community. 2 

1 Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, Canto II. It will be remembered that 
Shakespeare makes Christopher Sly, in his "very idle words "- 

Rail upon the hostess of the house 

And say you would present Jier at Uie Leet 

Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts. 

(Taming of the Shrew, Induction, Scene ii.). 

2 We know of no adequate study of the Lord's Court, as an organ of Local 
Government, from the beginning to the end of its development. By far the 
most authoritative, as well as the most interesting, account of its actual form 
and working is to be gathered from the various writings of Professor F. W. 
Maitland ; notably his Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, 
1889, and The, Court Baron, 1891, both volumes of the Selden Society ; and 
Tlie History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, 1895, 
vol. i. For the latest discussion of the conflicting views see Surveys Historic 
and Economic, by Prof. W. J. Ashley, 1900, and T)i Growth of the Manor, by 
Professor Vinogradoff, 1905. Useful bibliographies will be found in Miss F. G. 
Davenport's Classified List of Original Materials for English Manorial and 
Agrarian History, 1894 ; and The Manor and Manorial Records, by N. J. 
Hone, 1906. Bacon gives a clear account of the functions of the Court Leet in 
his Answers to Questions proposed by Sir Alexander Hay touching the Office of 
Constable, 1608, and in vol. vii. pp. 748-754 of the 1858 edition of his Works ; 
and its relation to other judicial institutions is well stated in The History of 
English Law, by Professor W. S. Holdsworth, 1903. Among the numerous 
legal treatises and manuals for Stewards not to speak of half-a-dozen archaic 
works of the sixteenth century we may mention The Order of Keeping a Court 
Leet and Court Baron, by Jonas Adames, 1593 ; Jurisdictions, or the Lawful 
Authority of Courts Leet, etc., by John Kitchin, 1598 (and about fourteen other 
editions in English or French down to 1675) ; The Complete Copyholder, by Sir 
Edward Coke, 1630 (and half-a-dozen other editions down to 1764); The 
Relation between a Lord of the Manor and the Copyholder his Tenant, by Charles 
Calthorpe, 1635 ; The Court- Keeper's Guide, etc., by William Sheppard, 1641 



THE LAWYERS VIEW OF THE LORD'S COURT n 



(a) The Lawyer's view of the Lord's Court 

The common bewilderment as to the meaning of the 
Lord's Court was not shared by the authors of the elaborate 
manuals of its jurisdiction and procedure, prepared for the 
instruction of Stewards and others who had the duty of 
" keeping Courts." In these popular manuals we find dis- 
played a clear-cut theory of the origin, exact constitution, and 
precise functions of the Courts of Lords of Manors, asserted 
with an assurance that may usefully be contrasted with the 
modesty of conjecture of such modern investigators as 
Professors Maitland and Vinogradoff. We may, in the 
twentieth century, doubt whether " the methodically learned 
John Kitchin of 1 Gray's Inn, Esquire, and Double Reader" 

(and about eight other editions down to 1791) ; Treatise of the Antiquity, 
Authority, Uses, and Jurisdiction of the Ancient Courts of Leet, by Robert Powell, 
1642, 1688 ; The Authority . . . of . . . County Courts, Courts Leet, and Courts 
Baron, by William Greenwood, 1st edition, 1668, 9th edition, 1730 ; Lex 
Custumaria, by S. C[arter], 1701 (other editions to 1796) ; Practice of Courts Leet 
and Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 1st edition, 1714, 4th edition, 1728 ; 
The Complete Court-Keeper, by Giles Jacob, 1st edition, 1713, 8th edition, 1819 ; 
Lex Maneriorum, by W. Nelson, 1728; History of the High Court of Parliament 
. . . and . . . of Court Baron and Court Leet, by T. Gurdon, 1731 ; The Complete 
Steward, by John Mordant, 1761 ; Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by Joseph 
Ritson, 1791 ; Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, etc., by R. B. Fisher, 
1794, 1804; Treatise on Copyholds, by Charles Watkins, 1st edition, 1797, 
4th edition, 1825 ; Laws respecting Copyhold and Court -Keeping, etc., by 
Henry Fellowes, 1799 ; Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, by John Scriven, 
first edition, 1816, seventh edition, 1896 ; C'opyJiold and Court-keeping Practice, 
by Rolla Rouse, 1837 ; The Law of Copyholds, by Leonard Shelford, 1853 ; 
and especially The Law of Copyholds, by C. I. Elton and H. J. H. Mackay, 
2nd edition, 1893. The last-named work (with those of Watkins and Scriven) 
we have found the most useful. An admirable account of a mediaeval Manor 
will be found in The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor, 1086-1565, 
by Miss F. G. Davenport, 1906. For references to MS. Manor Rolls, see 
p. 116. The most complete series of published records of a Court Leet, extend- 
ing from 1552 to 1846, is The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, 
edited by J. P. Earwaker, twelve vols., 1884-1890. The Durham Halmote Rolls 
(Surtees Society) and Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, by Rev. W. 
Hudson, 1892 (Selden Society), may be consulted for earlier proceedings. 
The best descriptions known to us of the actual proceedings of Courts Leet in 
the nineteenth century are those of the Court at Ashton-under-Lyne in 1844 
(Health of Towns Commission, First Report, Appendix, vol. ii. pp. 71-73) ; 
of the Court at Berkeley in 1890, in Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, vol. iv. 
1890, p. 27 ; and of the Court at Durham in 1805, in Memorials of S. Giles', 
Durham, edited by J. Barmby, 1896, p. 7. See also History of the English 
Landed Interest, by R. M. Gamier, 1892, ch. xxix. and xxx. We know 
of no work describing the part played by the Lord's Court between 16S9 
and 1835. 



12 THE LORD'S COURT 

knew quite as much about the origin and early development 
of the Court Leet and Court Baron as he supposed. Even 
what he described as its contemporary nomenclature and 
procedure was, as we shall presently show, unlike the actual 
facts of many of the Courts that were being held around him. 
But such treatises as Kitchin's Jurisdictions and Jacob's 
Complete Court -Keeper had a significance not possessed by 
any similar handbooks for parish officers or Justices. The 
Overseers of the Poor and the Surveyors of Highways, like 
the Clerk of the Peace, could turn to numerous statutes 
authoritatively defining their powers and duties. But the 
Lord's Court was not the creation of any Act of Parliament. 
There was not even a Royal Charter prescribing its constitu- 
tion or procedure. In default of any authoritative document, 
the Steward whom the Lord appointed to hold his Court 
naturally accepted the guidance of the contemporary legal 
manuals. Hence the perpetual republishing and elaborating 
of these manuals by a succession of legal experts can hardly 
have failed to have tended gradually to transform the Courts 
as they were into the Courts as the lawyers thought they 
ought to be. Moreover, the legal theory of the seventeenth 
century has, for us, a further value. It preserves some of 
the spirit which had inspired the Manorial Courts in their 
prime, without some understanding of which their function 
can hardly be appreciated. Before describing the fragments of 
Manorial Jurisdiction actually forming part of English Local 
Government between 1689 and 1835, we think it, therefore, 
convenient to give in outline the constitution, procedure, and 
functions attributed to the Lord's Court by the contemporary 
legal authors. 

We note, first, that, in the lawyer's view, we have before 
us not one Lord's Court, but several ; with different constitu- 
tions and functions, different procedures and officers. There 
is evident a tendency to elaboration, one learned authority 
making out as many as five different Courts. 1 But this 

1 In R. B. Fisher's Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, 1794, these are 
given as the Court Leet, the View of Frankpledge, the Court Baron, the 
Customary Court, and the Court of Survey. But there is no evidence that 
there was ever a separate Court called the View of Frankpledge, this being 
merely a duty undertaken by the Sheriff's Turn and afterwards by the Lord's 
Court (as Court Leet). The Court of Survey (occasionally called also ' ' Court 



THE COURT BARON 13 

elaboration and distinction was largely, if not entirely, analytic. 
The models for procedure offered to Stewards constantly 
assumed that the various kinds of Court would be held at 
one and the same time, as connected parts of what was in 
fact a single sessions of one and the same tribunal. We are 
unable to find contrary to a common impression that even 
the most punctilious lawyer asserted that the several Courts 
which he analytically distinguished ought, as a matter of law, 
always to be held at different times or at different places. So 
far as analytic distinction was concerned, the Courts resolved 
themselves, in the lawyer's view, into two sharply contrasted 
tribunals, the Court Baron and Customary Court on the one 
hand, and the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge on the 

other. 1 



(b) The Court Baron 

The Great Court of the Manor, or Court Baron, was, in the 
lawyers' view, essentially a private Court of the Lord, necessarily 
incident to every Manor, having for its object the maintenance 
of the rights of the Lord against his tenants and of the privileges 
of the tenants against the Lord, together with the settlement 
of their mutual differences and the organisation of their common 
affairs. It was not a Court of Eecord, but a private jurisdic- 
tion forming part of the estate and property of the Lord. 
The Court was to be summoned by notice given by the Steward 
to the Eeeve or Bailiff, and by him affixed to the Church door, 
or handed to the Parish Clerk to be read in Church, according 

of the Supervisor " see Seven Somerton Court Rolls, by A. Ballard ; Transactions 
of Oxfordshire Archaeological Society, 1906) was only a special sitting of the 
Court Baron, at which every tenant of the Manor had to produce his title, 
and special inquiry was made of the mutual rights and privileges of Lord 
and tenants. It was "generally held immediately upon the descending 
of a Manor to a new Lord, or upon the purchase of a Manor, to inform 
the new owner of every respective estate which he has a right to as Lord, and 
the tenure and customs by which they are held " (The Laws receding Copy- 
holds and Court-keeping, by Henry Fellowes, 1799, p. 43). Elaborate details 
of what a Court of Survey should inquire into are given in The Surveyor's 
Dialogue, by John Norden, originally published in 1607, and in a fourth 
edition in 1738 (see pp. 120-213). 

1 That the legal manuals from the thirteenth century onward distinctly 
contemplated the holding, in one undivided sessions, of all the two, three, four, 
or even five Courts that they analytically distinguished, will be clear to 
any one who examines the model agenda for the sessions that most of them 
supply. In this agenda the items belonging to the several Courts are inter- 



14 THE LORD'S COURT 

to local usage. 1 It was to be presided over by the Lord or 
his Steward, and had to be attended by all the tenants of the 
Manor, whether freeholders or copyholders. Neglect to attend 
the Court subtraction, or non-performance of suit of Court 
was punishable in the absence of an "essoin," or excuse 
admitted as sufficient, by a fine, and theoretically even by 

mingled ; and one Jury after another is to be sworn and charged. As in the 
Court rolls, so in " the manuals for Stewards which come to us from the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we cannot discover two Courts or two 
methods of constituting the Court " (History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock 
and F. W. Maitland, 1895, vol. i. p. 581). The later manuals are to the 
same effect. "After the Steward has gone through his charge to the jurors 
of the Court Leet," says Sir William Scroggs, "he may proceed to his charge 
to the Homagers or Court Baron " (The Practice of Courts Leet and Courts Baron, 
by Sir William Scroggs, 4th edition, 1728, p. 22). Even Sir Edward Coke 
alludes to Courts "of this double nature." The common practice "where 
a Court Leet and Court Baron are held together" is referred to (ibid. p. 11 ; 
Lex Custumaria, by S. C[arter], 1701, p. 73) ; or "where the three Courts are 
held at the same time " (Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, by R. B. Fisher, 
1794, p. 167). The five necessary attributes of the Lord's Court, according to 
a widely read authority, were "The Lord is chief to command and appoint, 
the Steward to direct and record, the freeholders to affeer and judge, the 
copyholders to inform and present, the Bailiff to attend and execute" thus 
merging the Customary Court with the Court Baron (The Authority, Jurisdic- 
tion, and Method of Keeping County Courts, Courts Leet, and Courts Baron, by 
W. Greenwood, 9th edition, 1730, pp. 309-405). So, too, in the hundred 
pages of ',' customs " of particular Manors given by Watkins, the items belonging 
to the Court Baron, Customary Court, and Court Leet are not distinguished 
one from another (A Treatise on Copyholds, by Charles Watkins, 4th edition, 
1825, vol. ii. pp. 477-576). "The various Courts," says an able antiquary, 
' ' were conducted very much on the same lines in all Manors ; that is, all 
business connected with the transfer of land was duly settled, presentments 
were made of the tenants for various offences, as trespass, assault, blood- 
drawing, drunkenness, pound - breaking, disorderly conduct, etc., and for 
disobeying sanitary regulations in not cleansing ditches. Actions between 
tenants were tried, an immense boon to them, for they had a Court of Justice 
in their own locality, acquainted with the parties to the suit and the witnesses " 
(The History of Dulwich College, by W. Young, 1889 ; vol. ii. ch. ii., on the 
Court Rolls, by F. B. Bickley, p. 266). In fact, any careful student of the 
lawyers' treatises, as of the Court Rolls, will, notwithstanding all the analytic 
differentiation, have no difficulty in inferring of the Courts which they are 
describing that as Professor Maitland tells us of those of the thirteenth 
century "the Court which had been enforcing the customs of the Manor did 
not become some other Court when it turned to punish breaches of the peace 
or to adjudicate upon actions of debt between the tenants ; a lawyer might 
analyse its powers, might insist that some were royal franchises, while others 
were not, but all its powers, whatever they might be, were used in the mass 
and apparently with little thought as to the various titles by which they had 
been acquired" (Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, by 
Prof. F. W. Maitland, 1889, p. xviii ; see also History of English Law, by Prof. 
W. S. Holdsworth, 1903, pp. 68-69). 

1 Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, by John Scriven, 1816, pp. 433-449. 
It was said that at least sixteen days' notice ought to be given (The Order of 
Keeping a Court Leet and Court Baron, by Jonas Adames, 1593, p. 1). 



THE COURT BARON 15 

forfeiture of the tenement. The " free suitors," or freehold 
tenants of the Manor, holding of the Lord, in fee simple, land 
liable to escheat to him, were assumed to constitute the Homage ; 
and the presence of at least two such freeholders, if not three, 1 
was declared to be indispensable to a legal Court Baron. But 
as subinfeudation had been forbidden since the Statute of Quia 
Emptores in 1290 there were, by 1689, few Manors in which 
this condition could be complied with ; and the lawyers had 
been driven to assert that a " Customary Court Baron " could 
be held in the presence of copyholders only, who themselves 
constituted the Homage. 2 And by special custom, there might 
be separate Homages or Juries, sometimes of freeholders and 
copyholders respectively, having distinct functions. " If," said 
a writer of 1656, " the custom of the place be to make two or 
more Juries, or one Grand Jury and divers Petit Juries, it is 
good to observe it." 3 

The Court was to be opened by formal proclamation and 
summons to all concerned to attend. The roll of those owing 
" suit of Court " had to be read, and the names noted of those 
who were present. The " essoins " of the absentees were to be 
received and considered, and the defaulters to be fined. The 
Homage or Jury was then to be sworn, four at a time ; and 
the Steward had to address to them a formal " charge." The 
judgments of the Court were made either by the whole 
" Homage," or by a Jury of Homagers,* and they were embodied 
in the form of presentments to the Court, which were accepted 
and pronounced by the Steward. 

The principal business of the Court was to declare and en- 
force the ancient customs of the Manor, which, whether relating 

1 In the Manor of Dymock (Gloucestershire) the legal quorum was, by custom, 
three ; see the "customs" as elaborately recorded in an indenture of 1565, en- 
rolled in Chancery in 1657 ; mentioned in Jurisdictions, by John Kitchin, in 
1598 ; and given in A Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, 
vol. ii. pp. 487-491. 

2 The Bf lotion between the Lord of the Manor and the Copyholder his Tenant, 
by Charles Calthorpe, 1635, p. 72. 

3 Tlie Court- Keeper's Guide, by William Sheppard, 1656, p. 20. " In some 
cases," said the lawyers, " the Steward may impanel a second Jury to inquire 
into the concealments of the first, and fine them " {The Practice of Courts Leet 
and Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 4th edition, 1728, p. 16). 

4 "Out of the copyholders choose your Homage," says a manual (Laics 
respecting Copyholds and Court-keeping, by Henry Fellowes, 1799, pp. 32- 
43). 



1 6 THE LORD'S COURT 

to the incidents of land tenure, or to the use of the common 
fields or waste, were legally binding on both the Lord and his 
tenants. At one Court annually, the Manorial officers were to 
be appointed tihe Keeve or Greave, or Bailiff, who collected 
the Lord's quit-rents and heriots, his " fines certain " and " fines 
arbitrary," his " work silver " and his " customary penny," his 
" chevage " and " childwite," his " boscage " and " foldage " ; the 
Beadle, who gathered in the fines and amercements ; the 
Hayward, who had in charge the common or waste ; l some- 
times a Common Driver or a Herdsman, a Hog-ringer or a 
Swineherd, a Woodward or a " Greave of the Moors," a " Sur- 
veyor of Hedges " to see that the tenants enclosed during 
seed-time and harvest, 2 or other officers connected with the 
customary privileges of the community. These officers were in 
the vast majority of cases "presented by the Homage" 
sometimes several persons for the Steward to choose one. 
The question of liability to service in the several offices, 
and of the remuneration, if any, for such service, was deter- 
mined by the ancient customs of the Manor in each case. 
Moreover, the Court was said to have a vaguely defined 
power to enact By-laws, binding on all the tenants of the 
Manor, at least in matters, such as the use of the waste, in 
which they had a common interest. It was the business of the 
Homage or Jury also to make presentments of escheats and 
surrenders of tenements, and of the death of any tenant of the 
Lord ; of dower and freebench, of " waste," " emblements," and 
" botes." New tenants had also to be admitted by the Steward, 
on payment of the customary fees and fines, and with due per- 

1 It does not seem possible to accept Mrs. Grote's simple etymology which 
made Hayward = hogwarden (Some Account of the Hamlet of East Burnham, 
by a Resident, i.e. Harriet Grote, London, 1858, p. 28) ; nor is the later identifi- 
cation of Hayward with hedgewarden more trustworthy. The duties of the 
mediaeval Hayward, harvestman or reaper (in Latin, mtssor or messarius), a mere 
farm servant, "who seems to have acted sometimes as pounder," are fully described 
by Walter de Henley ; see also pp. xxv and xxxiii of The Durham Halmot Rolls 
(Surtces Society, 1889), and at p. 140 of The Court Baron (edited by F. W. 
Maitland and W. P. Baildon for the Selden Society, 1891). The word is used 
for shepherd in the "Journal of a Gloucestershire Justice, 1715-1756," in Law 
Magazine and Review, vol. ix. p. 280. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries the Hayward might act in almost any capacity as an officer of the 
Lord's Court. Kitchin gives the title as synonymous with Greave or Beadle 
(Jurisdictions, etc., by John Kitchin, p. 93 of edition of 1675). 

2 As at Gnossall (Staffordshire) ; see The Manor and Manorial Records, by 
N. J. Hone, 1906, p. 193. 



THE COURT BARON 17 

formance of the ancient ceremonies of the Manor. 1 The Court, 
moreover, had the important function of hearing plaints and 
deciding disputes. It had, said Kitchin, been "ordained to 
determine injuries, trespasses, debts, and other actions," 2 at any 
rate among the tenants of the Manor, and by immemorial 
custom, also actions against mere residents within the Manor ; 
but in all cases limited, by the judges' construction of an 
ambiguous statute, to actions for less than forty shillings. 3 It 
might or might not examine witnesses, as the freeholders, who 
were both the judges and the jurymen, chose to decide. 4 The 
Court could be held anywhere within the Manor, or, by custom, 

1 See the extensive collection of the customs of particular Manors recorded in 
A Treatise on Copyholds, by Charles Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, pp. 477-576. 

2 Jurisdictions, etc., by John Kitchin, 1598, p. 6. "A Court Baron, "says 
another authority, " consisteth of the Lord, Tenants, Steward, and Bailiff within 
the Manor, and is sometimes called the Copyholders' Court, especially when it is 
for trial of titles of their lands, for taking and passing estates, surrenders, admit- 
tances, and grants ; and herein the Lord or his Steward is judge (as the custom of 
the place is) ; yet this Court is sometimes called the Freeholders' Court, when 
the actions and proceedings are for trial under 40s., and is something like a 
County Court, and the proceeding much the same, and was without doubt 
granted to the Lord originally by the King ; but now most are by prescription, 
and are commonly held once in three weeks, and may be as often as the Lord or 
Steward thinks fit, who is supreme judge in law and equity" (The Practice of 
Courts Leet and Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 4th edition, 1728, pp. 
39-40). 

3 The Statute of Gloucester, 1278, limiting actions in the King's Courts to cases 
in which not less than 40s. was at issue, was construed by the judges as for- 
bidding such actions in the County Court and Court Baron (Select Pleas in 
Manorial Courts, by F. W. Maitland, p. Ivi). At Dover, by custom, the Lord's 
Court had jurisdiction without limit of 40s. (Jurisdictions, by John Kitchiu, 
1598) ; and in at least several scores of Manors possibly those once connected 
with such ecclesiastical corporations as the Knights of St. John the Court had 
jurisdiction in probate and testamentary cases (Treatise on the Law of Copyholds, 
by John Scriven, 7th edition, 1896, p. 423). The wills proved in nearly 
fifty such Courts, between 1562 and 1815, are now deposited at Somerset House, 
London, or at various diocesan registries (see the list in The Manor and Manorial 
Records, by N. J. Hone, 1906, pp. 22, 302). 

4 The Practice of Courts Leet and Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 4th 
edition, 1728, p. 3. Whether the Court had anciently heard counsel or allowed 
appearance by attorney is not clear. That it did so in places in the eighteenth 
century is plain, but we suspect that this was exceptional. We read in 1731 of 
"the Freeholders' Court having lost most of its business, lawyers and attorneys not 
finding an account in giving attendance there for one or two cases, and the parties 
finding it difficult to have the assistance of lawyers there" (The History of the 
High Court of Parliament . . . and . . . of Court Baron and Court Leet, by 
T. Gurdon, 1731, vol. ii. p. 610). Occasionally even leading counsel would 
appear. At a " Baronial Court " held in the archiepiscopal Manor of Lambeth in 
1828, with a Jury of copyholders, both the Attorney - General and Henry 
Brougham were engaged for the several parties in a copyhold case (Augell v. 
Angell ; see Times, January 7, 1828). 

VOL. II. PT. I C 



1 8 THE LORDS COURT 

in one Manor for other Manors belonging to the same Lord. 
It could be called together whenever the Lord or his Steward 
chose, without unreasonably inconveniencing the tenants ; but 
usually, by custom, it was to be held every three weeks a 
period apparently derived from a Writ of Henry III. to the 
Sheriff of Lincoln, authorising the Courts of the Lords to be 
so held, 1 whence they were frequently termed Three Weeks' 
Courts. Finally, as was eventually decided by the Court of 
King's Bench in 1822, neither the right to hold such a Court, 
nor its jurisdiction in petty actions, was lost by mere non-user ; 
so that it could be revived after a lapse of half a century. 2 

We have said above that the lawyers declared the Court 
Baron to be a private jurisdiction of the Lord of the Manor, 
and not a public tribunal. But we must warn the student 
against a misunderstanding by which we ourselves were long 
misled. When it was held that the Court Baron was of 
private, not of public nature, those words were used in a 
sense very different from that nowadays given to them. All 
that the lawyers meant was that the Court Baron was not 
a Court of the King, to be held only by his authority or 
subject to his will. What the modern student has to bear 
in mind is that the Court Baron, however little of its power 
it may have owed to the King, had within its sphere no small 
part of the administration of the common affairs of the 
inhabitants of the Manor. It was, in fact, an organ of local 
government, alike legislative, executive, and judicial in 
function, with attributes that we shall, in our subsequent 
analysis, find of considerable interest. It was the Court 
Baron, and not the Court Leet, that had jurisdiction over the 
commonfield agriculture that survived, in many cases, down 
to the nineteenth century, and over the common pastures and 
wastes that were destined in certain places to become streets 
of dwelling-houses, market-places, wharves, and docks. It 
was the Court Baron, and not the Court Leet, that could 
claim authority -over fisheries and weirs, and generally over 
the banks and channels of rivers and estuaries, out of which 

1 Close Roll of 18 Henry III. ; see The Law of Copyholds, by 0. I. Elton and 
H. J. H. Mackay, 2nd edition, 1893, p. 300. 

2 R. v. Steward of Manor of Havering atte Bower, 1822 ; in Reports of Cases, 
etc., by E. V. Barnewall and E. H. Alderson, 1822, vol. v. pp. 691-692 ; Reports 
of Cases, etc., by James Dowling and A. Ryland, 1823, vol. ii. pp. 176-177. 



THE COURT BARON 19 

might spring prescriptive rights to tolls and dues. It was 
the Court Baron, and not the Court Leet, that provided the 
tribunal for the trial of petty actions for debt and trespass, 
which we shall see figuring prominently among the Courts 
by which the autonomy of Manorial Boroughs and Municipal 
Corporations was built up. It was the Court Baron, and 
not the Court Leet, that chose the Eeeve, the chief local 
officer of the little community, who became responsible for 
collecting the money tributes due to the Lord of the Manor, 
exactly as the chief officer of the Manorial Borough 1 was 
responsible to the Lord for .his quit-rents, or as the Mayor 
of the fully-developed Municipal Corporation was answerable 
for the " farm " of the Borough to the King. Finally, it was 
the Court Baron, not the Court Leet, that contributed what 
became the predominant principle of eighteenth - century 
Local Government common consent and local autonomy 
the Homage being, unlike the Leet Jury, themselves the 
judges of the Court, interpreting, and therefore developing, 
the Customs of the Manor as if these concerned themselves 
alone, without the intervention of the Lord or his Steward, 
and without reference to the interests of the rest of the 
community. To the lawyer the Court Baron of the Manor 
might seem essentially a law court, " the lowest judicial unit 
of the Kingdom." But " in practice though primarily a law 
court, the Manor Court would also serve as the administrative 
and, in some sense, as the legislative organ of the community 
of the Manor." 2 " The majority of homagers," noted a learned 
Steward of the seventeenth century, " sworn at the Lord's 
Court, for the better preservation of order, have, time beyond 
memory of all men, used, with the Lord's consent, to make 
By-laws, as well for the stinting and limiting the number, 
as for appointing times for the putting the tenants' cattle 
into the common pastures, wastes, and commons of the 
Manor. And- such By-laws, made with reasonable penalties, 
and clauses for distress for such penalties, have, by the time 
aforesaid, been binding and concluding to all the tenants of 
the Manor. The like orders and consent bind for the mending 

1 See Chap. III. "The Manorial Borough." 

2 History of Municipal Government in Liverpool, by Prof. Ramsay Muir, 
1906, p. 2. 



20 THE LORD'S COURT 

of tenants' ways, and for the establishment of the common 
good, and preventing of public annoyances, provided that such 
orders crossed not the law or statutes of the Kingdom." l It 
may be that it was the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge 
that gradually assumed the greater prominence in those places 
in which the Lord's Court continued, without further develop- 
ment, to be the local governing authority. But it is the 
constitution and legal attributes of the Court Baron that we 
shall presently find of equal, if not of greater, significance 
in our description of the Manorial Boroughs and our analysis 
of the Municipal Corporations. 

Such being the importance of what we may term the 
Court Baron aspect of the Lord's Court, we may be pardoned 
for drawing the attention of the sociological student to one 
of its attributes, unnoticed by the lawyers, which had, we 
suggest, an adverse influence on its eighteenth-century develop- 
ment. The common agreement upon which rests the authority 
of a modern Municipality is that of inhabitants at large that 
is, of the consumers of its services. The Court Baron, on 
the other hand, was essentially the organ, not of the citizens 
or consumers as such, but of the occupying owners of 
agricultural land that is to say, it belonged to the genus of 
Associations of Producers. 2 The student of other types of 
Associations of Producers will not be surprised to find the 
Homage resenting the intrusion of " foreigners " and the 
invasion of the commons by " landless residents." The same 
spirit led to the exaction of tolls and dues in the market and 
at the landing stage from those who had not been admitted 
as tenants of the Manor ; and led, even in unincorporated 
villages, to the Reeve, as representative of the Homage, 

1 History and Antiquities of Lewes, by T. W. Horsfield, 1824, vol. i. p. 179 
(quoting a document of 1662). 

2 By the term "Associations of Producers" we mean societies or com- 
munities of persons who are engaged in the production of commodities or 
services, and who themselves own or control the whole or part of the material 
instruments of production, or are otherwise self-directing. The best known 
examples of such associations are the Merchant and Trade Gilds of the Middle 
Ages and, in our own generation, what are called Productive Co-operative 
Societies or "self-governing workshops" (to be distinguished from the so-called 
Distributive Co-operative Societies or "stores," which do also much production, 
and are Associations of Consumers). See, on the whole subject, The Co- 
operative Movement in Oreat Britain, by Beatrice Potter (Mrs. Sidney Webb), 
1900. 



THE COURT LEET 21 

charging a fee to such persons for the privilege of opening 
a shop. It was, we suggest, the fact that the Court Baron 
had the attributes that belong to an Association of Producers, 
that caused it, as we shall see in our account of the Manorial 
Boroughs, to develop into a close body, renewing itself by 
co-option, from which the ordinary inhabitant was excluded. 

(c) The Court Led 

The Court Leet 1 and View of Frankpledge was, so the 
lawyers held, not a private incident to a Manor, but a public 
jurisdiction, a Franchise assumed to have been obtained by 
Royal Grant to the Lord of the Manor, with a view to spare 
his tenants the trouble of attending the Sheriff's Turn. 
Such a grant can seldom be traced except in Charters to 
Boroughs ; but in Manors in which a Court Leet had actually 
been held time out of mind the grant was presumed. The 
Court Leet, unlike the Court Baron, was a Court of Record, 
and the Steward who presided was not merely its officer but 
an integral part of the Court itself, 2 empowered summarily to 
punish by fine any contempt committed in Court, and even 
to commit the offender to prison in default of payment. He 
could take a recognisance of the peace ; 3 and, in fact, " in 
matters within the jurisdiction of the Leet, the Steward," so 
the lawyers held, " had [in Court] powers equal with the 
Justices " themselves in their own Courts. 4 It was a char- 

1 " The word Leet ... is not to be found either in the Saxon law or in Glanvil, 
Bracton, Briton, Fleta, or the Mirror (our most ancient law writers), nor in any 
statute prior to 27 Edward III. c. 28 " (The Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by 
J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 1 ; A Short Treatise of the History and Anti- 
quities and Jurisdiction of all the Courts of Law, by Henry Aldridge, 1835, p. 
193). The word seems to be of East Anglian local usage. "Towards the 
end of the thirteenth century the word Leet (leta), which seems to have spread 
outward from the East Anglian counties, was becoming a common name for 
such a Court " (History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, 
vol. i. book ii. ch. iii. sec. 5, p. 568 ; see also Leet Jurisdiction in the City of 
Norwich, by Rev. W. Hudson, 1892 ; Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, by F. W. 
Maitland, 1889, pp. xvi and Ixxiii ; The Coventry Leet Book, by M. D. Harris, 
1907). 

2 Holroyd v. Breare and Holmes, in Reports of Cases, etc., by E. V. Barnewell 
and E. H. Alderson, 1822, vol. ii. p. 473. 

8 7 Henry VI. c. 12 (1429) ; 10 Henry VI. c. 8 (1432) ; 11 Henry VI. c. 7 
(1433). 

4 Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, by John Scriven, 7th edition, 1896, 
p. 441. For instances of the Court Leet becoming indistinguishable from the 
Petty or General Sessions of the Peace, see pp. 350-352. 



22 THE LORD'S COURT 

acteristic feature of this Court that it had to be attended by 
the people at large. In legal theory the obligation to attend 
and, if required, to take part in the proceedings extended to 
every male resident within the Manor over twelve some 
said over sixteen years of age, who had dwelt there for a 
year and a day. It was, perhaps, with reference to this 
obligation that the 42nd section of Magna Charta had 
provided that these Courts were " to be held but twice a year, 
a mouth after Michaelmas and Easter." But though any 
" View of Frankpledge " or enrolment in tithings had long 
since been obsolete, the roll of the inhabitants was, in 1689, 
still supposed to be called over, and every one had to answer 
to his name. 1 New residents (or perhaps only new freeholders) 

1 " You must call to the Constable for a Leet Bill, which should compre- 
hend all inhabitants of the Leet within the precinct above the age of 16 " 
(The Practice of Courts Leet and Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 4th 
edition, 1728, p. 18). The Statute of Marlboroiigh (52 Henry III. c. 10) 
excused from attendance at the Sheriff's Turn, and impliedly at the Lord's Court, 
peers, ecclesiastics, and women. Prior to that statute it seems that every 
one over 1 2, including servants and women, had to attend (Practical Treatise on 
Copyhold- Tenure, by John Scriven, 7th edition, 1896, p. 438). But tenants 
in Ancient Demesne were always held to be exempted (The Law of Ancient 
Demesne, by J. P. Yeatman, 1894 ; Villainage in England, by P. Vinogradoff, 
1892, p. 89 ; TJw Manor and Manorial Records, by N. J. Hone, 1906, ch. 
vii.). How long the View of Frankpledge was kept up is uncertain. Long 
after the Lord's Court had lost its power of trying felonies, a great authority 
incidentally tells us that it "retained the duty of viewing the frankpledges . . . 
which it exercised, it is said, as la 1 e as 10 Henry VI. (1432) in Cornwall" 
(The Tenures of Kent, by C. I. Elton, 1867, p. 154). We owe to Mr. Seebohm an 
even later example. In 1470 we see the Court at Hitchin (Herts) still admit- 
ting men into " the tithing of the Lord the King " ; and presenting that " John 
Crouche is of the age of 12 years and more, and has resided within the precinct 
of this View for one year and beyond, and is out of the tithing of the Lord the 
King. Therefore he is in mercy, and it is ordered to distrain him to put him- 
self on the tithing of the Lord the King " (translation from MS. Court Rolls, 
Hitchin, portfolio 177, No. 60, in Public Record Office). We do not know 
whether this fining of absentees from the Lord's Court, as we see it in the 
eighteenth century, can be connected with the mediaeval chevagium(see Select Pleas 
in Manorial Courts, by Professor F. W. Maitland, 1889, p. xxxi). "The 
strict theory of the law," we are told, " seems to have required that all the 
frankpledges should attend the view ; but as a matter of fact it was usual 
for none but the Chief Pledges to attend ; often, however, they had to bring 
with them a sum of money which was accepted in lieu of the production 
of their tithings " (History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock and F. W. 
Maitland, 1895, vol. i. p. 557). It may be, as has been suggested, that the 
Leet Jury was composed of, or in some way represents, the Headboroughs, and 
that these were the heads of tithings, or Capital Pledges. In some cases, how- 
ever, there seems to be no connection between the Jury and either Headboroughs 
or Capital Pledges ; and the fining of all tenants of the Manor seems often to 
be unconnected with the Leet Jury. These and other customary payments to 
the Manor require further study. There is, for instance, the frequent custom of 



THE COURT LEET 23 

were then "sworn to be faithful and loyal to the King," all 
absentees being subject to a fine. Here the legal function of 
the ordinary inhabitant ceased. But the Bailiff or Reeve had 
to summon not only the inhabitants generally, but also two or 
three dozen of the more respectable and substantial residents 
to serve as jurymen, either for the occasion of the coming 
Court or Lawday, or, according to local custom, sometimes 
during the ensuing twelve months. The principal functions 
of this Jury were inquisitorial and judicial. It was " charged " 
on its appointment to discover all persons who had committed 
any offence against the commonweal, whether contrary to the 
lawful customs of the Manor or to the law of the land ; and 
to " present " such offenders to the Court. For though the 
Court Leet was practically the Court of the Lord of the Manor, 
and was presided over by his Steward, it administered, so the 
lawyers said, not the Lord's will but the King's justice, and 
the Lord himself could be " presented " in his own Court for 
a breach of the law and condemned accordingly. The Court 
Leet was, in fact, a local criminal court as the lawyers said, 
the King's Court holden by the Lord, but the King did not 

"common fine," payment made annually either by every tenant or resident, 
whether present in Court or not, or by the officers of particular townships on 
behalf of their townships. There is much reason to suppose, as Ritson declared, 
that this " common fine," or " certum letoe," was a payment made to excuse all 
the suitors but the Chief Pledges from appearing at the Court (Jurisdiction of 
the Courts Leet, by J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 120). At the Easter Leet of 
the Manor of Wimbledon (Surrey) " the Headboroughs pay a Common Fine, for 
Putney, 6s. 8d. ; Roehampton, 2s. ; Mortlake, 8s. 4d. ; Barnes, 5s. ; Wimbledon, 
formerly 8s. 4d., but abated by reason of the parsonage to 6s. 8d." (The Law 
of Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. pp. 554-556). In a 
case brought before the Court of King's Bench a customary exaction of ten shil- 
lings each from the jurymen as Chief Pledges was upheld (Term Reports, vol. ii. 
p. 42 ; Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by J. Ritson, 1816, p. 100). On the 
other hand, this view does not explain the cases in which a payment is exacted from 
all and sundry, whether they attend or not. " Cert Money and Common Fine," 
says an eighteenth-century writer, " is a fine paid by resiants or residents of several 
Manors to the lords thereof, for the certain keeping of the Leet, and sometimes 
to the Hundred (as the Manor of Hook in Dorsetshire pays Cert Money to the 
Hundred of Egerdon). And Common Fine is a certain sum of money which 
the residents within the View of some Leets paid to the Lord thereof, called in 
divers places Headsilver, in others Cert Money and Headpence ; and was first 
granted to the Lord towards the charge of his purchase of the Court Leet, 
whereby the residents had now the liberty of doing their Suit Royal nearer 
home, and not be compelled to go to the Sheriffs Turn. As in the Manor of 
Sheapshead in the County of Leicester, every resident pays a penny per head to 
the Court held after Michaelmas, which is there called Common Fine" (The 
Complete Steu-ard, by John Mordant, 1761, vol. i. p. 37). Other synonyms 
were " King's Silver," "Headmouey," and " Chief Silver." 



24 THE LOR EPS COURT 

interfere either by appointing judges or other officers, or by 
reviewing or controlling its proceedings. It was the Lord's 
own Steward who presided over the Court, selected the 
inhabitants who were to serve as the Jury, instructed them 
as to their duties, and appointed, on their nomination, the 
Constable, the Aleconners, and the other public officers of the 
Manor, whilst all the fines imposed went into the pocket of 
the Lord, or were the perquisites of the Manorial officers. 

The Court Leet differed, however, markedly from a 
modern criminal court both in its procedure and in the 
practical range of its jurisdiction. The Court, it was assumed, 
would act without instigation from any prosecutor, and needed 
to issue no summons to a defendant. Everybody was, in 
fact, presumed to be in attendance. The Jury presented 
offenders out of their own knowledge, sometimes aided by the 
reports of the various officers, and their presentments appar- 
ently condemned such offenders, even in their absence. There 
was no necessity to hear witnesses, and neither attorney nor 
counsel would be present, 1 though the Court would listen to 
a defendant in extenuation or denial of the accusation. In 
their presentment the Jury not only declared the defendant 
guilty of the offence mentioned, but also indicated the appro- 
priate penalty. As the Court had no gaol at its command, and, 
as seventeenth-century lawyers held, no power of imprison- 
ment, 2 this penalty nearly always took the form of a money 

1 " When they are discharged the same day," says Ritson, "it would seem 
necessary for them to proceed chiefly upon evidence, and indeed there is gener- 
ally, if not always, a proclamation for that purpose. . . . The proceedings 
. . . are without expense, the suitor pays no fees, and advocates or attorneys 
of course never enter it " (Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by J. Ritson, 3rd 
edition, 1816, pp. 23-24). But, as above mentioned, lawyers did sometimes 
attend the Lord's Court, which was at once Court Baron and Court Leet. 

2 Coke, who always took a limited view of the power of the Lord's Court, 
seems first to have asserted this (The Compleat Copyholder, by Sir E. Coke, 
1630), and it became accepted. "The Court Leet," says a law book of 1745, 
quoting Sir William Scroggs, " is the only Court which may fine but not 
imprison" (The Justice of Peace, by Theodore Barlow, 1745, p. 159). The 
stocks for drunkards (4 James I. c. 5), the pillory and tumbril for bakers and 
brewers (51 Henry III. st. 1, c. 6), and the ducking-stool and brank (or scold's 
bridle) were, however, available, and seem to have been lawfully inflicted as 
punishments by the Court Leet (Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by Joseph 
Ritson, 1816, p. 12), at any rate in the Middle Ages (see for a case in 1290, 
Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, *by F. W. Maitland, 1889, p. 98). Ritson com- 
plained that Coke had taken an unduly limited view of the Court's powers 
(Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by Joseph Ritson, 1816, p. 19). 



THE COURT LEET 25 

fine or " amercement." The presentment was then referred 
by the Steward to two Affeerors, 1 or officers appointed to 
" affeer " the amercement, by which was to be understood its 
final assessment at a definite money penalty, usually less 
than the maximum indicated for the particular class of offence. 
Such a fine, if not at once paid in Court, had to be collected 
by the Bailiffs, or Beadles, or " Serjeants " of the Manor, or, if 
no such officers had been appointed, by the Constable, who, 
with or without a Manorial distress warrant from the Steward, 
had power to distrain on the goods of defaulters. 2 The pre- 
sentment of the Jury, made in one form and received by the 
Steward in Court, might be " retired " or reversed the same day, 
if the Steward chose to allow it, by another Jury ; but was, so 
the lawyers held, " the day passed, as true and sacred as the 
Gospel," not subject to traverse or appeal, in that or any other 
Court. 3 Even more peculiar in modern eyes was the scope of 
the Court Leet's jurisdiction. As we see it in the legal text- 
books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it had 
already lost its authority over the great majority of criminal 
offences. " Petty treasons and felonies," says Kitchin, " are 

1 Whether the affeerors were chosen by the Steward or by the Jury is not 
clear. In the Manor of Worplesdon (Surrey) it was customary, " for the Law- 
day," for "one to be a freeholder, but if a Court without a Lawday " for both 
to be copyholders (Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, 
vol. ii. pp. 559-561). 

2 "A Steward may by parole command a Bailiff to make distress " (Treatise 
of the Antiquity . . . of the Ancient Courts of Leet, by Robert Powell, 1642, p. 
33). "The Lord may have an action of debt or distrain for it of common 
right ; and such distress may be taken in the streets, and be sold " (The Justice 
of Peace, by Theodore Barlow, 1745, p. 159). 

3 Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by Joseph Ritson, 1816, pp. 9-10. But 
though not subject to appeal, or, strictly speaking, to traverse, a presentment 
that affected the party's freehold property might be made the subject of com- 
plaint to the Court of King's Bench, which that Court would try. Moreover, 
that Court's jurisdiction in other matters was not ousted by the fact that they 
had been dealt with in the Lord's Court. Thus, when the Jury of the Lord's 
Court of the Manor of St. Giles's in the Fields on complaint of the keeping of 
over 400 hogs by a distiller near St. Giles's Pound, with a stench that was 
abominable, had formally presented that this was no nuisance, such a decision 
did not prevent an indictment being brought in the Court of King's Bench, 
when the Jury found that it was a nuisance (R. v. Smart, 1734 ; see notes 
of trial among the Hardwicke MSS. ; Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, by 
G. Harris, 1847, vol. i. pp. 265-270). The lawyers drew a distinction between 
offences. It was said by Hale, " that if there be a presentment in a Leet for a 
personal misdemeanour it is a conviction, and conclusive ; but if it be for a 
nuisance or any matter that concerns freehold, the party may come up after- 
wards and traverse" (Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by J. Ritson, 1816, p. 140). 



26 THE LORD'S COURT 

enquirable and presentable in a Leet, but not punishable 
there." All matters of indictment had, indeed, been trans- 
ferred to the assizes by a statute of Edward IV. The Court 
Leet, meeting only once or twice a year, with its cumbrous 
machinery of universal attendance and its inability to impose 
sentences of imprisonment, was obviously unfitted for dealing 
with petty police cases. The whole business of the conser- 
vancy of the King's peace, including, therefore, every ase of 
assault, was, in fact, taken over by the Justices of the Peace 
in Petty or Quarter Sessions. It was to these Justices, and 
not to the Court Leet, that Parliament throughout the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries confided the jurisdiction with 
regard to the new statutory offences, which were superseding so 
many of the old Common Law misdemeanours. Thus, by 1689, 
there remained to the Court Leet, in the lawyer's view, little more 
than the petty delinquencies connected with the Assize of Ale, 
the Manorial market, and the use of the highways, together 
with the wide and elastic offence denoted by a common 
nuisance. 

To the modern student, the Suppression of Nuisances 
seems a comparatively insignificant part of Local Government. 
But to the lawyer and the administrator of 1689 it comprised, 
along with the Eelief of the Poor, practically the whole of 
local administration. As we shall see in the subsequent 
volume, in which we deal with the Suppression of Nuisances, 
this was the root out of which sprang such services as the 
Maintenance of Roads, the Drainage of Towns, the Paving and 
Cleansing and Lighting of Streets, and the whole of what we 
now call Public Health. " A common nuisance," says a con- 
temporary lawyer, " seems to be an offence against the public, 
either by doing a thing which tends to the annoyance of all 
the King's subjects, or by neglecting to do a thing which the 
common good requires." l When we come to describe the 
regulative activity sanctioned by this definition we shall see 
that it covers an amazing range of requirements, both positive 
and negative; each generation with or without express 
direction from the Legislature dropping out some offences 
and adding others, the categories now swelling, now contract- 

1 Justice of the Peace, by R. Burn, 6th edition, 1758, vol. ii. p. 432 ; citing 
a dictum of Hawkins. 



THE COURT LEET 27 

ing, so that the volume of individual personal activity dealt 
with was always varying. Thus, in the Courts Leet of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we find the Stewards directing 
the Juries to present persons guilty of " eavesdropping " or 
" theftbote," of maintenance or barratry, of " being a common 
and turbulent brawler " or " a common scold," of " selling 
unbaited beef " or " gashing hides." In the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries the more common " annoyances of all the 
King's subjects," to which the Juries directed their attention, 
were unscoured ditches or unmended highways, trees over- 
hanging the road, refusing to pave the street in front of one's 
house, or declining to serve as Ale -taster, Dog -muzzier, or 
Scavenger. From the middle of the eighteenth century down 
to the very end of the period with which we are dealing, we 
find, in the roll of presentments, quite other kinds of personal 
conduct stigmatised as common nuisances such as the 
emission of smoke, heaping refuse on unoccupied land, per- 
mitting privies and cesspools to drain into the newly-made 
sewers, leaving cellar flaps open and unguarded, retaining 
hanging signs, permitting dangerous bulls to go at large, 
keeping mastiffs unmuzzled, or allowing pigs to roam in the 
streets. In fact, it is difficult to find any kind of personal 
conduct, whether intrinsically innocent or plainly criminal, 
and whether or not expressly included among statutory 
offences, which might not, at one period or another, have 
found its way, as a common nuisance, into the presentments 
of a Court Leet Jury. 

Closely connected with this judicial business was the 
power assumed to be possessed by the Court Leet, equally 
with the Court Baron, of making new By-laws, binding on all 
the residents within the Manor. The earlier legal writers 
found the Court Leet making such By-laws, and accepted this 
function as warranted by tradition. Gradually it became of 
undoubted authority. " It seemeth that of common right," 
wrote Dr. Burn in 1756, "any Court Leet, with the assent of 
the tenants, may make By-laws under certain penalties, in 
relation to matters properly within the cognizance of such 
Court, such as reparation of the highways and the like." 1 
Within what limits this By-law-making power would have 
1 Justice of tlw Peace, by Dr. R. Burn, vol. iii. p. 240 of edition of 1820. 



28 THE LORDS COURT 

been, in any particular generation, upheld by the King's 
Courts must remain uncertain, as the point cannot be said 
to have been very definitely determined. But whether or not 
the King's Courts would have upheld their dicta, we find the 
legal manuals unhesitatingly advising the Stewards that such 
By-laws might be made. 

The Court Leet exercised also another important function 
which we do not nowadays associate with a criminal tribunal. 
It had the duty of appointing whatever staff of public officers 
to attend to the government of the locality that custom 
required. There were, first of all, the officers charged with 
" conserving " the King's peace within the Manor. In a small 
rural Manor this meant only the appointment, year by year, of 
one of the residents to serve as Constable. In larger parishes 
there might be several Constables for different hamlets or 
tithings ; they might be called " Chief Pledges," " Boroheads," 
" Borsholders," " Tithingmen," " Deciners," " Headboroughs," 
" Thirdboroughs," or by other ancient titles of which the 
original meaning had been forgotten ; but their duty was 
always to preserve order -in the little community. The legal 
form seems to have been for the Jury to present one or more 
persons as liable to serve the particular office, and for the 
Court that is the Steward to appoint one or more of the 
persons so presented. In addition to these officers, particular 
Manors had, by custom, to appoint such others as Aleconners 
or Ale-tasters, Carnivals or Carnals, the Finder, Pinner, or 
Poundkeeper, the Dyke-reeve or Moss-reeve or Wall-reeve, and 
the Burleymen or Bylawmen. Sometimes in an old " forest " 
district the Court had to appoint a " Greave of the Forest," 
and various subordinate forest officers. In the numerous 
unincorporated market towns it was the Court Leet that had 
to appoint the Bread-weighers and Viewers or Inspectors of 
Weights and Measures, the Market-lookers, the Searchers and 
Sealers of Leather, the Pecksealers, and the indispensable 
Bellman or Town-crier ; whilst in populous towns there might 
also be Town Scavengers, Dog-muzzlers, Clerks of the Wheat, 
Fish, and Butchery Markets, or even, as at Lewes, a " Clerk of 
the Spars and Withs." l The whole official staff of a Court 

1 The History and Antiquities of Lewes, by T. W. Horsfield, 1824-32, 
p. 174. 



THE COURT LEET 29 

Leet might thus be very numerous in exceptional cases even 
exceeding a hundred. 1 In all these offices service was com- 
pulsory upon all adult male residents within the Manor, and 
could be enforced by summary fine and distraint on any 
recalcitrants. It was taken for granted by the lawyers that 
every respectable male resident was liable under legal obliga- 
tion to serve the Manor in his turn, 2 without salary or other 
remuneration. It was, in fact, no part of the conception of 
local government, at the time when the Court Leet was in its 
prime, that there should be anything that we should now call 
the Municipal administration of public services, that is to say, 
the employment of paid officers to do positive services for the 
common enjoyment. Every service requisite for the simple 
life of the little community was a duty imposed, as a condition 
of tenure or an obligation of status, upon some individual 
resident or another. If every man did his duty in obeying 
the law of the land and the customs of the Manor if he 
neither broke the King's peace nor committed a public 
nuisance all would be well. But as men were perverse and 
weak, there would be defaulters unless some one was responsible 
for seeing that the Law and the By-laws were adhered to. In 
the old system of frankpledge, the " Capital Pledge " was 
apparently held responsible for his " tithing," or group of 
inhabitants, on all counts. In the Court Leet, as we find 
it in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, each Manorial 
officer was technically responsible for presenting the com- 
mission of one specified offence throughout the whole Manor. 
The Jury was responsible, on the information given by these 
officers, for presenting and amercing all offenders. " The soul 
of the system," says a learned antiquary, " consisted in the 
universal obligation of every member of a tithing [that is, in 
theory, every adult male] to disclose and bring to punishment 
every breach of the laws and customs by which the community 



1 The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, vol. vi. p. 241 (Court 
of 5th October 1686, when 110 officers were appointed). 

2 By Common Law, the Deputy Steward of the Salford Court explained in 
1835, the choice of persons to serve as Constable rested with the Court, unless 
there was a valid custom to the contrary. Such a custom existed in the town- 
ship of Urmston, the "nomination of Constables by house-roll, so that each 
person in the township bears the burden in his turn " (Manchester Times, 
1835). 



3 o THE LORD'S COURT 

was bound." * It is this note of the social obligation of every 
citizen, pervading both the legislation and the legal manuals of 
the sixteenth century, that we find characterising, in particular, 
the government of numerous little communities by the Court 
Leet of the King holden by the Lord of the Manor. 

1 Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, by Rev. William Hudson, 1892, 
p. Ixxv. 



CHAPTER II 

THE COURT IN RUINS 

WE now pass from the clear-cut theories of contemporary 
lawyers to the actual constitution and working of the Lord's 
Court between 1689 and 1835. It will be at once apparent 
that we are dealing with an institution that is nowhere in its 
prime, but in every instance falling into decay. In some 
Manors the Lord's Court still provided the principal machinery 
of Local Government; in others there survived only a mere 
shred of a constitution. In many districts it is the manage- 
ment of the land that has passed away ; in others, the function 
of trying petty cases of debt and trespass ; in others, again, it 
is the power of fining nuisance -mongers or of appointing 
Constables that has been lost. What will become abundantly 
clear is that the Lord's Court, as it actually existed, differed 
widely from the lawyer's view of what it ought to have been. 
In many of the cases that we shall describe there was no 
separation, either in constitution or procedure, between what 
the lawyers termed the Court Baron of the Lord, and the 
Court Leet of the King. In these cases we see one and the 
same Court, in a single undivided sitting, transacting, through 
one set of officers and one Jury, without distinguishable order 
or precedence, all the business of the little community, whether 
this business related to the maintenance of the Lord's rights, 
the conveyance of a plot of land from seller to purchaser, the 
mutual arrangement of the common rights of the tenants, the 
keeping up of fences and dykes, the crops to be sown in 
particular fields, the dates at which the various agricultural 
operations were to begin, the trial of civil actions, the present- 
ment of public nuisances and minor crimes, the fining of 

31 



3 2 THE COURT IN RUINS 

offenders, and the choice and appointment of an indefinite 
variety of local public officers. We find, in fact, in the 
majority of our examples, simply an Undifferentiated Court 
This absence of the theoretical differentiation between Court 
Baron and Court Leet will become apparent to the reader of 
the descriptions alike of the Courts of the Hundred, Honour, or 
Barony, and those of the Manor or Borough in the Middle 
Ages, it may be said, all tribunals were Undifferentiated Courts 
but we shall recur to it specifically when we come to the 
Court of the Manor. 

(a) The Hierarchy of Courts 

The actual constitution of the Lord's Court was, however, 
in some places more complicated than is described by the 
lawyers. We discover still existing in some parts of the 
country between 1689 and 1835 a curious array of Courts 
above Courts, and jurisdictions within jurisdictions. We come 
across Hundred Courts, Honour Courts, Soke Courts, Barony 
Courts, Knight's Courts, or Forest Courts, wielding authority 
over large districts within which are also various distinct 
Halmote Courts, Courts Baron, Courts Leet, or Borough Courts. 
In the ruinous condition into which these Courts had, by 1689, 
everywhere fallen, we cannot with any certainty unravel what 
relationship they had once borne to each other, except that 
the smaller Courts stood in a certain position of inferiority 
to those of wider jurisdiction. We cannot, for instance, say 
that the relationship was ever one of Courts of First Instance 
and Courts of Appeal there was, we imagine, in mediaeval 
jurisdiction, taking the form of punishing defaults, nothing 
corresponding to the customary modern right of a defendant 
in a civil action to appeal against a decision of a Court of 
First Instance. 1 Nor do we find evidence of any right of 

1 Whether such a right of appeal had ever existed we do not assume to 
decide. In one great ecclesiastical jurisdiction, at least, such a right of hearing 
appeals was, in 1284, strenuously asserted on behalf of the Hundred Court, 
and as strenuously denied on behalf of the Court of the Manor. At Crondal, 
in Hampshire, where the Manor belonged to a priory, it was claimed by the 
Bishop of Winchester, as Lord of the Hundred Court, that "where the Prior 
and his Steward and his other ministers, for a bribe, or through partiality, or 
in any other manner, refuse to do justice [in the Court of the Manor] to any 
plaintiff of the Hundred of Crundale, the Lord Bishop of Winchester and his 
Steward have power at the first Hundred [Court] at Blackheathfield to inquire, 
terminate, and amend this wrong." To this the Convent, as owner of the Manor, 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 33 

appeal to an outside or higher jurisdiction in the civil suits 
between tenants of the Manor. But it seems clear that, in 
some cases at any rate, the presentments of the inferior Courts 
were enforced by actions taken at the head Court ; moreover, 
there is reason to believe that the head Court did not always 
refrain from dealing with cases which might have been within 
the jurisdiction of the inferior Court ; and it certainly had 
some sort of jurisdiction in default. 1 " It seems a good 
prescription," says Sir William Scroggs, " for a Grand Leet 
(to which other inferior Leets may be subordinate, as that 
to the Torn) to oblige the Chief Pledges and a certain number 
of the resiants or inhabitants of every town, etc., within its 
precinct to appear at every such Grand Leet, to inquire into 
such offences as were not inquired into in the inferior Leet." 2 
We may perhaps infer that if an offence had not been presented 
in the Court of a petty Manor, it might be presented in the 
Court of the Honour or Grand Leet of some wider jurisdiction, 
if such existed ; and if not presented at any subordinate Court, 
then at the Court of the Hundred. 3 Hence, we venture 
though without desiring in any way to imply a complete 
subordination of one to the other to describe these interest- 
ing series as Hierarchies of Courts. 

made answer ' ' that it is altogether to be denied, because he [the Bishop] has no 
right to intrude himself in the Prior's Courts ; because if bondmen, they have 
no refuge except to their Lord, and if freemen, the King alone and his Justices 
ought to hear and terminate complaints of a false judgment." It was admitted 
that the tenants of the Manor owed suit and service to the Bishop's Hundred 
Court, which held the View of Frankpledge for the whole Hundred ; and it 
was eventually agreed that the tenants should not be called to account in the 
Court of the Manor for anything already dealt with by the Hundred Court. We 
gather that the jurisdiction in appeal or in default was left undecided (Records 
and Documents relating to the Hundred and Manor of Crondal, by F. J. Baigent, 
Hampshire Record Society, Part I. p. 16). 

1 Ritson seems to have been unable to conceive of a Hierarchy of Courts. 
He asserts that the jurisdiction of the " Leet of the Hundred " was only over so 
much of the Hundred as was not within the jurisdiction of the Court Leet of a 
Manor ; and similarly with the Sheriff's Turn (Jurisdiction of the Court Leet, by 
J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 5). 

2 The Practice of Courts Leet aiid Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 4th edi- 
tion, 1 728, p. 3 ; see History of English Law, by F. W. Maitland, 1 895, vol. i. p. 569. 

3 Practical Treatise on the Law of Copyholds, by John Scriven, 7th edition, 
1896, p. 436. It is noteworthy that, in the sixteenth century, the Hundred 
was still regarded as the jurisdiction next above that of the Manor. In 1555, 
when it was provided that the Courts Leet should deal with offences under the 
first Highways Act (2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 8), the Stewards of Leets were 
to render returns of all estreats and fines, not to the Justices of the Peace or to 
any County officer, but to the Bailiff or High Constable of the Hundred. 

VOL, II. FT. I D 



34 THE CO UR T IN R UINS 

For the most remarkable of these Hierarchies of Courts 
we must go to the West of England. The wide area of the 
Vale of Berkeley, comprising the ancient Hundred of that 
name in the County of Gloucester, had been ruled over, time 
out of mind, by a series of mutually related Courts of the Lord 
of Berkeley Castle. There was, first, the Hundred Court for 
the whole area; then the numerous Halmotes or Halimotes, 
the Lord's Courts for the separate Manors within the Hundred ; 
and, finally, certain differentiated Courts, called Borough Courts 
or Leets, held in and for certain favoured townships, which 
had, by ancient seignorial grants, been constituted Boroughs. 1 

In 1689 this Hierarchy of Courts, which had existed 
" time out of mind," was still in full, though somewhat formal, 
operation. Twice a year the Lord's Steward issued his precept 
to the -Bailiff of the Hundred, directing him to summon to 
the Court of the Hundred and Honour of Berkeley also called 
the Court Leet or Law Day " to be holden at the Booth 
Hall in the town of Berkeley " ; to command the attendance 
of the persons who were to form the Jury these in 1733 
were thirty in number ; in 1V34, forty-two ; drawn from a score 
of different Manors, and to require the Constables of the 
Manors and the Tithingmen of the several parishes and 
townships that " they give notice of holding the same in 
the respective parish churches on the Sunday next before 
the Leet," in order that not they only, but also all who 

1 For information as to the Courts of the Hundred of Berkeley we are indebted 
to the courtesy of the Earl of Berkeley, of his land steward, Mr James Peter, 
and of Mr Hutton, steward of his Lordship's Courts, who kindly permitted con- 
sultation of the records in the muniment room at Berkeley Castle ; as well as to 
our friend Miss Hadley, Archivist to the London County Council, who was good 
enough to devote part of a holiday to the work. A detailed description of the 
Hundred Court at Berkeley in 1890 will be found in Gloucestershire Notes and, 
Queries, vol. iv. p. 27 ; and some account of the Hundred Rolls in ibid. vol. 
v. pp. 85-88. See also Fifth Report of Royal Commission on Common Law 
Courts, 1833 ; House of Commons Returns of Hundred Courts, 1839, and of 
Courts of Request, 1840 ; The Berkeley Manuscripts, by Sir John Maclean, 
3 vols., 1883-85 (Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society) ; and (for the 
two Boroughs) First Report of Municipal Corporation Commissioners, 1835, 
Appendix, vol. i. p. 19 ; Report of Royal Commission on Uureformed Corpora- 
tions, 1880 ; History of the Town of Berkeley, by Rev. John Fisher, 1856 and 
1864; "Corporation Insignia," in Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vol. v. p. 
519 ; and " Extinct Corporations of Wotton and Berkeley," in Notes and Queries, 
7th ser. vol. ii. p. 64 ; A New History of Gloucesterslwre, by Samuel Rudder, 
1779, pp. 846-854; and Historical Notes relating, to the Borough of IVotton, 
by W. H. Wright, 1872 (in Cheltenham Public Library). 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 35 

had business at the Court, might be present. The Tithingman 
of Stinchcombe we know not why had to bring with him 
two men. In the manuscript " Precedent Book," which has 
been the guide of many generations of Stewards, we can almost 
see before us the whole procedure of this ancient tribunal. 
The Steward opens the Court by calling on the Bailiff for a 
return of the Jury, which, together with that of the Tithingmen 
and Constables of Manors, is formally called over, and the 
absentees fined ; for attendance is compulsory, and right down 
to the middle of the nineteenth century the fines are enforced. 
The Constable of Bevington comes into Court near the Steward, 
and, half -bent, prays for the prosperity of the noble family 
of the Berkeley s. The Tithingman of Woodmancote brings 
a " tag " with which to tie up Lord Berkeley's " writings " 
under penalty of ten shillings fine. The Jury is sworn, in 
groups of four, one Bible being supplied to be held by each 
group, and the King's Proclamation against Profaneness and 
Immorality is read. The Steward delivers his charge to the 
Court, directing the Jury to inquire into every conceivable 
offence committed within the Hundred, from manslaughter 
down to the robbing of hen-roosts, from the unlawful pursuit 
of game to conspiracies by artificers, from felony to forestalling 
and regrating all still declared to be " presentable " in this 
Court, even if successive Stewards have felt obliged to sub- 
stitute that word for " punishable." Then the Jury examines 
into the state of repair of the highways and bridges, the 
stopping -up or diversion of footpaths and watercourses, and 
the obstruction of the roads by encroachments or laying of 
timber. All those who can give information relating to any 
of these delinquencies are commanded to give it then and 
there in Court. Various officers of the Hundred continue 
to be appointed, at any rate the Bailiff of the Hundred and 
the Haywards of the several Manors, even after the appoint- 
ment of others had been discontinued. Various Acts of 
Parliament are solemnly read and proclaimed. The present- 
ments made at the last previous Court are read over, and those 
which are reported to have been complied with are crossed off. 
Meanwhile the Jury has completed its new presentments, which 
are written out by the Bailiff, and signed by the several jury- 
men. The Constables make their returns, and are sworn to 



36 THE COURT IN RUINS 

the truth thereof. The Steward, with such formal solemnity 
as he can command, then closes the Court. Other sittings of 
the Court are held by the Steward every three weeks, to which 
the subordinate Manors owe no attendance, though the free- 
hold tenants of the Barony are supposed to be present and to 
form the Court. The business of these three-weekly sittings, 
for which a Jury of householders was summoned when required, 
was, at any rate in the nineteenth century, confined to the trial 
of civil actions for debt arising anywhere within the Hundred 
of Berkeley. Throughout the whole of the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries this ancient Court continued to be held, 
its formalities and ceremonies gradually dropping off one by 
one its criminal jurisdiction already gone before 1700, its 
presentments of nuisances hardly lasting beyond 1800, 1 its 
hearing of civil suits passing in the middle of the nineteenth 
century to the new County Court, its fines for non-attendance 2 
not surviving the third quarter of the nineteenth century; 
until, in 1900, the thousand -years' record is broken, and the 
Court is silently discontinued. 

We pass now to the Halimotes, or Courts Baron, held 
on behalf of the Lord of Berkeley in the several Manors of 
the Hundred. These were either " General Halimotes," held 
normally once a year, or " Special Halimotes," held when 
required for some urgent business. These Courts, we are 
informed, dealt during the eighteenth century only with 
admissions of new copyholders, transfers of property, 3 and 

1 In 1801 the owners of the land adjoining a road, and the owner of a 
footbridge over a brook were presented for not repairing these highways ; and 
the latter Avas amerced in forty shillings, leviable on his goods and chattels (MS. 
Entry Book, Berkeley Hundred Court, October 1801). 

2 " We present that it appears by the oath of John Neale, Bailiff of the said 
Hundred, that he, the said Bailiff, did, on 16th April, go to the dwelling-house 
of N. W. of Cambridge in the Parish of Slimbridge within the said Hundred, to 
levy on his goods and chattels the sum of five shillings, being an amercement 
imposed on him for not attending at the last Court Leet for the said Hundred to 
servo on the Jury. And we present that it further appears to us by the oath of the 
said Bailiff that R. U. brother to the said N. U. did on the said 16th April in- 
stant pay to the said Bailiff the sum of five shillings in discharge of such amerce- 
ment for the use of the said Lord of the said Hundred " (MS. Entry Book, Berkeley 
Hundred Court, 18th April 1803). A similar entry occurs six months later. 

3 Here is a typical entry. " N. W., gentleman, came to this Court by 
warrant of attorney from W. W. H., and surrendered a close of pasture late 
Symonds, held by the life of the said W. W. H., and the estate of W. W. H., 
after which proclamation was made and J. H., the life in reversion, came and 
was admitted" (MS. Court Rolls, "Wotton, 20th October 1732). 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 37 

purely Manorial offences. The Steward presided, the rest of 
the Court consisting of what was called " the Homage," being 
all the copyhold tenants of the particular Manor, who sat 
without individual summons by virtue of their tenancy. In 
the score or more of such Courts actually held in the year 
1733, we noticed that the Homage numbered from two to 
about a dozen. Attendance was compulsory, under penalty of 
a fine of five shillings, which was usually " affeered " to one 
shilling. 1 It is interesting, as bearing on the relationship of 
the several Courts in this Hierarchy, to find it expressly stated 
that the fines imposed by the Manor Courts were recovered 
by action in the Berkeley Hundred Court at one of its three- 
weekly sittings. 2 So far as we have ascertained, the only 
business of these Halimotes during the eighteenth century 
that can be said to relate to Local Government was their 
appointment of a Eeeve of the Manor, who had power to 
distrain on the cattle of the lands of any copyhold or lease- 
hold tenant of the Manor for any amercement imposed by the 
Court. 3 Service as Eeeve was compulsory on the copyhold 
and leasehold tenants in rotation, " the furthest behind in 
serving the office of Reeve " being always appointed, even if 
a woman, or a group of officials like the Overseers of the 
Poor, when these happened to have a copyhold or leasehold 
workhouse. 4 But the office could always be served by a 

1 MS. Precedent Book, Berkeley. At a Court Baron at Ham Manor 
defaulters were amerced half a crown, affeered to one shilling (MS. Entry Book, 
Court Baron, Ham, 14th October 1797); but at one at Cam, ten shillings, 
affeered to two (ibid. Cam, 7th October 1833). 

2 Gloucestershire, Notes and Queries, vol. iv. pp. 27-30. 

3 " The Homage also present that the Reeve of this Manor in virtue of his 
office may distrain for rent or for any amercement imposed in the Lord's Court 
upon any copyholder or leaseholder, as well as the cattle of such copyholders or 
leaseholders as of any other renting or occupying the copyhold or leasehold 
land or tenements of such leaseholder or copyholder, provided the cattle be found 
feeding upon the same copyhold or leasehold estate ; and further that the Reeve 
is not bound to ascertain whose cattle those they may so distrain are, but 
finding the same in or upon such copyhold or leasehold lands or tenements may 
lawfully distrain them, as now and at all times out of memory hath been 
accustomed to do " (MS. Entry Book, Courts Baron of many Manors, October 
1810). 

4 A woman is appointed Reeve "as being furthest behind," and serves by 
deputy (MS. Court Roll Book, Court Baron of Hurst Manor, 14th October 1799). 
"The Homage present that the Overseers of the Poor of this tithing are the 
furthest behind in serving the office of Reeve for the house called the workhouse 
on Berkeley Heath" (MS. Court Roll Book, Court Baron of Berkeley, 5th 
October 1833). 



38 THE COURT IN RUINS 

" sufficient deputy." l Right down to the very end of the 
nineteenth century these Manor Courts were still being held, 
the Juries were presenting encroachments and Manorial 
defaults, and petty officers were being appointed. 2 

The third sort of Courts held within the Hundred of 
Berkeley were those of the townships or so-called " Boroughs " 
of Berkeley and Wotton. These were each styled " Court 
Leet with View of Frankpledge and Court Baron," and separate 
records were apparently in each case kept. But what was 
actually held in each of these picturesque little towns was 
only one Court. Once a year the Steward issued his precept 
to the " Serjeant of the Borough," requiring him " to summon 
all such persons as owe suit to the Court Leet and Court 
Baron of the Borough," and to " warn a sufficient number of 
the most able in the Borough to serve on the Grand Jury." 
On the appointed day the Steward opened the Court by calling 
on the Constable to read first the " Resiant Roll," with loud 
proclamation to " all who live within the jurisdiction of this 
Court " to come forward and do the suit they owe, and then 
the " Jury Panel," those who did not answer to their names 
being amerced. The jurymen were then sworn, in the same 
groups of four that we have already described in the Hundred 
Court. At each of these Courts there were two distinct 
Juries, each usually exceeding a dozen in number the 
Homage, composed of freehold, leasehold, and copyhold tenants 
of the Manor ; and the " Grand Jury " or " Leet Jury," made 
up merely of residents. The Juries both made presentments, 
those of the Homage relating to surrenders and admissions, 
conveyances and other property business, together with purely 
Manorial defaults, such as suffering a messuage to decay, 
allowing water from a new well to injure a neighbour's house, 
or removing a gate and not replacing it, for which small 

1 "At this Court it was found and presented by the Homage that G. S. is 
the furthest behind in serving the office of Reeve for a close called Rowles Court 
Leaze. We therefore order the said G. S. to take upon him the said office, either 
by himself or his sufficient deputy, in one month's time under the penalty of 
5, to be levied upon his goods and chattels, or to be recovered by action of 
debt for the use of the Lord of the said Manor " (MS. Entry Book, Court 
Baron of Slimbridge Manor, 12th October 1797). 

2 See, for instance, the interesting description of the proceedings in 1887 of 
"the Court for the Manor of Wotton Foreign," being 'so much of the Parish of 
Wotton as lies outside the Borough, in Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, vol. 
iv. pp. 27-30. 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 39 

amercemeuts are imposed. The Grand Jury or Leet presented 
all manner of nuisances relating to highways and water- 
courses ; unlicensed alehouses, scolds and eavesdroppers ; the 
delinquencies of butchers and bakers ; pound breach and 
rescue of cattle ; and encroachments on the streets. The 
officers appointed at the previous Court then made their 
returns of offenders against the laws and Bylaws concerning 
their several departments handing in small scraps of paper 
on which we fear they had too often perfunctorily written 
" omnia bene," or words to that effect. 1 But the Court would 
sometimes insist on the office being executed. " We present 
E. C. and E. S.," reports the Grand Jury of Wotton in 1713, 
" for neglecting their office, particularly not taking up vagrants. 
We do fine them ten shillings each." 2 Then the officers of the 
Borough for the ensuing year were appointed, the Grand Jury 
presenting three names as suitable persons to be Mayor, and 
two names in the case of other officers, for the selection of one 
by the Steward. For each of the two Boroughs the Court 
appointed a Mayor, a Serjeant, a Constable, and one or two 
Ale-tasters, Carnivals, and Searchers and Sealers of Leather. 3 
Sometimes other officers a Scavenger or a Surveyor are 
mentioned as acting under the appointment and direction of 
the Mayor. At Berkeley it was the custom we observe it 
still in force between 1797 and 1804 for the Court to recite 
and declare every year a string of heterogeneous rights or By- 
laws, on the presentment, be it noted, of the Homage Jury. 
ISTo pigs are to go at large, under penalty of three and fourpence, 
the Hayward being ordered to impound any found wandering 
and to take his own fee of twopence ; no " soil, dung, apple 
must, or any other stinking matter " is to be deposited in 

1 "We have served the office to the best of our knowledge and we have 
found it all well " (Return of Searchers and Sealers of Leather, Court Rolls of 
Wotton, 2nd October 1714). "We present that we have found no flesh nor 
fish that have been brought to our market and exposed for sale, upon our 
vigilant search, but what hath been fit and wholesome for the body of man ; 
and that we have nothing more to present at this time " (Return of Carnivals, 
ibid. October 1709). "We have took care that the bulls have been baited, ere 
that the meat hath been sold for the same, and we have carefully looked after 
all other meat and fish" (ibid. 30th September 1710). 

2 MS. Court Rolls, Wotton, 3rd October 1713. 

3 Aldermen are mentioned (among the Leet Jury) both in Berkeley and in 
Wotton (MS. Entry Book, Wotton Court, 20th October 1737 ; Berkeley Court, 
21st October 1745). These were (in 1833 at Berkeley) the twelve members of 
the close Town Council. 




40 THE CO VR T IN R UINS 

Berkeley streets, under penalty of a pound, and the Scavengers 
are ordered to sweep up all dirt into heaps every Saturday, 
for the officers of the Lord to carry it out of the Borough ; no 
timber or other obstruction is to be put in the streets; the 
common pasturage on Berkeley Heath is not to be usurped or 
surcharged ; every person coming into the Borough to carry 
on business or set up a household we gather without having 
been born or perhaps apprenticed within the Borough is to 
pay the Mayor six and eightpence as of old ; nobody but the 
Mayor shall put up any stall in the Market or Fair ; the right 
of all persons to a free wharf or landing place on the river is 
declared and perpetuated ; and there is a stern prohibition of 
taking in " inmates " to be a nuisance to the Borough. On 
the other hand, at "VVotton, it is the Grand Jury that we see 
making presentment of stopped-up watercourses, broken gullies, 
and filth thrown down the gutter in " a time of flood to the 
great annoyance of" a certain mill. A butcher is presented, 
on the knowledge of one of the jurymen, " for putting stinking 
meat to sale in our market " ; and other frequenters for selling 
goods " by weight unlawful being too light." So, too, we find 
the Grand Jury ordering that no persons shall stand with 
goods in a certain passage on market day, that posts and rails 
be set up for the protection of foot passengers, that obstructive 
encroachments be removed, and that certain unlawful windows 
that overlook the almshouses be stopped up. 1 

Another case of a Hierarchy of Courts continuing in active 
existence is presented by the great Manor of Taunton, extend- 
ing over nearly the whole of Taunton " Deane," or Vale, in 
Somerset. 2 Here the Manor transcended even the Hundred, 

1 " Item, we order that for the future no person shall lay dung ... in 
the street called . . . (MS. Court Rolls, Wotton) ; all persons that do claim 
any right to the Chipping Well shall pay their proportion toward the repairing 
the same, upon the pain of five shillings " (ibid.). 

2 The Customs of the Manor of Taunton and Taunton Dcane, by Richard 
Locke, 1785 ; The Ancient Customs of Taunton Deane, by H. B. Shillibeer, 
1821 ; History of Taunton, by Joshua Toulmin, 1st edition, 1791, 2nd 
edition, edited by James Savage, 1822 ; History of Somerset, by John Collinson, 
1791, vol. iii. pp. 225-240 ; General Account of West Somerset, by Edward 
Jeboult, 1873 Part II. The Valley of the Tone, Part III. Taunton ; On the 
Origin of Gilds, with a Notice of the Ancient Gildha.ll of Taunton, by J. H. 
Pring, 1883 ; "The Customs of the Manor of Taunton Dcane," by W. A. Jones, 
in Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. xviii. pp. 76-99 ; 
House of Commons Return of Courts of Request, 1840, p. 140. 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS, 41 

the Lord's Court at the head of the Hierarchy, which continued 
to be held down to Victorian times, exercising jurisdiction over 
no fewer than five Hundreds and many tithings and parishes. 
Besides this Court, there existed minor Courts for the Liberty 
(by which we understand the precinct of the Castle), and for 
the " Hundred of Taunton Market " ; which (like Berkeley and 
Wotton) had been granted exceptional autonomy, under the 
name of a Borough. 1 The " ancient customs of the Manor," 
formally presented and recorded in 1647 and again in 1817, 
enable us to gain some vision of this interesting Hierarchy. 
The highest Court seems to have rejoiced in a number of 
different names or nicknames, according to the date at which 
or the purpose for which it was held. In 1647 it sat as a 
Court of Survey. Twice a year it was the Court Leet or 
Lawday. On the occasion on which, once a year, the Manorial 
officers were chosen it was the " Choice Court." The sitting 
" next after Michaelmas Lawday " was the " Fulfilling Court," 
when two tenants in each Hundred were sworn to view the 
list of amercements for the past year, and to " affeer " them ; 
it may be that there was a second " Fulfilling Court " in the 
spring. There was the " Ossinge Court," or " Penn Court," 
of which the meaning is unknown to us. Finally there was 
the " Three Weeks' Court," called also the Court Baron, held 
every three weeks, primarily as a petty debt court, 2 though it 
dealt also with defaults. This score or more of Courts 
incidentally referred to as " Tenants' Courts " 3 all held in the 
Great Hall of the Castle of Taunton, before the Steward or, 
in the case of the Three Weeks' Court, by the Clerk of the 
Castle had to be attended by all the customary tenants of 
the Manor, but these, if not specially summoned as jurymen, 
could escape on payment of small fines a penny each time, 
or eightpence for the year, bought exemption from the Court 
Baron or Three Weeks' Court, and threepence each time did 
the same for the others. At the Leet or Lawday, twice a year, 

1 " Outfaring Courts" are also mentioned (The Customs of the Manor of 
Taunton and Taunton Deanc, by Richard Locke, 1785), which were perhaps 
those held for the " Outfaring " part of the Vale, sixteen parishes which had been 
alienated from the Manor by William I. (History of Taunton, by Joshua 
Toulmin, 1822, p. 45). 

2 House of Commons Returns of Hundred Courts, 1839, and of Courts of 
Request, 1840. 

3 Customs of the Manor of Taunton and Taunton Deane, by R. Locke, 1785. 



42 THE COURT IN RUINS 

there was summoned a " Grand Jury," which seems not only 
to have presented nuisances and Manorial offences, but also to 
have heard and decided disputes relating to copyhold tenements. 
At one of the two Leets or Lawdays the Grand Jury presented 
suitable persons to serve as High Constable for the Hundred 
of Taunton Deane, and as Tithingmen for one or two of the 
tithings. It is not apparent how the numerous Petty Constables 
or Tithingmen for the other tithings were appointed, though it 
is stated that these all had to attend the Court Baron or Three 
Weeks' Court to present defaults ; and also to attend the two 
Leets or Lawdays. That this attendance had fallen into 
desuetude, may be inferred from the fact that it was recorded 
in 1647 that the Tithingmen of twenty-seven tithings had 
to pay a shilling each yearly to be excused from bringing in 
their bushel measures to be tried by the standard on the two 
Lawdays. 1 At the Choice Court, the tenants had to make a 
choice of persons to be appointed as " Eeceiver to receive the 
Steward at the two Leets or Lawday Courts ; and one several 
Eeeve for every Hundred to gather the Lord's rents ; and 
Beadles to serve the Lord's Courts, and to gather the amerce- 
ments and customary works, and to make account thereof to 
the Eeeve as hath been accustomed within every Hundred." 2 
The office of Eeeve had to be served in turn by the " bond- 
land" tenants those having houses on their holdings 
according to a rotation known as "the Eecognition of the 
Manor." There were "certain plots of ground in each 
Hundred, the profits of which are appointed to the Eeeves 
for the time being." 3 Two tenants had also to be appointed 
annually as Viewers, and sworn to present any customary 
tenant neglecting to keep his house in repair. 4 

Among the minor Courts of the Hierarchy, we know 

1 Ancient Customs of Taunton Deane, by H. B. Shillibeer, 1821, Appendix, 
p. 9. 

2 Ibid. By 1821 the Bailiff had, it seems (in all the Hundreds except one), 
superseded the Reeve in the collection of the Lord's rents and dues. It is to be 
noted that, between 1781 and 1801, these included six heriots, varying from 
42 to 84 each (ibid. pp. 92-93). 

3 Ibid. p. 114. 

4 Ibid. p. 107. Other officers of the Manor in 1647 were the Constable of 
Taunton Castle, the Bailiff of the Castle, the Clerk of the Castle, and the 
Porter, or Keeper of the Gate of the Castle all, we assume, appointed by the 
Lord or his Steward ; the Woodward and the Overseers or Surveyors of the 
Water-works, Wears, and Banks, of whom we know nothing (ibid. Appendix). 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 43 

nothing of the two Lawdays per annum and the " Three 
Weeks' Courts," which the Clerk of the Castle is said to have 
held for the Liberty of the Precinct of the Castle, nor of the 
" Outfitting Courts," of which we have a bare mention. But 
in the Borough of Taunton the Clerk of the Castle held not 
only a " Borough Court " every fortnight, presumably for petty 
debt business, but also two " Lawday Courts " annually, at 
which were chosen, right down to Victorian times, the two 
Portreeves, who collected the Lord's quit-rents in the Borough 
and enjoyed the privilege of letting for their own profit the 
standings in the market-place; 1 two Bailiffs, who seem to 
have been 2 the chief executive officers of what had become a 
flourishing market centre ; together with two Constables, six 
Tithingmen, and one or more Ale-tasters. The two Constables 
did much of the administrative work of the town under the 
Bailiffs : billeting soldiers, managing the almshouses, and dis- 
tributing various dole charities. In return they enjoyed the 
patronage, presided at an annual " Constables' Feast," kept the 
profits of the market scales, and succeeded to the more 
lucrative office of Portreeve. 8 But the real rulers were the 
Bailiffs, who had, by the end of the eighteenth century, made 
themselves virtually permanent, and, after 1792, were recognised 
by Parliament as the returning officers for the Borough. " The 
Jury year after year empanelled are," we are told in 1821, 
" called the Packed Jury. . . . One of the Bailiffs . . . did 
publicly assert that the Bailiffs going out of office always took 
care to assemble such persons as jurors as would return the 
nominees of themselves. ... It is notorious that some years 
ago a Jury was summoned, and it being rumoured that they 
meant to alter the succession of Bailiffs, they were immedi- 
ately dismissed, and another Jury empanelled. . . . For a 
succession of years four individuals only have filled the office 
of Bailiffs, two of them taking the same in alternate years." 4 
This Court of the Borough of Taunton had in fact attained to 
a measure of autonomy, the Jury electing the Bailiffs and the 

1 History of Taunton, by Joshua Toulmin, 1821, p. 277. 

2 Before 1627 and after 1792 the interval having been filled by a Chartered 
Municipal Corporation. 

3 General Account of West Somerset, by Edward Jeboult, 1873, Part III., 
Taunton, pp. 24-26. 

* Ancient Customs of Taunton Deane, by H. B. Shillibeer, 1821. p. 130. 



44 THE COURT IN RUINS 






Bailiff selecting the Jury, without the interference of the Lord's 
Steward. It had, moreover, developed a certain amount of 
administrative structure. As such it falls into our class of 
Manorial Boroughs, to be dealt with in a subsequent chapter. 
We mention it here merely to complete our survey of the 
Hierarchy of Courts. 

Hierarchies of Courts were, of course, not confined to the 
South and West of England. In Northumberland, for 
instance, there continued to be held, down to the middle of 
the nineteenth century, a whole array of Courts on the wide 
domains of the Duke of Northumberland. 1 

1 We were unable to examine the MS. records of these Courts, but there 
seem to have been () Great Courts of the Baronies of Alnwick, Tindale, and 
perhaps Prudhoe ; (6) Halmote Courts or Courts Baron for particular Manors, 
of which fifteen were still being held in 1839, for petty debt cases, aud possibly 
other business ; and (c) a Court for the Manor of the Borough of Alnwick, 
nominally every three weeks, but actually only half-yearly, at which Burgesses 
or Freemen were admitted, nuisances presented, Bylaws made, offenders amerced, 
copyhold properties transferred, and the Borough officers formally appointed and 
sworn. With the struggle of this Borough Court for autonomy we shall deal 
later, when we describe the Manorial Borough of Alnwick. It would be interest- 
ing to discover what exactly were the functions and the relations of the highest 
members of these Northumberland Hierarchies. For instance, we hear of a 
"Knight's Court," or "curia militaris," held at Alnwick Castle, nominally 
attended by the great freehold tenants, and exercising jurisdiction over the 
entire barony of Alnwick. Such Courts, though apparently disused between 
1741 and 1791, were being held in the latter part of the seventeenth and the 
beginning of the eighteenth centuries ; dealing, we infer, primarily with 
successions and admissions, disputes between free tenants of different Manors, 
encroachments of one Manor on another, and defaults not duly presented in 
the inferior Courts. At the Knight's Coiirt held in 1707, for instance, "the 
tenants of Chillingham, Fawdon, and Swinhoe were amerced 20d. each township, 
who owe service to His Grace for watching the Fair according to ancient custom," 
for their default in not sending in the men whom they had to furnish to guard 
the Borough of Alnwick at the great Alnwick Fair. Latterly, at any rate, the 
"Knight's Court" appointed Constables for various Manors, for which Courts 
were not held, and dealt with many minor offences and defaults throughout a 
wide district. The Court of the Barony of Tindale, on the other hand, held at 
Wark, seems to have survived down to 1846 as a petty debt Court, meeting three 
times a year, and resorted to only in cases in which the defendants did not 
reside within the jurisdiction of any subordinate Courts (MS. Records of the 
Corporation of Alnwick, 1594-1835; Feudal and Military Antiquities of 
Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, by Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, 1858 (being 
vol. ii. of "Memoirs of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain, etc.," for 
1852) ; History of Alnwick, by George Tate, 1869 ; History of Northumberland, 
vol. i., by E. Batcson ; Fifth Report of Royal Commission on Courts of Law, 
1833, pp. 170-171 ; House of Commons Returns of Hundred Courts, 1839, and 
of Courts of Request, 1840). 

We do not even know whether the Alnwick "Knight's Court " is to be 
identified with the Capital Court of the Barony, stated in 1483 to be held every 
twenty days, harvest excepted. The term "Knight's Court " (curia militaris) 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 45 

In the "Liberty of the Hundred of Macclesfield," in 
Cheshire, where the Earl of Derby held sway, we find an 
intricate series of jurisdictions within jurisdictions. There 
was the Court for the Hundred of Macclesfield, held annually 
as the " Court of Great Leet " and monthly as a Court Baron 
or " Court of Trials," exercising authority over the whole of 
the Liberty of the Hundred. The records of its annual Leet 
sessions show it appointing Constables for those townships 
which had no Courts of their own, and receiving presentments 
from these Constables as well as from its own " Grand Jury," 
relating to offences throughout the Hundred outside the 
Forest and the Borough of Macclesfield selling ale without 
licence, various public-house disorders, breaking the Assize of 
Bread, failure to repair pavement, " keeping two mongrel curs 
unmuzzled," breaking the peace and making an affray, en- 
croachments on the waste, " keeping a gun," and " keeping 
a brace of greyhounds and killing a hare in Birtles ; is a 
great killer and destroyer of hares," adds the Constable. 

At its nominally monthly sessions, or " Court of Trials " 
which gradually came to be only two or three times a 
year the same Steward presided with the same Officers, but 
an entirely different Jury was empanelled, the " Jury for 
Trials," by which pleas of debt and trespass to an unlimited 
amount were dealt with. Meanwhile the Forest of Maccles- 
field, comprising part of the Hundred nine of the townships 
being, in fact, partly in the Forest and partly outside it had 
its own Courts. We do not know whether a Swainmote was 
held later than that of 1616, of which we have seen the 
records, but throughout the eighteenth century and down to 

is unusual, but not unknown elsewhere. In the Honour of Forncett in Norfolk, 
comprising several Manors having their own Courts, there was held, in the 
fifteenth century, an Honour Court or "Knight's Court" (The Economic 
Development of a Norfolk Manor, 1086-1565, by F. G. Davenport, 1906, 
Appendix I.). In the Isle of Wight, right down to the middle of the nineteenth 
century, there continued to be held the " Knighton Court or Knight's Court," 
by the Steward of the Governor of the Island, in the Town Hall of Newport, 
every three weeks. Its functions became restricted to petty debt suits, in 
which it exercised jurisdiction over the whole island except the Borough of 
Newport. After the end of the eighteenth century even this function became 
disused, and the Court continued in form only (House of Commons Return 
of Courts of Request, 1840, pp. 46-47). The Archbishop of York held a 
"curia militaris " for the Liberty of Ripon from, at any rate, the fourteenth 
right down to the nineteenth oentury, In 1840 it was a Court for civil actions, 
unlimited in amount (ibid. pp. 174-175). 



46 THE COURT IN RUINS 

the middle of the nineteenth we find a "Halmote Court," 
called subsequently " Court of Kecord for the Manor and 
Forest of Macclesfield," held by the same Steward as the 
Hundred Court, and eventually on the same day as the latter. 
At the six-monthly meetings of this Court for the Manor and 
Forest it acted also as a Court Leet, appointing Constables 
for the several townships in the Forest. At the other sittings 
of the Court conveyances of copyholds were made and an 
extensive business was done in the trial of civil actions, 
without limit of amount. Finally, there were also held, at 
least in the sixteenth century, two separate Courts for the 
Borough of Macclesfield, both using the Town Hall one the 
" Portmote," or " Great Leet of the Borough," by Lord Derby's 
Deputy Steward, which seems to have dealt with the usual 
nuisances and affrays, false weights and measures, the regula- 
tion of the common, and the trial of civil actions ; and the 
other "the Mayor's Court," held by the Mayor of the Borough, 
apparently for the trial of civil actions in which both parties 
were Burgesses. How exactly these several Courts had 
come into existence, and what was the precise demarcation 
among them all, we have been unable to ascertain. What is 
interesting is that all the resiants of the Hundred, including 
those in the Manor of the Forest and those in the Borough, 
owed suit and service to the Hundred Court; while all 
those in the Borough, including the Mayor and Corporation, 
owed suit and service also to Lord Derby's Portmote. A 
dispute between the Earl of Derby and the Borough in 1569, 
as to the relations of the two competing Borough Courts, led 
to an award by two judges attempting to define their several 
spheres, and giving separate keys of the Town Hall to the 
Mayor and the Steward respectively. We gather that Lord 
Derby's "Portmote," or "Town Leet," was discontinued 
sometime in the seventeenth century, leaving the Mayor's 
Court in possession of the field. This continued, as the 
"Borough Court," to try personal actions without limit of 
amount. Meanwhile the ordinary business of a Court Leet, 
formerly done by Lord Derby's Portmote, was apparently 
silently absorbed by the Mayor, ex-Mayor, and two Aldermen, 
sitting as Justices for the Borough. A Charter of Charles II. 
had made them Justices, and given power to hold general 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 47 

Sessions of the Peace, but not to try felonies. This amounted 
to little, if any, more jurisdiction than had been possessed by 
the Portmote; and what we have, in fact, is a Court Leet 
passing insensibly into what was called a Court of Quarter 
Sessions. Thus in 1761-1762 we see the Borough Justices 
in what they called Quarter Sessions appointing the Burley- 
men, the Fish and Flesh Wardens, the Moss Lookers of 
Densmoss (a part of the Borough Common), the Searchers 
and Sealers of Leather, a Scavenger, a Pig-catcher, a Beadle, 
and the two Common Lookers ; and dealing indiscriminately 
with assaults and affrays, trespasses on the Common, wrongful 
enclosures of the waste of the Borough, false weights and 
measures, and exposing unwholesome meat for sale. 1 

How far this hierarchical organisation of the Lord's Court 
still existed in 1689, and how quickly the surviving remnants 
disintegrated, we have been unable to ascertain. From the 
scanty records that we have been able to consult, we infer 
that it continued over large parts of England during the 
eighteenth century, but everywhere becoming more formal 
than real, and everywhere falling rapidly into decay. 2 

1 MS. Records, Macclesfield Hundred Court, 1688-1835 ; MS. Court Books 
of ditto, 1698-1808 ; MS. Records, Court Leet and Halmote Court of Maccles- 
field Manor and Forest, 1684-1835 ; MS. Award of 1569 ; MS. Records, 
Macclesfield Portmote, 1591 ; MS. Records, Macclesfield Borough Court, 1761 ; 
MS. Quarter Sessions Rolls, 1761-1762 (all in Lord Derby's Macclesfield Estate 
Office) ; House of Commons Returns of Petty Debt Courts, Hundred Courts, and 
Courts of Request, 1828, 1839, and 1840 ; Fifth Report of Royal Commission 
on Courts of Law, 1833, p. 35a ; 'Report on Certain Boroughs, by J. T. Hogg, 
1838, pp. 51-74 ; History of Macclesfield, by John Corry, 1817 ; Maclesfelde in 
ye Olden Time, by Isaac Finney, 1873 ; Contributions towards a History of 
. . . Prestbury, by F. Renaud (Chetham Society, 1876) ; Host Cheshire, by J. P. 
Earwaker, 1880, vol. ii. pp. 459-525 ; History of the County Palatine of Chester, 
by Geo. Ormerod, 2nd edition, 1882, vol. iii. pp. 739-757. 

2 We catch glimpses of a similar Hierarchy of Courts in the great episcopal 
domains in various dioceses. The Hundred Court of Farnham, in Surrey, for 
instance, still held, but shrunken to the mere copyhold business of Farnham 
itself, apparently once had jurisdiction over a wide stretch of the Bishop of 
Winchester's domains (see Collections of Records and Documents relating to the 
Hundred and Manor of Crondal, by F. J. Baigent, Hampshire Record Society, 
1891 ; The Manor of Manydown, Hampshire, by G. W. Kitchin, 1895 ; Victoria 
County History of Hampshire, vol. ii. 1906, pp. 579-586), including the Manorial 
Boroughs of Farnham and Alresford, the latter to be subsequently described. As 
late as 1718 a " Court of the Bishopric " was held, at which representatives of a 
score of Manors attended (MS. Manor Rolls, Farnham, 1718). We do not know in 
what connection stood the " Cheyney Court," which we find held throughout the 
eighteenth and for the first third of the nineteenth century ; latterly, at least, 
at Winchester, within the cathedral precincts, and exercising jurisdiction 
throughout the Bishop's temporalities, extending to over two hundred towns and 



48 THE COURT IN RUINS 

We suggest that it may possibly be that in the former exist- 
ence of a Hierarchy of Courts we have the explanation of some 
of the quaint instances in which the representation of a small 
hamlet has survived in a comic form. In Dorsetshire, for 
example, we read that " the Tithingman of Combe Keynes is 
obliged to do suit at Winfrith Court ; and after repeating the 

villages. In 1833 its business was confined to hearing petty debt cases (Fifth 
Report of Royal Commission on Courts of Common Law, 1833, p. 88a). 
Similarly, in the diocese of St. Albans, the Manor Rolls of Winslow (Bucking- 
hamshire) in the time of Edward III. show that " in case of a dispute a Court 
was held under the great ash tree at St. Albans, and the decision of this 
superior Manorial Court of headquarters settled the question " (The English 
Village Community, by F. Seebohm, 1883, p. 31). So the Abbot of Gloucester 
in the thirteenth century held a ' ' Libera Curia " for his great freehold tenants, 
whilst each separate Manor had its own Halmote (Select Pleas in Manorial 
Courts, by F. W. Maitland, 1889, p. xix). We may likewise infer a Hierarchy 
of Courts in the great Honour of Clitheroe, of which " the customs of the copy- 
holds " were ' ' ascertained by the Jury of Survey within the forest of Pendle in 
the Manor of Igtenhill, 1666." Throughout the wide extent of the Honour 
there were " Hamlet Courts" twice a year, which we may interpret as Halmote 
Courts. There was also a Court of the Honour, attended by all th'e tenants. The 
Homage or Jury presented a Greave or Bailiff. There was also a Deputy Greave, 
elected in open Court by a majority of the tenants. All "real" plaints were 
to be tried in this Court, by a Jury of twenty-four tenants (The Law of Copy- 
holds, by 0. I. Elton and H. J. H. Mackay, 2nd edition, 1893, Appendix VIII. 
p. 511). There was, moreover, within the Honour at least one Manorial Borough, 
that of Clitheroe, where a ' ' Court of Record " sat weekly under a Recorder 
(House of Commons Return of Courts of Request, 1840, pp. 68-69), and inde- 
pendent administrative structure had been developed, to which we subsequently 
refer (pp. 156, 205). Another instance of a Hierarchy of Courts, with subordin- 
ate Manors and Boroughs of various degrees of independence, is presented by a 
Welsh Lordship typical, we suspect, of other Welsh jurisdictions. The Manor 
paramount of Cantref Moelynaidd comprehends four Hundreds of Radnorshire 
and twelve mesne Manors. The Boroughs of Knighton, Cnwelas, New Radnor, 
and Rhayader, together with the obsolete Boroughs of Pain's Castle and 
Presteign, are also included in it. The Manor paramount continued, through- 
out the eighteenth century, and indeed through most of the nineteenth, to exercise 
jurisdiction over them all, except the Borough of New Radnor. The Steward 
held a Court Baron for the whole lordship every three weeks, the business of 
which had become confined to petty debt cases, for which a Jury of six men 
was summoned when required. Courts Leet were also held within the mesno 
Manors, and also (at least in the Bailiwick of Gladestry and Colfa) a Court 
Baron monthly for small debts. Within the Boroughs, the Steward of the 
Lordship also held Courts Leet, at which Juries of Burgesses nominated new 
Burgesses, who were admitted and sworn and thereby became entitled to the 
Parliamentary franchise for these Boroughs. The two ancient Boroughs of 
Pain's Castle and Presteign either lost, or had never possessed, such Courts, and 
the House of Commons disallowed in 1690 the claims of their Burgesses to vote. 
The Borough of New Radnor (p. 236), on the other hand, had become largely in- 
dependent of the Hierarchy, getting a Royal Charter establishing a close Cor- 
poration, and holding its own Courts (History of Radnorshire, by Rev. J. Williams, 
in Archceologia Cambrensis, 3rd ser. vols. iii. p. 26, andiv. p. 1, 1857-58 ; First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. pp. 357-362), 



THE HIERARCHY OF COURTS 49 

following incoherent lines, pays threepence and goes out with- 
out saying another word : 

" With my white rod, 
And I am a fourth post, 
That threepence makes three, 
God bless the King, and the Lord of the Franchise, 
Our Weights and Measures are lawful and true, 
Good-morrow, Mr. Steward, I have no more to say to you. 

" On default of any of these particulars the Court Leet 
of Combe is forfeited." * It does not appear to be an 
unwarranted inference that the Tithing of Combe Keynes, 
though possibly having a minor Court of its own, had not 
been granted the privilege of standardising its own weights 
and measures, and had to do suit at the superior Court at 
Winfrith by four men, of whom the Tithingman was the leader, 
and eventually the proxy for the others, paying a penny each 
for their absence. The attendance of the Tithingmen of the 
whole Hundred was (as we have seen at Taunton) usual at 
the Hundred Court. " If there be more than one Tithingman, 
as always is in the Hundred Court," says a widely circulated 
manual, "swear them all in like manner, and receive from 
them the Common Fine or King's Silver. Then take from 
them their resiant rolls or lists of their tithings ; call them 
over and mark them that answer thus, ' appears.' " 2 The 
attendance even of the Tithingman might be dispensed with, his 
staff or rod of office being sent to represent him. Thus in 
the Hundred of Twyford, in Kent, " there was," we read, " till 
of late years a singular though a very ancient custom kept up 
of electing a Deputy to the Dumb Borsholder of Chart, as it 

1 History and Antiquities of Dorset, by John Hutchins, 1774, vol. i. p. 127 ; 
Ancient Customs of Taunton Deane, by H. B. Shillibeer, 1821. Can "post" bo 
derived from " prepositus, " the word used for Reeve ? 

2 TJie Complete Courtkeeper, or Land Steward's Assistant, by Giles Jacob, 1st 
edition, 1713 ; 8th, 1819, p. 30. We may catch a glimpse in 1774 of such 
attendance of the Tithingman at the Court of the Hundred at Whitchurch in 
Dorsetshire, comprising nineteen tithings. At the Court of this Hundred the 
residents in all the tithings were supposed to attend, and (as in the Hundred 
of Berkeley) to serve on its Juries. Two Constables were regularly appointed 
for the Hundred. But subordinate Courts were also held in some, at any 
rate, of the Manors within the Hundred, at which Petty Constables for these 
Manors (or apparently for the tithings) were appointed. Only in twelve out of 
the nineteen tithings did the Hundred Court appoint the Petty Constable (R. 
v. Genge, in Reports of Cases, etc., by Henry Cowper, 1783, pp. 13-17). 

VOL, II. PT. I E 



5 o THE COURT IN RUINS 

was called, claiming liberty over fifteen houses in the precinct 
of Pizeinwell, every householder of which was formerly 
obliged to pay the keeper of this Borsholder one penny yearly. 
This Dumb Borsholder was always first called at the Court 
Leet holden for the Hundred of Twyford, when its keeper, 
who was yearly appointed by that Court, held it up to his 
call, with a neckcloth or handkerchief put through the iron 
ring fixed at the top, and answered for it. This Borsholder 
of Chart, and the Court Leet, has been discontinued about 
fifty years, and the Borsholder who is put in by the Quarter 
Sessions for Wateringbury claims over the whole parish. This 
Dumb Borsholder is made of wood, about three feet and half an 
inch long, with an iron ring at the top, and four more by the 
sides near the bottom, where it has a square iron spike fixed, 
four inches and a half long, to fix it in the ground, or on 
occasion to break open doors, etc., which used to be done " it 
is said down to 1748 " without a Warrant of any Justice on 
suspicion of goods having been unlawfully come by and con- 
cealed in any of these fifteen houses." l 



The Hierarchy of Courts that we find so well preserved in 
the Vale of Berkeley and at Taunton Deane, and less perfectly 
elsewhere, throws, we think, some light on the nature and 
origin of the various other Courts, up and down the country, 
that we find existing under the name of Hundred Courts, 
without any apparent connection with separate Courts of 
minor jurisdiction. When, in the fourteenth century, the 
Hundred Courts were merged in the County Courts of the 
Sheriffs if that is what happened those Hundred Courts 
which had already passed, as valuable Franchises, into 
private hands were not affected. 2 Not infrequently, therefore, 
these continued to be held, and it may be that they went on 
without intermission into the eighteenth century ; sometimes 

1 History and Survey of Kent, by Edward Hasted, 1797, vol. v. p. 107 ; 
Observations on Popular Antiquities, by John Brand, vol. i. p. 132 of 1841 
edition; Kent's Capital, 1906. So, too, we read that, in Essex, "Lambourn 
Manor was held by service of the Ward Staff" (i.e. the Constable's or Watch- 
man's staff), which was carried into Court with quaint ceremonies (Ancient 
Manorial Customs in the County of Essex, by R. S. Charnock, 1870, pp. 17-22). 

2 Lex Maneriorum, by W. Nelson, 1728, p. 190. 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 51 

held, as of old, like that of Fawsley, " beneath the spreading 
branches of an enormous beech tree." l We are inclined to 
doubt, however, whether the few specimens of which we have 
particulars are all of the same species. In some cases the 
surviving Hundred Court appears simply to have outlived 
the Hierarchy, whilst often itself combining with the Court of 
its principal Manor. In other cases we may suspect that the 
term Hundred Court never has denoted the superior member 
of any Hierarchy of Courts, and that it represents much the 
same jurisdiction as was elsewhere exercised by the ordinary 
Manor Courts. In rare instances, again, a so-called Hundred 
Court is found among the various Courts held by Municipal 
Corporations in and for their Boroughs, with no wider juris- 
diction than a Borough Court. 2 As such it will fall to be 
described in subsequent chapters. 

What appears to be a common feature of the so-called 
Hundred Courts between 1689 and 1835 is their extreme 
attenuation of function. The majority of those that survived 
into the eighteenth century seem to have been little more 
than Courts for the trial of petty civil actions for debt and 
damages, and, as such, hardly come within the scope of Local 
Government as we have defined it. Other Hundred Courts, 
whilst retaining traces of the Court Baron side, appear 

1 This Hundred Court was thus held in Fawsley Park until the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, when it was removed to Everdon (History and 
Antiquities of Northamptonshire, by George Baker, 1822,- vol. i. p. 238; 
Victoria Couiity History of Northamptonshire, vol. i. 1902, p. 298). 

2 Such was the Colchester "Hundred and Foreign Court." Such, too, 
was the " Hundred Court " of Kid welly, in Carmarthenshire ; and such were those 
in the Cinque Ports (p. 378). 

Less clear is the case of the Hundred Court of Gloucester, which continued, 
as its Minutes show, to be nominally held by adjournment weekly before the 
Mayor and the two Sheriffs of the City. What it did is not apparent, as the 
Minutes contain, after 1680, little more than a perpetual repetition of the 
names of the suitors, who were the owners of certain estates in Gloucestershire 
and Herefordshire, the jurisdiction over which had, somehow or another, come 
to belong to the Corporation of Gloucester. It swore in Constables (infra, p. 341). 
During the whole period there was held also the Court Leet of the City of 
Gloucester half-yearly, before the Steward of the two Sheriffs, the MS. Minutes 
of which, between 1784 and 1819, show it to be making presentments of the 
usual kind. Whether the "Hundred Court" of Gloucester was merely held 
by the Corporation by right of its ownership of a Hundred, just as the Corpora- 
tion of the City of London held the Bailiwick of Southwark ; or whether, as 
Mr. Adolphus Ballard has suggested, it was a Court of the owners of those 
lands within the County which had to maintain the city wall, we must leave 
for antiquarian research. 



52 THE COURT IN RUINS 

chiefly as emasculated Courts Leet, appointing Constables and 
occasionally presenting nuisances. Our general impression 
is that these isolated Hundred Courts had once been un- 
differentiated Courts, dealing with all sorts of business 
indifferently, at one and the same Court, by one set of 
officers ; 1 and that the appearance of specialisation has 
resulted from the unevenness of the decay into which their 
various functions were falling. Pending further study of 
the records of the various Hundred Courts from the fourteenth 
to the nineteenth century, we can do no more than set forth 
such particulars as we have been able to glean of those which 
existed after 1689. 

A remarkable case of survival of an ancient Hundred 
Court, detached from the Manor Courts within the Hundred, 
is that of Salford, 2 in Lancashire, where we find the Steward 
of the Earl of Sefton, throughout the eighteenth, and down 
even to the middle of the nineteenth century, continuing to 
hold " the Court Leet, View of Frankpledge, and Court of 
Eecord of our Sovereign Lord the King for his Hundred or 
Wapentake of Salford." This Court evidently represented 
an ancient tribunal of which the jurisdiction extended nomin- 
ally to the whole of the modern Hundred of Salford perhaps 

1 Thus we are told that the "Hundred Court of Perveth" in Cardiganshire 
seems to have been held as a " Court Leet and Law Day " twice a year, and as 
a ' ' Court Baron " fortnightly ; it maintained the stocks and regulated the 
common, dealt with presentments and heard civil actions, and appointed both 
Constable and Reeve (prepositus or "major") see Treatise on Copyholds by 
C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, p. 503. 

2 The archives of Salford, long neglected, scattered, and destroyed, are only 
now being collected and studied. Some records of the Lord's Court from 1597 
to 1669 apparently the active Court of the Seignorial Borough, comparable 
with that of Berkeley or Wotton have lately been published (The Portmote, 
or Court Leet, Records of tJie Borough or Town and Royal Manor of Salford, 
by J. G. de T. Mandley ; Chetham Society, vols. xlvi. and xlvii., 1902). Stray 
records of Salford Courts exist, both of earlier arid of later date, some being 
preserved among the archives of the modern Salford Hundred Court of Record 
in Manchester, while those from 1828 to 1867 are in a thick, leather-bound 
volume now in the Salford Public Library. See also the particulars in House 
of Commons Return of Courts of Request, 1840 ; and Fifth Report of Royal 
Commission on Courts of Common Law, 1833 ; and the occasional reports in 
the newspapers, especially Manchester Guardian, 4th May 1833, 8th October 
1836, 18th October 1837 ; Manchester Chronicle, 4th May 1833 ; Manchester 
Times, 19th December 1835 ; and, on the whole subject, Med'Ueval Manchester 
and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James Tait, 1904, p. 9. The Manchester 
Municipal Code, vol. v., 1899, gives the Acts and Orders in Council, 1868-1893, 
with a short memorandum on the history of the Court (pp. 267-268). 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 53 

to the whole of the ancient " Salfordshire," still described as 
" the King's Manor of the Hundred of Salford," of which the 
Earl of Sefton was not styled Lord but Steward, and which 
included some fifty parishes or townships, among them being 
Oldham, Bolton, Bury, arid Manchester itself. 1 Judging from 
such fragmentary records as have survived, the Court of the 
Hundred of Salford was in fact once as all-embracing as the 
Court of the Hundred of Berkeley, having under it many 
other Courts ; perhaps even the Court of the Barony of 
Manchester itself, with its own subordinate Halimotes or 
Courts Baron of the separate Manors, which we may assume 
to have been un differentiated Courts, or (in the case of Salford 
and Manchester at any rate), like Berkeley or Wotton, the 
Leets or Moots of favoured townships which seignorial Charters 
had made into so-called Boroughs. We shall describe 
presently the vigorous life of the Manchester Court Leet. 
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there had been 
another such Borough Court held at Salford itself, called the 
Portmote, presumably under the charter of the Earl of 
Chester and Lincoln of 1231. At some period between 
1669 and 1828 apparently between 1738 and 1800 
it seems to have coalesced with or been merged in the 
Hundred Court, which presumably had continued to exercise 
a wider jurisdiction. 2 When we are again enabled to take 

1 Eoger the Poitevin retained the township of Salford in demesne when he 
enfeoffed under-tenants for the rest of his estate, a separation which had 
lasting consequences. "A stroke of a Norman baron's pen divorced Manchester 
and Salford in all but their devotions, and what he sundered no one has been 
able to bring together again, though they have long since ceased to be separated 
by green fields sloping down to a trout stream. A stranger who found himself 
in Deansgate, and wanted to know why two types of tram-car were running in 
what seemed to him a single city, would be mightily astonished if we told him 
that this was the doing of a foreign Count of the eleventh century. But so 
it is. It may be doubted whether it occurred to any citizen of Manchester 
resident in Broughton, who, during the recent deadlock between the two 
tramway committees, was turned out of the car at the city boundary, and had 
to walk several hundred yards in the rain to catch a Salford car, to curse the 
memory of Count Roger the Poitevin. He might have done this with some 
justice " (Hediceval Manchester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James 
Tait, 1904, p. 10). 

2 We imagine that in many other cases the Court of the Hundred had 
become combined with that of its principal Manor. Thus, in the Hundred of 
Crewkerne in Somerset, which constituted a single "Lordship," extending over 
seven tithings, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth centuries, there was 
only one Court held, called the Hundred Court and Court Baron. At the 
principal sessions of this Court each year the Lord nominated not only the 



54 THE COURT IN RUINS 

up the story in 1828, it is not the Portmote of the Borough 
but the " Court Leet, View of Frankpledge, and Court of 
Record ... for the Hundred or Wapentake of Salford " 
that is being held in Salford. By this time the Court, so 
far as the area outside Salford Borough was concerned, had 
ceased to stand in any relation whatever to such Manor 
Courts as were still held within its ancient jurisdiction. In 
1833, for instance, the Deputy Steward explained probably 
on the authority of Joseph Eitson's learned book that " the 
business of this Court solely applied to townships which had 
not the benefit of Courts Leet of their own. This being 
the Hundred Court Leet, it was their duty, therefore, to elect 
Constables in such cases . . . and in the event of proper 
persons not being returned by the townships to the Court, 
or where two lists were presented, they must elect such 
persons as would faithfully discharge the duties of the office." ] 
We accordingly find the Salford Hundred Court in 1828 
attended every half-year by the Constables, Deputy Constables, 

Bailiff of the Hundred, but also the Portreeve of the little town of Crewkerue, 
who collected the profits of its fair and market. The suitors of the Court 
elected the Reeve, who was responsible for collecting the quit-rents and fines 
due from the tenants. The other sessions held during the year were known as 
the Three Weeks' Courts, and at these the Tithingmen of the several districts 
were bound to attend, each bringing with them four of their neighbours, who 
were called "four posts," and who had to make presentments (The Book of 
the Art, by G. P. R. Pulman, 4th edition, 1875, pp. 247-250 ; quoting an 
MS. Survey of the Manor in 1599). Possibly a similar case is that of the 
' ' Manor, Hundred, and Borough " of Bradford in Wiltshire, which we see 
holding its "Court Leet, View of Frankpledge, and Court Baron" in 1819, and 
appointing a Constable and an Assistant Constable for the Hundred, together 
with a factotum, who combined in himself "the five offices of Bailiff of the 
Hundred, Assistant Constable of the Hundred, Haywarden, Tithingnian of 
the Old Town and Tithingnian of the New Town of Bradford." It is reported 
to the Home Office that the new and zealous Constable has presented this 
pluralist for making false presentments to the Quarter Sessions, swearing that 
the roads were in good repair when they were not (Home Office Domestic State 
Papers in Public Record Office, No. 10, 13th April and 1st May 1819, and 
January 1820). 

1 Report of Proceedings of Salford Court Leet, Manchester Chronicle, 4th 
May 1833. This view was upheld by the Court of King's Bench in 1822, 
as against the inhabitants of the Township of Failsworth, who claimed to meet 
annually to elect their own Constable, but failed definitely to allege that they 
did this by prescription. The action of the Salford Court in appointing a 
Constable for this Township was confirmed (R. v. Lane, in Reports of Cases, etc., 
by E. V. Barnewall and E. H. Alderson, 1823, vol. v. pp. 488-489). Ritson 
had said that the Leet of a Hundred had jurisdictioii only over such parts of 
the Hundred as were not within the jurisdiction of the Court Leet of any 
Manor (Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 5). 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 55 

and Assistant Constables of forty out of the fifty townships 
included within the Hundred; and enabling such nuisances 
in these townships as noxious smells and smoke from factories, 
obstructions of the highway, leaving roads unfenced in 
dangerous places, foul ditches, exposing unwholesome food 
for sale, and using false weights or measures to be presented 
and fined. 1 The Court was always held at Salford. We 
gather that the jurymen were chosen from residents of the 
so-called " Borough " of Salford, not, as at Berkeley, from the 
various Manors of the Hundred ; the so-called Burgesses of 
Salford Borough were required to attend under penalty of 
sixpence, and inhabitants of the Borough not being Burgesses, 
under penalty of threepence ; new Burgesses had to be sworn 
in ; and it is evident that the principal business of the Court 
related to that Borough, for which, besides the officers of 
the Hundred, it appointed annually a Boroughreeve, two 
Constables, a Dog -muzzier, an Ale -taster, By law -men and 
Inspectors of Flesh and Fish. The Hundred Court seems, 
in fact, to Lave been the only active "police and sanitary 
authority " which the township of Salford enjoyed, until the 
rise, early in the nineteenth century, of a democratic Open 
Vestry, and the advent, in 1829, of a statutory body of Police 
or Street Commissioners ; and the fact that this Court 
appointed the Boroughreeve, gave it complete authority in 
what had already become a crowded and insanitary factory 
town. 

Meanwhile there was being continuously held at Salford 
another series of Courts, from three weeks to three weeks, also 

1 See, for instance, MS. Minutes, Salford Hundred Court Leet, 9th April 
1828. We add two examples as typical: "The jurors of our Lord the King 
upon their oaths present that at Aucoats Bridge within Ardwick in the said 
Hundred of Salford ... is a manufactory for making sal ammoniac next to 
the King's common highway there leading from Manchester to Ashton . . . 
which emits great quantities of noisome and noxious fumes and vapours to the 
great nuisance of all the King's subjects passing and travelling there, by the 
default of Ebenezer Breillatt. . . . Therefore he is in mercy. . . . And they 
amerce him in five shillings, and he is commanded to abate the same within 
two months under the pain of one hundred pounds" (ibid. 9th April 1828). 
In 1833 the Deputy Constable of Pendleton said he had been requested by the 
respectable inhabitants of that township to present a number of owners and 
occupiers of property abutting "the Black ditch . . . full to overflowing of 
refuse of dyehouses . . . causing an intolerable stench . . . the most intoler- 
able nuisance in the neighbourhood." The Jury thereupon presented the 
offenders (ibid. April 1833). 



56 THE COURT IN RUINS 

purporting to be those of the Court of the Salford Hundred or 
Wapentake. Every third Thursday one or other of the three 
Deputy Stewards, whom the Earl of Sefton had appointed for 
this special purpose, 1 held his Court for the trial of actions for 
debt or damages under forty shillings within the wide limits of 
the Hundred. Over a thousand such actions a year were being 
dealt with by this Court in 1835, 2 notwithstanding the con- 
current existence as petty debt tribunals of the Court Baron of 
Manchester and of statutory Courts of Requests in and for 
Manchester, Oldham, Bury, and Rochdale. 3 

Amid the political agitation of 1829-32, the Radicals began 
to chafe against the " self-elect " constitution of the Salford 
Hundred Court, by which they meant exclusively the half-yearly 
sessions for the appointment of Borough officers. They recalled 
the fact that the Earl of Sefton, as a Whig peer, had supported 
the Reform Bill ; and some of them urged him to be true to 
his faith in representative government, and to cause his Deputy 
Steward to leave off packing the Jury with Tories. Lord 
Sefton fell in with this view, and from 1835 onward the jury- 

1 In 1835, at any rate, and for many years previously, these Deputy Stewards 
were the members of one of the leading firms of solicitors at Manchester, and 
quite distinct from the Deputy Steward, a barrister, whom the Earl appointed to 
hold the half-yearly Courts. 

2 House of Commons Return of Courts of Request, 1840 ; Fifth Report of 
Royal Commision on Courts of Common Law, 1833, pp. 26a, 53a, 61a, 78<z, 108a, 
132a, 16, 106. 

3 Somewhat akin to the position of the Salford Hundred Court was apparently 
that of Bradford at Wellington in Shropshire. This Court, held by the Duke of 
Cleveland under Royal Letters Patent of 1672, had once exercised full jurisdiction 
over the whole Hundred. By the nineteenth century, however, it had come to 
exercise what we may call Leet jurisdiction, and to appoint Constables only for 
those Manors within the Hundred which no longer held Courts of their own. It 
continued, however, to sit fortnightly for the preliminary stages of civil actions, 
and twice a year for the trial of causes arising anywhere within the Hundred. 
At the two general Courts (one of them being utilised for the appointment of 
Constables, etc.) it is said that the Constables of the Hundred had to attend 
(Fifth Report of Royal Commission on Courts of Common Law, 1833, pp. 106ff, 
167ffl, 168a ; House of Commons Return of Hundred Courts, 1839, p. 5 ; and of 
Courts of Request, 1840, pp. 132-133). Here, too, we may mention the Courtof 
the Hundred of Whitchurch (Dorset), which did not try civil suits, but appointed 
two Constables for the Hundred and Tithingmen for such of the nineteen Tithings 
within the Hundred as did not have Courts of their own. When a resident in 
one of the Tithings for which a Manor Court was held had been appointed 
Constable for the Hundred by the Hundred Court, he appealed to the Court of 
King's Bench for exemption, on the plea that the Hundred Court had no right to 
appoint a resident "within a private Leet." But he was held liable to serve the 
Hundred (R. i>. Genge, 1774, in reports of Cases, etc., by Henry Cowper, 1783, 
pp. 13-17> 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 57 

men at the half-yearly meetings were taken by lot from a list of 
the five hundred highest rated inhabitants. 1 At the same time 
it became taken for granted that this Jury should accept, for 
the offices of Boroughreeve and Constables, the nominations 
made by the open Vestry Meeting. 2 Under these circumstances 
there seems to have been no popular objection to the continu- 
ance of the formal participation of the Hundred Court in the 
Local Government of the Borough, and its half-yearly sessions 
accordingly went on being formally held, and its annual appoint- 
ments of Boroughreeve and other officers being made, down to 
1867. No objection seems ever to have been made to the 
three-weekly trial of civil actions, under which form, by virtue 
of successive Acts of Parliament, and with only the slightest 
change of name, the ancient Court of the Wapentake or Hundred 
of Salford survives to this day. 3 

On the South Coast of England we find, right down to 
1855, at Brighton, in Sussex, the Court of the Hundred of 
Whalesbone, or more properly, Wellesbourne. This was de- 
scribed as " the Leet or Lawday and View of Frankpledge," 
not for any one Manor but for the whole of the Hundred, the 

1 The reformer who secured this change was one J. S. Ormerod, who was pre- 
sented with a gold snuff-box by his admirers. His reply contains the following 
passages, which we give as specimens of the feeling that prevailed. ' ' When I 
first thought of making an effort to prevent the Borough of Salford . . . from 
being ruled and governed in its Municipal constitution by men who had nothing 
to recommend them but superstition and bigoted Toryism ; when I found also 
that these men were chosen by a class of individuals who were self-elected from 
men possessing precisely the same politics as themselves ; when I found that 
these men were so ignorant as to boast of having been upon that Jury thirty 
years, some for more than twenty, others for twenty " he determined to 
approach Lord Sefton, who made inquiry and directed his Deputy Steward to 
adopt a new plan (Manchester Times, 19th December 1835). 

2 See, for instance, Manchester Guardian, 8th October 1836. 

3 In 1846 its jurisdiction was preserved and enlarged, so as to enable it to 
deal with actions up to 50, by 9 and 10 Victoria, c. 126. In 1868 it was 
amalgamated with the Court of Record held by the Manchester Corporation 
under its Charter of 1838 and 17 and 18 Victoria, c. 84, and given the new 
title of the Salford Hundred Court of Record (31 and 32 Victoria, c. 130). 
The Earl of Sefton was thereby continued as High Steward, with a right to 
receive one-third of the fees arising from such cases as would have been within 
the jurisdiction of the old Salford Court, less a proportion of the expenses, but 
in no case to amount to less than two hundred guineas a year (sec. 35). The 
Boroughs of Oldham, Boltou, Heywood, and Rochdale successively got them- 
selves exempted from the jurisdiction of the Salford Hundred Court, in all 
matters in which the modern County Court has cognizance (Orders in Council 
of 30th December 1878, 16th August 1886, and 15th March 1893, and the 
Oldham Corporation Act 1886, 49 and 50 Victoria, c. 117). 



$8 THE COURT IN RUINS 

Lord or Steward of the Hundred being the Earl of Aber- 
gavenny. The Hundred of Whalesbone comprised the parish 
of Brighthelmston (now Brighton) with the " Boroughs " or 
hamlets of Preston and Patcham a much smaller area than 
the Hundred of Berkeley. Within the Hundred there were, 
however, a number of reputed Manors and parcels of Manors, 
inextricably confused by partitions and alienations. Bright- 
helmston itself, in the days when its importance lay in its 
fishing, had had an important Manor Court of its own, of which 
the " ancient customs " had been of sufficient consequence to 
be investigated by a special Royal Commission of 1580. 1 
What Lord's Courts were held in the eighteenth century within 
the Hundred, and exactly for what purposes, we have been 
unable to ascertain. 2 But the Hundred Court continued 
vigorously to exist, though, as we gather, principally, if not 
entirely, for the purpose of appointing annually at Easter the 
various officers of the Hundred : the High Constable, twelve 
Headboroughs or Assistant Constables, 3 an Aleconner, and a 
Searcher and Sealer of Leather. It had apparently only one 
Jury, summoned by the Deputy Steward. It seems not to 
have dealt with actions for debt or damages. Of the history 
of this ancient jurisdiction during the eighteenth century we 
know nothing. We find it after the Parliamentary election of 
1825 coming into sharp conflict with the Vestry, which refused 
to pass the High Constable's accounts. The items objected to 
related to the swearing in of special constables " during the late 
county election," and the payments to private persons for 
apprehending suspected criminals and vagrants. 4 These items 
appeared, in accordance with the provisions of 18 George III. 
c, 19 (1779), in the Overseers' accounts, and as it had never 
become quite clear whether the consent of the Vestry was 
necessary to their validity, the County Magistrates did not 
scruple to pass the Overseers' accounts containing the items 

1 History of Brighthelmston, by J. A. Erredge, 1862 ; Compendious History 
of Sussex, by M. A. Lower, 1870, vol. i. pp. 77-84 ; Sussex Archaeological 
Collections, vol. ii. p. 38. We recur to this in the following chapter (p. 173). 

2 There is evidence that Manorial Courts were held for property business ; 
see, for instance, the reference to the surrender of certain tenements by the 
Churchwardens of Brighthelmston " at a General Court Baron for the Manor of 
Allingworth" (MS. Vestry Minutes, Brighton, 3rd February 1806). 

3 Brighton Herald, 9th April 1825. 

4 Ibid. 17th September 1825 and 29th July 1826. 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 59 

objected to. 1 The friction between the Vestry and the Hundred 
Court continued ; and in 1828 the Vestry sent an elaborate 
memorial to the Earl of Abergavenny, as " the Lord of the Leet 
of the Hundred of Whalesbone," protesting against " the great, 
notorious, and crying abuse," that the outgoing High Constable 
packed the Jury summoned to elect his successor, and " the 
choice has consequently not been congenial to the wishes 
of the inhabitants." 2 It appears that the same little set 
of the Vicar, the County Justices resident in the town, and 
other Tory magnates had appeared as jurymen year after year, 
the Vicar acting always as Foreman. In answer to this 
memorial the Steward addressed to the Vestry a long and able 
description of the procedure of the Hundred Court. In future, 
he adds, " I shall require the High Constable to return to me 
... a list of at least fifty of the most respectable inhabitants 
. . . and I shall advise that such list be made known to the 
public. . . . From this list I shall select by ballot 2 3 to form a 
Jury. ... If any reasonable and fair objection shall be stated 
in Court ... to any gentleman so summoned ... I shall not 
hesitate to dispense with the attendance of that juryman." 3 
The result was that within a short time the Vestry and the 
High Constable became on excellent terms, 4 and the Hundred 
Court continued to be held for nearly another generation. 5 

1 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Sussex, 20th October 1825. Such a case 
had then recently occurred at the Cheshire Quarter Sessions, where the 
Constable of Ashton-under-Lyne had laid his accounts before the Vestry, and 
had an item disallowed (the expense of prosecuting a Dissenting Minister for 
preaching in the streets) ; two Justices had nevertheless allowed the Overseers' 
Accounts including this item. One out of the eight Overseers appealed to 
Quarter Sessions, which confirmed the allowance. The Court of King's Bench 
dismissed an appeal on the ground that it was not promoted by a majority of 
the Overseers, without, therefore, deciding that the action of the Justices had 
been wrong (R. v. Justices of Lancashire, in Reports of Cases, etc., by E. V. 
Bamewall and E. H. Alderson, 1823, vol. v. pp. 755-758). 

2 Brighton Herald, 2nd February 1828. 

3 MS. Vestry Minutes, Brighton, 25th January and 22nd February 1828. 
* Ibid. 20th January 1831. 

6 For the so-called Hundreds of Sussex and Kent, and their relations to the 
"Rapes "or " Lathes " of these Counties, see " The Hundred of Eastbourne and 
its Six Boroughs," by Rev. William Hudson, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 
vol. xlii. p. 189, 1899, and "Liberties and Franchises within the Rape of 
Hastings," by W. D. Cooper, Sussex Archceological Collections, vol. vi., 1853, 
pp. 57-70. " In Sussex," we learn of the thirteenth century, " each Hundred 
seems to have had a Beadle, that is, a summoner, who was called an Alder- 
man," and who sometimes performed the suit of court due by the tenants of 
the Hundred at superior Courts (History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock 
and F. W. Maitland, 1895, vol. i. p. 545). At Swanborough, one of these 



60 THE COURT IN RUINS 

The Hundred Courts which remained in private hands are 
scarcely to be distinguished from the Courts of Franchises, 
Liberties, Lordships, or Honours which had obtained exemption 
from the jurisdiction of, or concurrent jurisdiction with, the 
County Court. The Franchise or Liberty often included 
several Hundreds. In the " Seven Hundreds " of Cirencester 
in Gloucestershire, for instance, which had for five or six 
centuries enjoyed great exemptions from the Sheriff of the 
County, there continued to be held, in the eighteenth century, 
a three-weekly Court under the Steward of Earl Bathurst. 
Its business seems to have been exclusively the trial of 
small civil suits, personal actions, and debts under forty 
shillings. It was, we are told, regarded as " vexatious, dila- 
tory, and expensive," and so was superseded in 1792 by the 
effect of a Local Act, which created a Court of Bequests, under 
seventy-five Commissioners, who took it in turn to sit as judges. 1 

In Kent the " Seven Hundreds " constituted a Franchise, 
having a Court of its own, held by the Bailiff. This Court 

"Hundreds," which belongs to the Marquis of Abergavenny, and comprises 
several parishes, " Boroughs," and Manors, the ancient Court of the Hundred 
was held right down to our own day. There attended the Constable and 
Alderman of the Hundred, the Headboroughs of the Parishes, and one or two 
dozen jurymen. Annoyances and defaults were presented and amerced, and 
civil suits under forty shillings were tried. The Jury presented persons to 
serve as Constable and Alderman of the Hundred (down to 1860) and Head- 
boroughs of the various parishes (down to 1842), of whom the Steward chose 
one ("The Hundred of Swanborough," by J. Cooper, in Sussex Archaeological 
Collections, vol. iv., October 1890). See also The Perambulation of Kent, by 
W. Lambard, 1576, p. 21 ; Robinson on Gavelkind, 5th edition, by C. J. Elton 
and H. J. H. Mackay, 1897, p. 211. Of the village of Lamberhurst we read 
that "a fair is held here yearly on 10th October for toys and pedlary, the 
profits of which the Portreeve of the Hundred of Milton receives of ancient 
custom, which officer executed within this Hundred the office of Clerk of the 
Market in all points whilst the Market was held, but it has been disused time 
out of mind" (History of Kent, by E. Hasted, 1797 to 1801, vol. vii. p. 53). 
For Tenterden Seven Hundreds, see History of the Weald of Kent, by R. Furley, 
1871, vol. i. pp. 315-324, vol. ii. p. 555 ; History of the Weald of Kent, by 
T. D. W. Dearn, 1814, pp. 162, 233-245 ; House of Commons Return of Courts 
of Request, 1840. 

1 History of Cirencester, by K. J. Beecham, 1887, pp. 162-170. This 
Court of Requests was, like others, itself superseded after 1846 by the new 
County Courts. We may mention here (though we have no information as to 
their Courts) the analogous "Seven Hundreds" of Worcestershire, which had 
of old such extensive immunities ; the Hundreds of Windsor Forest, and, 
best known of all, the Chiltern Hundreds (Desborough, Stoke, and Bray in 
Buckinghamshire), of which the Stewardship remaining, as it does, in the 
gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has become a minor part of the 
machinery of Parliamentary procedure (see The Stewardship of the Clillrrn 
Hundreds, by F. 8. Parry, a privately printed Treasury Memorandum of 1893 ; 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 61 

was held during the eighteenth century, and only discon- 
tinued after the whole Franchise had been sold by the Crown 
in 1817 to a private landowner. Within the Franchise, as 
we learn from a survey of the time of the Commonwealth, 
"there belongeth to each Hundred a Court Leet, where the 
Constables and Borsholders are elected, and all nuisances are 
amerced by the Steward and Jury, which Court is held when- 
ever the Lord or Steward may appoint." In six of these "Seven 
Hundreds" the Court used to be held by the Steward or Bailiff 
for the profit of the Crown. In the seventh, comprising Tenter- 
den, the chief town, the ownership of this so-called " royalty 
of the Court of the Bailiwick of the Seven Hundreds" was 
vested in the Mayor and twelve Jurats of the Municipal Cor- 
poration, by whom the Court was, in 1814, still being held. 

Throughout the wide area of Yorkshire there were Courts 
in every Wapentake, the division corresponding with the 
Hundred. We catch a glimpse of these Courts in 1641 in 
the notebook of a Yorkshire farmer. "The baily [Bailiff] of 
every Wapentake," he says, " is to keep a Court, which is 
called the Wapentake Court, Three Weeks' Court, or Sheriffs' 
Turn, where any petty cause or small trespass may be heard 
and ended once within three weeks." In at least two Wapen- 
takes these Courts continued to be held for more than two 
centuries much as Henry Best describes them ; some remnants 
lingering until the middle of the nineteenth century. 1 

In Cheshire there continued to be held an active Hundred 
Court for the Hundred of Wirral, which includes the town of 
Birkeuhead. This was held on lease from the Crown until 
1819, when it reverted to the Commissioners of Woods and 
Forests, by whom it was sold in 1820 for 500 to a Liverpool 
attorney. The Court continued for another generation to do 
an extensive business in petty debt cases, especially those 
arising in the rapidly growing town of Birkenhead. 2 

" The Ancient Hundreds of Buckinghamshire," by Morley Davies, in Home 
Co-unites Magazine, vol. vi. pp. 134-144 ; article by J. H. Round in Victoria 
County History of Buckinghamshire, vol. i. 1905, p. 225). 

1 Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641, by Henry Best, Surtees Society, 
vol. xxxiii., 1857, p. 91 ; House of Commons Return of Courts of Request, 
1840, pp. 170-171. 

2 Fifth Report of Royal Commission on Courts of Common Law, 1833 ; 
House of Commons Returns of Hundred Courts, 1839, and Courts of Request, 



62 THE COURT IN RUINS 

At least a score of other Hundred Courts continued to be 
held in different parts of the country throughout the eighteenth, 
aiid down to the middle of the nineteenth, century, 1 principally 
as tribunals for the trial of small civil suits. We find them 
also, here and there, appointing not only Bailiffs and Constables 
for the Hundred or Liberty itself, 2 but also Constables and 
Haywards for Manors within the Hundred, but not exercising 
any other functions of the mediaeval Courts. Similarly, there 
existed down to the same period a score of Courts of Honours, 
Lordships, or Liberties, 3 which were not styled Hundred Courts, 

1840 ; History of the Hundred of Wirrod, by W. Mortimer, 1847 ; Liverpool 
Courier, 9th April 1869. 

1 Among these other surviving Hundred Courts the principal were those for 
the other Hundreds of Lancashire, Amounderness (held by a Steward for the 
Duchy itself), West Derby (held by the Earl of Sefton), Lonsdale (held by the 
Earl of Lonsdale) ; that held by the Duke of Richmond for "Richmondshire," 
comprising five Wapentakes of the North Riding of Yorkshire ; those of 
Scarsdale and Chesterfield in Derbyshire, held by the Duke of Devonshire under 
a grant of 1631 ; that of Bucklow (Cheshire), held on lease from the Crown by 
the Egertons of Tatton ; that of Grumbald's Ash (Gloucestershire), held by the 
Duke of Beaufort under lease from the Crown down to 1835, until which date 
it appointed Constables and Haywards for the Manors within the Hundred, as 
well as tried petty debt cases ; those of Chew Magna (Somerset), which ceased to 
be held about 1836 ; Keynsham (Wiltshire), Portbury (Wiltshire), Whit- 
stone (Wiltshire), Offlow (Staffordshire), Durnford (Sussex) ; St. Briavel's 
(Gloucestershire), held by a Steward for the Crown ; Henbury (Gloucestershire), 
Thornbury (Gloucestershire) ; Huntingstone (Huntingdonshire), belonging to the 
Earl of Sandwich ; Penwith (Cornwall), Pain's Castle (Radnor), and the Duke of 
Beaufort's Court Baron for the Hundred of Crickhowell (Breconshire). Some 
particulars as to their activity in 1830-40 may be gathered from the Fifth 
Report of the Commission on Courts of Common Law, 1833, and the House of 
Commons Returns of Hundred Courts, 1839, and Courts of Request, 1840. 

2 " Bailiffs and Constables of Hundreds .are chosen annually at the Courts 
Leet for the several Hundreds and Liberties within the County " (A Guide to 
the Practice of the Court of Quarter Sessions for the County of Somerset, by J. 
Jesse, 1815, p. 20). 

3 Such as the Nottinghamshire Peverel Court, held by Lord Middleton as 
Steward, and exercising jurisdiction, concurrently with the two County Courts, 
within the whole of the Counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire except the 
Corporate towns ; Tutbury Honour Court, held by the Duke of Devonshire at 
Tutbury (Staffordshire) every three weeks for civil actions by residents within 
the Honour, which included parts of no fewer than six Counties and had its 
own Coroner as well as its own Bailiff (Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals, 
by J. C. Cox, pp. 71-84) ; the Court Baron of the Honour of Pontefract (York- 
shire), with jurisdiction over 350 townships, in a district of 600 square miles, 
and held twice a year each at Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield ; Allertonshire 
Liberty Court (Yorkshire), held by the Bishop of Ripon every three weeks, for the 
thirty-two townships within the Liberty ; the Court of the Liberty and Honour 
of Pickering Lythe (Yorkshire), held twice a year only ; Skipton Honour Court 
(Yorkshire), held under Letters Patent of 1307 by the Earl of Thanet as Lord 
of the Honour ; Whitby Strand Liberty Court, held by the Cholmleys as Bailiffs 



THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED 63 

but which exercised jurisdiction over areas within which there 
were at least several Manors, and which occasionally extended 
to hundreds of square miles. We cannot help regretting that 
so little examination has been made of the sixteenth, seven- 
teenth, and eighteenth century records of these Hundred 
Courts, and other Courts of wider jurisdiction than that of a 
Manor, from which additional light might be thrown on 
the relations of the different Courts of the ancient 
Hierarchy. 1 

of the Liberty, in succession to the Abbots of Whitby (Yorkshire) ; Kidwelly 
Honour or Lordship and Liberty Court, held by the Earl of Cawdor for three 
"commotes" of Carmarthenshire, comprising nineteen Manors and sixteen 
Parishes ; Perfeth Court Baron, also held by the Earl of Cawdor, as Lord of 
the Lordship ; the Court of Pleas for the Honour of Leicester, held by a steward 
for the Duchy of Lancaster, in some connection with the Courts Leet of nine 
Manors within the Honour ; the Ramsey Court of Pleas, held under ancient 
charters by the Lord of the Liberty of Ramsey (Huntingdonshire) ; Ampthill 
Honour Court (Bedfordshire), not held for the trial of actions after the 
eighteenth century ; Bromfield and Yale Lordship Court (Denbighshire), held at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century by the Grosvenors as Lords of the 
Lordship ; and various other Welsh Lordship Courts, such as Chirk, which 
ceased to be held in consequence of an adverse judgment of the Court of King's 
Bench about 1827 (Williams v. Lord Bagot, Reports of Cases, by Barnewall and 
Cresswell, vol. iii. pp. 235, 772, etc.). With these should perhaps be classed the 
great Wakefield Court Baron held by the Lord of the extensive jurisdiction of 
Wakefield, which included, by 1835, a quarter of a million inhabitants, and 
exercised important functions in connection with weights and measures, as well 
as dealing with a couple of thousand civil actions annually. Some information 
about them in 1830-40 may be gathered from the House of Commons Returns 
of Hundred Courts, 1838, and Courts of Request, etc., 1840, and the Fifth 
Report of the Royal Commission on the Courts of Common Law, 1833. 

1 We cannot pretend to deal with the various Forest Courts, held under 
picturesque names in districts which were technically royal forests. The special 
forest laws (as to which the various editions of John Manwood's Forest Laws, 
from 1598 to 1665, were authoritative) apparently ceased to be enforced after 
the Commonwealth, the Act " for the limitation of Forests," 16 Charles I. c. 16 
(1640), having practically brought the old system to an end. Some attempt 
was made to revive the Courts on the Restoration ; but we do not actually know 
that either the six- weekly "Court of Attachment" or "Woodmote," the 
"Court of Regard" every third year, or the "Court of Justice Seat" was held 
after the Revolution (Life of Lord Justice Guilford, by the Hon. Roger North, 
1808, vol. i. p. 75 ; The Rural Life of England, by William Howitt, 1838, 
vol. ii. p. 59). But Courts continued to be held, sometimes under the 
ancient forest name of "Swainmote" or "Swanimote," sometimes under that 
of Halmote Court, in various forest districts, especially in the Forest of Dean, 
though they seem to have decayed rapidly after the first quarter of the 
eighteenth century, and to have become often formal only. To this day, 
however, in the Forest of Dean, the Steward of the Crown holds his Court 
annually at the '' Speech House," wearing a cocked hat, and equipped with a 
sword. We may yet read The Rights of His Majesty's Forest Asserted, in a 
Charge given at a Swanimote Court held . . . before the Verderers of the Forest 
of Windsor, 1717, by Nathaniel Boothe, Steward of the Court, 1719; and 



64 THE COURT IN RUINS 



The Court of the Hundred, where it continued into the 
eighteenth century, retained, as we have seen, little beyond its 
function as a tribunal for petty actions of debt, combining 
with this, in a few instances, the more or less formal appoint- 
ment of Constables and other officers. This was not the case 
with the innumerable Manor Courts that existed in 1689, 
many of which continued, right into the nineteenth century, 
to be active local authorities, managing the commonfields and 
pastures, suppressing nuisances, providing the police, and trying 
cases of debt and trespass in the little communities over which 
they had jurisdiction. 1 It is, in fact, the existence of the 
humble Court of the Manor, much more than that of the 
enigmatical and pretentious Courts of the Hundred, Honour, 
Barony, or Forest, that compels us to include the Lord's Court 
in our survey of English Local Government between 1689 
and 1835. 

It is significant that this Court of the Manor, as we find 

"The Rolls of the Court of Attachment of the Royal Forest of Walthara" 
between 1713 and 1848 are printed as vol. v. of the Report of the Epping 
Forest Commissioners, 1873. See Select Pleas of the Forest, by G. J. Turner 
(Selden Society, 1901) ; Remarks on Forest Scenery, by W. Gilpin, 1791, with a 
good list of Forests ; Historical Inquiries concerning Forests and Forest Laws, 
by Percival Lewis, 1811 ; the statutes of 1817 and 1829 ; an able article in 
Edinburgh Review, April 1902 ; Ihe Royal Forests of England, by J. C. Cox, 
1905 ; and A History of English Law, by Prof. W. S. Holdsworth, 1903, pp. 
340-352. Also the various reports of the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and 
Land Revenues, especially those of 1788 and 1853 ; that of the House of 
Commons Committees on the Forest of Dean, 1874, and on the Woods and 
Forests, 1889 and 1890 ; Report on the Forest of Dean, by H. C. Hill, 
published by the Stationery Office, 19th July 1887 ; The Forest of Dean, by 
H. G. Nicholls, 1858 ; an exceptionally well-informed article in The English 
Historical Review, vol. xxi., 1906, pp. 445-459 ; The History of the Forest of 
Dean in Gloucestershire, by John Nisbet ; History of Knaresborough, by Eli 
Hargrove, 1798 ; Histoi'y of the Forest of Rossendale, by T. Newbigging, 1868 ; 
The Honour and Forest of Pickering, by R. B. Turton (North Riding Record 
Society, N.S., vols. i.-iii., 1894-96); The Forest of Essex, by W. R. Fisher, 
1887 ; Annals of tlie Ancient Royal Forest of Exmoor, by E. J. Rawle, 1893 ; 
The Great Forest of Brecknock, by John Lloyd, 1905 ; vol. ii. of the Victoria 
County History of Hampshire, 1905, pp. 409-470, for the New Forest; and 
chap, iv., "Forest Police," in The History of Police in England, by Captain 
Melville Lee. 

1 "Every Manor," it was said, "is a little Commonwealth whereof the 
tenants are the members, the land the body, and the Lord the head" (The 
Surveyor's Dialogue, by John Norden, 4th edition, 1738, p. 44). 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 65 

it existing after 1689 from one end of England to the other, 
is an Undifferentiated Court. Whatever it may be termed by 
the Steward, it combines and confuses in its actual procedure 
and work the attributes which the sixteenth-century lawyer 
ascribed to his three or four distinct tribunals. In the vast 
majority of the Manors that we have examined, we see the 
Steward giving notice, once or twice a year, that he would 
hold, not the various separate Courts given in the text-books, 
but, under one name or other, simply the Lord's Court. This 
might be held in the open air, beneath some aged tree j" 1 it 
might, as at Selborne in Hampshire, be in an ancient barn of 
the Manor farm ; 2 it might be at the Lord's Manor-house 
(perhaps for this reason in Southern England often called a 
Court) ; 8 or occasionally in some old building in the village 
known as the Court House, 4 or even, in a few cases, the Town 
Hall, or Gild Hall. 5 It was a common practice to " open the 
Court " at the ancient place and then instantly to adjourn to 
the largest room of the village inn. 6 There would be a 
customary date for holding the Court, which would be seldom 
departed from it might be soon after Michaelmas or Easter ; 
it might, as at Coggeshall in Essex, be on Whit Monday ; 7 it 
might, as at Andover in Hampshire, be "the Sunday next 
before St. Michael " ; 8 in many of the Manors of the Bishop 
of Winchester we read of " the Turn of St. Martin," or " the 

1 Treatise on Copyholds, by Charles Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. 
p. 9. At Newton (Norfolk), in 1531, it was "under the oak " (The Manor and 
Manorial Records, by N. J. Hone, 1906, p. 132). 

2 Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, by R. B. Fisher, 1794, p. 59. 

3 Or " place, " which maybe from "placitum" (Treatise on Copyholds, by 
Charles Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 11). Mr. Seebohm connects 
" Court " with " curtis," which. is "so often applied to the later Manor-house " ; 
and with the " cohortes " around a Roman villa {English Village Community, 
by F. Seebohm, 1883, p. 263). 

4 So at Epworth in Lincolnshire (see History and Topography of the Isle of 
Axholme, by Rev. W. B. Stonehouse, 1839, pp. 143-149). 

6 At Coggeshall in Essex the Court was always held at the Shambles in the 
market-place (Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkius, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. 
p. 574). At Bungay it was held "in the Corn Cross," until the demolition of 
that building in 1810 (History of Suffolk, by Rev. A. Suckling, 1846, p. 129). 

8 Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 9. 
At Yardley Hastings, in Northamptonshire, the Court was always formally 
opened in an ancient hall in the village, and then adjourned to the village inn 
(Practical Treatise on Copyhold Tenure, by John Scriven, 1816, p. 5). 

7 Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 574. 

8 Firma Burgi, by Thos. Madox, 1726, p. 210; Treatise on Copyholds, 
by Charles Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 477. 

VOL. II. PT. I F 



66 THE COURT IN RUINS 

Turn of Hock " ; l it might even be, as in a Manor near 
Kochford, Essex, "at cockcrowing, before the day was well 
light." 2 At such a Court in different Manors called in- 
differently the View of Frankpledge, the Court Baron, 8 the 
Turn, the Court Leet, the Lawday, the Leet, or simply the 
Great Court or the Little Court there would attend most of 
the men of the village, whether freeholders or copyholders, 
leaseholders or cottagers. In Manor after Manor we find 
evidence that some sort of roll of names was read over, and 
defaulters fined. Thus at Standon in Staffordshire, during the 
eighteenth century, the fine for non-attendance was a shilling 
for freeholders, sixpence for leaseholders and other tenants of 
the Manor, and twopence for cottagers. 4 Elsewhere it often 
seems to have been only the freehold or copyhold tenants of 
the Manor whose attendance was insisted on. At Braintree 
in 1653 the tenants who did not appear were severally fined 
three shillings; in 1665, freeholders two shillings and copy- 
holders one shilling ; whilst in 1732 the absent freeholders 
had to pay only a shilling each and the copyholders half a 
crown. 5 At Devonport, about 1800, we read that "all the 
tenants are obliged to attend, or be amerced two and sixpence." 6 

1 See MS. Manor Rolls, Farnliam, Surrey, 8th October 1717, for one of many 
examples. 

2 " The Honour of Eayleigh in Essex . . . hath a Custom Court kept yearly 
the Wednesday next after St. Michael's Day ; the Court is kept in the night 
and without light but as the sky gives, at a little hill without the town called 
the King's Hill, where the Steward writes only with coals and not with ink. 
And many men and Manors of great worth hold of the same, and do suit unto 
this strange Court, where the Steward calls them with as low a voice as possible 
he may ; giving no notice when he goes to the Hill to keep the same Court ; 
and he that attends not is deeply amerced if the Steward will"' (The Surveyor's 
Dialogue, by John Norden, 4th edition, 1738, p. 161). How much truth and 
how much significance there was in this account of what was apparently nick- 
named "the Lawless Court" we cannot say (see Law Dictionary, by John 
Cowell, 1727, under this appellation ; Treatise on Copyholds, by Charles Watkins, 
4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 9). 

3 Court Barou is clearly "curia baronis," and the meaning of "curia 
baronis " is significantly explained by the variant "curia nobilis viri R.R." 
that we find as the title of the Braintree Court in the earliest roll (1616). It 
was simply the Lord's Court. There seems to have been every variety in the 
name borne by the Court in different Manors, and we can trace little connection, 
in the period 1689-1835, between these variations of name and the equally great 
variations in function. 

4 The History of Standon, by Edward Salt, 1888. 
6 MS. Manor Rolls, Braintree (Essex). 

The, Plymouth Dock Guide, p. 28 (circa 1800). At Leamington the Earl of 
Aylesford, as Lord of the Manor, revived the Lord's Court in that Manor in 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 67 

An indisputable element in the Lord's Court, and the 
primum mobile upon which all its action depended, was the 
Jury or Homage, the sample of the inhabitants by which the 
community as a whole was represented. The Jury was 
always formally summoned by the Bailiff or Beadle, at the 
command of the Steward, but exactly in what way the im- 
portant task of selection was performed is seldom to be dis- 
covered. It may be that, in some cases, the tenants of the 
Manor were supposed to be taken haphazard in rotation. In 
some Manors, as we have reason to believe, the choice 
was controlled by the Steward. In the Manor of Dymock, 
Gloucestershire, by ancient custom recorded in 1565 and 
1657, the Steward chose one "free-bencher" and the tenants 
another, these two jointly selecting the twelve tenants who 
were to form "the Lord's Homage." In case of their dis- 
agreement, the Steward decided. 1 On the other hand, a 
learned lawyer writes in 1825 that, "So far at least as my 
own experience extends, the Steward of the Court is totally 
ignorant even of the names of the jurors until the delivery to 
him by the Bailiff of the persons summoned as jurymen, 
together with the resiant roll, or names of those who are 
liable to perform suit to the Lord at the particular Court." 2 

The Jury was sometimes appointed to serve until the 
holding of the next Court, and sometimes appointed, sworn, 
and discharged at each Court. 3 The number varied, twelve 

1828, after ninety years' desuetude. "Over 900 householders answered to their 
names and paid their fines" (Complete History of Royal Leamington Spa, by 
T. H. B. Dudley, 1896-97, pp. 188-89). A Steward who holds Courts in many 
Manors in the Southern Counties informed us (1906) that when he first took 
in this duty he frequently found the villagers swarming to the Court, though 
it was called a Court Baron, and they were neither freeholders nor copyholders. 
These residents presented themselves as of old, believing vaguely that they had 
some right or were under some obligation to attend ; and they were sometimes 
much aggrieved at being told that they had no part in the ceremony. 

1 Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. pp. 
487-491. 

2 Treatise on Copyholds, by John Scriven, 2nd edition, 1823, vol. ii. 
p. 845. 

3 "The Jurymen," says Ritson, "in some Manors continue in office for a 
whole year, while in others they are sworn and discharged in the course of the 
day" (Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, by Joseph Ritson, 1816, p. 9). "In 
some Manors it is not the practice to summon a fresh Jury whenever a Court is 
held, but the same tenants are summoned for successive Courts, vacancies in 
the list being filled from time to time by the Steward, or by the permanent 
Foreman and the Steward together " (Law of Copyhofds, by 0. I. Elton and 
H. J. H. Mackay, 2nd edition, 1893, pp. 197-198). 



68 THE COURT IN RUINS 

or more being the most frequent. Here again, whilst we find 
some of the names used by the lawyers, we seek in vain for 
some of their distinctions. In the Court at Braintree the 
well-kept records make it clear that there was only one Jury, 
which consisted, as the names reveal, of the ordinary house- 
holders of the little town ; and which made all the present- 
ments of the Court. In the Court of the "Honour and 
Manor" of Hampton Court, between 1800 and 1808, we 
find the twelve to fourteen jurors described as " the jurors as 
well for the Court Leet as for the Court Baron and Customary 
Court " there being, in fact, only one Jury for what was, in 
practice, a single undifferentiated Court. So, in many scores 
of Manors in ecclesiastical hands, within the dioceses of 
Canterbury, London, and Winchester, of which we have been 
permitted to consult the Manor Eolls, we find that the Jury 
was sworn as the Jury of the King and the Lord; though 
where business affecting property had to be done it was 
frequently styled also the Homage. On the other hand, at 
Epworth, in Lincolnshire, there were, in 17*76 at any rate, 
clearly two Juries, but these were not called the Homage and 
the Leet Jury respectively ; nor did their several functions 
correspond with the lawyer's distinctions. They are referred 
to as the Grand Jury and the Copyhold Jury. The " Grand 
Jury and Inquest of the Manor" termed in 1587 "inquisitio 
magna," when thirty persons were sworn apparently dealt 
indifferently with pleas of debt, successions to property, pre- 
sentments of such public nuisances as short weight in bread, 
presentments of such common misdemeanours as assaults and 
affrays, and presentments (in 1631) of such Manorial offences 
as " trespasses in the sown fields " by wandering beasts. 
"The Grand Jury," it was solemnly recorded in 1776, "may 
settle disputes on freehold lands, as to the boundaries, etc., 
and the Copyhold Jury may do the same on copyhold lands. 
The Grand Jury may make Bylaws, and compel observance 
of the same." We gather that " offences within the Manor," 
including public nuisances, were presented indifferently by 
either Jury. 1 

1 "Notes from the Court Rolls of the Manor of Epworth," by Charles 
Jackson, The Reliquary, vol. xxiii., 1883, pp. 44-48, 89-92, and 174-175 ; 
History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme, by Rev. W. B. Stonehouse, 
1839, pp. 143-149. On the other hand, we find the term Grand Jury used 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 69 

The presentments of the Jury, when accepted by the 
Steward, and (in the case of amercements) " affeered " or 
revised by the affeerors, became the findings of the Court. 
These presentments appear to have comprised indifferently 
the recital of the customs of the Manor, the making of new 
By-laws, the appointment of officers, the verdicts in the civil 
actions tried, and the conviction and the fining of offenders, 
whether in respect of public nuisances, Manorial defaults, 
breaches of By-laws, or such misdemeanours as assaults, affrays, 
and even petty larcenies. These presentments were made by 
the Jury, either " on their own view and knowledge," or upon 
the testimony of one or other of the officers of the Court or 
other witnesses ; l or, in civil suits, after hearing the parties 
to the suits, and, it may be, their counsel and witnesses. We 
imagine that, in many instances, the presentments were dis- 
cussed by the Jury, then and there, in open Court, and 
written down by the most practised scribe among them. On 
the other hand, there is reason to believe that these pre- 
sentments were sometimes drawn up and signed by the Jury- 
men in a separate meeting. "For the most part," writes an 
experienced lawyer at the end of the eighteenth century, 
" they generally come ready prepared with them, and deliver 
a copy of them signed by the several tenants to the Steward 
to enter in the Court rolls " 2 a duty which he sometimes 
neglected to perform. 

The officers of the Court might be few or numerous, and 
they differed from Manor to Manor, in their numbers and in 
their titles, far more according to the size and character 
of the community than with any relation to the particular 
name of the Court. The Lord's Steward summoned and 
presided over the Court whatever it was called. The Bailiff, 
though this title is sometimes used as synonymous with 
Eeeve or Greave, was always the Lord's man, selected by the 
Steward. The residents or homagers whose presence was 
specially required as jurymen were warned to attend by the 

simply for a Court Leet Jury ; as, for instance, in Jurisdiction of the Courts 
Lcet, by J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 3. 

1 Where the Jury "are discharged the same day," says Ritson, "it should 
seem necessary for them to proceed chiefly upon evidence ; and, indeed, there 
is generally, if not always, a proclamation for that purpose " (Jurisdiction of 
the C&urts Leet, by J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 24). 

2 Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 383. 



70 THE COURT IN RUINS 

Bailiff whether the Court was styled Court Baron or Court 
Leet. We find Keeves, Hay wards, and Herdsmen appointed 
at the same Court, whatever its appellation, as Constables, 
Ale-tasters, and Scavengers. We find Courts calling themselves 
nothing but Courts Baron nevertheless appointing Head- 
boroughs, Constables, Ale-tasters, and Scavengers ; making 
presentments on all sorts of subjects ; and seizing light weights 
and short measures. 1 We find Courts calling themselves 
nothing but Courts Leet nevertheless appointing Reeves and 
Haywards and a variety of functionaries whose business it was 
to manage the common pasture. It is extremely rare to find 
any definite salary assigned to any of these officers 2 the 
Court had, indeed, normally no Corporate funds out of which 
such a salary could be paid but we suspect that some small 
provision for the remuneration of some of them was not in- 
frequent. Thus we read of " Constable's acres," " Eeevewick 
lands," and " Beadlewick lands," which were either held by 
the tenure of service in turn as Constable or as Reeve and 
Beadle respectively, or else were enjoyed for the year by those 
who served in those offices. 3 Sometimes there was a particular 
profitable right attached to one of the offices, such as the 
profits of the pound, the forfeitures of swine found unringed or 
at large, or the money penalties incurred for breach of stint 
of common. More usually, however, the officers found such 
remuneration as they got in their power to exact small 
customary fees. The profitable character of the Steward's 
fees is often alluded to. " Court-keeping " on behalf of Lords 
of Manors, or as deputy for their Stewards, was, at any rate 
in the seventeenth century, one of the recognised means of 

1 As, for instance, at Torquay ; sec History of Torquay, by J. T. White, 
1878, p. 134. 

2 The leading instance of a Lord's Court having salaried officers, and, down 
to 1780, levying its own rate for their payment, is that of Manchester, which 
we subsequently describe in detail (p. 99). In the Manors of Stepney and 
Hackney, in 1622, then almost entirely rural in character, the Reeve was in each 
case entitled to a salary of 2 : 13 : 4 and 3:6:8, together with a piece of 
cloth for a coat (Treatise on Copyfwlds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, 
vol. ii. pp. 508-533). 

3 The Village Community, by G. L. Gomine, 1890, pp. 274-275. We note 
that in the fourteenth century, in Forncett Manor, there were 20 acres designated 
"Reeveship lands," and 15 acres " Messorship lands," which were charged with 
an annual burden of two shillings per acre for the 'benefit of the two tenants 
serving those offices (The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor, 1086- 
1565, by F. G. Davenport, 1906, pp. 50-51). 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 71 

livelihood for the young barrister. 1 But there were evidently 
other fees. The Bailiff or Beadle of the Court might, for 
instance, get a fee for administering the oath to persons 
newly appointed. " He had been sworn in as a Pig-ringer by 
the Court Leet, and paid fourpence for his oath," deposed 
one of the parties to a settlement case in 1792, when the 
judges held that this office was one " of great antiquity and 
serviceable to the parish." 2 Whether the Court of the Manor, 
calling itself either Court Leet or Court Baron, had any legal 
authority to levy any compulsory tax, was never decided by the 
Superior Courts. But it was not uncommon for the Jury, in 
order to provide the Reeve or Hayward or Fieldsmen with the 
small sums necessary to effect petty improvements in the 
commonfields, or to carry out certain necessary repairs, to 
order that a levy of a few pence or a few shillings per beast 
should be made, the amount being collected from all the 
users of the common lands by the officers concerned. 3 We 
occasionally see this simple financial transaction expanding 
into a system of buying and selling " stints," or rights of 
common, either for the common benefit or for the convenience 
of individual owners. We may even find instances (as at 
Great Tew) of the levy being made, not per beast, but on the 
annual value of all the tenements, like the Poor Bate. 4 

.The Undifferentiated Court, as it existed between 1689 
and 1835, might conceivably be the result of a gradual co- 
alescence and merging of previously existing separate Courts ; 
or it might, as we are inclined to believe, be a continuance of 

1 1 James I. c. 5 (1603) ; see the Autobiography of the Hon. Roger North, 
edited by Rev. A. Jessopp, 1887, for a good description of " court-keeping " about 
1680. " Some few years ago there was a design of bringing a Bill into Parliament 
for regulating the fees of Stewards of Manors, but the Legislature thought 
it much too delicate a matter to interfere in, and the design was dropped " 
(Treatise on Copylmlds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 454). 

2 R. v. Inhabitants of Whittlesey, 4 J.R. 807 ; Fenland Notes and Queries, 
vol. i. p. 253. In London, in the nineteenth century, the unfortunate house- 
holder compelled by a surviving Manorial Court to serve as Constable was some- 
times mulcted of half a crown by the officer of the Court who administered the 
oath (Second Report on the State of the Police in the Metropolis, 1817, p. 394). 

3 To cite one example out of many, the Court of Hitchin in 1819 levied 
fifteen pence per beast (English Village Community, by F. Seebohm, 1883, pp. 
443-453). 

4 In a few exceptional cases, of which we shall subsequently describe 
Manchester and Lewes as the chief, this levy by the Lord's Court became a 
substantial rate for the purposes of urban government (pp. 103, 173). 



7* THE COURT IN RUINS 

a simple tribunal, in which the process of differentiation had 
not yet begun. But it is not uncommon to find, where two 
or more sessions of the Court are held each year, a certain 
difference made between the business done at these several 
occasions. What we have called the property business the 
admissions and surrenders, and the receipt of fines and heriots 
took place, if required, apparently at every Court. The 
trial of civil actions took place, apparently, from three weeks 
to three weeks, or whenever the Court was held, a Jury being 
summoned only when required. The appointment of officers, 
whether Keeve, Beadle, or Hay ward on the one hand, or 
Constable, Ale-taster, or Scavenger on the other, occurred only 
once a year, normally at the Michaelmas Court. Sometimes 
the presentment of nuisances and other specifically Court Leet 
business is confined to the same occasion, which is often 
designated as the Lawday, 1 the View of Frankpledge, or the 
Leet. 2 In the Manor of Wistow (Yorkshire) the particular 
Sessions of the Lord's Court that was held at Lammas was 
" the fearing (i.e. affeering) Court," at which apparently the 
amercements of offenders were assessed. 3 During the eighteenth 
century we meet with a certain number of cases in which the 
Steward has plainly attempted to distinguish between the busi- 
ness done by this Court. Thus at Braintree, from 1709 onwards, 
the Steward tries to make a distinction in his records between 
the Court Leet on the one hand and the Court Baron and 
Customary Court on the other. There is still only one Court 
held, and only one Jury summoned. But the appointment of 
Constables and other officers, together with the presentments 
of nuisances, are entered in the book under the heading " Visus 
franc plegum cur." ; whilst a separate heading on the same 

1 Thus the customs of the Manor of Worplesdon in Surrey prescribed that 
Courts were to be held twice a year, once with a Lawday (Law of Copyholds, 
by Chas. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 559). At Braunton in Devon- 
shire there used to be "Monthly Courts" for dealing with civil suits, and four 
times a year a " Law Court," at one of which a Reeve, Ale-tasters, Pound-keeper, 
Crier, Beadle, and " Gatewardens " (perhaps from gate, meaning a lane) were 
appointed ("The Customs of the Manors of Braunton," by R. Dymond, in Trails- 
actions of the Devon Association, vol. xx., 1888, pp. 254-303). 

2 In the Manor of Wimbledon (Surrey) the Easter Court was the one desig- 
nated as the Leet, when the Headboroughs of the several tithings had to attend 
(Law of Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. pp. 554-556). 

3 History of the Parishes of Sherburn and Ccnvood, by W. Wheater, 1882, 
p. 281. 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 73 

page, " Modo d. Cur. Baron et Customar," precedes the formal 
presentment and fining of absent freehold and copyhold 
tenants of the Manor, the admissions of new tenants, and the 
recording of property transfers. 1 In the Manor of Hitchin, 
where the rolls of 1471 describe the Court simply as "the 
View of Frankpledge, with the Court held there," those 
between 1721 and 1819 reveal a Court which styles itself 
Court Leet and Court Baron, but having only one Jury, 
called the Homage, doing all the business that was done 
appointing Herdsmen and " Pit -keepers," regulating the 
common herd and the enjoyment of the common pasturage, 
levying a rate of fifteenpence per beast, and presenting 
dangerous footpaths and other nuisances. 2 At the beginning 



b 



of the nineteenth century the language of the entries changes. 
We hear not only of the Homage, but of "jurors for our 
Lord the King," who make presentments of encroachments, 
digging gravel on the common, and other offences for 
which fines are imposed and made payable to " the Lord of 
the Leet." But this same Jury is presently found equally 
presenting the deaths of tenants of the Manor and the 
admission of new ones. From 1819 onward the proceedings 
become still more differentiated according to the lawyers' 
formula. The Court still held as one Court only is now 
styled " the Court of the View of Frankpledge of our Sovereign 
Lord the King with the General Court Baron of W. W., 
Esquire." There are both " jurors of our Lord the King " and 
" the Homage of this Court." They jointly declare " the 

1 This is the common form adopted by the Stewards of some scores of Manors 
in the South of England belonging to Bishops and chapters, of which, by the 
kind permission of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, we have been enabled to 
examine the rolls. But these Stewards have usually grouped, along with the 
Leet presentments of the "Jury of the King and of the Lord," other present- 
ments which clearly form part of the Court Baron business, such as those of the 
deaths of freeholders of the Manor and of encroachments on the Lord's waste 
confining those under the heading "Modod. Cur. Baron" to other property 
business. We may here note that these ecclesiastical Manor rolls were mostly 
kept in Latin down to the middle of the eighteenth century, or several genera- 
tions later than was elsewhere customary. 

2 MS. Manor Rolls, Hitchin (Herts), for 1470-1471, in Public Record Office 
(portfolio 177, No. 60) ; and those from 1721 onward, in possession of the 
Commissioners of Woods and Forests, to whom we are indebted for the privilege 
of inspection. The roll for 1819 is printed in The English Village Community, 
by F. Seebohm, 1883, pp. 443-453 ; see also History of Hertfordshire, by N. 
Salmon, 1728, p. 162 ; The Royal Manor of Hitchin, by Wentworth Huyshe, 1906. 



74 THE COURT IN RUINS 

boundaries, extent, rights, jurisdiction, and customs of tho 
said Manor." The Lord, they assert, has " Court Leet and 
View of Frankpledge " twice a year, and also " General and 
Special Courts Baron and Customary Courts at his will." 
The Court Leet appoints two Constables, six Headboroughs, 
two Aleconners, two Leather Searchers and Sealers, and one 
Bellman, who acts also as Watchman and Crier. The Leet 
Jury presents various nuisances. The Homage has its own 
presentments about the customs relating to property, the 
freedom of the market from tolls, and the obligation of the 
Lord to provide the pound and stocks. Can we believe that 
this new and sudden elaboration of what had, for three 
centuries at least, been a single undifferentiated Court, with a 
single Jury, indicates anything more than the historical 
knowledge and antiquarian zeal of a new Steward of the 
Manor ? 

Whatever was the Court, its business was, it is clear, of 
the most varied kind. Thus, in the little town of Brain tree in 
Essex, which we have already described as being ruled by an 
enigmatical Select Vestry, or " Four and Twenty," l we see the 
Lord's Court, between 1616 and 1813, appointing Constables, 
Ale-tasters, Fish and Flesh Tasters, and Leather Searchers; 
presenting nuisances as distinguished from Manorial defaults ; 
enforcing the Assizes of Bread and Ale ; punishing the usual 
market offences; acting down to 1713 in conjunction with 
the Company of the Twenty-four that we have already 
described as the Parish Vestry ; and even levying rates 
on the inhabitants for repairing the common pump and 
scavenging the streets. At the same meetings of the Court 
we have the admission of new tenants of the Manor, the 
transfer of properties on death or alienation, and, by the same 
Jury, the presentment of encroachments on the Lord's waste, 
and the defaults of tenants in not scouring ditches. In the 
little Manor of Standon, for which the rolls exist from 1338 
to 1773, we see the Lord's Court, down to the first quarter of 
the eighteenth century at any rate, equally combining both 
Court Baron and Court Leet business making presentments 
of highway and other nuisances and forbidding the harbouring 
of vagrants and also dealing with admissions, heriots, convey- 
1 English Local Government, Vol. I. The Parish and the County. 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 75 

ances, encroachments on the waste, defaults of tenants, and 
other property matters. 1 So in the interesting Lord's Court 
at Epvvorth that we have already mentioned, the " customs " 
elaborately recorded in 1776 reveal a tribunal at which By- 
laws were made, nuisances were presented, the common 
pasturage was regulated, officers were appointed, offenders 
were fined, new tenants of the Manor were admitted, the fines 
for copyhold alienations were fixed, and civil suits between 
tenants of the Manor were determined. 2 At Devonport, as we 
are told by a local chronicler about 1800, 3 the Lord's Court 
" has the privilege of Court Leet and Court Baron, which is 
annually held some time in the month of October. ... It 
has the power of fines and even of imprisonment for small 
offences ; and all horses, cattle, implements, and utensils of any 
kind which shall appear to a Coroner's Jury to have occasioned 
the death of any person within the Manor, be it of whatever 
kind or value, are liable to be forfeited to the Lord of the Manor." 
A less familiar function of the Lord's Court, and one that 
we suspect was, even in 1689, still of greater public interest 
to every inhabitant of the village than those hitherto described, 
was the management of the agricultural operations of the little 
community. In nearly every Manor there were common 
pastures ; sometimes woods into which the tenants of the 
Manor might send their pigs ; sometimes valuable hay-meadows 
shared by lot or by a primitive scramble ; more frequently 
large open " commons " of coarse herbage ; and invariably 
roadside strips and odds and ends of unoccupied land forming 
part of " the Lord's waste." The simple acts of administration 
which the enjoyment of these common rights involved formed 
part of the business of every Manor Court. We see appointed 

1 History of Standon, by Edward Salt, 1888. 

2 History and Topography of the Isle o/Axholmc, by Rev. W. B. Stoneliouse, 
1839, pp. 143-149. 

3 The Plymouth Dock Guide (circa 1800), p. 28. The right of the Lord 
of the Manor to deodand, or forfeiture of any article causing the death of a 
human being, was not abolished until 1846 (9 and 10 Victoria, c. 62 ; see 
The King's Coroner, by R. H. Wellington, 1905, p. 169). Besides knives and 
bludgeons, horses and cattle, the wheel of a vehicle and a mill-wheel have been 
thus forfeited. In 1841, after an accident on the Great Western Railway at 
Sonuing, a railway carriage is said to have been taken by the Lord of the Manor 
as a deodand. In 1840 the deodand was valued by the Jury at 2000 in the 
case of an accident on the London and Birmingham Railway (Monthly Law 

iic, vol. x.. 1841, p. 15). 



76 THE COURT IN RUINS 

such officers as Herdsmen, 1 to drive out and borne, and watch 
over, the pigs, sheep or cattle, horses or asses that the individual 
proprietors contributed to the common herd or flock. There 
are Common Drivers 2 to see that only the cattle and horses 
of the tenants of the Manor use the commons, and these only 
up to the permitted number, or " stint of common," free from 
disease and properly marked. There are Pig-ringers, whose 
duty it is to prevent any swine wandering on the wastes 
without being properly ringed. There is a Finder or Pound- 
keeper, who arrests stray beasts or animals found at large in 
contravention of any of the regulations of the little community, 
and confines them in the Pound, until the owner redeems them 
by the customary small fine or fee. It is part of the business 
of the Lord's Court not only to appoint these officers, but also 
to supervise their work, to make and revise the By-laws that 
they enforce, and to give them any necessary instructions 
from time to time. 

The agricultural functions of the Lord's Court extended, 
however, to much more than the administration of the common 
pastures. The England of 1689 was still, in the main, a 
country of " common fields " wide expanses of arable laud, 
divided into innumerable narrow strips called "pieces," "selions," 
or "lands," all in separate ownership, but thrown open after 
harvest to common pasture ; cultivated severally by their 
owners upon a uniform system, usually that of the well-known 
three years' course. 8 Each Manor had its particular order 
of cultivation, by which, for instance, approximately one-third 
of its arable area was devoted, in rotation, to "tilthgrain" 
or winter corn, " etchgrain " or spring corn, and fallow. This 
" open field " system of agriculture involved a great deal of 
collective regulation, which fell, as we shall show, to the Jury 
at the Lord's Court, acting through officers for whom the most 
significant title was that of Fieldsmen. 4 

1 Termed also Swineherds, Hogreeves, Neatherds or Noltherds, Common 
Herds, Shepherds, etc. At Hornsea there was a " Nowtherd, whose office it was 
to look after the sheep in the pastures" (An Accowni of Hornsea in Holdcrness in 
the East Riding of Yorkshire, by E. W. B., 1847-64). 

2 Or Common Keeper ; often, we suspect, called Haywards, Finders, etc. 

3 See, for instance, the evidence yielded by ' ' the Elizabethan Village 
Surveys," described by W. J. Corbett in Transactions of Royal Historical 
Society, N.S. ix., 1897, pp. 67-87. 

4 Or Burlcymeu or Bylaw-men. In the Manor of Hornsea, four "sworn 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 77 

We do not think that the extent and complication of this 
agricultural business of the Lord's Court has been at all 
adequately realised. Professor Maitland, for instance, to 
whom we in common with all students of English institutions 
owe the deepest gratitude, suggests that " so far as the arable 
land is concerned, the common field husbandry, when once it 
has been started, requires little regulation. . . . The truth is 
that if you have cut up a field into acre strips, given a parcel 
of dispersed strips to each of many men, and given to each man 
a right to turn out his beasts on the whole field during a cer- 
tain part of the year, you have made an arrangement which 
maintains itself with unhappy ease. These men must follow 
the accustomed course. If one man strives to break through 
it, he must straightway trample on his neighbour's crops or 
suffer his own to be trampled on, for only as a rare exception 
is there a beaten way to a strip. . . . We underrate the 
automatism of ancient agriculture and of ancient government." l 
However true may be this suggestion about the common 
agriculture of the English Manor of the thirteenth century 
and on this we offer no opinion it was, we think, certainly 
not true of many an English Manor between 1689 and 1835. 
By that time, at any rate, even the simplest three -course 
system included some variety and choice among crops. More- 
over, even the smallest Manor was divided into more than 
three parts, 2 and these parts necessarily differed among them- 
selves in their requirements. The actual operations to be 
performed during the year at the various parts of the area of 
the Manor, were, even in 1689, not very different in number 
or diversity from those performed over the same area to-day. 
We suggest, in fact, that the Manor had, somehow or another, 
to arrive at nearly as many separate small decisions in the 

tenants of the Manor were annually appointed at the Court as Bylaw-men, 
commonly two for Hornsea Fields and two for Southorp. Their office was, among 
other things, to look after the stocking of the pastures by the fanners and 
owners of common rights ; and they also directed the employment of ' the Town's 
ploitgh ' or ' Common plough ' " (An Account of Hornsea in Holderness in the 
East Riding of Yorkshire, by E. W. B., 1847, p. 64). 

1 Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitland, 1898, p. 25. 

2 This was the case even in earlier times. Thus, in the Manor of Forncett, 
Norfolk, in the fourteenth century, " the rolls contain no clear indication that 
there were within the vill three great fields. . . . 'Campi' are mentioned, 
but they were numerous and small " (The Economic Development of a Norfolk 
Manor, 1086-1565, by F. G. Davenport, 1906, p. 27). 



7 8 THE COURT IN RUINS 

course of the year as those which occupy the time and thought 
of a modern farmer. It had to be settled each year which 
seed wheat, barley, oats, rye, sainfoin, turnips, grass, clover, 
rye-grass, " thetches " or peas * should be sown in each 
of the numerous subdivisions of the great fields. The 
dates at which these separate sections were to be opened and 
closed to common pasture had to be fixed. There were 
different kinds of common pasture to be arranged for in varying 
proportions, according to the common needs sheepfolds in 
such and such a field, up to such and such a date ; horses in 
such and such a field ; the " cow common " to be in such and 
such a place ; the " horse hitching " in another. In order to 
keep the various parts of the land in good condition, the kind, 
and still more the degree, of use to which they might be 
severally put had each year to be determined with considerable 
care, and portions set apart from time to time to be allowed 
to lie a summer unused, in order that they might recover. 
The various offences against the order of the Manor the 
trespasses on each other's strips, the illicit use of the pasturage, 
the straying of animals into the corn, neglecting fences, or 
disobeying the orders as to the course or the dates of cultiva- 
tion had all to be prosecuted and tried at the Court. 2 The 

1 Even in the fourteenth century at least four crops were regularly cultivated 
in England, and a choice had therefore to be made. ' ' The areas assigned to 
the different kinds of crops varied somewhat from year to year " (ibid. p. 28). 

2 We must own to being surprised at the paucity of the records of the actual 
presentment and punishment of such predial offences. We imagine that the 
village may have known how to compel obedience to the communal decisions by 
sanctions less formal and less dilatory than the tardy amercement by the 
Michaelmas Jury. But many examples can be found in the records of Manor 
Courts if they are sought for. Thus the MS. rolls of the Court of the Manor 
of Hitchin for 1470-71 record the presentment and amercement of persons for 
allowing a hedge to grow on to a lane, ploughing up a greenway, encroaching 
on a greenway, ploughing up a balk, and ploughing the end of a "Land" to 
harm (Court Rolls in Public Record Office, portfolio 177, No. 40 ; an example 
that we owe to the kindness of Mr. Seebohm). The rolls of the Court held at 
Gnossall, Staffordshire, in the sixteenth century contain many references to 
similar offences (The Manor mid Manorial Records, by N. J. Hone, 1905, pp. 
188, 191, 192, 195, 198, 201). So, at Epworth, at the end of the seventeenth 
and beginning of the eighteenth century we see the Court fining persons for 
allowing their cattle to stray into the cornfield, for suffering their fences to 
lie down, for keeping sheep in the cornfield after the date fixed for their removal, 
and for riding over the cornfield (" Notes from the Court Rolls of the Manor of 
Epworth," by C. Jackson, in the Rfliquary, vol. xxiii., 1883, pp. 44-48, 89-92, 
174-175). In our subsequent account of the Manorial Borough of Godmanchester 
we shall give other examples (p. 184). 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 79 

common bull and boar had to be provided, and regulations 
made for their use. 1 There were always gaps in the hedges 
to be repaired, gates to be mended, paths and roads to be put 
in order, ditches to be -scoured, and the walls of the pound to 
be kept up. There might even be, as at Hornsea in the 
East Riding of Yorkshire, the " town's plough " or " common 
plough " to be looked after and managed. This, we are told, 
" was an implement of great size, used for making deep furrows 
in the fields for drainage ; and for this purpose, when the 
ground was in a proper condition, the Bylaw-men, at their 
discretion, called on the farmers for the requisite force for 
managing the plough ; this was six or eight or more oxen (at 
that time much used for draught), headed by two horses, with 
several men and boys." 2 We shall, in subsequent chapters, 
describe the large part that agricultural management of this 
sort played in the business transacted by such a Manorial 
Borough as Godmanchester, and by such a Municipal Corpora- 
tion as Berwick-on-Tweed. Here we shall confine ourselves 
to one leading instance of similar business performed, on no 
inconsiderable scale, by the Court of the Manor. 

The Manor of Great Tew in Oxfordshire, apparently co- 
extensive with the Parish of the same name, distinguished in 
history as the home and place of burial of Falkland, had, 
during the eighteenth century, probably about as many 
inhabitants as it has to-day, namely, between three and four 
hundred. These three or four score of families were, nearly 
all of them, engaged in and dependent on the cultivation of 
the three thousand acres of the Manor. The management of 
these agricultural operations nowadays performed individually 

1 The provision of the Manor Bull and Boar is frequently made the subject 
of presentments. In the Manor of Fulham the obligation was declared by the 
Lord's Court to be on the Rector, in respect of his great tithea (Presentments of 
1550 and 1680, in Fulham Old and New, by C. J. Feret, 1900, vol. ii. pp. 
120-121). So it was in 1819 at Hitchin (English Village Community, by 
F. Seebohm, 1883, pp. 443-453). The following is a common form of present- 
ment in Manors of the South of England among the Court Leet business. " We 
do present A. B. , being a tenant of the Lord of the Manor, shall keep a bull or a 
boar for the tenants" (MS. Manor Rolls, l< Court of View of Frankpledge, " 
Caddington, Essex, 22nd May 1713, among the archives of the Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners). The custom is referred to in Shakespeare's Henry IV., Act ii, 
scene 2, and in the last chapter of Sterne's Tristram Shandy. 

2 This interesting survival continued, as one of the regular functions of the 
Lord's Court, down to the local Inclosure Act of 1809 (An Account of Hornsca 
in ffolderness in the East Riding of Yorkshire, by E. W. B., 1847, pp. 64-65). 



So THE COURT IN RUINS 

by the half a dozen capitalist farmers as exclusively private 
concerns formed, it is clear, the principal part of the business 
of the " Vis. Franc. Pledg. cum Cur. Baron, prehonorabilis 
Antonii dni. vice comit. de Falkland dni. Manerii," held every 
October. The presentments of the Jury of this Court, probably 
a majority of all the owners of the strips of land to be 
cultivated, give us a picture of the variety and intricacy of 
the decisions which had to be come to even in the Court of a 
tiny village. We see how numerous and complicated were 
these decisions, even in a normal year, without any alteration 
of the customary three years' course. But we are able to do 
more than that. We may even see the little community 
deciding, in 1*761, on the revolutionary step of changing from 
a three to a nine years' course at a date, be it noted, when 
many a capitalist farmer was still wedded to the old-fashioned 
routine, 1 thus indicating that agricultural administration by 
the Lord's Court was not necessarily so inefficient nor so 
unprogressive as is sometimes supposed. We append extracts 
from the Court rolls for the years 1692, 1756, 1759, and 
1761 respectively. 2 

Orders of 2lst April 1692 

We do order to make a horse hich [hitching] 3 for this year, 
and we do agree that it shall be from the Pool head up the pool 

1 A similar agricultural revolution is recorded of the village of Hunmanby 
in Yorkshire, some time prior to 1794. By unintelligent cultivation, the 
commonfields had become "worn-out." At last the co-owners of the strips 
were persuaded to adopt a six years' course of (1) turnips fed off by sheep, (2) 
seeds, (3) seeds, (4) seeds, (5) wheat, (6) oats or pease. The grass seeds, 
hurdles and nets, and wages of the shepherd were paid for, and the sheep 
supplied, by the co-owners in proportion to their holdings. The Field-reeves 
and Shepherd were appointed, regulations made, and the dates of the various 
operations determined, we are told, at meetings of those concerned, which 
may have been simply Courts of the Manor (General View of the Agriculture of 
the East Riding of Yorkshire, by Isaac Leatham, 1794, pp. 45-46; The English 
Peasantry, by Gilbert Slater, 1907, p. 88). 

2 We are indebted for these interesting records to Mr. M. E. Boulton, the 
present Lord of the Manor ; and (for those of the latter years) to Mr. Adolphus 
Ballard, M.A., Town Clerk of Woodstock, and Clerk to the Oxford Board of 
Guardians, author of Notes on the History of Chipping Norton, 1893 ; Chronicles 
of the Royal Borough of Woodstock, 1896 ; The Domesday Boroughs, 1905 ; 
The Domesday Inquest, 1907, etc. Mr. Ballard's stimulating researches lead us 
to look forward with interest to further historical work from his pen. 

3 For other uses of "hitching the fields," "hitchland," and "hatching 
ground," see The English Peasantry, by Gilbert Slater, 1907, pp. 23-30, 76, 81. 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 81 

side to Hollo Lake, and up Hollo Lake to the upper side of 
William Watson's . . . and so along the hade [head ?] way to the 
end of William Keynold's headland end. And so it shall come 
for[e]lands [?] on the home side of the wat[e]ry balke in Millslads, 
and every Land into the great Pool the head shall go with the 
land ; he that maketh default shall forfeit to the Lord of the Manor 
for every default 1. 

And we do further order that the aforesaid hichin[g] shall 
be tide [tied ?] with horses and e[a]ten of [f] by or before the 
17th day of Aug. next, and none to be mowed or cut or carried 
away, . . . 

We do order that the winter corn-field shall be from the horse 
hi[t]ching all up the west side of Wood Way, all up to the up[p]er 
side of Whete [Wheat ?] land. 

We do order to keep ten sheep for a yard-land for this summer 
common and no more ; the defaulter shall forfeit to the Lord of the 
Manor 4d. for every sheep and 1 pen[n]y to the tellers for every 
default. 

We do order to keepe the cow common on the 1 4th day of 
May and not before, and all the gaps in Down he[d]ge and ... to 
be stopped sufficiently, every man his own gaps, by or befor the 
same day. 

We do order to keep but one horse for the yard-land and no 
more, and there shall be no mare nor mares tide [tied] in the 
common field. . . . 

We do order that no man shall ti[e] his horse or horses in the 
corn-field. . . . 

We do order the sheep and folds to be reed [?] out of 
the corn-field by or before the 22nd day of this instant 
April. . . . 

We do order that no man shall baite his horse or horses in 
hollters [halters ?] or out of hollters in the field, nor no man shall 
ti[e] his horse or horses on mowed ground till the horses hi[t]ching 
be reede [?]. . . . 

And every man shall ty [tie] his own ground till a quarter of 
the field be reede [1] of the grain that it was laid for under the 
same fine. 

And we do order that no man letteth any Land on the Sainfoin 
Hill to any out-town man, he or they, be them whom they will, 
shall have no more power after he hath taken of[f] his own crope 
to ty [tie] any horse or horses to bait any sort of catill [cattle] on 
the said grounds. . . . 

We do order that every man shall scour up his trench at Hollo 
Lake by or before May day next, . . . 

We do order that every man shall fence his own pe[a]se Lands 
from Butcher's Row he[a]d to Wood-way Ford and from Bryer 
VOL. II. PT. I r : 



82 THE COURT IN RUINS 

Lands ford to Tew Park corner, by or before the 7th day of May 
next. . . . 

We do order the jury to mete [meet] on the 22nd day of 
this inst. April by 8 of the clock in the morning, at Preston 
Pool Hill. . . . 

We do order the Fieldsmen and empower them [to set] 8 horse 
commons and no more, and they are to set to every husbandman 
that hath most need one apiece, to the millers 4 apiece if - need be ; 
3/ to be for every common. 

Orders of 28th October 1756 

It is ordered by the Jury that no person shall keep more than 
eighteen sheep to the yardland this winter, and every person shall 
brand his sheep or mark them on or before 21st of November next, 
and to lay as many upon the turnips as they will, which shall not 
be deemed any part of the eighteen above mentioned ; the defaulter 
to pay three shillings and fourpence. 1 

. . . that the cows shall break the hangings of Horse Hill in a 
fortnight after the Cow Hill is broke, and in a week after the 
hanging is broke to break the hanging of Chescomb Hill and the 
top of Chescomb Hill, or as the Fieldsmen shall direct; and the 
herd not to break without the Fieldsmen's direction, the defaulter 
for every default to forfeit to the Lord of the Manor three shillings 
and fourpence. 

. . . that every Cow Common occupied by any person that has 
not at least a quartern of land in his occupation shall be deemed a 
Cottage Common, and every person that occupies more than a 
quarter of a Yardland and occupies more than two Cows Common 
[a] yardland, all that is over shall and is hereby deemed Cottage 
Commons ; and it is ordered by the Jury that every Cottage 
Common, or the owner or occupier thereof, shall pay (in lieu of 
having the hanging of Horse Hill and the top and hanging of 
Chescomb Hill laid to the Cow Common this next Summer) the 
sum of five shillings, which money is hereby ordered to be paid to 
the Fieldsmen on or before the twelfth day of May next ; and if 
any cottager shall not be able to sell his Common for fourteen 
shillings a common, the Fieldsmen, upon having notice thereof on 
the day aforesaid, he shall be obliged to pay him or them after the 
rate of nine shillings a Common at Gunpowder Treason 2 following, 

1 The opening and closing formal words of each subsequent order are 
omitted from the text for the sake of brevity. All the penalties for disobedience 
were increased from three and fourpence in 1756 and 1759 to ten shillings 
in 1761, the year of the revolution in the course of cultivation. 

2 Meaning, of course, the 5th November. 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 83 

which money so raised by the five shillings on every Cottage 
Common shall be laid out in scouring the darnings [1 dammings], 
trenching the Cow Common, mending the rudaAvay [1 roadway], 
and doing other good husbandry throughout the Field without 
regard to one's man ground rather than another, which nine 
shillings a Common is to be rated upon the cattle that are laid 
upon the Common, share and share alike. . . . 

. . . that no person that is to occupy lands in the Common 
Field of Great Tew shall have liberty to sell Sheep Commons to 
any person that does not occupy at least a quarter of a yardland in 
the Common Field, but if they have any Commons to sell they are 
to give notice to the Fieldsmen a week before Martinmas next, and 
if the Fieldsmen can't sell them to people that occupy at least a 
quarter of a yardland, the Commons are ordered to be paid for 
after the rate of ninepence a Sheep Common, to be raised by a levy 
the same as the Poor's Lev} 7 . 1 . . . 

. . . that the sheep shall be hained off the young sainfoin all 
this winter, and the Park Hill sainfoin at Martinmas next ; and the 
Little Oxenden sainfoin [is] to lie to the Common till Mayday 
next, and Chescomb Hill its hangings to lie to the Sheep Common 
till Mayday next. . . . 

. . . that the horses shall be hained out of the Commonfield 
on or before the 31st day of December next. . . . 

. . . that the Farr Hill shall be broke up this winter for 
turnips, and that Upper Barnwell shall be winter ploughed and 
sowed grass seeds with the spring grain to be sown thereon next 
spring ; and that the Hayward or Fieldsmen shall pound all 
manner of cattle off the turnips the same as if the Farr Hill was 
cornfield. . . . 

. . . that the horse hitchin [? hitching] shall be from Park 
Hill to London Way on the Old Hill next to Galleythorns, one 
Land to a yardland, and that the remainder of the Hill shall lie for 
a summer fallow, and Oxenden sainfoin to be fed with sheep next 
summer with it. . . . 

. . . that between the hedges, being the clover quarter, shall 
be hained from the sheep on or before the Martinmas next, and 
from all manner of cattle on or before the 31st day of December, 
and the gaps in the Millway hedge and Alice hedge to be stopped 
by the owners on or before the 31st day of December next; and 
every person to mound their own Landsends. . . . 

. . . that the Jury meet on Preston Pool Hill on the 16th 
November next by ten o'clock to do such matters between tenant 
and tenant and Lord and tenant as shall be wanting. . . . 

. . . that Priest Croft and the Leys shall be added to the Cow 

1 Note the change from a levy per head of cattle, or per right of common 
to a levy upon the annual value of each tenement. 



84 THE COURT IN RUINS 

Common for the year 1758, and the Northfields both to be laid to 
the Cow Common the year 1759. . . . 

The Jury appoints T. L. and W. L. to be Constables. 

The Jury appoints G. L., J. B., T. L., and J. M. Fieldsmen for 
the year ensuing. 

The Jury appoints J. B. to be Hayward for the year ensu- 
ing. 

The Jury presents the death of T. S., Quaker, by which there 
is a yardland and a half, and a small close called the Longgreen, 
fallen to the Lord of the Manor. 

The Jury presents that Widow F.'s lifehold tenement (is) going 
to decay, and that she ought to repair the same. 



Orders of 12nd October 1759 

It is Ordered by the Jury to sow all Little Oxenden, the 
Furlong called the Plank Pitts, Ten Lands over Oxenden Bottom 
next to Woodway, and Eight Lands next to Woodway in Ellden 
Stump furlong, pease the next spring, being in the year 1760, and 
in the spring 1761 to sow the same with barley, and to lay the 
same down with ryegrass and clover, the defaulter for every 
default to forfeit to the Lord of the Manor three shillings and 
fourpence. . . . 

... to sow turnips upon Wheatland, Piked and Broad Castors, 
Hollow Marsh Hill, and to Alepath, except the furlongs next to 
Woodway, the next spring, being the year 1760, and in the spring 
1761 to sow the same barley and lay it down with ryegrass and 
clover. . . . 

. . . that Wheatland, Piked and Broad Castors, and Hollow- 
marsh Hill, and from Churchway to Alepath, to be hained from all 
manner of cattle next summer on the 14th day next after Old 
Midsummer. . . . 

. . . that the Slad from the Brook by Woodway side up to 
Hollow Marsh, and all the furlongs shooting into Woodway, includ- 
ing Mr. Nevill's Hadland [? headland] at Hoare's Stone, and all the 
furlongs above Chipping Norton way from Woodway to Rattock, 
be sowed thetches for a horse hitchin [? hitching] this next spring, 
and to be sowed wheat as soon as the thetches are tied off, and in 
the spring 1761 to be sowed barley and laid down with grass 
seeds. . . . 

... to sow Lent grain the next spring on the furlong below 
Chipping Norton Way and all the rest part of the Westfield, and in 
the spring or summer 1761 to sow the same turnips, and to hain 
the said turnips from all manner of cattle on the 14th day next 
after Old Midsummer 1761, 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 85 

. . . that the hangings of Horse Hill and the hangings of 
Chescomb Hill be pastured by the cows this next summer 1760, 
and that Forest Croft and the Leys be pastured by the cows in the 
summer 1761, and that the two North fields be pastured by the 
cows in the summer 1762. . . . 

. . . that the Lands' ends on Chescomb Hill be mounded by 
the owners of the Lands ; and gates to be hung on the road by the 
Constables on or before the 16th day of November next. . . . 

. . . that the Lands' ends on Horse Hill be mounded by the 
owners of the Lands on or before a fortnight before Old Ladyday 
next ; and that the gaps in Down Hedge against Horse Hill and 
the Hollow way side be mounded by the owners at the same time ; 
and that the gates be put up by the Constable by the same 
time. . . . 

. . . that all Park Hill, and all Oxenden (except what is 
before ordered to be sowed pease), ryegrass and clover this next 
spring. . . . 

. . . that the occupiers of land in the Commonfield shall have 
the liberty of laying as many sheep on their turnips as they will 
carry, which said sheep are not to be deemed any part of the 
sixteen above mentioned. 

But in case of wet weather while the sheep are at turnips they 
are to have the liberty of Great Oxenden and Little Oxenden 
before it is sowed and nowhere else ; and no person that has sheep 
at turnips that does not occupy at least a quarter of a yardland 
shall have the liberty of coming upon either of the Oxendens in 
wet weather. . . . 

. . . that the folds be hained out of the winter Cornfields on 
or before the 21st November next ; and no person shall turn upon 
his neighbour's winter corn (except what is sowed amongst the 
turnips on the turnip division) after the 21st of November. . . . 

. . . that the horses shall be hained out of the Commonfield on 
or before St. Thomas, Old Style, next. . . . 

. . . that Farr Hill shall lie for a sheepwalk all next summer 
and that three sheep to a Yardland may be laid on the Farr Hill 
three weeks before May Day next, which three sheep shall be over 
and above the sixteen sheep laid upon the Winter Common, for the 
encouragement of them and an inducement to all occupiers of land 
that sow turnips. . . . 

. . . that the Old Hill shall be mowed for hay next summer, 
and the sheep to have it afterwards till Martinmas then next 
following, and no longer. . . . 

. . . that the Old Hill and Galleythorns be hained from sheep 
to-morrow, and all Park Hill from all manner of cattle and folds at 
the same time. . . . 

. . . that Churchway be mounded on both sides from Ayles- 



86 

hedge to Woodway, by the Yardland, on or before a month before 
Martinmas. . . . 

. . . that the gaps in Ayle.shedge be mounded by the Owners 
on or before Ladyday next. . . . 

It is Ordered by the Jury to mound the sainfoin from Wood- 
stock Way to the Mill hedge, every Land's end by the owner of 
the Land ; and where the furlong shoots up the brook, to be 
mounded by the two outside hides ; and to mound the wheat at 
Huckerswell, every one their own Land's ends ; and to mound the 
barley from Cloncil Corner to Barn well Ford, every man his 
Land's ends ; and the barley in Brook Furlong and Long Furlong 
to be mounded by the two outside hides ; and the gaps to be 
stopped in Millway hedge on or before Mayday. . . . 

Orders of 23rd October 1761 

It is Ordered by the Jury that Horse Hill be mounded by the 
two outside hides and the owners of the Lands' ends, on or before 
the 16th day of November next; the defaulter for every default to 
forfeit to the Lord of the Manor ten shillings. 

. . . that the grass seeds on Alepath Furlong, Hollowmarsh 
Hill, Wheatland and Broad Castors and Picked Castors, Little 
Oxenden, the Plank Pits, Eldenstump Furlong, and all Great 
Oxenden and Park Hill be hained from the sheep on the 22nd day 
of November next ; and the said grass seeds and the sainfoin to be 
hained from all manner of cattle on the 21st day of December 
next, the defaulter for every default to forfeit to the Lord of the 
Manor ten shillings. 

. . . that the Cow Common be hained from horses on the 
21st day of December next, and the Cow Common and Chescomb 
Hill to be hained from all manner of cattle on the 23rd day of 
March next. . . . 

. . . that the sheepfolds be hained out of the Cornfields on the 
22nd of November next. . . 

. . . that the horse hitchiri [? hitching] be in the Fallowfield 
beginning at the side next Cuckoo's Holt, a yard to a Yardland ; 
and that the horses shall not be hitched or tied on any other 
part of the Commonfield till after it is mowed, except on the 
highways. . . . 

. . . that all Huckerswell be sowed turnips this next summer, 
1762, and sowed barley with grass seeds, spring 1763 ; mowed for 
hay, summer 1764; sheepwalk, 1765; oats, 1766; fallow, 1767; 
wheat, 1768; pease, 1769. . . . 

. . . that between the hedges shall be sowed turnips in 
summer 1763, and every year after for eight years after the 
manner of Huckerswell. 



THE COURT OF THE MANOR 87 

. . . that Upper Barnwell be sowed turnips, 1764, and every 
year after for eight years after the manner of Huckerswell. 

. . . that the Lower side of Woodstock way beyond the Brook 
shall be sowed turnips, 1765, and every year after for eight years 
after the manner of Huckerswell. 

. . . that Galleythorns and the Old Hill be sowed turnips, 

1766, and every year after for eight years after the manner of 
Huckerswell. 

. . . that Park Hill and Great Oxenden be sowed turnips, 

1767, and every year after for eight years after the manner of 
Huckerswell. 

. . . that Upper Oxenden, Plankpits, and Ten Lands next 
Woodway, in both Eldenstump Furlong and over Oxenden Bottom 
and Wheatland and Broad and Picked Castors and Hollowmarsh 
Hill to Alepath be sowed turnips, 1768, and every year after for 
eight years after the manner of Huckerswell. 

. . . that from Alepath to the Great Pool be sowed turnips, 
1769, and every year after for eight years after the manner of 
Huckerswell. 

. . . that the Westfield from Alepath and Woodwayford be 
sowed barley or oats next spring, and ryegrass and clover ; that it 
shall be mowed for hay, 1763; sheepwalk, 1764; oats, 1765; fallow, 
1766; wheat, 1767; and pease, 1768. . . . 

. . . that the grass seeds at Great Oxenden and Park Hill 
shall be broke for the sheep at Old Ladyday next and not 
before. . . . 

. . . that all the grass seeds sowed last spring shall be mowed 
for and hay to Park Hill; and Great Oxenden to be sheepwalk, 
and all the grass seeds besides after they are mowed, except 
Chescomb Hill. . . . 

. . . that the Hay ward shall pound all horses, pigs, hogs, etc., 
that are found grassing about the waste in the town. 

The Jury elect S. D. Hayward, and agree to pay him two 
shillings a yardland ; and he is to keep the crows from off the 
wheat immediately that the wheat is out of danger ; and to keep 
the crows five weeks before harvest from off the wheat till reaping 
time; and' to keep the Field free from moles and wants, 1 and is to 
employ his whole time in doing the said duty. 

This vivid picture of the administration of commonfield 
agriculture by the Lord's Court raises some interesting 
questions. How did the twelve or fifteen members of the 
Jury of Great Tew manage to formulate all these com- 
plicated orders ? We learn from contemporary letters that 

1 I.e. hedgehogs. 



88 THE COURT IN RUINS 

their discussions were prolonged and tempestuous. In 1755 
the Court had actually to be adjourned because these " fathers 
of the hamlet " could not arrive at an agreement by nightfall. 
When the spring came round there arose " a great demur 
amongst the town's people about some of them trespassing 
the last Court Order " ; and the local representative of the 
Steward was obliged to send to him for the original document, 
or a copy of it, "for the Fieldsmen," who were to enforce it. 
In October the Lord of the Manor himself writes to his solicitor : 
" I am afraid I must trouble you to come and hold a Court 
here, though I doubt 'tis probable we shall be obliged to 
adjourn again as we did last year on account of squabbles." 
Within five years, as we have seen, the reformers got their 
way, and made the great revolution of adopting a nine years' 
course. That this did not do away with argument and 
discussion, we may realise from the fact that in 1763 the 
Lord of the Manor reports that they " could not finish the 
business of the Court till near ten this evening." ] 

The problem remains why we possess so little record of 
the agricultural decisions of the Lord's Court, which must, 
in thousands of Manors, have been formulating orders 
analogous to those of Great Tew. In Manor after Manor 
we find the books of records kept by the Stewards between 
1689 and 1835 giving attention to little else than the 
admissions of new tenants, the surrenders of copyholds, and 
other conveyancing business. There is a growing attenuation 
of the record. Sometimes the appointment of officers is 
recorded, sometimes not. The presentments of nuisances die 
away. The pleas in debt and trespass, with the verdicts arrived 
at, are often not entered at all, or entered in a separate book. 
When, as at Great Tew, the Jury had long and elaborate 
presentments, they prepared these on separate sheets of 
paper, which they delivered, as we are elsewhere expressly 
told, " to the Steward to enter in the Court rolls." 2 It is 
plain that the Steward, who was not interested in the tenants' 
agricultural operations, omitted the very heavy task of copying 

1 MS. Letters from Great Tew to Edward Ryves of Woodstock, 9th April and 
23rd October 1756 and 28th October 1763 ; in the possession of Mr. Ballard. 

2 Treatise, on Copyholds, by C. "VVatkius, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 383. 
The interesting presentments of the Jury of Great Tew are written on large sheets 
of paper, those of each year being entirely distinct from those of other years. 



THE BAM BURGH COURTS 89 

these lengthy presentments into his book ; and the loose sheets, 
like the corresponding loose papers of the Vestry, the Municipal 
Corporation, and the Court of Quarter Sessions, have been far 
less perfectly preserved, and even less carefully looked for, 
than the bound volumes. 1 

We might leave at this point our account of the Court 
of the Manor, content with the foregoing generalised descrip- 
tion of its constitution and procedure. But, to give greater 
actuality to our survey, we take from our collection half a 
dozen specimens for individual description. In these Manors 
the Courts will be seen to range from a wholly undifferentiated 
tribunal transacting all kinds of business, through Courts 
calling themselves by composite names, but transacting only 
one kind of business, up to Courts which correspond, in their 
duality, closely with the lawyers' view of what the Lord's 
Court ought to be. Whether this duality had always existed, 
or whether it was merely the product of a disintegration of 
function, we leave to the judgment of the historian. 

(i.) The Ba/niburgh Courts 

It has been observed that, in more than one respect, the 
County of Northumberland has, in the past, been a century 
or two later in constitutional development than the more 
settled parts of the South of England. Accordingly, it is to 
Northumberland that we turn for the best examples of 
Manorial Courts continuing in full and unrestricted activity 
throughout the eighteenth century. Along the six miles 
of wild rocks and sandhills from Budle Point to Beadnell Bay 
the little fishing villages and scattered agricultural hamlets 
were under the dominion of the Lord of the Castle of 
Bamburgh, 2 that rises to this day so picturesquely on its black 
rock from amid the sweeping stretches of sparkling white 
sand. Here we find a particularly full and varied Manorial 

1 For another instance, at Laxton (Notts), see The English Peasantry, by 
Gilbert Slater, 1907, ch. ii. 

2 In 1704 the Bamburgh Manors, which had belonged to the Forsters, were 
acquired by Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and were on his death in 1720 
left in trust for charitable purposes. We are indebted to the existing trustees, 
and to Mr. W. T. Hinclmarsh of Alnwick, for access to the MS. records from 
1695, See also the History of Northumberland, by E. Bateson, vol. i. (1893), 
in which some extracts are given (pp. 1G9-172). 



90 THE COURT IN RUINS 

jurisdiction extending throughout the whole of the period 
under our consideration. In the hall of the ancient castle 
two Courts were regularly held, the View of Frankpledge and 
Court Baron of the Manor of the Castle, with jurisdiction 
extending over the whole of the great Manor of about fifty 
square miles ; and the Court of the Manor of the " Borough " 
of Bamburgh itself, governing the little village that clustered 
round the fortress. The Court of the Manor of the Castle 
claimed, in 1689, the attendance of some two hundred suitors 
of various grades. There were, first of all, the free tenants 
of the Manor great personages residing in Scotland and the 
South of England, who held lands of the Lord of Bamburgh, 
and who, between 1689 and 1835, were regularly summoned 
at his Courts, and as regularly " essoined." The real attend- 
ants at these Courts were the more assiduous or the more 
dependent of the eight or nine score of " Freeholders," " Copy- 
holders," " Leaseholders," and " Cottagers " of the " demesnes " 
of Bamburgh and North Sunderland, and of the three vills 
or townships of Beaduell, Shoreston, and North Sunderland, 
together with the " Resiants in Bamburgh Castle " itself, all 
of whom are elaborately recited in the records. At this Court, 
which was held only once a year (with frequent omissions 
in the years between 1695 and 1774) all kinds of business 
was transacted. Constables, Pounders, and Ale-tasters were 
appointed for each of the three constituent townships. Minor 
offences principally trespasses by animals in the common- 
fields, nuisances, assaults, and affrays were presented and 
amerced. The townships themselves were amerced for non- 
repair of pinfolds and stocks. 1 New copyholders were admitted 
and successions to property registered. Occasional orders 
were made as to the management of the common pasture, the 
particular fields in which horses were to be tethered, the 
repair of the " headland," 2 and the obnoxious habits of some 
of the inhabitants of Beadnell, who had started extracting fish 
oil in the streets. 3 But the principal business of the Court 

1 MS. Court Rolls, Manor of the Castle of Bamburgh, 1707, etc. 

2 Ibid. 1st October 1705. 

8 "Ordered that none of the inhabitants of Beaduell shall boil or extract 
oil out of fish in the town streets, or within the houses there, the same being 
not only noxious and offensive, but also dangerous to the neighbourhood " 
(ibid. 22nd April 1719). 



THE BAM BURGH COURTS 91 

was the trial of civil actions between inhabitants of the 
Manor for debts or damages not exceeding 39s. lid. In the 
earlier years of the eighteenth century there was always an 
array of such actions to be dealt with at every Court. It 
was, indeed, a serious offence in any inhabitant to bring before 
any other tribunal, whether civil or criminal, any matter 
which could be dealt with at the Court of the Manor. In 
1705, for instance, we find two of the tenants fined 39s. lid. 
each, one for getting the other arrested on a writ issued 
by the King's Court at Westminster, and the other for 
indicting his adversary at Quarter Sessions. 1 Eight down 
to the middle of the nineteenth century this Manorial juris- 
diction in civil actions and petty offences was maintained and 
continued ; though we note the stream of cases getting 
gradually smaller, and all attempt at enforcing an exclusive 
jurisdiction is abandoned. 2 

The whole of the business of this Court seems to have 
been transacted by the dozen or so of jurymen summoned by 
command of the Steward. Down to 1707 there was one 
Jury only, described as the " Jury of Inquiry and of Trial 
of Actions." From 1707 onward we find in the records 
always two Juries sworn, a " Jury of Inquiry " and a " Jury 
for the Trial of Causes." But the two Juries were, in fact, 
the same persons, though the names usually occur in different 
orders. 3 It is to be noted that the differentiation of the 

1 "Upon the oath of T. H. we present the said H. J. for causing T. H. to 
be indicted at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the county, 
whereas if he had any cause of action or complaint against the said T. H. the 
same might have been redressed and punished in this Court ; for which he is 
amerced 39s. lid. Upon oath of H. J. we present T. H. for causing the said 
H. J. to be arrested upon a writ out of some of the Courts at Westminster at 
the said T. H.'s suit; whereas the cause of action being under 39s. lid. . . . 
and therefore cognisable in this Court, he might have had redress in this 
Court ; we do therefore amerce him 39s. lid." (ibid. 1st October 1705). 

2 The Court appears to have been held usually once a year, even for civil 
suits ; but half-yearly meetings occasionally occur, and even (as between 1779 
and 1786) other meetings. It was assumed in 1839 that it had the right to 
three-weekly sessions, but was then, in fact, held only once a year, with an 
average of only one or two cases (House of Commons Return of Courts of 
Request, 1840, p. 114). 

3 We suspect that the Jury was appointed to serve for the year. A possible 
cause of the nominal differentiation between its two main functions of present- 
ment and of trial is suggested by an entry of 1748. "In the cause between 
Mills and Taylor, A. A. sworn on 'Jury instead of George Taylor" (MS. 
Court Rolls, Manor of Bamburgh, 6th July 1748). It was obviously convenient 



92 THE COURT IN RUINS 

Jury into two Juries bore no resemblance to the lawyers' 
distinction between the Homage of the Court Baron and the 
Jury of the Court Leet. At Bamburgh the Jury of Inquiry 
continued to act both as the Homage of the Lord and the 
Jury for the King; admitting new copyholders, regulating 
the commons, appointing Constables, and presenting public 
nuisances. The second Jury was, as its name implies, 
restricted to the trial of " plaints and pleas " between parties. 1 
We pass now to the Manor of the Borough of Bamburgh, 
for which the same Steward, assisted by the same Bailiff, held 
entirely separate Courts. Here again we have the elaborate 
array of classes of persons owing suit and service Free 
Suitors, Freeholders, Cottagers, Leaseholders, and " Farmers," 
whatever may be meant by this term. 2 But the Court is, 
down to 1719, termed, in its records, a Court Baron only; 
and we do not feel sure whether (as we shall subsequently 
describe in the case of Alresford) the Lord had not retained 
the View of Frankpledge and Court Leet when granting to 
the " Borough of Bamburgh " the privilege of a separate Court. 
The " Borough of Bamburgh " had had, indeed, a long and 
eventful history. For more than two hundred years it had 
ranked as a " Free Borough," even receiving Royal Charters 
and sending members to Parliament. But it was practically 
destroyed in the Scotch wars of the fifteenth century ; and it 
seems then to have reverted to a position of Manorial subordina- 
tion, retaining of its former status nothing more than the 

to be able to omit from the Jury for the Trial of Actions persons interested in a 
particular suit, without necessarily omitting them from the Jury of Inquiry. 

1 It is to be noted that there are (as we have seen in the Courts at Hitchin 
and elsewhere) distinct signs that the Stewards latterly tried to make their 
Courts what the lawyers were saying that they ought to be. Thus, from 1779, 
we find the Jury which does all the main business termed the Jury for our 
Lord the King, and the Jury which tries actions only is termed the Homage 
Jury for the Trial of Causes (ibid. June and October 1779). 

It is interesting to find that in the Manor of Blanchland, also belonging 
to the Crewe Trustees, where the Courts were held by the same Steward as those 
of Bamburgh, we find practically the same terms used. There is the same 
recital of Freeholders, Leaseholders, and Cottagers, as liable to suit and service ; 
and the same "Jury of Inquiry and for Trial of Causes." But in this remote 
rural Manor there were, from 1785 at any rate, no "causes," and very few 
presentments of nuisances, so that the holding of the Court was discontinued 
after 1812, in spite of an urgent petition from the inhabitants (MS. Court Rolls, 
Manor of Blanchland, 1785-1812). 

2 We did not notice any explicit mention of Copyholders, so that it is possible 
that " Farmers" here mean "customary tenants " by copy of Court Roll. 



THE HAMBURG H COURTS 93 

name of Borough, and the separation of its Court from that of 
the rest of the Manor. 1 In its decay the Manor of the Borough 
passed to the Priory of Nostell in Yorkshire ; which acquired 
also the two neighbouring townships of Elford and Fleethani, 
and apparently added them to the jurisdiction of the Borough 
Court. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the owner- 
ship of the Manor of the Borough was reunited with that of 
the Manor of the Castle, and presently we find the Steward, 
who held both Courts, giving them both the same title of View 
of Frankpledge and Court Baron. 2 Both dealt, in fact, with 
the same heterogeneous kinds of business, though in differing 
proportions. The Court of the Borough, like that of the 
Castle, actually empanelled only one set of jurymen for all 
its business; and this remained as a single Jury until 1727, 
when it became nominally differentiated into a Jury "ad 
inquirendum " and a Jury " per treatione causae " (sic), but 
nevertheless consisted always of the same twelve or thirteen 
persons. The Court of the Borough had, however, its own 
distinctive character, both in function and in structure. 
It formally admitted new tenants to the " burgageship " of the 
Manor of the Borough. It had far more presentments of 
nuisances than the Court of the Castle, and these nuisances 
were rather more distinctively urban in their character. It 
dealt with weights and measures, with the mutual obligations 
of millers and their customers, and with the clearing of the 
lanes from loose stones. 3 ' It had to make a large number of 
regulations for the use of the " Burrow Yards " (or Borough 
Yardlands, commonfields under plough), as well as for stinting 
the common pastures. 4 What is, however, still more distinctive 

1 For Bamburgh as a Borough see History of Northumfierlaiid, by E. Bateson, 
1893, vol. i. pp. 114-148. It is mentioned as a Borough in 1197 ; it received 
Royal Charters in 1255, 1321, 1332, 1382, and 1405; it was represented 
in the Parliament of 1295 ; and it was destroyed between 1419 and 1439. 
Its population probably at no time exceeded a few hundreds, but it was divided 
into four Wards, and elected four Bailiffs. 

2 MS. Court Rolls, Manor of the Borough of Bamburgh, 1719, etc. 

3 " Ordered that the several occupiers of the lands and grounds of Bamburgh 
shall, upon notice from the Constables, assist to clear the lanes of stones and 
molehills" (ibid. 23rd April 1719). "Every person within this Manor shall 
grind at the mill they are accustomed to. ... The miller shall wait on his 
customers to carry the grist to his mill and back again within forty eight hours' 
warning" (ibid. 4th May 1731). 

4 "None of the inhabitants of Bamburgh shall for the future put any of 
their cattle to feed in any of the Burrow Yards (? Borough Yardlands) until ajl 



94 THE COURT IN RUINS 

is the fact that, throughout the whole proceedings, we are 
conscious of the " Freeholders of the Borough " in the back- 
ground, as constituting a standing part of the government, 
with functions of their own. We have no records of the 
meetings of these Freeholders we have not even any such 
reports from them brought into Court as those presented by 
the Jury of the Manor of Great Tew but we learn something 
about them from the records of the Court itself. We must, of 
course, visualise them, not as the owners of freehold houses in 
a crowded city, 1 but as the owners of scattered strips of arable 
land in the " Borough yards," or common-fields, with rights of 
common pasturage. In 1 705 we find them entering into a 
Corporate agreement with the Lord, duly ratified and recorded 
at the next Court, as to their " free liberty " to depasture on 
the Town Moor, to have " the eatage " of certain fields, and to 
drive their cattle in summer on the seashore, whilst, if the 
weather is very bad, they are to be free to use also the Castle 
demesne ground. 2 We see them authorised by the Court to 
make " a general rate or assessment " on themselves, in order 
to raise a sufficient sum to make 'good the fences ; and to 
collect the said rate or tax by one of themselves. 3 We even 
find them on one occasion directed to decide upon and, by a 
mere majority vote, to assess upon all the inhabitants of the 
Borough, for repairing and cleansing the well, a compulsory 
rate or tax, which the Court will enforce by distraint. 4 The 

the corn groAving thereon shall be led in " (ibid. 9th September 1760). ' ' No stints 
of horses shall be kept for sheep, nor sheep for horses, and the stinting Day is to 
be 10th of May yearly " (ibid. 9th September 1760). " It is also ordered that the 
several rabbit cuts in the said moor ought to be filled up at the end of every 
hunting (i.e. shooting) season to prevent all mischiefs by the horses or cattle 
falling therein" (ibid. 23rd May 1775). "The several holds in the said moor 
which have been made for the purpose of burning for kelp ought to be filled up 
at the end of every burning season, and the stones surrounding the same to be 
removed" (ibid. 23rd May 1775). 

1 We do, however, read that " no person living out of freehold mansion-house 
shall keep any horses upon Hamburgh Commons" (ibid. 13th October 1722). 

2 Ibid. 2nd October 1705. 3 Ibid. October 1790 ; also 1794. 

4 " It is at this Court, by and with the consent of the Jury, thought fit and 
ordered that the Freeholders of the Town of Bamburgh do, some time before the 
next Court, . . . agree upon and lay an assessment upon every inhabitant or 
householder . . . for and towards the repairing and cleansing the Kiln Well, 
as to the said Freeholders, or major part of them, shall seem fit and expedient." 
Any one refusing to pay was to forfeit one and eightpence, to be levied by distraint 
(ibid. 16th October 1696). On the other hand,- the way to the well Avas 
ordered to be repaired, not by a tax, but by the tenants of the adjoining lands 
(ibid. 15th October 1699). 



THE HAMBURGH COURTS . 95 

existence in the fourteenth century of a chartered Borough of 
Bamburgh makes it probable that the rights and privileges of 
the Freeholders of this Manor were but the remnants of a 
decayed autonomy. But for this historical probability, we 
might almost have seen in them the nascent germ of what, in 
other circumstances, developed into such Manorial Boroughs as 
Alnwick or Arundel, presently to be described. 1 

1 The records of the " Court of View of Frankpledge with Court Baron" of 
the Manor of Tweedmouth and Spittal, between 1658 and 1663, with far less 
full minutes down to 1819, offer an exceptionally clear view of an Undifferentiated 
Court. This Manor, lying opposite the Borough of Berwick-on-Tweed, was 
purchased for 570 by the Municipal Corporation in 1652-1657, in order that 
the latter might be able to clear out ' ' the numerous company of disorderly, 
uncivil, and lawless persons, principally Scotswomen of evil fame," who were 
harboured there. The MS. records of the Courts that continued to be held by 
the Corporate Lord of the Manor show the extreme heterogeneity of the business. 
The fifteen Jurymen who were invariably sworn at each six-monthly Court dealt 
indiscriminately, in their presentments, with the appointment of Constables 
and the amercement of nuisance-mongers, with actions for debt and the punish- 
ment of "a blood and affray," with the lack of a Pound and the admission of 
new copyhold tenants of the Manor, with defective weights and measures and the 
defaults of tenants in keeping their ditches scoured, with the harbouring of 
"inmates " and the keeping of ducks and geese " to abuse the water," with the 
grant of a portion of the waste and the ordering of the strangers to find security 
that they will not become chargeable, with prohibitions of the boiling of salmon 
in the village itself and the method by which "the assessment that was gathered 
for repairing the highways" (1663) was to be accounted for by the Bailiffs. 
The entries show that the Court passed higgledy-piggledy from one kind of 
business to the other, whether it was the presentment of a nuisance, the admission 
of a new copyholder, the appointment of a Constable, the verdict in an action 
on the case between two inhabitants, or the punishment of a common scold. 
But there are variations in the record. From 1658 to 1663 there are numerous 
and extremely heterogeneous entries in English, including many civil actions. 
From 1663 to 1732 the entries are in Latin, and relate exclusively to the property 
business of the Manor. We see no reason to suppose that the busy local tribunal 
came suddenly to an end, and we suspect that the presentments of the Jury 
(as at Great Tew) were written on separate loose sheets, which a new Steward 
neglected to copy into his book. From 1732 to 1764 the entries are in English, 
but still exclusively relating to conveyancing, etc. Between 1764 and 1771, 
whilst admissions and conveyances, etc., are recorded as by "the Homage" 
evidently a new Steward had learnt that this was the legal formula there are a 
certain number of " presentments of the Jury," and "orders of the Court," 
relating to the appointment of Constables, nuisances, and weights and measures, 
which the Jury went round to inspect. After 1771, again, we have nothing but 
conveyances recorded. The Steward makes no entry in this book of the findings 
of the Jury in civil suits. Yet we know that this very Court, which determined 
dozens of civil actions in the seventeenth century, was still determining them in 
the nineteenth century, and had doubtless been doing so continuously. Over 
200 summonses were taken out in 1839, over 100 cases heard, and half a dozen 
judgments enforced by execution against property (House of Commons Return 
of Courts of Request, 1840, p. 125). 



96 THE CO UR T IN R UINS 



(ii.) The Court Leet of the Savoy 

In contrast with the little fishing ports of Northumberland 
stands the so-called Precinct of the Savoy, in 1689 a tiny 
scrap of densely populated, extra-parochial territory around the 
ancient palace, prison, and chapel of the Savoy in Westminster. 
Here the Manorial rights have continued to belong to the 
Crown, in respect of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Lord's 
Court to be regarded, apparently, as exercising only Court 
Leet functions has been held uninterruptedly for at least 
five centuries down to the present day. 1 Every year during 
the past five centuries the Steward, as of old, has held this 
ancient Court, the Bailiff formally notifying the residents to 
attend, and expressly summoning about a score of them to 
serve on the Jury. At the end of the seventeenth century, 
and (as the records show) throughout the eighteenth century, 
the Court was an effective local governing authority in the 
absence of any effective Vestry, the only authority for the 
Precinct, other than the much- occupied Middlesex Quarter 
Sessions. 2 At the sessions of this Court were appointed the 
four Burgesses and the four Assistant Burgesses, each serving 
for life, a number to which the Precinct was entitled under 
the Act of 1585, in imitation of the constitution of the Court 
of Burgesses for Westminster. The Court also appointed 
annually from among the respectable householders four 
Constables, four Aleconners, and two Flesh-tasters, who were 

1 The early records of this Court, mentioned as held in 1399, have dis- 
appeared, but the proceedings between 1682 and 1789 are summarised in 
precise detail in the Digest of the Proceedings of the Court Leet of the Manor and 
Liberty of the Savoy, which Joseph Ritson, the learned antiquary, who was then 
the Steward, published in 1789. For its work since that date there is its great 
bound volume of current records, "The Court Book of the Manor and Liberty 
of the Savoy," for access to which (and much information) we are indebted to 
the courtesy of Mr. G. R. Askwith, the present Steward. 

2 The Precinct of the Savoy, as an extra- parochial place, had apparently for 
a long time no parish officers. We hear of a sort of Select Vestry in 1635 and 
1732 (see Vol. I. The Parish and the County, p. 186), which may not have con- 
tinued in authority. The inhabitants held annual meetings to choose Trustees 
for regulating the Nightly Watch under 14 George III. c. 90 (1774). A body of 
Paving Commissioners, similarly elected, was established by 5 and 6 William IV. 
c. 18 (1835). When at last the Precinct was required in 1855 to take rank 
among the Parishes of Westminster for the election of a member of the 
Metropolitan Board of Works, the election was also made at the mooting of 
ratepayers, which had by this time assumed to be an open Vestry, 



THE COURT LEET OF THE SAVOY 97 

required to serve their year of office, and severely fined in 
default. 1 These officers were required severally to make their 
presentments of nuisances and defaults to the next Court, 
when the Jury did not fail to inflict substantial fines on 
the offenders. Shopkeepers using fraudulent weights and 
measures, 2 residents keeping houses of ill-fame, 3 traders ob- 
structing the streets by leaving timber, casks, or packing-cases 
about, or stopping up the footway by ladders ; 4 owners allowing 
their premises to become structurally unsafe ; soap-boilers 
conveying offensive soaplees along the Strand ; 5 the Keeper 
of the Savoy Prison for ill-treating the military prisoners 
detained there 6 even the proprietor of Exeter Change for 
" keeping a tiger carelessly secured in a shed on Savoy Hill 
to the great alarm of the neighbours " 7 found themselves 
reprimanded, warned, and smartly fined for their delinquencies. 
During the eighteenth century the " Commissioners of the 
Pavement " and the " Commissioners of Sewers," both statutory 
authorities for the City of Westminster, were repeatedly pre- 
sented for their neglect. The condition of the "Strand 
Bridge," of " Strand Lane Stairs," of " Essex Stairs," and of 
" Surrey Stairs " was perpetually exercising the minds of the 
Jury. 8 Nor did the Court lack its paid professional officers. 
Besides the Bailiff, whose remuneration lay in his fees, there 
was an Upper Beadle and an Under Beadle, each with a 
gorgeous staff of office, and (in 1795) an Assistant Constable. 
Year after year the proceedings go on, in the nineteenth 
century growing steadily more perfunctory. The advent of 
the new police in 1829 evidently accelerates the process of 
decay. In 1861 the Court petitions Parliament to be in- 
cluded, like the City of Westminster, in the abolition of the 

1 As lately as 1791 an inhabitant was summarily fined 7 for refusing to 
serve as Constable (MS. Records, Savoy Court, 1791). 

2 "Upon the return of the Aleconners, they present Mr. F., Cheesemonger, 
in Butcher Row, for having scales which they found deficient, and do amerce 
him in the sum of forty shillings " (MS. Records, Savoy Court, 1785). Similarly 
a baker, " for breaking the Assize of Bread," is fined forty shillings (ibid. 1792). 

3 Ibid. 1809 (very frequently also between 1682 and 1789). 
* Ibid. 1795. 

6 Ibid. 1796, 1797, 1807, 1809, 1810 (30 fine). 

6 1795 and 1798; in 1810 the Jury visited the prison and found "all well" 
(ibid). 

t Ibid. 1798. 

8 Digest of the Proceedings of the Cowrt Leet of the Manor and Liberty of the 
Savoy, by J. Ritson, 1789. 

VOL. II. PT. I H 



98 THE COURT IN RUINS 

"Annoyance Jury." After this date the officers' presentments 
cease, and the proceedings become formal only, though fines 
continued to be nominally inflicted on keepers of houses of 
ill-fame (as a method of driving them out of the Precinct) 
down to 1880. The Court still (1907) continues to be held, 
with elaborate ceremony, the Steward formally " charging " 
the Jury, and insisting on its attendance. The proceedings, 
however, are confined to a punctilious maintenance of ancient 
boundary marks, and the five -centuries -old "Court of the 
Steward, Bailiff', and Burgesses of the Manor and Liberty of 
the Savoy," fully alive and active in 1807, lingers in 1907 
only as a shadow of the past. 1 

1 We may mention another extra-parochial place in the Metropolis, governed, 
apparently, by a Lord's Court. The Tower of London has, time out of mind, 
been the nucleus of a "Liberty," or area exempted from some or all of the 
jurisdiction of the County. According to a statute of 1663 this Liberty of 
"the Tower Hamlets" included no fewer than twenty-one places, comprising 
Shoreditch, Hackney, and the whole eastern part of Middlesex, within which 
were many separate Manors. These were, at any rate for militia purposes, under 
the Constable of the Tower, who acted in many ways as Gustos Rotulorum and 
Lord-Lieutenant. Whether anything in the nature of a Hundred Court was 
ever held we cannot tell ; but Courts of Quarter Sessions were regularly held in 
the Tower itself until the reign of James II., when they were removed, as the 
concourse of people within the fortress was deemed unsafe. Meanwhile a Court 
was being held in the Tower, exercising Leet jurisdiction over the "Liberties" 
of the Tower in a narrower sense, extending, in fact, only to "the circumference 
without the Tower" and to extra -parochial places close by, such as Little 
Minories, Old Artillery Ground, and Wellclose Square. We hear in the sixteenth 
century of the presentments of "Her Majesty's Inquest of the Tower." Those 
of the "Leet Jury" for 1679 are preserved. The official orders and Letters 
Patent of James II. expressly mention this Court Leet of the Tower, and con- 
firm the immunity of the "Liberties" from the authorities of the Cities of 
London and Westminster. Whether this Court of the " Precinct " of the Tower, 
as this adjacent " Liberty " came to be called, in any way represented a shrunken 
Court for the whole of the Tower Hamlets, superior to the Courts of the Manors 
within them, we cannot ascertain. Even as the Court Leet of the Precinct, it 
apparently faded away early in the eighteenth century. From an interesting 
petition of 16th February 1727 (preserved in War Office Ordnance Records, 
Misc. No. 1, Entry Book re Tower Liberty, in Public Record Office), we gather 
that the Court was held under the Steward of the Constable of the Tower, and 
that the Jury presented persons to serve as officers of the Precinct, including, 
since 1601, two Overseers of the Poor, who accounted regularly to the Court. 
The Court disposed of various funds, including fees paid by publicans for 
licences ; the rent of a shed on Tower Hill built by the Court itself, and of 
another on Tower Wharf; "the disposal of the Bulwark Bar" (apparently a 
toll) ; fines imposed for oaths ; fees on burials at the chapel of the Tower ; fees 
on licences to watermen to work the Tower ferries on Sundays ; voluntary con- 
tributions at the Chapel, and otherwise ; and, finally, a rate levied on the 
inhabitants of Tower Hill. With these revenues the Court relieved the poor 
and administered the government of the Precinct. Latterly, however, by the 
neglect of Governors and of the Court, " the late Gentleman Porter" has 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 99 



(iii.) The Court Leet and Court Baron of Manchester 

The Manor of Manchester affords an example of a Lord's 
Court continuing to serve as an active local governing authority 
for a vast population and one of the greatest of English 
provincial towns, 'not merely between 1689 and 1835, but 
right down to 1846, under conditions very different from 
those of the rural fishing villages of Bamburgh, and even from 
those of the Precinct of the Savoy. 1 

The first point that we notice is that at Manchester there 

appropriated the income of the Bulwark Bar, and some of the other revenues 
have been left unclaimed, with the result that the rate on the inhabitants has 
been increased. The military authorities are therefore requested to restore the 
privileges of the Court Leet. We have been unable to trace any of the records 
of this Court or to find out when it actually ceased to be held (see The Survey 
of London, by John Stow, vol. i. p. 77, of Strype's edition of 1720 ; History and 
Antiquities of the Tower of London, by John Bayley, vol. ii. pp. 654-670, and 
Appendix, pp. 112 and 121 of 1st edition only, 1825). 

1 Owing to the public-spirited action of the Manchester Town Council the 
records of this Court from 1552 to 1846 have been printed in full (see The 
Cowrt Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, in twelve volumes, edited, with 
notes and introduction to each volume, by J. P. Earwaker, 1884-1890). Extracts 
from these rolls had already been edited by John Harland in two volumes of 
the Chetham Society's publications (1864 and 1865). The Town Council has 
also published The Constables' Accounts of the Manor of Manchester (1612-1776), 
three vols., edited by J. P. Earwaker, 1891-1892. For the early history of 
the Manor see the scholarly treatise by Professor James Tait, Mediaeval Manchester 
and the Beginnings of Lancashire, 1904 ; which does not, however, clear up the 
complicated relationship between the Hundred and the Manor, the Manor and 
the Parish, and the Parish and the Townships. Something is to be gathered 
on these points from Chapters from the Early History of the Barony, Lordship, 
Vill, etc., of Manchester, by J. Harland, 1861-1862 (vols. 53, 56, and 58 of the 
Chetham Society); the article on "The Feudal Baronage," by W. Farrer, in 
the Victoria County History of Lancashire, vol. i., 1906 ; and from the series 
of histories of the several chapelries in course of publication by the Chetham 
Society, viz. those of Denton, by J. Booker (vol. 37) ; Didsbury and Chorlton, 
by J. Booker, 1857 (vol. 42); Stretford, by H. T. Crofton, 1899-1903 (vols. 
N.S. 42, 45, and 51); Birch, by J. Booker, 1857 (vol. 47); and Newton, by 
H. T. Crofton, 1904-5 (vols. 52-55), for some of which references we are indebted 
to Dr. W. E. Axon. See also Didsbury, Sketches, Reminiscences, and Legends, by 
Fletcher Moss, 1890. For incidental references to the Manorial Court, see the 
account of the customs enrolled in 1623 (History of Boroughs, by H. A. Merewether 
and A. J. Stephens, 1835, vol. i. pp. 541-545) ; A Picture of Manchester, by Joseph 
Aston, 1816, pp. 27-30, 168 ; An Essay on English Municipal History, by 
James Thompson, 1867, ch. xiv ; Manchester Guardian, 18th October 1817, 
4th May and 19th October 1833, 12th October 1836, 25th October 1837, 
13th January and 10th February 1838 ; Manchester Courier, 15th October 1836 ; 
and the case of Rutter v. Chapman, 1839. The close of its history is described 
in the introduction to vol. xii. of The Court Leet Records of the Manor of 
Manchester, by J. P. Earwaker, 1890 ; Alderman Cobden, by Sir E. W. Watkin, 
1891 ; Cobden as a Manchester Citizen, by W. E. A. Axon, 1904. 



loo THE COURT IN RUINS 

was, at any rate in the nineteenth century, not one Lord's Court, 
but a pair of Courts two separate and distinct tribunals, held 
in different places, at different times, by different officers of the 
Lord of the Manor, served by different staffs of subordinates, 
and preserving entirely distinct records. There was the 
" Court Baron of the Manor of Manchester," a " Three Weeks' 
Court," of which the functions seem to have been confined to 
the trial of civil actions under forty shillings. 1 There was the 
"Court Leet and View of Fraiikpledge held in and for the 
Manor of Manchester," which, as we shall see, closely resembled 
what the lawyers thought that a Court Leet ought to be. It 
is true that at this Court the Jury elected a Boroughreeve, an 
officer whose title would have led us rather to expect his 
election at the Court Baron. But the Boroughreeve of 
Manchester had nothing to do with collecting the Lord's rents 
and dues from his burgage or other tenants, nor had he even 
to manage any of the common affairs of the tenants of the 
Manor. For the period with which we are concerned he was 
merely the head police officer, 2 superintending the two Con- 
stables and representing the little community to the rest of the 
world. Whatever inter-mixture of the agricultural or other 
common interests of the tenants of the Manor there may have 
been in preceding centuries, the Manchester Court Leet between 
1689 and 1835 was concerned exclusively with the suppression 
of the ever -increasing urban nuisances, the making of the 
usual By-laws for the regulation of the streets, and the appoint- 

1 Particulars as to the actual work and character of the Court Baron for 
Manchester are scanty ; see the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on the 
Courts of Common Law, 1833, pp. 53a, 75a, 78a, and especially 1-5& ; A Picture 
of Manchester, by Joseph Aston, 1816, p. 30 ; History of Lancashire, by John 
Corry, 1825, vol. ii. p. 477. 

2 "We came on to Manchester, one of the greatest, if not the greatest mere 
village in England. It is neither a walled town, city, nor Corporation ; it sends 
no members to Parliament ; and the highest magistrate there is a Constable 
or Headborough ; and yet it has a Collegiate Church, besides several other 
churches ; takes up a large space of ground ; and, including the suburbs, or that 
part of the town on the other side of the bridge [Salford], it is said to contain 
above 50,000 people. ... I cannot doubt but this increasing town will, some 
time or other, obtain some better face of government and be incorporated, as it 
very well deserves to be " (A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 
by D. Defoe, vol. iii. pp. 219, 220 of edition of 1742). Defoe greatly exaggerated 
the population of Manchester and Salford, which on his visit probably did not 
reach 20,000. In 1689 Manchester alone was put at about 6000 ; in 1774 at 
41,000 ; in 1801 it was 84,000, and in 1831, 122,000. 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 101 

ment of the multitudinous public officers requisite for these 
objects. 1 

The Court Leet of the Manor of Manchester is remarkable 
for its highly developed organisation. Held always by the 
Steward of the Lord of the Manor, with a Jury appointed at 
the preceding Court, it seems from the earliest recorded times 
to have claimed the attendance of every " Burgess " of the 
Township of Manchester, or his eldest son or wife, under 
penalty of threepence fine. This obligation on every holder of 
a burgage tenement may be connected with the grant of the 
charter of 1301 and the practice of the Portmanmoot of the 
Township. 2 In the eighteenth century, when the meaning of 
the custom had been forgotten, it seems to have been assumed by 
the Court that every male resident over twelve years of age was 
under obligation to attend ; and we have evidence that an im- 
mense list of names -was actually called over, with a view to 
imposing, for the profit of some of the officers, a fine of three- 
pence each on those who did not answer to their names. 3 

1 We must leave to the historians of earlier centuries to decide whether the 
Court Baron and Court Leet of Manchester, as we find them in 1689, were 
descended from one Court of the Manor or from more than one Court. In the 
fourteenth century there had been a Court Baron of Manchester, sitting from 
three weeks to three weeks, exercising jurisdiction over the whole Barony of 
Manchester. Professor Tait supposes this Court, in shrinking in jurisdiction to 
the township of Manchester, to have become what we find, in 1552, as the 
Court Leet (Mediaeval Manchester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James 
Tait, 1904, p. 35). On the other hand, the Charter of 1301 gave the 
inhabitants of the township a "curia burgi," "Portmanmoot," or Borough 
Court of their own, which elected the head officer or Reeve, and had jurisdiction 
over the Burgesses of the narrower area of the township in debt and assault. 
This Court seems to us more likely to have been the ancestor of the Court Leet 
of the earliest records of 1552. What is revealed in those records is exactly a 
Borough Court. It is never described as a Court Baron. We suspect that the 
Court of the Barony of Manchester at no time coalesced with the Portmanmoot, 
Borough Court, or Court Leet of the Township. The so-called "Court Baron of 
Manchester " of the eighteenth century may have been the direct descendant of 
the Court of the Barony. On the other hand, it is possible that the Great Court 
of the Barony was simply discontinued. We suggest that the Court Baron 
that we find in the eighteenth century, exercising jurisdiction only over the 
Township, may be the descendant of the Halmote Court held by the Lord for 
the Manor of the Township alone, the Court Baron side of which he retained in 
his own hands when he granted to his new Burgesses the right to hold a 
separate Portmanmoot. 

2 There was a similar obligation at Salford and Stockport, which had received 
baronial Charters in the thirteenth century, on which the Manchester Charter of 
1301 was probably modelled (Mediceval Manchester and the Beginnings of 
Lancashire, by James Tait, 1904, p. 51). 

3 In the formal charge to the Jury of the Steward for 1788 (Roberts) we 
have it stated that the poorer inhabitants, "to avoid payment of the threepence, 



102 THE COURT IN RUINS 

But the distinguishing feature of the Manchester Court 
was the unusually large number of officers who were nominated 
by the Jury and formally appointed by the Court. These 
officers were required to serve their term of twelve months, 
all of them originally without remuneration. At their head 
was the Boroughreeve, the executive chief of the little com- 
munity, who presided at all public meetings, and though with- 
out any of the authority of a Justice of the Peace, in many 
ways acted as the representative of the town. " In no Corpora- 
tion," says a writer of 1816, "is the Mayor for the time being 
treated with more respect, the paraphernalia of a mace-bearer 
excepted, than the Boroughreeve of Manchester." 1 Second 
only to the Boroughreeve were the two Constables, who were 
always appointed together, and who acted jointly and severally 
as his principal lieutenants, without, so far as we can ascertain, 
any distinction of function. But besides these dignitaries, the 
Court appointed annually an ever-increasing array of other 
officers, who, by 1689, had come to number over one hundred. 2 
Among these were the usual Aleconners and Scavengers, with 
innumerable others, such as Market-lookers and Muzzlers of 
Mastiff Dogs. It seems long to have been the practice, when- 
ever the need for any new function or any particular nuisance 
or abuse forced itself upon the attention of the Jury, for a new 
and compulsorily serving officer to be appointed 3 to see that 

attend the Court and listen to the calling over an immense roll of names, until 
they answer to their own, by which the greater part of the day is lost. ... As 
to the common practice of calling over all the names of so populous a Manor as 
Manchester, it occasions loss of time to the poor, is productive of no advantage, 
no emolument but a trifling perquisite to the inferior officers of the Court, and 
the liberality of the present Lord of the Manor would induce him to correct this 
practice " ("Charge of 1788," reprinted in The Court Leet Records of the Manor 
of Manchester, vol. ix. p. 244). 

1 A Picture of Manchester, by Joseph Aston, 1816, p. 27. At Birmingham 
and Bolton, as well as at Salford, the Chief Officer of the Lord's Court bore the 
same title, which we have not found elsewhere, though Portreeve is not uncom- 
mon in the South of England, and Headborough, Boroughhead, and Borsholder 
are frequently met with. 

2 Already in the earliest record, that of 4th October 1552, we find 59 officers 
appointed (The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, vol. i. p. 1) ; 
the number rising to 110 on 5th October 1686 (vol. vi. p. 241), and to 138 on 
15th October 1756 (vol. viii. p. 1). 

3 The Burgesses had possessed a right to pasture their pigs in the woods 
and on the waste of the manor. "In the sixteenth century pigs wandering 
about the streets and even into the churchyard became such a nuisance that a 
public swineherd was started, who assembled his charges with a horn in the 
morning, and led them out to the Lord's waste at Collyhurst " (Mediaeval Man- 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 103 

the regulations of the Court were enforced ; and once an office 
was created, it continued to be filled year after year, even if its 
functions had become obsolete. These compulsory offices were, 
however, rapidly becoming merely honorary sinecures. " Many 
of these offices," said the learned Steward of the Manor in 
1788, "have an appearance of throwing a degree of indignity 
on the possessors, and it not infrequently happens that the 
muscles of the gravest are relaxed when they hear the most 
respectable names being annexed to the offices of Scavengers, 
Market-lookers, and Muzzlers of Mastiff Dogs." But the duties, 
he explained, were more easy and dignified than the titles im- 
plied. " If a Scavenger see any person obstructing the streets 
in any manner whatever; or if a Market-looker find any un- 
wholesome meat exposed for sale, he has nothing to do but to 
make a memorandum of the offender's name, and the time of 
committing the offence, and to give information thereat at the 
next Court Leet, and the offender will be amerced." * Unlike 
most other Manorial Courts, that of Manchester levied a rate 
on the inhabitants we find " Mysegatherers " appointed as 
early as 1554, and the "Town Lay" is regularly mentioned 
down to 1780, when it was merged in the Poor Eate levied by 
the Overseers. 2 Either out of this rate, or else by customary 

Chester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James Tait, 1904, p. 49). The 
Court even appointed its own public musicians in the form of the " Town Waits," 
who were ordered by the Court to play through the town on every Thursday 
evening "according to the ancient custom." They were evidently remunerated 
by voluntary gifts from the inhabitants (The Court Leet Records of the Manor of 
Manchester, 5th October 1669 and 16th April 1672, vol. v. pp. vi, 99, 166). 

1 A Charge to the Grand Jury of the Court Leet of the Manor of Manchester, 
by William Roberts, 1788 ; reprinted in The Court Leet Records of the Manor 
of Manchester, vol. ix., Appendix I., p. 251. 

2 Thus, in 1590, the Jury present the stairs leading to the river as in a bad 
state, and they order the "Myselayers for the time being, calling unto them the 
Constables, with six other honest neighbours, shall assess the inhabitants of the 
town for the repairing of the stairs ; and have appointed A. B., etc., to receive 
the same moneys so gathered, and to bestow the same, and give an account of 
the remainder to the next Jury " (ibid. vol. ii. p. 50). It was probable that 
such " Town Rates " or " Constables' Rates " were elsewhere levied by the Lord's 
Court (instead of by the Vestry as Church Rates), but the only other case of 
which we have definite mention is that of Lewes (Sussex), where, in 1772, at the 
" Lawday " it was " resolved that the Constables and Jury at the Court Leet or 
Lawday chosen shall and do continue to have power to make and collect a town tax 
for defraying the necessary expenses of the borough " (signed by 86 inhabitants). 
In 1822-1823 the Constables were still levying a "town tax" of a shilling in 
the pound (The History and Antiquities of Lewes, by T. W. Horsfield, 1824- 
1832, p. 211 ; see infra, p. 173). 



104 THE CO URT IN R UINS 

fees, paid officers could be remunerated, and already in the first 
half of the seventeenth century there were evidently such 
deputies in existence. In 1648 we see the Court appointing 
a permanent officer, the Deputy Constable, 1 who serves continu- 
ously year after year, on whom most of the work is gradually 
devolved, and to whom an ever-rising annual salary is awarded. 2 
Presently other salaried officers are added, in the shape of one, 
two, and eventually four Beadles, resplendent, a century ago, in 
" livery of brown, with scarlet collars, coat, waistcoat, breeches, 
and leggings." 3 

The Court thus constituted and served attempted 
courageously to cope with all the needs of the growing 
town. " Cows, horses, sheep, pigs, dogs all required regula- 
tion, and had it. Pigs, as the most perverse animals, required 
the firmest and most rigorous handling ; and hundreds of 
folio pages of Jury orders relate to swine alone and their 
numerous misdeeds and nuisances, their eating corn in the 
market and desecrating the churchyard." 4 We see the Jury 
not only enforcing the Assize of Bread and Beer, but also 
insisting that all the innumerable officers should duly make 
the presentments incidental to their several offices, from the 
use of unlawful weights and measures and the exposure for 
sale of " unbaited " beef, up to the enforcement of the obligation 

1 10th October 1648. "It is ordered by this Jury that whereas there is 
found much inconveniences by paying Deputy Constables' wages per particular, 
and that the said Deputy Constable, that shall be made choice of by and for the 
assistance of these Constables, shall have for all the service and attendance due 
and appertaining to the said office of Deputy Constable the sum of ten pounds 
per annum, and that to be paid by fifty shillings per quarter " (The Court Leet 
Records of the Manor of Manchester, vol. iv. p. 25). 

2 It was 20 in 1756, 30 in 1762, 80 in 1778, 150 in 1786, the same 
in 1802 when Nadin was appointed; 200 in 1805 ; in 1821 Lavender was 
appointed at 350, and raised in 1822 to 600, at which figure it remained until 
his death in 1833. Beadles, at first one and ultimately four, begin at 5 only, 
but end with 78 a year each (ibid. vols. iv. to x.). These salaries and many 
other expenses were charged in the Boroughreeve's accounts, which were annually 
submitted to the Court and passed by the Jury (for these accounts from 1612 to 
1776, see The Constables' Accounts of the Manor of Manchester, by J. P. Ear- 
waker, 3 vols., 1891-1892). In the nineteenth century, as described in a pre- 
vious volume, we find them presented to and passed by the Open Vestry, prior 
to their inclusion in the Poor Rate, in accordance with 18 George III. c. 19 of 
1778, which prescribed this for the accounts of the ordinary Parish Constables. 

3 Reminiscences of Old Manchester and Salford, by an Octogenarian, 1887, 
p. 18. 

4 Manchester Court Leet Records, by John Harland, Chetham Society, vol. 
63, 1864, p. viii. 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 105 

to keep watch in turn, and the execution of various new By- 
laws forbidding waggons to stand in the streets or the playing 
of football or " tipcat " in the streets. 1 We gather that the 
presentments were made either by the Jury as a whole, by 
any of the officers, or even by individuals not officers, whose 
complaints occasionally led directly to orders by the Jury. 2 
The majority of the presentments and orders between 1731 
and 1846 relate either to market offences, the sale of unwhole- 
some or " unmarketable " meat or fish, " blowing veal," the use 
of deficient weights or short measures, or the cutting or gashing 
of hides ; or, on the other hand, to the innumerable nuisances 
of a growing city, from allowing swine to roam in the streets, 
or not repairing or cleaning the pavement, up to such modern 
annoyances as excessive factory smoke, 8 the stench from gas 
lime, 4 mock auctions, and the firing of pistols. 5 What is 
remarkable in the Manchester Court is the freedom with 
which it used what it conceived to be its power of making 
By-laws, by which it did not scruple to create new punishable 
offences. Thus in 1731 we find the Jury, "upon complaint 
made by several persons of people bringing milk to town 
suffering their horses to stand in the street with their cans on, 
whilst they sell their milk," peremptorily ordering the milk- 
sellers " that they shall not suffer them to stand in the streets, 
but that they shall set down their cans and put their horses 
in some stables ; or we do amerce them five shillings apiece." 6 
In 1732 the Jury orders that "the Scavengers do see that the 

1 The Court Led Records of the Manor of Manchester, 12th October 1608, vol. 
ii. pp. vi, 239-240. 

2 Thus, 18th April 1733, "whereas complaint hath been made to us that 
W. B. . . . suffers his large bull-dog to go abroad unmuzzled," the Jury orders 
that the dog is to be muzzled in future, or that in default W. B. shall be fined 
twenty shillings " (ibid. vol. vii. p. 20). 

3 Inl801,asa local annalist records, " the Court Leet Jury presented eleven 
owners of factories for not consuming their smoke ; they were fined respectively 
100, but the fines were respited to allow time for their being altered" 
(Manchester Historical Recorder, 1874, p. 65). 

4 The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, 20th October 1820 
(vol. xi. p. 6). 

Ibid. 21st October 1831 (vol. xi. pp. 257-258). 

6 1st October 1731 (ibid. vol. vii. p. 7). The By-law is repeated two years 
later, when the fine is raised to ten shillings, and the Jury "order that the 
Bellman shall publish this order three several times, in one week's time, at the 
Milk Market, and that the Constable pay him for his pains" (ibid. vol. vii. 
p. 26). It is again repeated in 1744, when the fine is raised to thirty-nine 
shillings (ibid. vol. vii. p. 131). 



io6 THE COURT IN RUINS 

dirt swept together shall not be left in heaps, but orders to be 
given to the usual inhabitants to remove the same, and not 
suffered to lie in heaps in the middle of the street." l At the 
same Court it is recorded that "we ... upon complaint 
made to us of servants and persons employed in looking after 
horses do frequently bring their horses into the public streets, 
and there dress them, which becomes a nuisance . . .do order 
that no person shall presume to do the like for the future, and 
that this be made public." 2 Next year it is commanded that 
" no person does for the future break any hogsheads ... in 
the street called Millgate ... or any other hogsheads within 
this Manor, without immediately cleansing and sweeping the 
same, on penalty of forty shillings for each offence." 8 In 
1737 it is ordained that "for the future no tanner or other 
person shall lay down raw hides in the street or passage beside 
the shambles," under penalty of twenty shillings for each 
offence. 4 

The Court had also, in a sense, important administrative 
functions. The most valuable incidents of the Manor were 
the profits of the Soke Mill and Oven, 6 and of the Market. 
The large and growing revenues yielded to the Lord by these 

1 The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, 5th May 1732 (vol. vii. 
p. 11). 

2 Ibid. 5th May 1732 (vol. vii. p. 10). 

8 Ibid. 18th April 1733 (vol. vii. p. 20). "Long Millgate was," down to 
Victorian times, "a leading thoroughfare, the highway to the North of England " 
(Reminiscences of Old Manchester and Salford, by an Octogenarian, 1887, p. 43). 

4 The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, 6th October 1737 (vol. 
vii. p. 66). 

6 Trie Charter of 1301 had continued the obligation of the Burgesses to 
grind their corn at the Lord's mill, to dry their malt at his kiln, and bake their 
bread at his oven. These monopolies continued to be actively enforced, for his 
profit, by his lessees and agents, giving rise, in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, to constant friction ; and, it is said, between 1550 and 1758 to no 
fewer than sixty lawsuits. The exactions of the lessees of the Soke Mill in 
1757 provoked the serious riots of that year, which led, in 1758, to a Local 
Act restricting the monopoly to the drying of malt. The monopoly had passed 
to the Trustees of the Manchester Grammar School, who were accorded, in partial 
compensation, a perpetual exemption from all local rates and taxes (32 
George II. c. 61). The remaining monopoly of the malt kiln continued in 
their hands, their profit or tax being twopence a bushel. This was said to 
induce brewers to settle outside the boundary (A Picture of Manchester, by 
Joseph Aston, 1816, p. 168). Nevertheless it was, in 1825, productive of no 
less than 2250 a year (Mediaeval Manchester and the beginnings of Lancashire, 
by James Tait, 1904, p. 50). This impost continued until the premises were 
sold to a railway company and the mill was discontinued (History of Corn- 
milling, by E. Bennett and J. Elton, 1898-1904). 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 107 

monopolies were either leased or else collected under the 
direction of the Steward, who himself appointed his toll- 
gatherers and other agents. 1 But the Burgesses, the jurymen, 
and the officers of the Lord's Court had also their part to play. 
The annual Fair, for instance, held under a grant of 1227 at 
" Four Acres " or " Acrefield," represented, it is clear, an 
interference with ancient rights of commonfield agriculture 
and common pasture. 2 In the course of the eighteenth century 
this three-days' Fair became in the main a popular holiday, 
and in the nineteenth century a saturnalia. It yielded, however, 
no small revenue to the Lord, and was therefore continued in 
ancient form. 8 " On the second day the Steward of the Lord 
of the Manor (accompanied in procession by the Boroughreeve, 
the- two Constables, and a few persons who represent Burgesses 
who owe suit to the Court of the Lord) proclaims the right of 
the Lord of the Manor to hold the Fair in that place." 4 More 
important was the participation of the Court in the adminis- 
tration of the ancient prescriptive Market, which had been 
held weekly since at any rate 1282. Though the Lord 
collected his own dues, it would seem that the actual manage- 
ment of the various market-places and the making of market 
rules and By-laws were, like the presentment of offenders 
against them, in the hands of the Court. We find the Jury 
deciding the hour at which the markets for flour, wheat, and 
oats respectively shall be opened by the ringing of a bell, and 
ordering " that no person does hereafter presume to sell any 

1 In 1731 the Court amerced the "Receiver of the Tolls" ten shillings, for 
*not keeping a certain street clear (The Court Leet Records of the Manor of 

Manchester, vol. vii. p. 8). 

2 ' ' An ancient custom obtained of pelting the first animal driven into the 
Fair with acorns and striking it with whips. This has been very conjecturally 
explained as a survival of an original protest of the inhabitants against the 
interference with their grazing rights by the establishment of the Fair" 
(Mediaeval MancJiester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James Tait, 1904, 
p. 45). The Fair days were the 20th, 21st, and 22nd of September. From 
fair-time till February the Acrefield was common pasture ; from February till 
fair-time under arable cultivation. " As late as the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, corn growing on Acrefield had sometimes to be hastily cut and carried 
away before the fair or the people would have trampled it down " (ibid. p. 45). 

3 In 1708 Lady Ann Bland got a private Act enabling her to enclose the 
Acrefield and build St. Ann's Church ; but she had to submit to the condition 
that a space 30 yards wide should be left open for the Fair. 

4 A Picture of Manchester, by Joseph Aston, 1816, p. 215. The Fair grew 
to be such a nuisance in the nineteenth century that it was moved, first to 
Shudehill, and then to Campfield ; but it was not finally abolished until 1876. 



io8 THE COURT IN RUINS 

meal before such bell rings, on pain of punishment." l They 
order the " cheese market " to be removed from one place, and 
the " fish market " from another, assigning new sites at their 
discretion. 2 They insist on stopping the butchers from selling 
meat right into the night of Saturday, and even on Sunday 
morning, imposing a closing time of eleven o'clock at night. 3 
They forbid, under penalty of a fine, any sack of oats to be 
offered for sale that contains less than 18 strokes, Winchester 
measure ; or any horseload of coal weighing less than two 
hundred pounds, six score to the hundred, sack included ; or 
any cartload less than twelve hundred pounds. 4 They prohibit 
fruit stalls at this place or that, and exclude hucksters from 
the market. 6 In 1774 they remove the earthenware market 
which had grown up " in the street called Smithy Door " to 
f the north side of the old churchyard. 6 They exclude all dogs, 
whether " male or female," from the flesh market. 7 

How far these administrative decisions with regard to such 
important a source of Manorial revenue as the Manchester 
market were really left to the discretion of the Jury, and 
how far they represented only a convenient method of 
strengthening and promulgating the decisions of the Manorial 
officers, we cannqt now determine. What is clear from the 
records is that year by year the Court went on appointing 
its officers, making its presentments, and imposing its fines 
with unslackened zeal, and doing an undiminished amount of 
work right down to the nineteenth century. Meanwhile 
the township of Manchester which had in 1774 still only 
41,000 inhabitants had sprung rapidly into a densely 
crowded, populous city. The mere " keeping the peace " in 
this heterogeneous aggregation of factory operatives, newly 
gathered together from all parts, soon transcended the scanty 
powers wielded by the Boroughreeve and his two Constables. 
As officers of the Court Leet they were not Justices of the 

1 The Court Led Records of ike Manor of Manchester, 16th April 1735, 
vol. vii. p. 38. 

a Ibid. 29th April 1736, vol. vii. p. 48. 

3 Ibid. 27th April 1738, vol. vii. p. 70. 

* Ibid. 29th April 1736, vol. vii. p. 49. 

6 Ibid. 6th October 1737, vol. vii. p. 66 ; 22nd October 1741, vol. vii. 
p. 110. 

6 Ibid. 12th October 1774, vol. vii. p. 159. 

f Ibid. 14th April 1828, vol. xi. p. 189. 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 109 

Peace, and the whele city had to depend for a police court 
on the good pleasure of half a dozen of the neighbouring 
country gentlemen, who took it in turns to ride into the 
town and commit offenders to the County gaol. 1 The nightly 
" watching " of such a town was utterly beyond the power 
of the two wealthy warehousemen or merchants who had been 
appointed Constables; and the obligation really enforced in 
the seventeenth century on all the inhabitants to " watch " 
in turn, bringing " each a Jack, a Sallet, and a Bill," 2 " or 
hire some sufficient person to do it," 3 was manifestly im- 
practicable among a wage-earning, factory-working population. 
In 1765, and again in 1792, Acts of Parliament were 
obtained by the principal inhabitants establishing a body 
of Police Commissioners for Manchester and Salford, with 
power to appoint paid watchmen, light the streets, and levy 
a police rate ; but so great was apparently the reluctance 
to these new measures that until 1797 practically nothing 
was done, and the dignity of the Court Leet remained un- 
impaired by any rival authority. As late as 1799 we find 
the Steward declaring the " new constitution of local govern- 
ment " to have been a failure, and urging the Jury to be 
active and all-embracing in their presentments. 4 

1 " The towns of Manchester and Salford and the adjacent towns and villages 
now united with them by contiguous streets and buildings comprise a popula- 
tion far exceeding 100,000, and form together the largest provincial town in 
Great Britain ; yet among this vast community there is not one resident Magis- 
trate nor any Municipal government but the officers of the Court Leet, among 
whom there is no permanent authority above that of a Petty Constable. . . . 
For the local administration of justice, five Magistrates of the County residing 
nearest to the place have, much to their honour, undertaken the whole of this 
tiurthensome duty ; one of them resorting to the town for this purpose every 
Monday, and two every Thursday, by a rotation among themselves " (Report 
of the Committee appointed to secure Reforms, etc., 1808). 

2 The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, 6th October 1568, 
vol. i. p. 123. 

3 Ibid. vol. vi. 

4 "Now, Gentlemen," said the Steward to the Jury in 1799, "what has 
happened since the erection of the new constitution of local government ? During 
the wet and dark winter months the streets have remained uncleansed and 
without lights ; for some time no watchmen or patrols were appointed security 
and temptation were thus afforded to plunder, and none could pass through the 
streets in safety ; escaping personal violence, they were in imminent personal 
danger from the numerous unguarded cellar-pits and various obstructions that 
everywhere interrupted their passage. . . . Though innumerable buildings are 
everywhere rising up and crowded together ... no party walls have been 
erected. . . . Streets are still crowded with annoyances which the power of the 
new Act was calculated to remove. Offenders are everywhere encouraged by 



1 10 THE CO URT IN R UINS 

A new period opens for Manchester with the nineteenth 
century. In its opening years, as we shall describe in a 
subsequent volume, the Police Commissioners began at last 
actively to bestir themselves, and they gradually organised 
something like an efficient service of watching, cleansing, 
and lighting the town. For the first eighteen years of the 
century the Police Commissioners were, however, completely 
dominated by the officers of the Lord's Court. The Borough- 
reeve for the time being not only presided at all the meetings, 
but also acted as Treasurer and as Chairman of the General 
or Finance Committee ; whilst the two Constables acted as 
Chairmen of the two principal administrative departments, 
namely, the Watch Committee and the Committee for Lighting 
and Scavengering. Such police force as existed, either night- 
watchmen or " patrols," was thus under their personal command. 
Many of the offences which had formerly been presented at 
the Lord's Court had now been forbidden by explicit clauses 
in the Police Commissioners' Acts, and were therefore sum- 
marily dealt with by the Justices, but the Commissioners 
went on making use also of the Lord's Court as a convenient 
tribunal, and the Jury did not discontinue its own activity, 
especially with regard to false weights and measures and 
unwholesome food. We even find this energetic Court at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century presenting and fining 
mill-owners for letting their cotton factories get into a dirty 
condition, whilst the most common of all nuisances punished 
at this date was the emitting of large quantities of smoke by 
the new steam engines. The Lord's Court remained, in fact, 
a dignified and influential tribunal. The Steward was a 
learned barrister, who opened the six-monthly " Court Leet 
and View of Frankpledge" with an elaborate proclamation. 
The jurymen were chosen by the Steward from among the 
wealthy leaders of the commercial and manufacturing class, 
always predominantly Tory and Anglican in opinion. The 
annually nominated Constables were invariably local magnates 
belonging to the industrial aristocracy of the town. In turn 
one of the past Constables served as Boroughreeve. 1 Down to 

the impunity with which their trespasses are committed" ("Charge of John 
Cross, Esquire," reprinted in The Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester, 
vol. ix. Appendix II.). 

1 "It has long been a rule in the choice of the Boroughreeve to select those 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER in 

1818, at any rate, all the "police and sanitary" government 
of Manchester remained unchallenged in the hands practically 
of the little knot of leading inhabitants who were summoned 
as jurymen to the Lord's Court and who took it in turns to 
serve as Boroughreeve. This supremacy was made possible, 
first, by the genuine public spirit which they showed in dis- 
charging the onerous duties of the Manorial offices ; and, 
secondly, by their practical wisdom in admitting into the 
governing circle not only the Churchwardens, Overseers, and 
Surveyors of Highways, but also the principal Whig and Non- 
conformist merchants and warehousemen. 

We have already described the advent, at Manchester in 
1818, of a turbulent Democracy, which first showed itself in 
tumultuous Vestry meetings at the Collegiate Church, and 
proceeded, about 1827, to swamp the Police Commissioners 
by qualifying, in hundreds, for membership of that body. 
This Democracy, made up for the most part of the small 
shopkeepers and publicans, felt itself completely excluded 
from the choice of Boroughreeve and Constables. The Steward 
did not summon its members as jurymen to the Lord's Court, 
still less were they appointed to any of the Manorial offices 
or as special constables. But the Constables' accounts, in- 
cluding the salary of the Deputy Constable, had, by statute, 
to be presented by the Overseers to the Vestry meeting, and 
had to be passed by that assembly. We have seen, in a 
preceding chapter, how eagerly the Eadicals seized, from 1820 
onward, this opportunity of cavilling at every item of the 
expenditure of such "unrepresentative" authorities as the 
Boroughreeve and Constables. At Leeds, it will be re- 
membered, it was the action of the " unrepresentative " Mayor 
and Corporation that was similarly objected to. The 
Manchester officers had neither the authority of Justices 
of the Peace nor the power to levy a County Rate. But 
they were backed up by the neighbouring County Justices, 
and above all, they were supported by the opulent Whigs of 
Manchester itself a class which at Leeds, where it was 
excluded from the Corporation, had made common cause with 
the Democracy. The result was that, though between 1818 

gentlemen who have already served the office of Constable " (A Picture of 
Manchester, by Joseph Aston, 1816, p. 27). 



112 THE COURT IN RUINS 

and 1837 there were uproarious scenes at the Vestry and 
Police Commissioners' meetings, from which the Boroughreeve 
was once forcibly ejected, 1 the governing circle of the Lord's 
Court held its own to the end. When in 1828 the constitu- 
tion of the Police Commissioners was reformed by a new Act, 
the Boroughreeve and Constables dominated the new elective 
body as successfully as they had the old one. The growing 
force of night and day police remained effectively under their 
control. The Lord's Court went on presenting offenders and 
enforcing its fines. Finally, with the change in public feeling 
which came with the Keforin Bill, and perhaps still more with 
the change in social habits which was inducing the wealthier 
inhabitants more and more to live outside the town, this 
opulent governing circle became tired of its duties. It was 
found increasingly difficult to find a suitable person to act 
as Boroughreeve, 2 and in 1836 and 1837 the individuals 
nominated preferred to pay heavy fines, running up to 100, 
rather than serve. 8 Eichard Cobden, then a young but 
prosperous calico printer, summoned as a juryman in 1837, 
drew up a protest calling for some change, which his 
colleagues on the Jury consented to sign. 4 Out of this 

1 " At a meeting of the Commissioners (1827) party spirit ran so high that 
the Boroughreeve, C. Cross, Esquire, who presided, was assaulted and forcibly 
ejected" (The Manchester Historical Recorder, 1874, p. 92). 

2 We have already mentioned (Vol. I. The Parish and the County, pp. 19, 63) 
that the Tyburn Ticket, exempting the holder from parish offices, fetched a much 
higher price in Manchester than elsewhere. In 1804 the two persons appointed 
Constables claimed exemption as holders of such tickets, but the Court refused to 
allow it. The case was carried to the King's Bench, which maintained the 
exemption (Mosley v. Stouehouse and Railton, llth February 1806 ; The Court 
Led Records of the Manor of Manchester, vol. ix. pp. 215, 216). 

3 Manchester Guardian, 12th October 1836. 

* We append this protest, which is of interest as the earliest publication by 
Cobden, as published in the Manchester Guardian, 25th October 1837. "The 
Jury serving at the Court Leet of the Lord of the Manor of Manchester cannot 
separate without publicly making known the very great difficulties they have had 
to encounter in the discharge of their most important duty, the selection of a 
Boroughreeve for this township. From the great increase of the trade of the 
places and the consequent conversion of the dwelling-houses situated in the centre 
of the town into warehouses, the manufacturers, merchants, and other principal 
inhabitants of Manchester have, with a very few exceptions, removed their 
residences into the out-townships ; but as the jurisdiction of this Court does not 
extend beyond the ancient and circumscribed limits of Manchester, the Jury have 
been placed in a difficult position, owing to the very restricted number of residents 
who are eligible to serve the office of Boroughreeve, and the difficulty is materi- 
ally increased by the aversion which now and for some time past has been mani- 
fested by the individuals selected to fill the office. In proof of which, at the 



COURT LEET AND COURT BARON OF MANCHESTER 113 

grew the movement, headed by Cobden and the Brothers 
Potter, for the incorporation of the Borough. " Is Man- 
chester," indignantly asked Cobden at a public meeting, " to 
be governed from Rolleston Hall, in Staffordshire ? " l 

last Court Leet the person named for Boroughreeve voluntarily incurred a large 
pecuniary penalty rather than accept the office ; and again, on the present occa- 
sion the individual appointed has declined to serve, and thus subjected himself 
to a still heavier fine. But so far from there being a prospect of any diminution 
of this difficulty in future, the Court has deemed it necessary to declare that, 
seeing the fear of pecuniary penalties is insufficient, it will proceed by indictment 
against all such as may refuse to accept its appointment. In the meanwhile the 
changes of abode referred to are still going on, and it is known that many indi- 
viduals, to escape from the jurisdiction of this Court, are now preparing to remove 
to the out-townships ; from which the Jury are of opinion that the difficulties of 
their successors at the next Court Leet will be much increased, and possibly 
they 'may be compelled, in the absence of proper persons, to make choice of an 
unfit individual to hold the most important office in the town. The Jury regard 
such a state of things as highly inimical to the best interests, and derogatory to 
the just dignity, of this the second town of the Empire, and they earnestly hope 
and recommend that immediate steps may be taken to remedy the evil." This 
was signed by the whole fifteen jurymen, among them being such leading indus- 
trial magnates as Daniel Broadhurst, William M'Connel, and Edmund Potter, 
as well as Richard Cobden himself. 

1 Manchester Guardian, 10th February 1838. Rolleston Hall was the resid- 
ence of the Lord of the Manor. A Charter was granted in 1838, but, owing to 
political and legal difficulties, it was not until 1842 that it was confirmed by 
Act of Parliament. In 1846 the Town Council bought from Sir Oswald Mosley, 
for the enormous sum of 200,000, the Manor and all the rights and incidents ; 
and the Lord's Court, regarded as a symbol of feudalism and a remnant of the 
past Tory supremacy, was allowed quietly to lapse. The Manor had iieen worth 
in 1282, 131 ; in 1665 (with shrunken area), 212 ; in 1579 it was sold for 
3000 ; in 1596 a Mosley bought it for 3500 ; the town might have bought 
it in 1808 for 90,000, but thought the price excessive ; by 1846 unearned 
increment had brought it to 200,000 ! (see figures given in Mediaeval Man- 
chester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James Tait, 1904, p. 37). 

Some of the smaller towns of Lancashire seem to have had, between 1689 
and 1835, a local government under the Lord's Court, on the same lines as that 
of Manchester. ' ' The towns of Great and Little Bolton the two Boltons, as 
they were commonly called had from time immemorial . . . been subject to 
the local authority of the Lords of the respective Manors. . . . Once a year in 
each place there was a Court Leet, the agent of the Lord of the Manor being the 
presiding authority, and this Court would proceed to appoint a Boroughreeve 
as head officer, and a staff of officials as Constables, Ale-tasters, Pig-ringers, Bell- 
men, and other functionaries." As at Manchester, "the powers of the Courts 
Leet were not extinguished or absorbed on the establishment in 1792 of a 
statutory body of Street Commissioners, and the annual Court Leet visit to 
Church on the first Sunday morning after election, preceded as it was by a grand 
breakfast the same morning at one of the leading inns, used to be a ceremonial 
invested with much consequence" (Annals of Bolton, by James Clegg, 1888, 
sec. 2, p. 9). Latterly, at any rate, there was a paid Deputy Constable with paid 
assistants (Autobiography of a Lancashire Lawyer, by John Taylor, 1883, p. 32). 
Much the same conditions existed at Rochdale, though we do not gather that 
its chief officer was styled Boroughreeve (History of Rochdale, by Henry Fishwick, 
1889, p. 62) ; and at other towns in South Lancashire and Cheshire. 

In the ancient town of Ashtou-under-Lyne, we have an instance of the 

VOL. II. PT. I I 



ii 4 THE COURT IN RUINS 



(d) The Prevalence and Decay of the Lord's Court 

We have now set before the reader a description of each 
of the types of Lord's Courts that we find exercising any of 
the functions of Local Government between 1689 and 1835. 
It remains to be considered how widely these types prevailed 
in the England and Wales of that period, and at what rate 
their activities gradually dwindled away. On these points we 

effective survival of the Court of the Manor as a local governing authority. 
The owner of the township in the nineteenth century waa the Earl of Stam- 
ford and Warrington, drawing, in 1844, a rental of 30,000 a year from some 
two thousand tenants. Though a body of Street Commissioners had been 
established under Local Acts, the admirably preserved records of the "Court 
Leet and View of Frankpledge and Court Baron of the Manor of Ashton- 
under-Lyne," confirmed by a full account of its proceedings for the year 1844, 
make it clear that, down to the middle of the nineteenth century at any rate, 
it was this Court that was the most important local governing authority. 

What we may call its Court Baron side, the trial of civil actions, though 
mentioned as active by Aikin (1795) and Corry (1825), had apparently fallen 
into disuse after the establishment of a Court of Requests by Local Act of 1808. 
The ancient Manorial sokemill had long been disused. But throughout the whole 
of the nineteenth century the Steward annually proclaimed, by placards and adver- 
tisements in the newspapers, the date of the approaching Court at the ancient 
Manor Courthouse, issuing special summonses to the existing Jury and officers, and 
also to the persons elected by him to serve as jurymen for the ensuing twelve 
months. At nine o'clock, we are told in 1844, " the Court is opened by proclama- 
tion. The Foreman of the Jury delivers in a written verdict," in which, at the 
Michaelmas Court, proper persons are " presented " to serve. The " verdict " of 
the Jury then proceeds to present ' ' the several offences that had been inspected 
during the preceding six months, which the Steward reads in a loud voice in the 
hearing of every one present ; and at the conclusion of the reading undertakes, 
as far as Lord Stamford is concerned, to remedy without unnecessary delay the 
grievances presented in the verdict." The presentments (which, when they 
related to freehold property, were sometimes "traversed" by the defendant ; see 
a case, 29th April 1795) were numerous and important. The Manor contained a 
considerable number of small freeholders, or holders of leases for long terms or 
several lives, who, in their sub-lettings, often proved "careless or avaricious 
landlords, whom neither the Local Acts nor common law could effectually reach." 
Hence the presentments of the Jury were used, both by Lord Stamford's agents 
and by the Street Commissioners, as convenient means of compelling such land- 
lords to provide proper sanitary conveniences, to maintain pavements and fencing, 
to provide and cleanse drains, and to repair the roads. "When the Steward 
had finished the reading of the verdict, he uniformly directs one of the 
officers of the Leet to call over the names of the suitors which comprehend 
all the tenants of Lord Stamford, and also all the freeholders (or frankpledgers, 
as they were anciently called) without the Manor, whether they be tenants of 
his Lordship or not. In cases where the suitors appear by proxy, when their 
names are called in Court a charge of twopence per head is exacted as an 
acknowledgment, and one of the Bailiffs of the Court receives the same in a 
leathern purse attached to the end of a rod ten or twelve feet in length. . . . 
The Steward then addresses the Jury from the bench on the matters to be 



PREVALENCE AND DEC A Y OF THE LORDS COURT 115 

do not find ourselves able to give any very accurate information. 
No list or other systematic record of these Courts has ever 
been made. Their proceedings were never reported in the 
newspapers nor recorded by any superior tribunal. There is 
reason to believe that the Steward, interested only in the 
business relating to the properties of the several tenants of the 

inquired of by them, embracing the subjects laid down in the law books (see 
Kitchin on Courts) as coming under the cognisance of Courts Leet ; and as 
occasion requires, he directs their attention to special circumstances like a 
Judge of Assize. ... It is customary for about sixty or eighty of the gentle- 
men of the town and neighbourhood to dine together at the Commercial 
Hotel, the Steward of the Manor in the chair. The interchange of goodfellow- 
ship that takes place on these occasions between the representative of Lord 
Stamford and his tenantry contributes in no small degree to diffuse in Ashton- 
under-Lyne a feeling of attachment to his Lordship's person and family ; and to 
perpetuate from one generation to another a tacit acquiescence in the verdicts of 
his Court Leet Jury, and to preserve from oblivion and extinction many of the 
ancient rights, liberties, and customs of the Manor." The decisions of the Court 
were, in fact, fully enforced. The fines imposed on defaulters and offenders 
were included in a Manorial distress warrant, given to the Bailiffs after every 
Court by the Steward. When any person contumaciously refused to pay, the 
Bailiff of the Manor simply seized his goods without further authority and sold 
them under the hammer. 

The Ashton Court is remarkable as continuing down to the present day (1907) 
not only to be held, but actually to exercise local government functions. Every 
year the Court is held in ancient form, a " Mayor of the Manor, two High 
Constables, four Constables, twelve Bylaw-men, one Inspector of Weights and 
Measures, one Pounder, one Ale-taster, and three Bellmen " being appointed, 
together with a Jury of thirteen and a foreman. Presentments of nuisances are 
still regularly made by the Jury, to the number of half a dozen or so annually, 
and the persons in default are amerced. What is perhaps more remarkable is 
that the proceedings are still fully effective. The persons presented pay the 
fines imposed and remedy the nuisances complained of. No resistance is met 
with, but in case of default we are informed by the Steward of the Manor that 
he would have no hesitation in issuing a warrant and distraining for the fine. 
The presentments now refer usually to the highways, the persons presented 
being the Municipal Corporations, district councils, and other highway authorities, 
or occasionally private individuals. Even such great potentates as the Town 
Council of Manchester and the London and North-Western Railway Company 
are similarly treated (MS. Records, Manor Court of Ashton-under-Lyne, 1795- 
1906, for access to which we are indebted to the present Earl of Stamford and 
the trustees of the estate, and to Mr. Hall, the courteous Steward of the Manor ; 
the graphic account of the actual proceedings of the Court in 1844, given 
by the then Steward for the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the State of Large 
Towns and Populous Districts, Appendix to First Report, vol. ii. pp. 71-73 ; 
Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester, by J. 
Aikin, 1795 ; History of Ashton-under-Lyne, by J. Butterworth, 1823 ; another, 
by the same, 1827 ; Historical Account of Ashton, by E. Butterworth, 1842 ; 
Illustrations of the Customs of a Manor in the North of England, by S. 
Hibbert-Ware, 1822 ; Custom-Roll and Rental of the Manor of Ashton, 1422, by 
J. Harland (Chetham Society, vol. Ixxiv. 1869) ; History of the County Palatine 
and Duchy of Lancaster, by Edward Baines, vol. ii. pp. 300-329 of edition of 
1888-1893 ; History of Lancashire, by John Corry, 1825, vol. ii. pp. 497-523 ; 
Mediceval Manchester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James Tait, 1904). 



1 16 THE CO URT IN R UINS 

Manor, often omitted to enter the lengthy presentments of 
the Jury about the management of the commonfield agriculture, 
the petty nuisances of the hamlet, and the appointment of 
Fieldsmen and Finders. Such scanty archives as the Stewards 
did keep are now for the most part hidden away among title 
deeds of property in family muniment rooms or solicitors' 
offices. 1 Even where antiquarian zeal has led to the printing 
and publication of Manor Eolls, this has, in almost all cases, 
chosen rather the earlier periods and has stopped short of the 
eighteenth century. 

At the outset of our inquiries we shared the common 
opinion that these Manorial jurisdictions had, so far at any 
rate as Local Government functions were concerned, come 
silently to an end before our period. 2 But as we extended 
our researches from County to County this impression wore off. 
1 We are even inclined to suggest that, in 1689, the holding of 
a Manorial Court for the suppression of nuisances, the manage- 
ment of the common pasture, and, less frequently, of the 
commonfield agriculture and the appointment of Constables 
and other officers for the district, was, in the thousands of 
Manors that must still have existed, the rule rather than the 
exception. It is true that already in the middle of the 
seventeenth century we hear that the Lord's Court is held " in 
some lazy lordships not at all, but left as a thing obsolete and 
useless." 8 At the Restoration it was even thought necessary 

1 The collections of Manor Rolls of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
most easily accessible to the student arc those of the Manors in the hands of 
such public authorities as the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land 
Revenues (a list of about 100 of whose Manors is given in a Parliamentary Paper 
of 6th July 1845), and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who have in their 
London offices at least as many. To both collections we have most courteously 
been permitted access. The extensive collections at the Public Record Office 
(see its List and Index, No. 6), the British Museum, Lambeth Palace, the 
Bodleian Library, and the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges seem to relate 
principally to the earlier centuries. A useful list of Manor records in the 
principal public depositories is given in The Manor and Manorial Records, by 
N. J. Hone, 1906, pp. 243-301. 

2 So competent an antiquarian as the late F. B. Bickley could state that by 
1700, " and indeed as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, the Lords 
of the Manor had lost the jurisdiction they possessed in earlier times, and the 
rolls become merely registers of the transfer of land by succession, surrender, 
sale, or mortgage" (History of Dulwich College, by W. Young, 1889, vol. ii. 
chap. ii. on the Court Rolls, by F. B. Bickley, p. 266). 

3 Pacts Consultum, a Directory to the Public Peace, briefly describing the 
Antiquity, Extent, Practice, and Jurisdiction of Several Country Corporation 
Courts, especially the Court Leet, by Judge Jenkins, 1657, p. 2. 



PREVALENCE AND DECAY OF THE LORD'S COURT 117 

to provide that where the Lord's Court had for any reason not 
appointed a Constable, two Justices might temporarily exercise 
that power " until the Lord of the Leet shall hold his Court." 1 
A somewhat later writer complains that "through the ignorance 
of unskilful Stewards this Court is almost become a shadow, 
so that in many places Justices of the Peace swear the 
Constables, and the inhabitants present the nuisances at the 
Sessions which ought to be presented here, whereby the Lord 
loses the benefits of his fines and amercements, and in time 
may totally be divested of the whole jurisdiction and profit of 
his Leet, of which inconveniences some Lords are less sensible 
because they never knew the true value and benefit of this 
jurisdiction." 2 On the other hand, as evidence that these 
Courts had not become a negligible quantity, we may note 
that the celebrated " Orders and Directions " of the Privy 
Council of 1630 definitely placed no small share of the 
responsibility for the enforcement of local police regulations 
upon the Stewards of the Lord's Courts. 8 These Courts had, 
indeed, still so much vitality in 1659 that an ardent Utopian 
of that date thought it necessary to propose " that all Lords of 
Manors keeping constant Courts Baron and Courts Leet or 
either of them shall discontinue the same, and shall have the 
value of the profits of their Courts," on a ten years' average, 
paid to them out of public funds ; whilst it was also to be 

1 13 and 14 Charles II. o. 12, sec. 15. 

2 Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire, by Sir Henry Chauncy, 1700, p. 100. 

3 Among these "Orders and Directions" were the following: "That 
Stewards to Lords and Gentlemen, in keeping their Leets twice a year, do 
specially inquire upon those articles that tend to the reformation or punishment 
of common offences and abuses : as of Bakers and Brewers for breaking of 
Assizes ; of Forestallers and Regraters ; against Tradesmen of all sorts for selling 
with under weights, or at excessive prices, or things unwholesome, or things 
made in deceipt. Of people, breakers of houses ; common thieves and their 
receivers ; haunters of Taverns or Alehouses ; those that go in good clothes 
and fare well, and none know whereof they live ; those that be night-walkers ; 
builders of Cottages and takers in of inmates ; offences of Victuallers, Artificers, 
Workmen, and Labourers. That the petty Constables in all Parishes be chosen 
of the abler sort of Parishioners, and the office not to be put upon the poorer 
sort, if it may be : Watching in the night and Warding by day, and to be 
appointed in every Town and Village for apprehension of rogues and vagabonds 
and for safety and good order" (MS. Register, Privy Council, 1631 ; Orders 
and Directions, together with a Commission for the Better Administration of 
Justice, 1630 ; see The State of the Poor, by Sir F. M. Eden, 1797, vol. i. p. 156 ; 
History of Vagrants and Vagrancy, by C. J. Ribton-Turner, 1887, p. 152 ; 
Early Histoi-y of English Poor Relief , by E. M. Leonard, 1900, p. 158). 



ii8 THE COURT IN RUINS 

ordained that " all Hundred Courts " were " to cease, and to 
be for ever hereafter discontinued." l And we have indirect 
evidence of the continued activity of the Lord's Court in the 
fact that neither the Minutes of Vestries nor the orders of 
Petty and Quarter Sessions during the seventeenth century 
contain, so far as we have noticed, any references to the 
appointments of Constables by the Justices. 2 The proceedings 
of the Middlesex Justices at the end of the seventeenth and 
the beginning of the eighteenth century contain, indeed, 
frequent references to the Constables appointed, not by the 
Justices but by the various Lord's Courts. In 1727 Parlia- 
ment expressly directed the Turnpike Act of that year " to be 
read at every Leet." 3 Even as late as 1788-1793 we find 
the Quarter Sessions of Somersetshire and Oxfordshire thinking 
it worth while formally to recommend " to Lords of Leets " 
and " to Stewards of Courts " that they should take care to 
appoint none but efficient and trustworthy Constables. 4 

Nevertheless, though thousands of Manorial Courts were 
being held, no student of the records can fail to become aware, 
from the very beginning of the eighteenth century, that these 
ancient tribunals were being rapidly superseded by other 
forms of social organisation. To take first the Court Baron 
side. The progress of enclosure during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries must have greatly diminished the 
business of the Courts. The lack of any standing administra- 
tive machinery, and of explicit Corporate rights to the land 
even the absence of publicity and the want of Corporate 
personality and perpetual succession disabled the tenants of 
the Manor and the Jury of the Court from withstanding the 
constant pressure for the substitution of complete individual 
ownership for the ancient communal management of the 
cornfields and the hay meadows. In the course of the 
eighteenth century, the rapid succession of Inclosure Acts, of 

1 Chaos, an interesting anonymous scheme for reconstruction, 1659, p. 
26. 

2 In 1706, in the Vestry of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, "the Foreman of the 
Leet Jury is desired to move the Court that another Constable and Headborough 
be added for the first and second divisions of the parish " (Account of the 
Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, by J. Parton, 1822, p. 282). 

8 1 George II. c. 19. 

* MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Somerset, Epiphany, 1788 ; Bristol Gazette, 
24th January 1788 ; Oxford Journal, 18th May 1793 



PREVALENCE AND DECA Y OF THE LORD'S COURT 119 

which, between 1689 and 1835, over 4000 were passed, 1 
deprived thousands of Manorial Courts of their business 
connected with the co-operative management of agriculture, 
which had once formed so large a part of the Local Govern- 
ment of the village. 2 Along with this agricultural revolution 
must be noted the steady decline in the number of copyholds 
and customary freeholds, which in Sir Edward Coke's time 
had made up one-third of England, 8 but which, in the course 
of the next two centuries, were always becoming enfranchised 
into complete freeholds, or merged in larger properties. There 
remained to many a Court Baron only one public function, 
that of the decision of petty actions for debt and trespass. But 
the " Homage " of freeholders and copyholders, even when free- 
holders and copyholders still attended the Lord's Court, hardly 
afforded the best judicial tribunal for civil suits. Moreover, 
in the vast majority of Manors there came to be no freehold 
tenants liable to escheat to the Lord, and the copyholders 
shrunk up in number, or entirely ceased to exist. Whether 
or not from this cause, the hearing of petty debt cases was 
generally discontinued ; 4 and we see this function passing 

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on Agricultural Distress, 1836, 
p. 501. 

2 " A strangely large proportion of the Inclosure Acts . . . sounded the 
death -knell each for one Manorial Court" (North Riding Quarter Sessions 
Records, by Rev. J. C. Atkinson, vol. vii. p. xxiii). It must be remembered that, 
over a large part of England, the enclosure of the commonfields had taken place 
without statutory authority (see The Domesday of Inclosures, 1517-1518, by 
I. S. Leadam (Royal Historical Society, 1897); "The Movements for the In- 
closure and Preservation of Open Lands," by Sir R. Hunter, in Journal of the 
Royal Statistical Society, June 1897). Of the 2000 Inclosure Acts of the 
eighteenth century, a large proportion related to south-east England ; and this 
is true, though to a lesser extent, of the 2000 Acts of 1800-1835. These 
Inclosure Acts, and the facts with which they deal, have, until lately, escaped 
proper study. Much light is thrown upon them by the work of Dr. Gilbert 
Slater, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Comrnonfields (1907). 

3 Bagnall v. Tucker, in Reports of Divers Choice Cases, etc., by R. Brown- 
low, 1675, vol. ii. p. 156 ; Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 
1825, voL i. p. 6. 

4 The history of petty debt courts does not fall within our scope, but we 
may mention that we have found it impossible (as we did also in the analogous 
cases of the County Courts and Hundred Courts) to form any idea of the extent 
to which the Manorial Courts continued actually to serve in this capacity 
between 1689 and 1835, or how they fulfilled this duty. Our first impression 
was that this particular function of the Lord's Court had become almost entirely 
disused. Thus we find the Privy Council in 1664 establishing, by a grant 
under the Great Seal, "a Court of Record to try small actions," in response to 
a petition from the inhabitants of Stepney and Hackney, who alleged that these 
Manova formed "a Liberty exempt both from the Sheriff's Bailiffs or the Knight 



tio THE COURT IN RUINS 

silently away to the " Courts of Conscience " or " Courts of 
Bequests," established by particular statutes of the eighteenth 
century. Presently the Lord's Court, as a Court Baron, in 
distinction from a Customary Court and a Court Leet, comes 
to be held only in the exceptional cases (such as Epworth) 

Marshal's men " (MS. Acts of Privy Council, 14th and 21st September 1664). 
The Manorial Courts were not mentioned, although we know that they were 
held ; and we can only assume that they did not then deal with pleas of debt. 
We read indeed, in 1728, that "of late this authority is seldom executed in some 
Manors, for that Courts Baron, which at first were held every three weeks, are 
now held no oftener than Courts Leet, viz. twice in the year. But . . . many 
Manors still retain their ancient power and authority in this particular " 
(Practice of Courts Leet and Courts Baron, by Sir William Scroggs, 4th edition, 
1728, pp. 195-200). Further investigation into Manor records showed us that 
a large number of Courts continued in vigorous activity as petty debt tribunals. 
In not a few cases (as we have mentioned in the case of Bamburgh, Northumber- 
land) we find tenants of the Manor fined for venturing to take their petty debt 
cases to any other tribunal. In 1774 we hear that the Court Baron sits every 
three weeks in the Manor of Trematon, Cornwall, and we see its Bailiff arresting 
a defendant who had been condemned to pay over 14 for damages and costs. 
On appeal its action was upheld by the King's Bench (Rowland v. Veale, in 
Reports of Cases by H. Cowper, 1783, pp. 18-22). "Down to about 1800," 
says the historian of an Oxfordshire Manor, "it appears from the Court books 
cognisance was taken of causes under forty shillings at Courts held in Bampton " 
(History of Bampton, by J. A. Giles, 1st edition, 1847, p. 104). On the other 
hand, when, in 1764, the Lord of the Manor of Warrington, Cheshire, sought 
to revive the jurisdiction in civil suits, his action seems to have been resisted 
as an innovation (Annals of the Lords of Warrington and Bewsey from 1587, 
by W. Beamont, 1873, pp. 116-117). We see the civil suits gradually falling 
into desuetude in the Manor of Havering atte Bower in Essex, where its Court, in 
1822, had heard no pleas of debt since 1776, none of replevin since 1790, and 
none of ejectment since 1806 ; but was, as we have already mentioned, never- 
theless required by the Court of King's Bench in 1822 to entertain a petty debt 
suit (R. v. Steward of Havering atte Bower; see p. 18). So, in 1817, the 
Court Baron of the great Manor of Wakefield, Yorkshire, was found in full 
activity as a civil debt court (Holroyd v. Breare and Holmes, in Reports of Cases, 
etc., by R. V. Barnewall and E. H. Alderson, 1822, vol. ii. p. 473). Up and down 
the country, it is clear, there were, especially in the North of England, scores 
of such Courts still hearing pleas of debt and trespass up to forty shillings, 
right down to the reign of Victoria. Yet so little was heard of them that it 
could be said by a great authority in 1825 that actions were at that date "now 
very rarely, indeed, if ever brought" in the Court Baron (Treatise on Copyholds, 
by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 382). In 1833 these tribunals 
were included in the inquiries of a Royal Commission, and they were incident- 
ally reported as deciding civil actions in scores of places from Northumberland 
to Cornwall (Fifth Report of Royal Commission on Courts of Common Law, 
1833, pp. 6, 20, 69, 77, 103, 133, 146, 191, etc.). In 1840 a return describes 
more than fifty Courts Baron in Northumberland, more than a score in Durham, 
half a dozen in Yorkshire, half a dozen in Wales, and half a. dozen elsewhere 
(besides Hundred Courts, Honour Courts, and Borough Courts), still acting as 
petty debt Courts, and dealing, in some instances, with hundreds of pleas 
annually (House of Commons Return of Courts of Request, 1840). The 
County Courts Act of 1846 (9 and 10 Vic. c. 95) allowed Lords to surrender 
their civil jurisdictions, to be merged in the new County Courts ; and the 
amending Act of 1867 (30 and 31 Vic. c. 142) formally deprived them of any 



PREVALENCE AND DECAY OF THE LORD'S COURT 121 

" where a body of freeholders have a set of customs relating 
to fines, heriots, regulation of commons, and the like, resembling 
the customs of copyhold tenants." * 

The Court Leet function of the Manorial Court the 
suppression of public nuisances, the enforcement of personal 
obligations, and the appointment of police officers was 
simultaneously being eaten into by newer forms of social 
organisation. After the first quarter of the seventeenth century 
we do not find Parliament conferring any jurisdiction upon 

outstanding jurisdiction in matters falling within thatf of these Courts (Treatise 
on the Law of Copyholds, by John Scriven, 7th edition, 1896, p. 434 ; see article 
in Nineteenth Century, October 1897 ; A History of English Law, by Prof. 
W. S. Holdsworth, 1903, p. 418). 

1 Law of Copyholds, by C. I. Elton and H. J. H. Mackay, 2nd edition, 
1893, p. 300. Where the Lord's Court has long since abandoned any functions 
of Local Government, and has become purely formal, we sometimes find it still 
making presentments of encroachments on the ' ' Waste " of the Manor. Thus 
in the records of the "General Court Baron" of the Manor of Titburst and 
Kendalls in Hertfordshire (access to which we owe to the kindness of Mr. E. C. 
Phillimore), though any local government work had long before fallen into 
desuetude, we find, on 22nd June 1801, two presentments of persons making 
enclosures of the waste of the Manor. So at Barnes (Surrey), where the Lord's 
Court is still (1906) held, we read of a proclamation of the Court on 27th July 
1894 against a tenant illegally digging gravel, and of his being "fined" 50 
by the Lord of the Manor (History of the Parish of Barnes, by J. E. Anderson, 
1900, p. 11). 

More usually the Lord's Court became simply an opportunity for recording 
alienations of copyhold property, when a complacent Steward entertained at 
dinner a score of the Lord's tenantry. The Court was sometimes revived for 
this purpose after long desuetude. Thus " the Reeve and Constable of the Leet 
of Tunstall, . . . important civil officers in their day," had apparently ceased to 
be appointed after 1691. "But in the year 1826," the Lord's Court "was 
revived and has been since held annually as an audit for chief rents, for swear- 
ing in Constables, etc., and as a festive meeting and bond of connection between 
the Lord and his tenants" (The Borough of Stoke on Trent, by John Ward, 
1843, p. 78). It is interesting to note that as early as three centuries ago the 
dinner had already become an important part of the ceremony. At Worplesdon 
(Surrey) the customs of the Manor formally recite that "the Homage and 
officers attending the Court and the Lawday have their dinner at the Queen's 
charge," the Queen owned the Manor, "but on a special Court at the charge 
of the party desiring it." Similarly, at Dymock (Gloucestershire), Whiston 
and Claines (Worcestershire), Alvechurch (ditto), and many other Manors. In 
the Manor of Earl's Court (Middlesex), it is expressly provided that "any 
tenant may call a Court at his own charge, without suit unto the Lord ; the 
Steward and tenants to have their dinner provided and the Steward to be 
pleased for his pains" (Treatise on Copyholds, by C. Watkins, 4th edition, 1825, 
pp. 487, 545, 548, 549, 559). In the Manor of Bishopstoke (Hants), in 1752, 
the Jury "present that the Lord Bishop of the Manor ought at every Court 
to find and allow unto the Jury and Homage a dinner of plain butcher's meat 
and something in moderation to drink, in lieu of the pains and trouble they are 
at in attending and doing the business of the same Court, agreeably to the 
customs of this and other Manors belonging to the bishopric" (MS. Manor 
Rolls, Bishopstoke, 1752). 



1 22 THE CO URT IN R UINS 

the Court Leet. 1 From the very beginning of the eighteenth 
century we become aware of the rapid supersession of its 
functions, sometimes by new statutory bodies of Street 
Commissioners or Turnpike Trustees to be hereafter de- 
scribed ; sometimes by the Vestry of the Parish ; sometimes 
by the Justices of the County. The presentments at the 
Lord's Court become steadily more perfunctory, often de- 
generating into a careless return of " omnia bene," or, as 
in a Welsh Manor in 1804, "all well but the pigs." 2 
In some large and relatively populous parishes, such as 
Woolwich and Tooting, we see the Vestry assuming the 
right to pass the By-laws which elsewhere would have been 
considered the business of the Lord's Court. 8 In the same 
years the Middlesex Justices in Quarter Sessions were taking 
upon themselves freely to quash particular appointments of 
Constables made by the Lord's Courts, discharging some 
persons 4 and appointing others as they thought fit. Towards 
the end of the eighteenth century it is not uncommon to find 
Vestries nominating Constables. Presently their appoint- 
ment by the Justices, in default of the Lord's Court, became 
the common form. In 1800, for instance, we gather that in 
the extensive district of the Newport Three Hundreds of 
Buckinghamshire, there were only four parishes in which the 
Constables were still appointed at the Lord's Court. 8 By 
1829 we are told that " Petty Constables, though sometimes 
appointed in Court Leet according to ancient practice, and 
occasionally sworn into office either by the Lord of such 

1 The last instance is 21 James I. c. 21 (1623), as to innkeepers' offences. 
8 MS. Manor Roll, Maenol (in Diocese of Bangor), 1804, among the archives 
of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 

3 See our preceding volume, The Parish and the County, pp. 56-60, 105, etc. 

4 In contrast, we may note that when, in 1652, a Constable for the Hundred 
of King's Wimborne in Hampshire complained to the Judge at Assizes that he 
had not been relieved of his office, though his year had expired, the Court would 
not do more than direct the Steward for the Manor of King's Wimborne to 
choose another person (MS. Circuit Books, Western Circuit, 9th July 1662). 

6 These were Bow, Brickhill, Castlethorpe, Haversham, and Stoke Ham- 
mond. The words "Court Leet "are written against these in MS. Minutes, 
Quarter Sessions, Buckinghamshire, Easter, 1800. Nevertheless in Gloucester- 
shire, and doubtless elsewhere, every appointment by the Justices continued for- 
mally to be made only ' ' until the Lord of the Leet shall hold his Court and 
appoint another in his stead " (MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Gloucestershire, 
Epiphany, 1825 ; see for a similar form, A Guide to the Practice of the Court of 
Quarter Sessions for the County of Somerset, by John Jesse, Junior, 1815, p. 22), 



PREVALENCE AND DEC A Y OF THE LORD'S COURT 123 

Court or by Justices out of session, are now generally 
nominated by their respective Parish Vestries, and sworn 
into office by the Justices at the Quarter Sessions, which is, 
on every account, the better and more regular mode." l " In 
the rural districts," wrote Chadwick only a few years later, 
"the Courts Leet have generally fallen into desuetude." 2 Here 
and there some valuable source of revenue kept the Lord's 
Court alive right down to Victorian times ; it might be, as 
in the case of the Great Court of the Manor of Wakefield, 
the right to inspect and exact fees for standardising the 
weights and measures over an area of 230 square miles; 8 
it might, as at Bradford, 4 Devonport, 6 and various other 
places, be a profitable market, with its power to levy toll ; 
it might, as at Farringdon in Berkshire, be a prescriptive 
right to levy a " toll traverse " on cheese and corn arriving 
in the Manor; 6 or it might, as at Manchester, Leeds, Wake- 

1 Practical Guide to the Quarter Sessions, by W. Dickinson and T. N. Tal- 
fourd, 1829, p. 60. 

2 Poor Law Commissioners' General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the 
Labouring Population, 1842, p. 296. 

3 See Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, by W. P. Baildon, vol. i. 
(1274-1297), 1901 ; History of Wakefield, by Thomas Taylor, 1886. The 
Manorial rights to this inspection of weights and measures, when actually exer- 
cised, were preserved in 22 and 23 Vic. c. 56, sec. 10 (1859), and 41 and 42 Vic. 
c. 49, sec. 49 (1878). The Act 55 and 56 Vic. c. 18 enabled local authorities 
to buy out the owners of such rights. The West Riding County Council had to 
pay 5000 in compensation in 1892 to get the function into its own hands (Our 
Weights and Measures, by H. J. Chaney, 1897, pp. 54-55). In the Manors of 
St. Giles-in-the-Fields and Stepney, Middlesex, the Manorial officers continued 
to be chosen for this purpose during the eighteenth century, and to levy fees and 
fines on persons using faulty weights and measures. These rights were upheld 
in the Court of King's Bench ; see Duke of Bedford v. Alcock, 1 Wils. 248 ; 
Sheppard v. Hall in Reports of Cases, etc., by R. V. Barnewall and J. L. Adolphus, 
1833, vol. iii. p. 433 ; Morning Advertiser, 4th January 1806 ; Treatise on Copy- 
holds, by John Scriven, 7th edition, 1896, p. 435. Similar jurisdictions con- 
tinued to be exercised in these and other London Manors during the early part 
of the nineteenth century (see, for instance, a case in Clerkenwell, in 1832, 
Wilcock v. Windsor and Others, in Reports of Cases, etc., by R. V. Barnewall and 
J. L. Adolphus, 1833, vol. iii. pp. 43-50). 

4 Historical Notes on the Bradford Corporation, by W. Cudworth, 1881, 
citing the case, Rawson v. Wright, in which this monopoly was successfully 
maintained in 1825. 

6 It is interesting to note that at Devonport, where the market yielded to 
the Lord of the Manor in 1830 a profit of nearly 3000 a year, the Lord's Court 
continued to appoint annually twelve "Constables for the Manor," even after 
the local Justices in Petty Sessions had taken to appointing fifteen Constables of 
their own (Brindley's Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse Directory, 1830). 

8 In this case the Lord of the Manor in 1822 successfully maintained his 
right to exact and distrain summarily for sixpence on every ton of cheese and a 



124 THE COURT IN RUINS 

field, Bradford, and Ossett, be a Soke Mill, in which the Lord 
had known how to maintain a lucrative monopoly. 1 

It is, of course, impossible to ascribe to any one cause, 
or to assign to any one year, the setting in of the decay of 
the Lord's Court as an organ of Local Government. Just as 
no statute had created it, or endowed it with jurisdiction, so 
no statute ever abolished it, or even abrogated its powers. 
Its gradual fading away was, in fact, spread over several 
centuries. The persistent hostility of the King's Courts at 
Westminster, to be" traced even in the thirteenth century, 
became specially accentuated in Sir Edward Coke, and 
was strengthened by the influences of the Commonwealth, 
which gave a shake to all feudal forms from which they 
never recovered. But apart from this disfavour of the 
King's Courts, at all times the jealous rivals of local juris- 
dictions, and apart from the disintegrating influences of seven- 
teenth-century politics, the very ideas on which the Court 
of the Manor was based became ever more out of harmony 
with the new conceptions of social organisation. The 
principle of Government by the Common Agreement of the 
persons immediately concerned the principle which lay at 
the root of such local autonomy as existed in the Court 
Baron was ever more undermined by the growing tendency 
to base all civil relations on the strictly ascertained legal 
rights of the individual as an individual. Moreover, the 
Common Agreement on which the Court Baron rested was, 
as we have mentioned, essentially that of an Association of 
Producers, enjoying in individual ownership the use of the 
land, coupled with the power to levy taxes on the landless 
residents, who presently became the bulk of the population, 
and naturally resented their exclusion. 

The Court Leet side of the Manorial Court was, as we may 
now see, equally out of harmony with the ideas and the needs 
of the eighteenth century. The limitation of the Leet to 

penny on every quarter of corn ; he had in return to maintain market-house, 
lock-up house, pound, two pairs of stocks, and the stalls of the market ; to 
provide a brass bushel measure, and to repair half a bridge over the Thames 
(Rickards v. Bennett and Another, 1822, in Reports of Cases, etc., by J. Dow- 
ling and A. Ryland, 1823, vol. ii. pp. 389-398). 

1 History of Committing, by R. Bennett and J. Elton, 1898-1904, vol. iii. 
cbap. viii., " Feudal Laws and Customs." 



PREVALENCE AND DECAY OF THE LORD'S COURT 125 

yearly or half-yearly meetings was specially inapplicable to 
the suppression of urban nuisances. 1 Its whole procedure, in 
its successive stages of presentment, amercement, affeering, and 
distraining for small fines was cumbrous and often ineffective ; 
and the absence of any provision against a recurrence of the 
offence gave the locality the very minimum of protection. 
But we suggest that the break-up of the Court Leet is to be 
attributed, in the main, to the abandonment by the English 
people of the root-principle on which the Court depended. 
This principle, to put it shortly, was that, however men might 
differ in faculties or desires, they were all under an equal 
obligation to serve the community, by undertaking, in turn, all 
the offices required for its healthy life. This principle is 
manifested in the annual nomination of officers, their com- 
pulsory service, and its limitation to a single year. It is seen 
in the supremacy of the Jury, taken haphazard from the 
neighbours, and deciding, without experts, and even without 
witnesses, " on their own view and knowledge." It lies at the 
base of the usual absence of any permanent staff or Corporate 
revenue, and of the inability to see the necessity for more 
frequent meetings of the Court, or for its separation into 
committees. It accounts for the fact that Parliament was 
disinclined to endow this shifting Jury and perpetually 
changing group of amateur officers with any new functions, 
even if it ever occurred to any year's Court to ask for new 
powers, to be executed in future years by successive new 
groups of jurymen and officers whose character no one could 
foresee. We may recognise a noble element in this idea of 
universal equality of social obligation the opposite, be it 
observed, of the eighteenth-century idea of universal equality 
of civil and political rights. But when this universal equality 
of social obligation meant each citizen taking, in turn, an 
" equal and identical " share in the service of the community, 
it proved impracticable for any but the most primitive society. 
Division of labour, implying specialisation of structure and 

1 The Court might have sat more frequently by the device of adjournment, 
but this was a device it seldom learned to use, and which had certainly not been 
contemplated in Magna Carta. In a case in 1832, an adjournment of a Court 
Leet from May to December was held to be not improper (Wilcock v. Windsor 
and Others, in Reports of Cases, etc., by R. V. Barnewall and J. L. Adolphus, 
1833, vol. iii. pp. 43-50). 



126 THE COURT IN RUINS 

function, became in fact a necessity of progress. Yet the 
twentieth-century student will perhaps regret that it was not 
the element of an identical equality, but the very notion of 
social obligation itself, which was swept away by the rival 
panacea of universality of civil and political rights. 



CHAPTER III 

THE MANOKIAL BOROUGH 

WE have now to describe a somewhat heterogeneous collection 
of local governing authorities which appear to us to be inter- 
mediate between the Lord's Court and the autonomous 
Municipal Corporation creating its own Justices of the Peace. 
The bulk of these authorities are plainly " Manorial " in their 
constitution. They are made up of such familiar parts as 
the Jury of Presentment, nominating or appointing Reeves, 
Constables, and other officers ; they transact the public business 
at " Courts," called indifferently Leets, Views of Frankpledge, 
Courts Baron, Courts of Pleas, Courts of Record, Three Weeks' 
Courts, or Burghmotes; they exercise seignorial powers over 
the inhabitants at large often absorbing indeed all the 
privileges of the Lord. They are frequently, we might almost 
say usually, termed " Boroughs " or " Free Boroughs." But we 
shall find, as Professor Maitland indicates, that " the Borough 
community will be closely related to the village community." l 
In some instances the so-called Boroughs are members of the 
seignorial Hierarchies of Courts that we have already described. 
In other places they are merely the urban parts of large 
Manors, becoming, by the grant of a measure of autonomy, 
what we shall term " Lord's Boroughs," the rest of the Manor 
being often designated " the Foreign." In a small minority of 
cases we find functions analogous to those of the Lord's 
Borough exercised by rudimentary authorities, which, so far as 
the accessible evidence is concerned, cannot actually be proved 
to have ever had any connection with a Lord's Court. But all 
these authorities, whether demonstrably seignorial in origin, or 

1 Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitland, 1898, p. 51. 
127 



128 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

doubtfully so, occupy, between 1689 and 1835, a similar 
position in the local government of the country, between the 
Parish and its officers on the one hand, and the Lord-Lieutenant, 
High Sheriff, and Justices of the County on the other. Hence 
we group the whole of these authorities under the loose 
designation of Manorial Boroughs a phrase which we use 
merely to distinguish them from the Municipal Corporations 
empowered to create their own Corporate Justices of the Peace. 1 
We must leave it to the historian of the Manor to decide 
whether some of the authorities which, between 1689 and 
1835, fell within this class are appropriately designated 
" Manorial." In order that the student may bear this 
reservation in mind, we begin with those instances which seem 
to have least connection with the Lord's Court, and in which 
the constitutional structure is most rudimentary. 



(a) The Village Meeting 

The most rudimentary it may possibly be the least 
significant of quasi-manorial administrations existing in 1689 
were the recurring village meetings, unchartered and unnamed, 
that regulated the commonfield agriculture, the town's plough, 
the customary privilege of gleaning, 2 the bull and boar, the 
common herd, the pasturage on the commons and the waste, 
and sometimes the quarry and the fishing grounds, without 
any obvious relation to any Lord of the Manor. No one has 
yet explored the extent to which such customary sharings of 
user of land, with or without legal ownership, have existed 

1 We know of no general description of the class of local authorities that 
we term Manorial Boroughs. The phrase "Manorial Corporations" was used 
in the analytic index and tables of the Municipal Corporation Commission's 
Report, 1835-1838, to designate some of the towns which they excluded from 
their list of Municipal Corporations ; but they did not define its scope. Their 
separate reports on such of the Manorial Boroughs as they investigated, together 
with those of the Commission of 1876-1880, are the principal accessible 
materials ; but, as will be seen, we have made great use of the MS. archives of 
such towns as Alnwick, Alresford, Altrincham, Aruudel, Beccles, Birmingham, 
Christchurch, Godmanchester, Lymington, Tetbury, and Wisbech ; and of the 
local histories. See also Miss Bateson's articles in English, Historical Eeview, 
1900-1902 ; and her Borough Customs (Selden Society, 1904 and 1906). 

2 The gleaning rules of Helpston in Lincolnshire in 1722 seem to have been 
the following: "That no person shall glean peas or beans till the peas or 
beans be carried by the owners thereof, nor to carry away grain in sheets or 
blankets, but to glean in bands only " (Fenland Notes and Queries, vok iii. p. 304). 



THE VILLAGE MEETING 129 

up and down England and Wales ; nor enumerated the 
different forms under which some assembly or committee of 
the " commorants " arranged for the enjoyment of these 
" dolewoods " or " oxgangs," these " cattlegates " or " sheep- 
heaves," these " stints " and " horseleazes," these " pasturegates " 
and " cowsgrasses." 1 

An interesting example of village government of this sort 
is afforded by the little village of Berwick in Sussex. Here, 
as we gather, nothing in the nature of a Manorial Court has 
been held for centuries. The inhabitants in 1721 are found 
governing themselves by voluntary agreement, then embodied 
in writing, in which the Eector joins. The arable fields, 
known as " tenantry-land," were unenclosed, and owned in 
severalty in the usual scattered strips. We have no record 
of decisions, like those of the Lord's Court of Great Tew, as 
to the crops to be sown. But each owner was to contribute 
a certain quota of sheep 2 to a common flock, to be placed 
in charge of a shepherd, and folded on the cornfields after 
a certain date. From information that we have gathered 
privately, we learn that, for the pasture lands, the Commoners 
cast lots annually for the parts of the common meadow they 
were severally to use during the ensuing year. As it was 
not thought seemly for the Eector to cast lots, he was allowed 
to use always the lot next to the brook. These rights to use 
the common lands seem to have been gradually bought up 
and exchanged by the principal landowner. But to this day 
(1907), as we are informed by the daughter of the late 
incumbent, the Parish Clerk has, by virtue of his office, 
the right to turn out one bullock upon what was formerly 
a commonfield, between certain fixed dates in the year ; and 
this " right " is annually purchased from him by the farmer 
of those particular fields. 3 

Another curious survival is seen in the ancient village of 

1 See the Law of Copyholds, by C. I. Elton and H. J. H. Mackay, 2nd 
edition, 1893, p. 16. 

2 "Agreed that the sheep that are stocked for the Tye shall be stocked in 
this proportion, namely [the Rector] 16 for his privileges there ; Widow Godly, 
16 ; S. Stace, 8 ; Thomas Susan, 14 ; and those which have no land but their 
privileges shall keep only 3 ewes to their privileges, and no more." 

s "Berwick Parochial Records," by Rev. G. M. Cooper, in Sussex Archaeo- 
logical Collections, vol. vi., 1853, pp. 240-241 ; supplemented by private 
information. 

VOL. II. PT. I K 



130 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

Yarnton in Oxfordshire, where there are three so-called "Lot 
Meadows," containing over 200 acres of valuable hay-fields. 
These have, time out of mind, been divided among the two 
tithe owners and the thirteen owners of shares, some of which 
are still appurtenant to neighbouring farms, whilst others 
are held by persons neither owning nor farming land. What 
is interesting is that, with the exception of the two " tidals " 
or " tithals," the shares of the co-owners, although all bearing 
distinct names, such as " Dun," " William of Bladon," " Eothe," 
etc., and dealt with as incorporeal hereditaments, are not repre- 
sented by any definite pieces of land, but only by the right 
to draw lots annually for a thirteenth part in each of the 
" drafts " or sections into which the fields are then and there 
divided. The following description is by one who witnessed 
in 1905 a ceremony that was plainly of ancient usage : 

" On the day on which the meadows are appointed to be 
drawn . . . the Headsman meets the owners of these shares 
at the tidals in Oxhey. He has with him a bag containing 
thirteen boxwood balls of about 1^ in. in diameter, on each 
of which is written the name of one of these shares. At the 
first post, one of those present dips his hand into the bag 
and withdraws one of the balls ; the name on the ball is 
called out, and a man with a scythe cuts half a dozen swathes 
to make a bare place, on which the owner of the lot cuts his 
initial. The whole company then walks on to the next stake, 
and a second ball is withdrawn. The man with the scythe 
again cuts half a dozen swathes, and the owner cuts his 
initial in the turf; and the performance is repeated till all 
the thirteen balls have been withdrawn, and every one of the 
thirteen owners has obtained his lot in the first draft. . . . 
In order to divide the lots, a man walks through the high 
grass from one post to the corresponding post on the other 
side of the field, and the track thus trodden shows the boundary. 
... It is obvious that this is the best way to divide the 
growing grass on unenclosed meadows. Every owner has his 
lot in each of the eight drafts, and the chance of the lot 
renders it most improbable that one man will get the pick 
of the field while his neighbour gets all the worst portions. 
As one of the farmers present said to me, ' They must have 
been clever old folk who thought this out.' To show how 



THE VILLAGE MEETING 131 

the lot works out, it will be sufficient to state that the owner 
of the share called Dun drew Lot 1 in the first draft of Oxhey, 
9 in the second, 12 in the third, 4 in the first draft of the 
West Mead, 3 in the second, 1 1 in the third, 1 1 in the fourth, 
and 8 in the fifth." l 

Similar village organisations connected with common 
agricultural interests may be found by the explorer in other 
parts of England. 2 It is, however, rare to find them getting 

1 "Till the beginning of the last century all three fields had to be cut the 
same day as they were drawn ; Oxhey on the first Monday after old St. Peter's 
Day, West Mead on the second Monday, and Pixey on the third. This custom 
was the cause of much disturbance and riot : outside labour had to be employed, 
and there was an influx of disorderly harvesters into the village ; but, in 1817, 
the vicar of Yarnton persuaded all parties to agree to a change, allowing the 
grass to be cut at any time before the cattle are turned into the meadow. 

"The owner of each complete share is entitled to turn on to the meadows 
ten beasts after the grass is cut, but in so doing he must be careful to send no 
sheep or entire animals. The meadows are thrown open for stock on the 
Monday after August 12th, but there appears to be no rule fixing the date 
when the meadows are again laid up for hay ; in practice it is found, however, 
that as the meadows are very liable to floods, the cattle begin to lose flesh 
before the end of October, and they are, therefore, taken off" (" Lot Meadows, 
an interesting survival," by Adolphus Ballard, Country Life, 18th Nov. 
1905 ; see also Three Oxfordshire Parishes, by Mrs. Staple ton, Oxford Historical 
Society, 1893, pp. 307-310). " Traces of a similar sharing of meadows by lot are 
said to be found to-day in the Lammas grounds in Hackney Marshes ; and old 
deeds of the thirteenth century in the chartulary of Godstow speak of Lot 
meadows at Cassington, the adjacent parish to Yarnton, and at Bletchingdon 
in the Cherwell Valley. The St. Frideswide's chartulary speaks of Lot meadows 
at Eynsham, which is the next parish to Cassington. " 

We have already mentioned elsewhere the common organisation of the four 
villages in Northamptonshire that share among them the Ashe Meadow ; 
appointing six "Fieldmen" to lay out the meadow in lots, which were drawn 
for at an annual gathering, and mown under the direction of "Crocusmen" 
(History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, by John Bridges, 1791, vol. i. 
p. 219 ; The Village Community, by G. L. Gomme, 1890, p. 269). Similar 
lot meadows existed at Bestmoor (Oxon) ; see The English Peasantry and the 
Enclosure of Common Fields, by Gilbert Slater, 1907, p. 35. 

2 For instance, near the villages of Congresbury and Puxton in Somerset, 
there was, down to 1811, an extensive common, called the Dolmoors, running 
into both the parishes, the householders of which had the right of pasturage. 
This common was divided into twenty-four parts, and was managed by two 
officers, called Overseers of the Dolmoors, who served for one year and then 
nominated their successors. Every year, on the Saturday before Midsummer 
Day, a meeting was held in Puxton Church, by sound of bell, in the early 
morning, at which the villagers attended. The business was to draw lots for the 
privilege of having the use of twenty-three of the parts for the ensuing year, 
and to let by auction, by "inch of candle," the twenty-fourth part, "the 
Outdrift " or " the Outlet," for a sum of money varying from about one to three 
pounds, which was devoted to defraying the incidental expenses of the year. 
This ancient custom was only terminated by the 1816 award under the Inclosure 
Act of 1811 (History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset, by J. Collinson, 
1791 ; Delineations of the North- West Division of the County of Somersetshire 



1 32 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

beyond the undeviating maintenance of an ancient custom, 
without other administrative machinery than a public meeting 
and an officer the " Headsman," Common Herd, Fieldsman, 
or " Overseer," paid by customary fees or contributions. 1 
But "between village and Borough," as Professor Maitland 
tells us, " there is no insuperable gulf, and if our villages had 
* remained lordless they might perhaps in course of time have 
exhibited the decisive symptoms of Corporate unity." 2 

The first step in such an evolution might be the establish- 
ment of a standing committee. Of this the leading case is 
that of Aston and Cote, 3 two hamlets in the parish of 
Bampton, Oxfordshire, where the commoners had, time out of 
mind, down to Victorian days, maintained a " Sixteens," or 
standing administrative committee, on which each served in 
turn, every four yardlands annually furnishing one member. 
This body, as we learn from the case which the Lord of the 
Manor submitted to Counsel in 1657, had, from time 
immemorial, been accustomed " to make orders, set penalties, 
choose officers, and lot the meadows, and do all such things as 
are usually performed or done in the Courts Baron of other 

by J. Rutter, 1829, p. 36 ; The Sea-Board of Mendip, by F. A. Knight, 
1902, pp. 228-232 ; The Village Community, by G. L. Gomme, 1890, pp. 268- 
269 ; Archceologia, vol. xxxv. p. 471 ; Notes and Queries for Somerset and 
Dorset, vol. vi. p. 109). 

1 We ought not to forget that Domesday Book itself testifies to the existence 
of some entirely "lordless" villages (Domesday Book and Beyond, by F. W. 
Maitland, 1897, p. 133 ; The Domesday Inquest, by A. Ballard, 1906, pp. 138, 
146 ; article by J. H. Round in Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, vol. i. 
1905). Moreover, it seems worth considering whether some of these apparently 
autonomous village organisations may not have been, as the ' ' berewicks " of 
Domesday possibly were, colonies or off-shoots from a Manor, forming distinct 
agricultural units in new settlements, and gaining a practical autonomy as 
they removed from the parent stock (see Domesday Book and Beyond, by F. W. 
Maitland, 1897, p. 114 ; The Growth of the Manor, by P. Vinogradoff, 1905, 
p. 224 ; History of Municipal Government in Liverpool, by Ramsay Muir, 1906, 
p. 3 ; article by F. M. Stenton in Victoria County History of Derbyshire, vol. i., 
1905, p. 311). 2 Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitlaud, 1898, p. 35. 

3 For the discussion of this interesting case, see Professor F. W. Maitland's 
article, ' ' The Survival of Archaic Communities, " in Law Quarterly Review, vol. ix. , 
July 1893 ; The Village Community, by G. L. Gomme, 1890, pp. 158-170 ; 
Villainage in England, by P. Vinogradoff, 1892, pp. 392, 450 ; History of 
Bampton, by J. A. Giles, 1847, p. 79 ; The Manor and Manorial Records, by 
N. J. Hone, 1906, pp. 12-13 ; Archceologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 269 and vol. xxxv. 
p. 470 ; The Jurist, New Series, vol. xii. part ii. p. 103. Journal of Archaeo- 
logical Institute, vol. xliv. p. 405 ; Qentleman's Magazine, 1839, vol. ii. p. 640 ; 
Proceedings of Society of Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 62, vol. iii. pp. 54, 86 ; and the 
Inclosure Award, 1855. 



THE VILLAGE MEETING 133 

Manors." The orders of the Sixteens were formally proclaimed 
from the Town Cross, and were then universally accepted as 
binding on the community. Four of the most influential 
members of the Sixteens were annually chosen to be Grass 
Stewards, and also to represent the men of Aston and Cote at 
the Lord's Court of Bampton, to which the hamlets apparently 
owed suit of court. The Sixteens had also to provide every 
season four two -year- old bulls to run on the common pasture. 
In return they were authorised to levy a fee for each cow 
placed on the Common, and to sell the bulls at the end of the 
season. The Sixteens appointed all the officers of the village, 
allotting to each the particular share of the " Town Hams " 
that custom assigned for the remuneration of the post the 
Constable's Ham, the Herd's Ham, the two Water Stewards' 
Hams, the Hayward's Ham, the Water Hayward's Ham, and 
so on. The remainder of the " Town Hams " were " disposed 
of at the discretion of the Sixteens, some for the public use of 
the Town, as for making of gates, bridges, etc., and some sold 
to make ale for the merry meeting of the inhabitants." We 
need not in this work describe the elaborate arrangements that 
were still in force in 1657 for the annual sharing out by 
lot of the common meadow among the owners of strips in 
the commonfield ; the gathering of the villagers under the 
direction of the Grass Stewards and the Sixteens, when the 
grass was ripe to cut, and the eager rushing of each man with 
his scythe to mow the part allotted to him. Nor does it 
enter into the plan of this work to go into the hotly debated 
question of the probable origin of this remarkable organisation, 
or to discuss whether it can be sufficiently accounted for by 
the supposition that it represented a district shared between 
three separate Manors. 1 It suffices us to note that the 

1 It maybe important to trace the constitutional influence of "intercom- 
moning," or the use of pasture lands more or less jointly by several villages, 
parishes, or Manors ; of which traces may be found in Marshland Fen (Norfolk) 
and in Lincolnshire fenlands, and also in the Essex marshes (see Domesday 
Book and Beyond, by F. W. Maitland, 1897, p. 367 ; The Forest of Essex, by 
W. R. Fisher, 1887, pp. 265, 277, 289 ; and the article by J. H. Round in 
Victoria County History of Essex, vol. i. pp. 369-374). 

We may briefly note some other cases of village organisation. " The people 
of Ibthorpe," we read of a hamlet in the parish of Hurstbourn Tarrant, 
Hampshire, "are Lords of their own Manor, and to this day exercise their 
Manorial rights, in respect of which they have exclusive common rights on the 
seventy acres of common land at Pillheath, including a right to everything that 



t 3 4 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

attempt made in 1657 to reduce the inhabitants to a position 
of ordinary Manorial dependence did not succeed ; and that 
the rule of the Sixteens, curiously resembling, as we shall see, 
that of the simplest Manorial Boroughs, continued until the 
middle of the nineteenth century. 



(b) The Chartered Township 

If the Village Meeting, desiring legal authority for the 
management of its common estate, obtained a Eoyal Charter, 
it might develop, out of a rudimentary constitution analogous to 
that of Aston and Cote, a form of government even approaching 
a Municipal Corporation. 

Among the possessions of the wealthy Abbey of St. Edmund 
was a fen or marsh of 1400 acres near the village of Beccles 
in Suffolk, which the Abbot had been accustomed for centuries 
to let to the townsfolk, getting his annual rent from four 
" Fenreeves " whom they elected at a public meeting. At the 

grows on this common, with liberty to take it away for their use in Ibthorpe, 
but not for sale " (Paper by Mr. T. W. Shore, in The Antiquary, vol. xvii. 
p. 52, 1888 ; TJte Village Community, by G. L. Gomme, 1890, p. 260). In 
other villages we find ancient regulations resting on the agreement of a public 
meeting of the villagers. Thus the inhabitants of Wiuteringham in Lincoln- 
shire framed in 1685 a formal code of By-laws, said to be agreed to "at a parish 
meeting." "Item, 13 it was ordained, "that none shall burne or bake at any 
unlawful time of night, on paine of 3/4. Item, none shall dry any hempe or 
flax by the fire upon paine of 3/4. Item, none shall smoke tobacco on the streets 
upon paine of 2/- for every default " (History of Winterton and the Adjoining 
Villages, by W. Andrew, 1836, p. 105). Similar "fire rules" are found in 
other villages, though whether promulgated at the Lord's Court or Parish Vestry 
or merely by common agreement it is not easy to determine. At Helpston, 
in Lincolnshire, it was ordered in 1722 that no person was to " fetch fire from 
any neighbouring house without the same being carried in a lanthorn or wanning 
pan, for every offence to pay ten shillings." Also it was ordered "that no 
person whatsoever shall smoke tobacco in the town, street, or in any stable, barn, 
or outhouse, without a sufficient muzzle, hood, or cover for the same, under the 
penalty for every offence of five shillings " (Fenland Notes and Queries, vol. iii. 
pp. 303-306). 

Other villages had "Gild Halls" and "Town Bailiffs." At Leverington, in 
the Isle of Ely, there was an ancient "Gild Hall," used latterly as free 
tenements for paupers, and an annually chosen "Town Bailiff." This 
distinction seems to have been due to its possession of "townlands," producing 
no less than 300 a year, which were vested in trustees, one of whom served 
annually as Town Bailiff (Historical Account of Wisbech, by W. Watson, 1827, 
p. 471 ; History of Wisbech, by K Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 503 ; 
History of Wisbech, by F. J. Gardiner, 1898, p.- 380). It is now, with a 
population in 1901 of 1124, governed by a Parish Council, with its endowments 
held for charitable purposes by separate trustees. 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 135 

dissolution of the abbey, the townsfolk, by judicious payments 
to the King, got this arrangement continued in slightly varied 
form, the position being regularised by Koyal Letters Patent 
and Charter of 1584 and 1605 respectively, which definitely 
established a Corporate body of " the Portreeve, Surveyors, and 
Commonalty of Beccles Fen." l This anomalous Corporation, 
created primarily to regulate a large common pasture rather 
than to govern a town, consisted of two Chambers, one of 
twelve and the other of twenty-four members, each filling 
vacancies by co-option. The members of the Twelve were 
alone eligible to serve as Portreeve, on election by the two 
Chambers of the Corporation voting together. The whole 
body of the commonalty, including the members of the two 
Chambers, met to enact "statutes, laws, articles, rules, and 
orders touching the pasture and fen," which made up all 
their property, and " also concerning the good rule, state, and 
government of the Commoners of or in the same fen " who 
seem to have been all the householders of Beccles, for whose 
" common benefit and utility " the revenue was to be expended. 
The Charter had granted or continued to this Corporation the 
right to hold, quite apart from the Manorial Courts, its own 
Court of Justice, the so-called " Fen Court," at which the 
Portreeve and the two or three Surveyors were the judges, 
and in which the principal part was played by the " Common 
Clerk " of the Corporation, and by the Inquest or Jury of the 
Commoners. This was a Court of Eecord for " plaints con- 
cerning the Fen," having power to punish by fine or imprison- 
ment, or by exclusion from "commoning in the Fen." But 
neither the Portreeve nor the Corporation had ever been 
granted magisterial powers or regulative authority in anything 
beyond the management of the Fen. 

Notwithstanding this limitation of their legal authority, 
we see the Portreeve, Surveyors, and Common Council of 
Beccles Fen gradually slipping into the position of administer- 

1 The MS. records of the Beccles Corporation are imperfect, no book of 
minutes having been found, and we were able to consult only a collection of 
scraps of orders, etc., from 1719 to 1832, and various presentments, charges, 
orders, etc., of the Manorial Court, 1628-1842. See also First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2133 ; Some 
Account of the Corporation of Beccles Fen, 1807 ; and the History and Antiquities 
of the County of Suffolk, by Rev. A. Suckling, 1846, vol. i. pp. 1-35. 



136 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

ing much more than their common pasture. Their property, 
which came eventually to yield over 1000 a year, made them 
practically the dominant influence in this little town of a 
couple of thousand inhabitants. The Lord of the Manor had, 
indeed, the stallage of the market, and held his Courts a 
Court Baron, a " Land Leet," l and also (for the regulation of 
the fishing and navigation of the Eiver Waveney) a " Water 
Leet." But the Manorial Courts evidently became very 
perfunctory, the presentments of the Homage and Juries 
steadily declining in number and importance, and the sessions 
of the Courts becoming less frequent. 2 After the middle of 
the eighteenth century, these Manorial Courts do practically 
nothing but present persons to serve as Constables, Flesh- 
searchers, and Ale-founders, with occasionally a Headborough. 
As the need for some more regulative authority becomes felt, 
we see the Corporation and its Portreeve coming more and 
more to the front. Their " Fen Court " is, indeed, abandoned, 
the last sessions having been in 174 1. 3 But it is the Portreeve 
and his two Serjeants at Mace who enforce such of the Fen 
By-laws of 1613 as are not obsolete. It is the Portreeve, 
Surveyors, and Commonalty who in 1740 make the new 
regulations necessitated by the growing habit of keeping geese 
to supply the London market, 4 and who in 1762 revise the 
stint for sojourners, "certificate -men," householders "not 
paying task," and those who "pay task to the king" 
respectively. 6 It is the Portreeve's Feast, provided annually 
at the Corporate expense, which is the great event of the year 
in Beccles. In 1785 it is the Portreeve who, by the Deputy 
Steward of the Corporation and out of the Corporation funds, 
prosecutes before the County Justices those inhabitants who 
commit encroachments and nuisances in the streets. 6 It is 

1 This "Land Leet" called its Jury "The Jury of Headborough s " (MS. 
records, Beccles Manor, 23rd September 1728, 24th September 1729), which 
may be compared with the Jury of Constables mentioned in The Parish and the 
County, Book I. Chap. III. "The Court of Quarter Sessions," pp. 464-466. 

2 Between 1750 and 1800 there were, for instance, only five "Water Leets." 

3 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, 
vol. iv. p. 2138. 

4 MS. records, Beccles Corporation, 31st March 1740. 5 Ibid. 1762. 

6 Ibid. 1st September 1785. It is interesting to notice that, in 1760, the 
Chief Constable for the Hundred of Wangford had before the Corporation of 
Beccles Fen had taken up this Municipal duty presented Beccles nuisances at 
Quarter Sessions (MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Suffolk, 6th October 1760). 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 13? 

the Corporation revenue which provides most of the relief of 
the poor and maintenance of the roads. At last, in 1796, 
legal authority is given to this government by a Local Act 
for paving, lighting, cleaning, watching, and improving the 
streets of Beccles, 1 under which the Portreeve and Surveyors, 
ex officio, with several other members of the Corporation 
named in the Act, were made Commissioners to carry out the 
new duties, with power to levy a rate on the inhabitants. 

From 1796 to 1835, when the population of the town 
was increasing from 2500 to nearly 40 OO, 2 the activities of 
the Corporation of Beccles Fen were indistinguishable from 
those of the Beccles Street Commissioners, who were, in fact, 
practically the same persons. When in 1804 the Commis- 
sioners decided to pave the town, the Corporation sold part 
of the Fen for 3000 to meet the cost. The payments for 
watchmen, fire engines, lamps, and repairing the pavements 
come sometimes out of one fund and sometimes out of another. 
This was the less material in that practically all that was left 
over of the Corporate income was paid " in relief of the town 
for Poor, Lamp, Church, and (Highway) Composition Kates," 
this subsidy amounting, on an average, to 792 a year. 3 By 
1835, in short, the Portreeve, Surveyors, and Commonalty of 
Beccles Fen, originally only the managing committee of an 
extensive common pasture, had, whilst letting slip even such 
judicial powers as they had once exercised, assumed practically 
the whole government of the town, and were accordingly 
recognised as such and reformed by the Municipal Corporations 
Act of 1835. 4 

1 36 George III. c. 51. 

2 History of Suffolk, by Rev. A. Suckling, 1846, vol. i. p. 34. 

3 MS. Records, Beccles Corporation, 7th April 1831. 

4 We may name here the Corporation of the ' ' Warden, Assistants, and 
Commonalty " of Godalming in Surrey, incorporated by successive Royal 
Charters, evidently governing the little town, but apparently entirely uncon- 
nected with any of the Courts of the several Manors that existed in the parish. 
Without property, taxing power, or magisterial jurisdiction its position in the 
town became, already by the end of the seventeenth century, titular and 
honorary only, the government passing to the Justices and to a body of Street 
Commissioners established by Local Act in 1825 (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 735 ; Parish and Church 
of Godalming, by S. Welman, 1900). 

Such a Corporation of " Bailiff and Burgesses " existed, too, at Great Dunmow 
in Essex, under sixteenth-century Royal Charters a self-renewing Society of 
Twelve, who owned the markets, collected such tolls as they could, and gave 
themselves an annual feast entirely unconnected with the Manor. It remained 



138 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

An even more remarkable instance of the development of 
a committee for managing a landed estate into something very 
near to a fully developed Municipal Corporation is presented 
by the " ancient seaport " of Wisbech, in the Isle of Ely, with 
its Town Bailiff, ten Capital Burgesses, and Commonalty of forty- 
shilling freeholders a quasi-municipal government which may 
with some warrant claim to have furnished between 1689 
and 1835 the most pure, energetic, and enlightened urban 
administration in the Kingdom. 1 

We do not need in this work to trace the origin of the 
Wisbech town government in the religious Gild of the Holy 
Trinity, the richest of all the Wisbech Gilds, that dominated 
the town from at least 1379 down to 1549. 3 Here it suffices 
to relate that on the dissolution of this fraternity by the 
reforming zeal of Edward VI. the townsfolk succeeded in 
obtaining, or rather in purchasing, through the good offices of 
their Lord, the Bishop of Ely, not only the property of the 
Gild, but also a Eoyal Charter which incorporated them for 
the purpose of managing this landed estate, maintaining the 
Grammar School, providing for the poor, and looking after 
" banks, shores, and streams," with an implied authority to 
uphold and enforce the customs of the little community. 
Perhaps because it primarily concerned the management of 
a common property, and did not expressly convey any powers 

unreformed in 1835, and was dissolved only after the Municipal Corporations Act 
of 1883. This town of nearly 3000 inhabitants, having been twice refused a 
Charter of incorporation, is now (1907) governed only by a parish council (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2215; 
ditto, 1880, part i. p. 37, partii. p. 294 ; History of Dunmow, by J. W. Savill, 
1865). 

1 For Wisbech we have had the advantage of examining the well-kept records 
from 1616 to 1835 ; see also Report of House of Commons Committee on 
Corporations, 1833 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835 
Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2551 ; Report of Historical Manuscripts Commission 
1883 ; Reasons . . . against embanking the Salt Marsh belonging to Sutton 
1720 ; Introduction to the Charter of Wisbech, by Mann Hutchesson, 1791 
Historical Account of the Ancient Town of Wisbech, by W. Watson, 1827 
History of Wisbech, with an Historical Sketch of the Fens (Anon.), 1833 ; History 
of Wisbech and the Fens, by Neil Walker and T. Cradock, 1849 ; History of 
Wisbech, 1848-1898, by F. J. Gardiner, 1898. The population, said to have 
been 1705 in 1676, was 4710 in 1801, and 8777 in 1831. 

2 The existing records of the Gild begin in 1379 ; see Report of Public 
Record Commissioners, 1837 ; Report of Historical Manuscripts Commission, 
vol. ix. p. 293 ; Introduction to the Charter of Wisbech, by Mann Hutchesson, 
1791 ; History of Wisbech and the Fens, by N". Walker and T. Cradock, chap. 
Hi. pp. 280-301. 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 139 

of government, this Charter was, for a Tudor instrument, 
unusually democratic in form. Ten of the " better, more 
honest, and more discreet inhabitants " l called at first " the 
Company of the Ten," and afterwards " Capital Burgesses " 
were to be freely elected at an annual assembly, or Common 
Hall, of all the inhabitant householders. During the next 
century and a half this simple constitution was rendered 
somewhat more definite, the choice of Capital Burgesses being 
first confined by agreement of the householders to forty- 
shilling freeholders, and then the constituency, by Charter of 
161 1, 2 being at the instance of the Corporation itself, alarmed 
at the disorder of the public assemblies, similarly limited. 
This franchise, whilst it excluded the mere hired man, cottager, 
and temporary sojourner, still admitted, as we believe, most of 
the independent householders of the little fishing and trading 
port, which had, by 1689, a population under two thousand. 
In contravention of the common legal theory, no provision 
was made in the Charters for any head of the Corporation, but 
local custom, transmitted from the Gild, had established a Town 
Bailiff, an officer who represented the township to the County 
and executed the decisions of the Capital Burgesses and 
assemblies of freeholders. 3 Between 1689 and 1835 we 
find the office filled by the Capital Burgesses in annual 
rotation, though in some cases a successful and public-spirited 
administrator remained for several years in succession. 4 We 
find no trace of the Lord of the Manor the Bishop of Ely 
holding any Court in Wisbech after the dissolution of the 
Gild. 5 The townsfolk themselves levied tolls and dues, took 
the waste on long lease, and in 1786 acquired the lease of 
the market rights. The parish officers, whether Churchwardens, 
Overseers, or Surveyors, appear, throughout the eighteenth 
century, as humble subordinates of the Bailiff and Burgesses ; 
and it is only at the beginning of the nineteenth century that 

1 The terms used at first were "gratia eminentiae " and "de melioribus " 
(Introduction to the Charter of Wisbech, by Mann Hutchesson, 1791, pp. 8, 15). 

2 History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, pp. 319-321. 

3 A Town Clerk was first appointed in 1679. 

4 In a few instances one in 1565 the Town Bailiff seems not himself to 
have been a Capital Burgess (History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 
1849, p. 306). 

6 The "Company of the Ten" themselves heard civil cases during the six- 
teenth century as a sort of voluntary arbitration tribunal (ibid. pp. 308-310). 



HO THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

the Open Vestry of inhabitants rises to any position of 
importance. Above all these authorities we are conscious of 
the Justices of the Peace of the Isle of Ely, meeting in Quarter 
Sessions at Ely and holding Petty Sessions at Wisbech, but 
only intervening in the affairs of the town when requested to 
do so by the Town Bailiff and Capital Burgesses. The records 
from 1689 to 1835 make it clear that the freeholders obeyed 
the directions of their first Charter in electing and re-elect- 
ing at the Annual Meetings that were always held in the 
Gothic hall of the ancient Grammar School the ten " of the 
better, more honest, and more discreet inhabitants," the Vicar 
figuring nearly always in the list, the others comprising several 
" Esquires," " Gentlemen," and " Captains," whilst a few only, 
designated "Mr.," served to represent the shopkeepers or 
farmers of the township. 

It would be an interesting subject for special inquiry why 
it was that this simple constitution produced, for the whole 
century and a half that we are considering, a government of 
remarkable excellence. About the fact the student of all the 
available evidence can, we think, have no doubt. The elabor- 
ately kept records, coupled with current traditions and the 
actual state of the town, demonstrate the existence of an 
administration which possibly first taking on a distinctively 
Municipal and governmental character in the emergency of the 
plague in 1586 * combined, from decade to decade, the three 
great qualities of popular assent, purity of administration, and 
continuity of enlightened policy. The note of what the 
historians of the town term the "direct control of the 
people" ' is particularly strong. Even in 1669, at an 
epoch when Municipal Corporations were being stripped of 
all popular features, the freeholders of Wisbech managed, by 
prompt and vigorous action at Court, to prevent the trans- 
formation of their ten Capital Burgesses into a Close Body, 3 
and, whilst retaining their privilege of popular election, even 
secured the definite recognition, in the new Charter, of the 
obligation of the Capital Burgesses, not only to allow in- 

1 Historical Account of . . . Wisbech, by W. Watson, 1827, p. 207. 

2 History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 347. 

3 Historical Account of . . . Wisbech, by W.. Watson, 1827, p. 219; 
History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, pp. 329-331 ; First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2551. 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 141 

spection of all their accounts, but also to submit them to the 
" Common Hall " for its approval. 1 It was perhaps a per- 
sistence of this pugnacious watchfulness that induced suc- 
cessive Capital Burgesses to consider themselves the ministers, 
and not the masters, of the town. 2 Though the Charter made 
necessary only one meeting of the freeholders annually, we 
find a frequent consultation by the Capital Burgesses of their 
fellow-freeholders or the inhabitants at large. Thus even 
when they have to appoint a schoolmaster in 1690, this is 
done "at a meeting in the Town Hall . . . the Capital 
Burgesses being seven in number, by and with the consent 
of eleven others of the Burgesses." 3 When in 1699 the 
Capital Burgesses think it necessary to prohibit the squatting 
of cottagers upon the Lord's Waste, and to arrange for the 
erection of a wall at the Town Bridewell, they lay these 
matters before Assemblies of Burgesses, and obtain their 
express consent, and even their active co-operation in the 
work. 4 So intimate and informal was the relationship between 
the Capital Burgesses and the Burgesses at large, that it is 
often impossible to distinguish from the records which of the 
meetings were confined to the smaller and which were open to 
the larger body of governors ; our own impression being that 
whenever any important new departure was contemplated, the 
Capital Burgesses made a point of calling their constituents 
into council to approve the proposal. Nor did the Capital 
Burgesses always confine their consultations to the freeholders. 
When in 1775 a local drainage Bill before Parliament seemed 
likely injuriously to affect the interests of the town, the 
Capital Burgesses summoned all the merchants and tradesmen 
to a Public Meeting, for which a special report was prepared, 
and from which authority was obtained to oppose the Bill at 

1 Charter of. 21 Car. II. 1669 ; see First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2552. From 1818 the accounts were 
printed and published. 

a Thus it was formally resolved in 1826 that no alterations should be made 
in the Free Grammar School ' ' without the direction of the Burgesses at large 
being taken thereon at a public meeting " ; that a similar meeting should be held 
before any Bill was promoted altering the existing Local Act, or effecting any 
improvement in the town, or in the navigation (MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corpora- 
tion, 2nd November 1826). 

3 Ibid. 6th June 1690 ; so again, 31st January 1707. 

Ibid. 1699 ; 22nd February 1700 ; 6th November 1720. 



142 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

an estimated cost of 200 from the Corporate funds. 1 It was 
after friendly consultation with " the clergy and some of the 
principal inhabitants of the town " that the Capital Burgesses 
submitted to the assembly of freeholders resolutions "for 
considering the best means of extending education among 
children of the poor/' and started a " Lancastrian " School. 2 
From 1809 onwards we find coming in the inhabitants in 
Vestry assembled, the Capital Burgesses habitually deferring 
to any express resolution of this public meeting. It was in 
consistency with this constant reliance on popular assent that 
we find the Bailiff and Burgesses of Wisbech in 1833 warm 
in their welcome of the Municipal Corporation Commissioners, 
and uncompromisingly outspoken in their advocacy of a 
popularly elected Town Council as the leading feature of 
the Municipal Corporations Reform Bill, against which the 
governing bodies of nearly all the Municipalities in the land 
were protesting. 8 

This dominant fact of popular control does not seem at 
any time to have impaired the executive efficiency of the 
Capital Burgesses. Though the " Company of the Ten " was 
annually elected by the public meeting of freeholders, which 
seems to have been an occasion of some public interest, even 
the scene of sharp electoral contests lasting till midnight, at 
which between one and two hundred freeholders voted, 4 it 
appears to have been fairly stable in its membership. At no 
time was it the close preserve of party exclusiveness 5 or the 
plaything of political struggles ; the substantial inhabitants, 
indeed, took their share of service as a public obligation and 
not as a private advantage. And their duties were far from 

1 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 21st December 1775 ; 8th January 
1776. 

2 Ibid. 27th March and 19th April 1811. 

3 Ibid. 16th and 28th March 1833 ; 6th January 1834 ; Report of House 
of Commons Committee on Corporations, 1833 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2551 ; History of Wisbech, by N. 
Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 337 ; History of Wisbech (anon.), 1833, p. 150. 

4 The quaint customs of the election are described in the Historical Account 
of . . . Wisbech, by W. Watson, 1827, pp. 230-233 ; History of Wisbech 
(anon.), 1833, pp. 145-146. 

5 As the Test Act applied to the Wisbech Corporation, the Capital Burgesses 
had to be at least "occasional conformists"; and when in 1819, 1821, and 
1822 an avowed Nonconformist was elected, he was .passed over (ibid, (anon.) 
1833, p. 150 ; ibid, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 335 ; ibid, by 
F. G. Gardiner, 1898, p. 93). 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 143 

light. They met frequently sometimes twenty times in a 
year and attended regularly, deciding such issues as arose, or 
formulating them for submission to the popular assembly. 
But it was on the one among them who served as Town Bailiff 
that they relied for the daily task of town administration. It 
was the Town Bailiff whom they ordered to set the poor to 
work, pave the streets, scour the ditches, cleanse the market- 
place, collect the rents, and promote or oppose Bills in 
Parliament, exactly as if he had been their salaried servant, 
though such phrases as " at his convenience," " as he shall 
judge necessary," " at his discretion," or " as occasion offers " 
soften the peremptory tone of their multitudinous orders. 
Over the financial transactions of the Town Bailiff the Capital 
Burgesses throughout maintained the strictest censorship. 
" Ordered that no Town Bailiff shall expend upon any one 
work above forty shillings without a particular order from 
the Hall, and also that no workman's bill that exceeds the 
sum of forty shillings shall be paid by the Town Bailiff 
without being first perused and having the consent of the 
Hall thereto." l He was not even allowed to let the smallest 
tenement without the consent of his colleagues. 2 On the two 
occasions in 150 years on which a Town Bailiff neglected to 
deliver up, on quitting his office, a precise account of his 
stewardship, he was prosecuted with relentless rigour. 8 In 
1774 we note the beginning of a system of executive com- 
mittees, always consisting of the Town Bailiff* and two other 
Capital Burgesses. From this date committees to light the 
town, to settle the rates of tolls and dues, to audit the 
accounts, and to let the lands become practically continuous. 
These committees seem to have been little more than devices 
for strengthening the authority of the Town Bailiff, for, as 
decade follows decade, we find the activity and importance of 
this dignitary constantly increasing. We gather, indeed, that 
towards the end of our period his official work became so 

1 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 8th November 1694, 9th November 
1725, 26th October 1730. 

2 "Ordered that no Town Bailiff do put any person into any town house 
without the consent of the Hall " (ibid. 8th November 1765). 

3 Ibid. 1752-1756, 26th October 1778 ; History of Wisbech, by N. Walker 
and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 332. Subsequent Bailiffs were required to give 
security for 500 (MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 26th October 1778). 



144 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

continuous that it was not easy to keep up the succession of 
citizens with sufficient leisure, ability, and public spirit to 
undertake this onerous unpaid office a difficulty which, in 
1829, nearly brought the government of the little town to a 
standstill, 1 and may have accounted for the enthusiasm with 
which the Capital Burgesses accepted the reforms of 1835. 

When we survey the administrative results obtained by 
Wisbech in the course of a century and a half, we are able to 
appreciate the pride and satisfaction of the whole body of 
inhabitants in their local government. At no time and for no 
purpose did the Corporation levy a rate. From first to last 
the Capital Burgesses, in a spirit of what their historians call 
" a healthy poverty," 2 made shift with the rents of the Gild 
property, together with the ancient tolls and dues yielded by 
the trade of the port. Already in 1689 we find them 
managing their landed estate on the most approved modern 
principles. At a time when other Corporations were dealing 
with their property in secret conclave, conceding to their 
members beneficial leases, granting long terms for trifling 
fines, and improvidently alienating their freeholds, the Capital 
Burgesses of Wisbech were habitually letting their farms and 
town tenements by public auction for a term of twenty years, 
with carefully drafted covenants, which seem to have been 
strictly enforced. In 1751 they were quick to take advantage 
of the lowering in the current rate of interest, successfully 
negotiating a reduction of the rate on their loans to 4 per cent ; 
and in 1774, alarmed at the slow rate at which this bonded 
debt was being reduced, they arranged for its conversion into 
life annuities. 3 Unlike the practice of so many other towns, in 
restricting contracts to members of the Municipal Corporation, 
the Capital Burgesses forbade any of their own number to be 
pecuniarily interested in the Corporation work or directly or 
indirectly to undertake the work of a paid office. 4 At no time 
did the Burgesses put forward any claim to exclude non- 
freemen from trading. 5 Such Corporate feasting as the habits 
of the time demanded were enjoyed by all the Burgesses in 

1 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 14th November 1829. 

2 History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 347. 

3 Ibid. pp. 333-334. 

4 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 14th December 1795. 

6 History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, p. 338. 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 145 

common ; the maximum sum to be spent was carefully limited, 1 
and the whole of them were finally discontinued in 1767 
owing to a growing sense of decorum. After that date, at any 
rate, the Capital Burgesses paid even for the annual dinner 
that they allowed themselves. 2 To the same growth of decorum 
we may perhaps attribute their success in suppressing, in 1786, 
the annual custom of " bull running," which had prevailed at 
Wisbech, as at Stamford and elsewhere, "time out of mind," 
and had degenerated into a carnival of brutal disorder. 3 

This strict and economical administration of the Corporate 
revenues was combined with an active policy according to the 
best light of the time. When the relief of the poor was the 
main function of the Capital Burgesses, we see them, instead of 
giving doles and pensions, providing hemp on which to set the 
poor to work; building a workhouse in 1720 out of bricks 
made on their own land; establishing in 1691, and again in 
1764, regular schools of spinning; and supplying the children 
with both religious and industrial instruction. 4 When most 
other towns were still relying for their Municipal services on 
the performance by each individual householder of his ancient 
personal service, Wisbech was already being paved, sewered, 
cleansed, lighted, watched no doubt very imperfectly, but at 
least on some general plan by paid officers or public contracts, 
at the expense of the Corporate funds. 5 But the householder 
was not allowed to escape. From the middle of the eighteenth 
century onward, we find the Town Bailiff issuing printed 
notices to the inhabitants, insisting on the cessation of this or 

1 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 26tli October 1692 ; 5th November 
1767 ; History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, pp. 324-325. 

2 Historical Account of Wisbech, by W. Watson, 1827, p. 230. 

3 History of Wisbech, by F. J. Gardiner, 1898, p. 25. 

4 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 20th February 1622, 7th July 1691, 
14th November 1720, 1764, etc. ; History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and 
T. Cradock, 1849, pp. 327, 424 ; ibid, by F. J. Gardiner, 1898, p. 312. 
They even anticipated by seventeen years the statute requiring the outdoor 
paupers to wear a badge, resolving in 1680, "to pay for the stamp and 180 
badges provided for the poor " (ibid. p. 327). 

5 Items for paving the streets, repairing the causeways, and maintaining 
bridges occur in the minutes in 1689, 1690, 1692, 1694, 1697, 1699, 1700, 
1703, 1705, 1709, etc. ; for sewers to carry away waste water in 1693 and 1715 ; 
for the maintenance of the five town pumps in- 1696, 1708, 1714, etc. ; for 
sinking a new well and erecting a new pump in 1714 ; for cleansing the streets 
and scavenging in 1621, 1705, 1721, 1723, 1725, etc.; for repairing the town's 
fire engines in 1707 ; for increasing the number of fire buckets in 1716 ; for 
watching the town in 1618, 1708, 1733. 1735 ; for lighting the town in 1715 ; 

VOL. II. PT. I L 



146 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

that street nuisance or encroachment, and following up these 
notices by prosecutions before the Justices of those who disobey 
such injunctions. 1 In 1810, when the population and trade 
were rapidly increasing, the Capital Burgesses strengthened 
the police powers thus exercised by the Town Bailiff by 
obtaining a Local Act, in which, among other things, the 
definition of public nuisance was enlarged and a more speedy 
summary remedy provided. A paid Town Inspector was then 
appointed to enforce the law. 2 Meanwhile the navigation of 
the tidal river, on which the prosperity of the town depended, 
was, from 1710 onwards, constantly being improved at the 
public expense. The buoys and beacons were the object of 
continual attention ; a special officer, the " Beaconer," was 
appointed to look after them ; the channels, always liable to be 
silted up, were dredged and deepened ; pilots were licensed and 
a harbour-master was appointed ; a public crane was erected 
as early as 1719, a public warehouse built in 1788, and a 
special timber wharf constructed in 1 7 9 5 ; 8 a more com- 
modious "custom house" was provided in 1801, whilst 
throughout the whole period we see the Capital Burgesses 
carefully watching the numerous drainage schemes or canal 
Bills promoted by the neighbouring Fenland authorities, lest 
any new project should interfere with the depth of the river 
channel. 4 The " ancient seaport," as we find it described in 
1720, remained for a century more one of the most important 
of English havens for the coasting trade, with several scores of 
ships belonging to it, exporting to London, it was said, more 
oats and vegetable oil than any other port, and sometimes as 
much as 8000 firkins of butter in a year. 5 In 1786 the 
Capital Burgesses succeeded in buying up the lease of the 

and so on. It was about this time that Defoe found Wisbech "a well-built 
market town . . . esteemed the best trading town iu the Isle (of Ely), as 
having the convenience of good water-carriage to London, whither they send 
great quantities of oil and butter (A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great 
Britain, by D. Defoe, vol. i. p. 84 of 1748 edition). 

1 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 10th November 1785 (as to deposit 
of dirt) ; 28th June 1785 (as to hogs wandering in the streets). 

2 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 16th July 1810 ; 50 George III. 
c. 206 ; History of Wisbech, by N. Walker and T. Cradock, 1849, pp. 339-340. 

3 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 5th June 1795. 

4 Ibid. 13th July 1719, 12th February 1744, 26th December 1749; 
Reasons . . . against embanking the Salt Marsh belonging to Sutton, 1720, 

6 Ibid.; History of Wisbech (anon.), 1833, p. 249, 



THE CHARTERED TOWNSHIP 147 

market rights, which had been granted by the Bishop of Ely to 
a private lessee, when they at once provided standard Weights 
and Measures and set to work to enforce market regulations. 
At first they let the tolls by public auction. In 1810, how- 
ever, their Local Act l gave them increased market powers, and 
during the next few years, when agricultural prices and rents 
were alike high, the Capital Burgesses used these powers to 
erect a public exchange and commodious market buildings for 
corn and fat cattle respectively ; they freed the shambles ; 2 
they established a fish market; they provided a spacious 
public warehouse for the storage of wool; they contrived an 
elaborate system of allotting the stalls in the corn market by 
ballot, so as to avoid favouritism ; 3 they appointed their own 
collectors of market tolls and a Market Beadle; and in 1829 
they were far-sighted enough to decide " with a view to 
increase the beneficial purposes of the several markets, and to 
induce the public to resort to the town in greater numbers," 
on a policy of drastic reduction in the amount of the market 
tolls. 4 Space does not permit us even to mention all the 
manifold public enterprises successfully administered by these 
Wisbech Burgesses their constant struggle to reclaim the 
" drowned lands " of their estate ; their replacing of the old 
wooden bridge in 1756-1758 by a handsome stone one ; 5 their 
erection of public stairs at a precipitous descent ; 6 their pro- 
vision of flat pavements for their footways in 1811; their 
active and generous co-operation in the provision of facilities 
for religious worship; and their liberal subscriptions to such 
enlightened enterprises as the provision in 1826 for public use 
of hot and cold salt-water baths, the maintenance of an iceboat 
to prevent any stoppage of the drainage current by frost, 7 and 
the provision of a savings bank. But it was perhaps in their 
zeal for public education that the Capital Burgesses of Wisbech 
were most in advance of the rulers of other towns. The 
Grammar School, for the maintenance of which they had been 
originally incorporated, was always the subject of their liveliest 
interest and constant attention. The master whom they 

1 50 George III. c. 206. f 

2 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 16th July 1816. 

3 Ibid. 13th September 1811. 4 Ibid. 2nd November 1829. 
6 Ibid. October 1756, 21st October 1757. 

6 Ibid. 21st March 1690. 7 Ibid. 6th January 1802. 



I 4 8 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

appointed, though always in holy orders, was expressly for- 
bidden to accept a living, or even to officiate as a clergyman. 
He was not allowed to become a Magistrate or even a Capital 
Burgess. He was, relatively to the standard of the times, paid 
a liberal salary and provided with skilled assistance. 1 In 
addition to this ancient Grammar School, the Capital Burgesses 
started a Sunday school in 1786, and, in co-operation with some 
of the principal inhabitants, in 1811-1813, also a " Lancas- 
trian school " for the children of the poor. 2 They were even 
so exceptionally enlightened, at the very early date of 1714, 
as to rearrange and open to the public a library of books, 
apparently provided by a voluntary book club in the seven- 
teenth century, which was subsequently expressly designated a 
" public library " ; 3 providing new shelving, getting the books 
catalogued, and appointing a paid librarian, whose catalogue 
was " to be lodged in the Town Hall for the public use." 

(c) Tlie, Lordless Court 

We pass now to the bulk of Manorial Boroughs, a hetero- 
geneous crowd of authorities exhibiting in 1689 every variety 
of constitutional structure, but all alike falling short of 
autonomous Corporate Magistracy, and all connected in some 
way with the Manorial jurisdiction, from which they may prob- 
ably have sprung. We group these into the three sub-classes, 
not very clearly distinguishable, that we term respectively the 
Lordless Court (where there was practically no Municipal 
structure), the Lord's Borough (where Municipal structure had 
been developed, but this had remained connected with the 
Lord's Court), and, derivative from one or other of these, the 
Enfranchised Manorial Borough. 

An interesting example of the Lordless Court is furnished 
by the little "Borough" of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in 
Northumberland, which held its markets and fairs by Royal 
grants of 1309 and 1319 and had in 1382 even sent 
members to Parliament. This little port, in 1689 a mere 
fishing village, had shaken itself loose from any control or 

1 MS. Minutes, Wisbech Corporation, 1st November 1 6 8 9 , 6 th November 1704. 

2 Ibid. 27th March and 19th April 1811. 

3 Ibid. 6th August 1714 ; History of Wisbech (anon.), 1833, p. 164 ; 
ibid, by F. J. Gardiner, 1898, p. 214. 



THE LORDLESS COURT 149 

interference by the Lord of the Manor. It had been incorpor- 
ated by no Charter, either from the King or from its Lord. 
But the Lord of the Manor, Lord Widdrington, had apparently 
let slip his rights; and after his attainder in 1715, no Courts 
were held on behalf of any Lord until 1741. This long 
abandonment of the village to an unchecked autonomy, and 
the confusion and uncertainty into which the seignorial rights 
had fallen, seem to have led to the assumption by the Free- 
holders that they had no superior but the King. Accordingly 
these proprietors of the ancient " freeledges " or farms, into 
which the township had been divided from time immemorial, 
themselves held an annual " Court," which we can trace, 
from about 1730, continuously for at least a hundred years. 
During the eighteenth century, at any rate, they held the 
markets and fairs for their own profit, and even levied 
" quayage " dues on all ships entering their little harbour, 
according to Eoyal Letters Patent of 1316. To the Crown 
they paid an ancient fee-farm rent of a little more than 10 
a year. " Whereas," they declared, " the Freeholders of the 
Town of Newbiggin . . . have time out of mind made 
orders among themselves for the stinting and eating of the 
Common Town Green and Loaning belonging to Newbiggin 
aforesaid, we whose hands are hereunto subscribed and put, 
being the present Freeholders of the said Town ... in pursu- 
ance of the said custom, do unanimously consent and agree" 
to various orders and regulations. In 1720 Lord Widdrington's 
estates and Manors were bought by the York Buildings 
Water Company of London, apparently as a speculative 
investment ; and in due course the Company took steps to 
reduce the Freeholders of Newbiggin to due Manorial subjection. 
In 1731 we see the Freeholders contributing "a shilling a 
freehold " to defend their rights and privileges. But more 
expensive proceedings were at hand. In 1733 a long 
Chancery suit was begun against them, which lasted ten 
years, but ended in some inconclusive way, leaving their 
privileges unimpaired. 

" The proceedings of this suit," writes Dr. Creighton, 
"show us a community completely self-governed, with no 
interference from a Lord, and little from the Crown. ... In 
1730, back to which date the Freeholders' books survived, we 



ISO THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

find the arable laud already divided, but the pasture land still 
held in common. The Freeholders meet and make By-laws 
for the pasturage. They appoint Constables, Ale-tasters, and 
Bread-weighers. They levy tolls on boats and ships, and 
receive payments for carts loading seaweed from the shore, for 
lobster- tanks in the rocks, for stones quarried on the fore- 
shore. The money they receive from these rents is divided 
among the Freeholders in proportion to the ancient freeledges 
or farms." 1 They even took to themselves all wrecks thrown 
upon their rocky coast, and sold the privilege of gathering 
seaweed. For nearly a century after the Chancery suit we 
find them governing the little town; declaring, in 1730, that 
the Ale- tasters whom they appointed " are to have at every 
alehouse in the town one quart"; in 1753 ordaining "no 
ducks to be kept in town"; in 1762 "that the Constable 
weigh all butter and bread that shall be offered for sale iii 
the said township." Similar entries occur down to 1829. 
This humble government remained undiscovered by the 
Municipal Corporation Commissioners of 1835, and even by 
those of 1876-1880. The little group of Freeholders seems 
gradually to have let drop its public functions, whilst retaining, 
and even enlarging, its proprietary rights. It has enclosed 
parcels of land, let them on lease, and allowed quarries to be 
opened. The shares have (1907) gradually become con- 
centrated, it is said, in the hands of a couple of owners, who 
have bought up many of the " stints " of their colleagues, 
separately from their freeholds, taking conveyances of these 
separated " stints " as transferring all rights in the collective 
ownership. Meanwhile the little town, growing again into a 
port with some little trade and a population of a couple of 
thousands, has equipped itself with the commonplace machin- 
ery of an Urban District Council under the Public Health 
Acts, apparently leaving all its quondam public possessions 
to become exclusively the private property of these two 
proprietors. 2 

1 "The Northumbrian Border," by Mandell Creighton, in Archaeological 
Journal, vol. xlii., 1885, p. 62. 

2 The two Freeholders who are reputed to have got control of all the shares 
find, it is said, some difficulty in disposing of the property, owing to the ambiguity 
of their title, and we believe that litigation is pending (1907). To a similar 
difficulty experienced by their predecessors we owe much of our information. 



THE LORD LESS COURT 151 

The origin of some of the governments that we have called 
Lordless Courts may be suggested by the history of the so- 
called Borough of Tetbury in Gloucestershire. 1 Here we find 
a large Manor owned by the Berkeleys, extending five miles by 
three, and divided into two parts, " the Borough " and " the 
Foreign." Early in the seventeenth century "the Borough" 
had already, under successive seignorial Charters, acquired a 
certain degree of independence. At the Court held by the 
Lord's Steward every October, the Jury presented the names 
of three persons, out of which the Steward had to choose one 
as "King's Bailiff," whilst the other officers Constables, 
" Wardsmen " (who were " Assistants to the Constables "), 
Carnals, Ale-tasters or " Assizemen," and a Searcher and Sealer 
of Leather were freely elected by the Jury. The market tolls 
were strictly limited by ancient custom; the Lord had granted 
" common of pasture " over Tetbury Warren between certain 

Copy of the case submitted to counsel two generations ago passed into the hands 
of the late Mr. Woodman, and furnished Dr. Creighton with his facts. That 
copy has disappeared from among the Woodman MSS. ; but Mr. J. Crawford 
Hodgson has another copy of it, which he kindly allowed us to see. The 
Chancery suit was Gregory ;;. Pattinson, 1733 to 18th June 1743. See also The. 
History of Northumberland, by Kev. J. Hodgson, vol. ii. part ii., 1832, pp. 213- 
220; paper on "The Northumbrian Border," by Rev. M. Creighton, in 
Archaeological Journal, vol. xlii., 1885, p. 62. 

1 For the history of Tetbury we have had the advantage of consulting the MS. 
records of the Feoft'ees, including minutes, accounts, and records of the Manorial 
Courts, etc. ; a unique copy of the presentments of the Court in 1623, setting 
forth the then constitution of the Borough ; Articles of Agreement anno VII. 
Car. I. for tJie purchase of the Manor, Tolls . . . with Judge Coxes opinion on, 
some cases concerning the same, 1782 ; By-laws made for the Borough, London 
Gazette, 12th September 1687 ; a "Case on the Tolls of the Fairs and Markets," 
1790 ; 54 George III. cap. cxliv. (Tetbury Inclosure Act, 1814); 57 George III. 
cap. ii. (Tetbury Paving Act, 1817) ; 2 and 3 Vic. c. 7 (Sale of Advowson 
Act, 1839); Further Report of Commissioners to inquire into Charities, 1828, 
p. 351 ; History of the Town and Parish of Tetbury, by Rev. Alfred T. Lee, 
1857 ; also New History of Gloucestershire, by Samuel Rudder, 1779, pp. 727- 
733. 

Gloucestershire had other reputed Boroughs, such as Chipping Sodbury, 
which had between 1681 and 1688 Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses, and 
afterwards a Bailiff nominated by the Homage Jury at the Lord's Court ; Dursley, 
with much the same organisation ; Newnham, electing annually a Mayor and six 
Aldermen, but actually governed by two "Beams" or Constables (First Report 
of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. i. pp. 37, 49 ; ditto, 
1880, part i. p. 33, part ii. p. 406 ; Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire, 
by R. Atkyns, 1768, pp. 347-354 ; New History of Gloucestershire, by S. Rudder, 
1779 (for Chipping Sodbury, pp. 671-676) ; Chapters of Parochial History 
(Dursley), by J. H. Blunt, 187 7 ; "Notes on the Borough and Manor of Newnham," 
by R. J. Kerr, in Transactions of Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological 
Society, vol. xviii., 1893). We refer separately to Chipping Campden (p. 180), 



152 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

dates, and there was also pasturage all the year round on 
certain other wastes of the Manor. 1 

This Manorial constitution was destined during the seven- 
teenth century to be developed, by the gradual transfer of the 
Lord's rights, into an almost complete autonomy. A wealthy 
Alderman of the City of London, Sir William Romney, first 
took the market on lease from the Lord, at a substantial rent, 
together with the ancient " Tolzey " ; and then in 1610 
bequeathed the remainder of his lease, partly for charitable 
purposes and partly for the common good, to a body of trustees 
for the town, of whom he named the first thirteen, empowering 
them to co-opt their successors. Some years later we find 
this charitable trust made the subject of inquiry by commis- 
sioners for the Court of Chancery, who were, in fact, some of 
the neighbouring magnates, with a view to placing it on a 
more permanent basis. In consultation with the " King's 
Bailiff" for the time being (who was elected, it will be 
remembered, at the annual Court of the Manor), and the 
principal inhabitants, the Commissioners recommended the 
consolidation of the authorities of the town into a recognised 
governing body, 2 consisting of the Bailiff, and twelve " Brethren 
and Assistants," known as the " Thirteen," representing, we 
may assume, the original trustees, and a " company or society 
called the Four-and-Twenty " ; the Thirteen to fill vacancies 
by co-option from out of the Four-and-Twenty ; and recruits 
for the Four-and-Twenty to be chosen by the two bodies 
jointly. The Thirteen were, by a provision as to which the 
legal authority might be questioned, to have the power to levy 
a rate upon the inhabitants, in supplement of their trust funds, 
and to appoint the Schoolmaster, the Lecturer, and the inmates 
of the almshouses. This constitution was sanctioned by the 
Court of Chancery, and embodied in an instrument under the 
Great Seal. 8 

But a further stage was yet to come. In 1632 the Lady 
Berkeley and her son, Lord Berkeley, being concerned to 
promote the welfare of their principal Borough of Berkeley, 

1 This constitution is described in the presentments of the Court held in 
October 1623, of which a unique MS. copy has been placed at our disposal. 

2 The resemblance of this constitution to that of.Beccles should be noted. 

3 Further Report of Royal Commission to inquire into Charities, 1828, 
p. 351. 



THE LORDLESS COURT 153 

and needing ready money, offered to sell the Manor of 
Tetbury, both " the Borough " and " the Foreign." It seems 
that, possibly because there was no large estate within the 
Manor, but four or five score small occupying freeholders, the 
noble owners intimated their willingness " not only that every 
particular tenant . . . might for their own particular and 
private uses buy the inheritance of their several tenements 
. . . but also that such parts thereof as might be convenient 
and necessary might be bought and purchased for the public 
and general good of the said Borough to have continuance 
for ever for their public good and benefit." " Therefore," we 
are told, "the Bailiff and the rest of the Thirteen and other 
of the inhabitants of the said Borough . . . did consider and 
treat among themselves what might be fit for them to do ... 
and upon mature and deliberate consideration had at several 
meetings in public, they did think it fit for the general good 
of the said Borough " to subscribe among themselves the sum 
of 840, with which to buy not only the whole Manor with 
its Courts, warren, waste lands, rents, royalties, liberties, and 
franchises, but also an existing lease of the warren, and even 
the advowson of the living, so that the Borough might appoint 
its own clergyman. The "Articles of Agreement" then 
concluded between the Lord and Lady Berkeley on the one 
hand and the principal inhabitants of Tetbury on the other, 1 
afford a charming vision of a great deal of public-spirited 
activity in the town. Unlike most Charters and other 
instruments of this period, this agreement aimed at placing 
the property in trust, not for the members of the governing 
body, or of any Corporation, or even for a class of Burgesses, 
Freeholders, or Freemen, but for all the inhabitant house- 
holders for the time being. Thus all the residents were free 
to trade, to use the market, and to worship in the church. 
The existing Commoners agreed to forgo their rights of 
pasture over certain lands, in order to permit these to be 
ploughed and sown with corn until the proceeds had sufficed 
to complete the reimbursement to the trustees of any sums 

1 The MS. copy of the Articles of Agreement in our possession shows that 
the formal agreement was made with (a) four trustees, (b) the Bailiff and the 
rest of the Thirteen, (c) " the company or society called the Four-and -Twenty," 
and (d) 44 persons "all of the number called the Commonalty " (who were possibly 
the freeholders). 



154 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

that they had expended. The pasturage was subsequently 
to be enjoyed, not only by the owners of " the ancient 
messuages," but also by those of " newly erected messuages 
or cottages," and even by immigrants into the Borough after 
they had lived there seven years, or on payment of the sum 
of 5, immediately they took up residence. 1 This remark- 
able co-operative purchase of the Manor, under carefully 
drawn Articles of Agreement, incidentally, and possibly un- 
intentionally, led to a change in the constitution. The legal 
ownership was vested in seven Feoffees, filling vacancies among 
themselves by co-option, who were jointly Lords of the 
Manor, and as such held the Courts. These became, it is 
clear, along with the Bailiff, the Executive of the Borough, 
acting in more or less consultation with the Thirteen, who 
were, we are told, always " the gravest, chiefest, and discreetest 
townsmen " ; and who continued to audit the accounts and 
give a sort of confirmatory authority to the actions of the 
Feoffees and the Bailiff. The Bailiff was " usually the senior 
Thirteen who had not yet served that office." The Four-and- 
Twenty seems to have had no function beyond that of 
furnishing recruits to the Thirteen, and we do not gather 
that it continued to meet otherwise than as the Jury which 
the Bailiff summoned to the Court of the Feoffees, with which 
it is believed to have become identical. 2 

Under this Corporate government Tetbury continued to 
flourish, growing in population from about 1200 in 1700 to 
about 3500 in 17*79, when it ranked as "the third town in 
Gloucestershire," 3 buildingfor itself in 165 5 a market hall, setting 
up public pumps, and even widening its streets, out of its not 
inconsiderable Manorial revenues. The Feoffees' six-monthly 
Courts, with the two Juries, one for " the Borough," the other for 
" the Foreign," occasionally included among their presentments 
orders to the Feoffees not to dispose of any of the " Town's 
Stock " without the consent of the inhabitants, complaints as 
to the condition of the streets, and formal indictments of 

1 In 1640 the last remnant of the Lord's rights was got rid of by the 
purchase, for 1400, of the reversion of the Markets and Fairs after the expiry of 
the lease. This purchase had been provided for, by anticipation, in the Articles 
of 1632, and the trustees had saved up money for it. 

2 MS. note recording old tradition. 

3 New History of Gloucestershire, by S. Rudder, 1779, pp. 727-733. 



155 

officers for neglect of duty. This Court was also used by the 
Feoffees publicly to let by auction to the highest bidder both 
the tolls of the market and the manure of the streets. But 
from a case submitted to Counsel in 1790 we gather that 
the Feoffees found difficulty at that date in enforcing their 
authority, and were doubtful as to the powers that either they 
or their " Court Leet and Court Baron " could actually put in 
force against nuisance-mongers. How far and how rapidly the 
Feoffees, the Jury, and the Bailiff were, in the early decades of 
the nineteenth century, superseded by the County Justices, 
who had come to hold regular Petty and Special Sessions in 
the Borough, or by the inhabitants in Vestry assembled, we 
have been unable to ascertain. In 1814 the Feoffees cordially 
assisted in obtaining an Inclosure Act, and in 1817 a Paving 
and Lighting Act. 

Meanwhile the little town of Tetbury was being rapidly 
left behind by the changing course of trade and industry. 
The market had been, at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, the most frequented in the district, large quantities of 
wool, yarn, and serge, as well as of corn, bacon, cheese, and 
cattle, changing hands : so much as 1000 being dealt with on 
a single day. Gradually, however, it decayed ; the population 
declined to half the total of 1779 ,- the Corporate revenues fell 
away to a few pounds annually ; the functions of the Bailiff, 
the Feoffees, and the Thirteen silently diminished to next to 
nothing, until the so-called " Borough " of Tetbury became 
almost indistinguishable in its government from the neighbour- 
ing villages. 1 

1 It was not discovered by the Municipal Corporation Commissions of 1835 
and 1876-1880. It became first a Local Board and then an Urban District 
Council, under the Public Health Act (population in 1901, 1989, or little 
over half the highest point reached more than a century previously). The 
Feotfees now regard themselves exclusively as trustees of a. small charitable 
endowment. 

Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, may be cited as an analogous case of a 
benefaction to the town becoming the basis of local autonomy (see An Essay on 
English Municipal History, by James Thompson, 1867, pp. 146-152 ; the 
various papers by Thomas North in the Transactions of the Leicestershire 
Architectural and Archaeological Society, vols. iii. and iv., 1874-1875). Here lands 
were leased and purchased by the inhabitants in 1549-1565 and vested in 
Feoffees, the money being found by a quite extra-legal special levy. At first we 
gather that Town Wardens and " Spinny Wardens, " Overseers for Pavements 
and Bridgemasters, Constables and Swineherds, a Hay ward and a "Town's 
Husband," were all elected annually at a public meeting of the inhabitants. 



156 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

Here and there we discover examples of Lordless Courts 
of less obvious origin than the Borough of Tetbury. In the 
wild and mountainous region that separates the verdures of 
Windermere from the spreading sands of Morecambe Bay, we 
find a "Society and Fellowship of the Four -and -Twenty," a 
Close Body meeting at the ancient abbey church of Cartmel, 
which we have assumed to be a Parish Vestry analogous to 
that of Braintree in Essex, and have already described it as 
such. 1 It seems, however, to have itself possessed Manorial 
jurisdiction over the seven townships of the parish, and 
to have held its own Manorial Courts for the appointment 
of officers and the regulation of the life of the inhabitants. 2 
How the Four -and -Twenty "Sidesmen" of Cartmel, as 
they were eventually termed, came to possess this great 
Manor ; how the unincorporated parish could legally hold 
it without its being vested in feoffees or trustees ; how 
the Sidesmen got the right to receive the fines and 
amercements of the Courts held by a Steward on their 

But an executive committee was chosen in 1582, and in 1628 we find "ten or 
twelve of the principal men of the parish " acting as a Close Body, which seems 
to have ruled, with the Trustees and Town Wardens, for over a century. By 
1775, however, even this Close Body had fallen into desuetude, and discontent 
began to be manifested at the Trustees ruling alone. After some years' struggle 
a deed of compromise was signed in 1793, by which the town gave itself a new 
constitution, the whole authority resting in the annual public meeting, which 
chose all the officers. This, though a troublesome and occasionally turbulent 
authority, continued without legal warrant for three quarters of a century, until 
the administration passed under the Public Health Acts, first to a Local Board 
and then to an Urban District Council (population in 1901, 7454). 

As possibly analogous to Tetbury and Melton Mowbray, we may cite the 
so-called Borough of Clitheroe, one of the townships of the great parish of 
Whalley in Lancashire, and formerly part of the extensive Honour of Clitheroe, 
with a population increasing from 1368 in 1801 to 5213 in 1831, which had 
received a seignorial Charter in the twelfth century. Here the government was 
in the hands of the owners of the ancient burgage hereditaments, who,, having 
been duly admitted as Burgesses, elected annually two of themselves as Bailiffs, 
and were eligible to be summoned by the Bailiffs on an " Inquiry Jury," which 
served as a sort of occasional council. The Bailiffs acted as Lords of the Manor, 
holding (with their Recorder) a Borough Court for the trial of personal actions 
of any amount, and (by their Town Clerk as Steward) a Court Leet, at which a 
series of Manorial officers were appointed (including a paid "Well-cleaner"). 
See First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. 
iii. p. 1483 ; Ancient Charters and other Muniments of the Borough of Clitheroe, 
by J. Harland, 1851 ; History of the original Parish of Whalley, by T. D. 
Whitaker, vol. ii., 1876, pp. 68-99 ; and pp. 48, 205 of the present work. 

1 The Parish and the County, Book I. Chap. V. Section (a), The Close 
Vestry by Immemorial Custom. 

2 Annals of Cartmel, by James Stockdale, 1872; Cartmeltoniana, by Rev. 
W. ftbliott, 1854 ; Tfie Rural Deanery of Cartmel, edited by R. H. Kirby, 1892. 



THE LORDLESS COURT 157 

behalf ; * what exactly had been their relation to one particular 
township of their great parish, Flookburgh by name, which 
possessed ancient Municipal regalia and a sword of office and 
was reputed once to have been a Chartered Borough; 2 how 
they acquired the power of disposing at their will of the waste 
and commons, eventually dividing up the whole area under 
Inclosure Acts among some 300 freeholders; 3 how they 
managed to take deodands and forfeitures, 4 and even to 
appropriate the proceeds of wrecks upon the shore, 5 we must 
leave as interesting inquiries to the historian of a preceding 
period. 

But government by a Lordless Court was not always 
confined to small and isolated communities. The best t 
example of such a government is furnished, indeed, by the 
Manorial Borough of Birmingham. 6 The town of Birmingham, 
having in 1689 probably under 12,000 inhabitants, and fifty 
years later not more than twice that number, sprang, like 
Manchester, in the second half of the eighteenth century, from 
a mere manufacturing village, which had forgotten that it was 
ever called a Borough, into a densely crowded, great industrial 

1 Annals of Cartmel, by James Stockdale, 1872, p. 168. 

2 Ibid. pp. 121, 291. 3 Ibid. pp. 326-384. 

4 " It is ordered that (three names) shall be appointed to collect these sums 
of money hereafter mentioned, being deodands and forfeited goods, viz. of J. F. 
53/- ; of R. S. 40/- for horse and wheels ; W. H. for the running gear of Staveley 
watermill, 48/4 ; of C. B. for 10 lent by M. K for L. R.'s horse and saddle ; 
and that these sums be paid before Christmas next or else the same be put in 
suit. Also that the men aforesaid do view a cockboat at N. and do sell the 
same" (Minute of 1653, ibid. p. 83). 

6 Ibid. pp. 293-295. Cartmel was not inquired into either by the Municipal 
Corporation Commissioners of 1833-1835 or by those of 1876-1880. 

Throlcmorton's Survey of the Borough and Manor of Birmingham, 1553, 
by W. B. Bickley and Joseph Hill, 1891 ; Memorials of Old Birmingham, by 
J. Toulmin Smith, 1863 ; The Gild of Holy Cross, Birmingham, by Lucy 
Toulmin Smith, 1894; History of Birmingham, by William Button, 1st edition, 
1781, 7th edition, 1840 ; Hints for a History of Birmingham, by James Jaffray, 
1855 (?) ; History of the Corporation of Birmingham, by J. T. Bunce, vol. i., 
1878 ; Tlie Duty of the Respective Officers appointed by the Court Leet in the 
Manor of Birmingham, 1789 ; A Concise History of Birmingham, 1817 (?) ; The 
Picture of Birmingham, by James Drake, 1825 ; Historical and Descriptive 
Sketch of Birmingham, 1830 ; The State of the Court of Requests and the Public 
Office of Birmingham, by Joseph Parkes, 1828. The Court Leet records exist 
only from 1799, and are unimportant ; the MS. Minutes of the Street Com- 
missioners are available from 1776 ; whilst we have only been able to find MS. 
Vestry Minutes for St. Martin's (the principal) parish back to 1795. On the 
other hand much may be gleaned from the newspapers (of which a large sample ; ' 
is to be found in A Century of Birmingham Life (1741-1841), by J. A. Langford, 
1868) ; and contemporary references. 



158 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

centre, containing by 1835 a population of more than 150,000. 
Like Manchester, too, it had no Municipal Corporation, and 
was dependent for all magisterial authority on the Justices 
of the Peace of the County. But though Birmingham 
remained, equally with Manchester, under a Manorial form 
of government, the actual working of it was very different. 
It was not merely that at Birmingham the more important 
Municipal services had, from 1776 onwards, increasingly passed 
into the hands of a statutory body of Street Commissioners, 
which we shall subsequently describe. 1 What was even more 
important, Birmingham had, already at the end of the seven- 
teenth century, shaken off nearly all the authority of the Lord 
of the Manor, and, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
had ousted him from the last remnant of power. The govern- 
ment, nominally Manorial, took the form of what was practi- 
cally a Lordless Court. As at Manchester, the chief officers 
of the town were chosen annually at the Court Leet, 2 presided 
over by the Lord's Steward. But by long tradition the 
selection of the Jury was not in the hands of the Steward, 
but was left to the "Low Bailiff" chosen at the previous 
Court. 8 The Lord of the Manor had, in fact, let slip all 
his authority over the Court Leet, except the formal presiding 
of his Steward ; and the Court itself had, in the nineteenth 
century, 4 allowed its own powers to lapse. There was a busy 
Manorial market, but in 1806 the Street Commissioners 

1 Book IV. Chap. IV. The Street Commissioners. 

2 The formal procedure of the Court Leet is given in The Duty of the, Respec- 
tive Officers appointed by the Court Leet in the Manor of Birmingham, by Thomas 
Lee, Steward of the Manor, 1789, partly reprinted in the History of the Corpora- 
tion of Birmingham, by J. T. Bunce, 1878, vol. i. pp. 4, 19, where the Court 
Leet is described. 

3 " The function of the Low Bailiff is to summon an annual Court Leet, at 
which he chooses a Jury, who elect all the officers for the ensuing year. . . . 
The choice, therefore, of all these virtually rests with the Low Bailiff, as holding 
the absolute choice of the electing Jury " (The Picture of Birmingham, by James 
Drake, 1825, p. 18). In 1722, and again in 1792, this custom of leaving the 
selection of the Jury to the Low Bailiff was contested. In order to secure the 
election of Church and Tory officers, the Steward on each occasion chose the Jury 
and elected his nominees. On each occasion the Whig Nonconformists fought 
the issue at the assizes, with the result of establishing the customary right of the 
Low Bailiff (History of the Corporation of Birmingham, by J. T. Bunce, 1878, 
vol. i. pp. 17, 19). 

4 Hutton, writing in 1794, observes that the "duties of office are little 
known except that of taking a generous dinner, which is punctually observed. 
It is too early to begin business till the table is well stored with bottles and too 
late afterwards" (History of Birmingham, 3rd edition, 1795, p. 144). 



THE LORDLESS COURT 159 

farmed the tolls and the management from the Lord, who 
thus lost all interest in the appointment of officers, and the 
Court Leet itself lost all practical control over market 
regulation. It continued to appoint annually a whole 
hierarchy of Manorial officers, as it was said, "to govern 
the town." "A High Bailiff, who inspects the markets and 
sees that justice is observed between buyer and seller, 
rectifying the weights and dry measures ; a Low Bailiff, 
who summons a Jury who choose all the other officers, viz. 
two Constables and one Headborough ; two High Tasters, who 
" examine the goodness of the beer and its measure ; and two 
Low Tasters, or Meat Conners, who inspect the meat exposed 
for sale, and cause that to be destroyed which is unfit for food. 
Deritend, being a hamlet of Birmingham, sends its inhabitants 
to the Birmingham Court Leet, where a Constable is elected 
for them, and at which all the Town Officers are chosen and 
sworn in ; the whole in the name of the Lord of the Manor." l 
But these officers did not in practice pay any attention to 
their nominal duties. After the end of the eighteenth century, 
at any rate, 2 they reported no offenders, the Jury made no 
presentments, and the Court levied no fines. The annual 
holding of the Court was transformed into an elaborate 
luncheon given by the retiring Low Bailiff to his friends and 
the principal inhabitants, at which the formal appointment of 
officers for the ensuing year was made. 3 There was not even 
the interest of religious or political rivalry, it having long 
been " customary to chose the High Bailiff from the Church- 
men and the Low Bailiff from the Dissenters." The only 
functions really performed were ceremonial. " To the High 
Bailiff," we are told, " is conceded by custom the duty 
formerly exercised by the Constables of convening and 
conducting the business of all public meetings in the town. . . . 
He proclaims the two fairs, one at Whitsuntide, the other at 
Michaelmas, going in procession with the other town officers, 

1 A Concise History of Birmingham (anon.), 5th edition, 1817, pp. 38-39. 

2 The History of the Corporation of Birmingham, by J. T. Bunce, 1878, 
vol. i. p. 13, gives a few instances of amercements for market offences between 
1779 and 1796. 

8 Thus, in 1825, "the Court Leet assembled ... at the Public Office 
about 1 2 o'clock and proceeded from thence to the Royal Hotel, where they par- 
took of a sumptuous cold collation, after which the following gentlemen were 
chosen to fill the offices" (Birmingham Journal, 29th October 1825). 



160 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

the Jury of the Court Leet, and a retinue of his personal 
friends, attended by a band of music to enliven the scene." l 
Yet in the eyes of the Birmingham Radicals of 1830 the 
Court Leet and the High Bailiff loomed large as a relic 
of feudal tyranny, "a close, self -elected, in-and-in body, 
irresponsible to or uncontrolled by public opinion." 2 . . . 
" It is true that they have no power in the vulgar accepta- 
tion of the word. . . . But the assumed power of conferring 
on public meetings a character of Town's Meetings, and 
stigmatising other meetings regularly and openly convened 
by public requisition as not Town's Meetings ; of defraying 
the expenses of some and refusing the costs of others is a 
species of bastard power which must and will be soon 
extirpated. This rusty machinery may, in fact, be said to have 
usurped the right of petition and public meetings. It was 
aforetime always necessary to ask the Manager of the Court 
Leet whether he would let his man-servant the High Bailiff 
call such and such a meeting, and if cold water was thrown 
upon the meeting by the power behind the throne no meeting 
was called." 3 Yet the annual Courts Leet continued nomin- 
ally to be held, and High and Low Bailiffs to be appointed for 
Birmingham, after the town had been definitely incorporated 
as a Municipal Borough, and, in fact, down to 1854, when the 
practice was silently discontinued. 4 

(d) The Lord's Borough 

From the Lordless Court we pass by slight distinctions to 
the Lord's Borough, itself developing with almost imperceptible 
gradations into the Enfranchised Manorial Borough. Of the 
Lord's Borough the specimens range themselves in a practically 

1 An Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Birmingham, 1830, pp. 85-87. 
This "proclaiming the fair" is described in the Birmingham Journal, 20th 
May 1826, from which it appears that the function ended with a "sumptuous" 
dinner, given by the High Bailiff. 

2 Birmingham Journal, 16th October 1830. 

3 Ibid. 30th October 1830. The High Bailiff " became chairman of all 
Town's Meetings and the nominal leader of the town in all public affairs " 
(Birmingham Journal, 26th November 1864 ; Modern Birmingham and its 
Institutions, by J. A. Langford, vol. ii. p. 266). 

4 The Town Clerk informs us that the Birmingham Corporation, though 
owning the market rights, has never bought the Manor, which remains, as mere 
property, in private hands. 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 161 

continuous series, from merely rudimentary examples, through 
the so-called Boroughs of Berkeley and Wotton, described in 
the last chapter as mere subordinate parts of a Hierarchy of 
Courts, up to the Borough of Arundel, where the dependence 
on the Court of the Lord was more nominal than real. What 
marks this series off from the Lordless Court is the presence, 
even in its lowest members, of new constitutional structure, 
additional to that of the most highly evolved Lord's Court : 
constitutional structure, which, in the highest members of the 
series, becomes itself the supreme, if not the only governmental 
authority of the town. 

We may take as a specimen of the merest rudiment of a 
Lord's Borough the tiny community of Holy Island, off the 
Northumberland coast. Passing over all its celebrity in 
ecclesiastical history, we find Holy Island in 1689 under a 
primitive constitution. There are two Bailiffs, twenty -four 
Burgesses, and an unlimited number of Stallingers. 1 The 
Burgesses, called also " Freemen," are the owners of the ancient 
freehold tenements of the Island, which are twenty-four in 
number. They claim and are accorded an exceptionally large 
" stint " of pasturage on the commons of the Island. They 
alone elect one of the Bailiffs, the other being the nominee of 
the Lord. The Stallingers have no share in the election of a 
Bailiff, and but small stints of pasturage. But they have to 
attend the Lord's Court, and there they may possibly serve on 
the Jury, which presents nuisances and nominates a Serjeant, 
Constables, Aleconners, Bread- weighers, and other petty officers, 
though whether they may share in the trial of petty debt 
cases is less certain. This constitution went on until 1793, 
when an Inclosure Act ignored the distinction between Bur- 
gesses and Stallingers, which faded away. 2 

If a village community such as Holy Island had " received 
a few Chartered privileges from a mediaeval baron," it might, 

1 " Stallangiator " is used about 1270 for "a staller, or tenser, a foreigner 
who paid for a stand in the market and did not enter the Freedom of the 
Borough" (Borough Customs, by Mary Bateson, vol. i., 1904, p. 112). The 
student will not fail to notice the close analogy between the twenty-four "Bur- 
gesses" of Holy Island and the usual " Four-and-Twenty " of a Northumber- 
land parish (see The Parish mid the County, 1906, pp. 179-181). 

2 History of North Durham, by T. Raine, 1852, p. 161. Holy Island 
(population in 1901, 405) is now governed by a Parish Council of its own. 

VOL. II. PT. I M 



162 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

as Professor Maitland points out, even be " allowed a precarious 
place on the roll of English Boroughs." l But such Chartered 
Boroughs, for all their pretensions, might amount, in fact, 
constitutionally, to no more than Holy Island. Thus, the 
ancient " Borough of Petersfield," in Hampshire, returning 
two Members of Parliament, was, in 1689, hardly to be 
distinguished from a mere Court of the Manor. But at the 
Annual Leet or Lawday the officers appointed comprised (in 
addition to the Bailiff, Constables and Tithingmen) a Mayor, 
and two Ale-tasters, who were called Aldermen. The Jury 
was selected and summoned by the Lord's Steward, so that the 
Mayor and Aldermen, like the other officers, might be said to 
be indirectly the mere nominees of the Lord. Moreover, the 
Lord retained in his own hands all the jurisdiction, the profits 
of the Courts, and the administration of the market. Yet the 
Mayor and Burgesses of Petersfield claimed to be a Corporation ; 
the town called itself a Borough and returned Members to 
Parliament as a Borough; it seems once to have had a 
Merchant Gild ; and the Mayor and Burgesses had, in the 
past, even asserted that their Corporation owned the Borough, 
and had been, time out of mind, legally seized of its fairs and 
markets. The Burgesses of Petersfield, had received seignorial 
grants and Charters of the fifteenth century, purporting to give 
them the same rights as were enjoyed by the citizens of 
Winchester; and but for the fact that a case was decided 
against them in 1613, might eventually have made their 
Manorial Borough independent of the Lord of the Manor. 2 

1 Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitland, 1898, pp. 16-17. 

2 We have not been able to discover any MS. archives of Petersfield, beyond 
the Charters. Most information is to be found in the Report of the Case of the 
Borough of Petersfield . . . determined by ... the House of Commons in 1820 
and 1821, by JR. S. Atcheson, 1831, and the volumes on Parliamentary election 
cases by Thomas Carew(1755), Douglas (1775-77), Cockburn and Rowe (1833), 
and Perry and Knapp (1833) ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commis- 
sions, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 797 ; Report of ditto, 1880, Part I. p. 90 ; 
Evidence, p. 76 ; The Gild Merchant, by C. Gross, vol. ii. p. 387. See also 
General History of Hampshire, by B. B. Woodward, T. C. Wilks, and C. 
Lockhart, 1861-69, vol. iii. pp. 317-322. 

In much the same position as Petersfield were, we imagine, several small 
Manorial Boroughs of Devonshire, such as Bovey Tracey, which had a Portreeve 
or Mayor, as well as a Bailiff, annually chosen at the Lord's Court, with a 
"Mayor's Riding," or " Mayor's Show, " on "Rood mass Day," and a "Portreeve's 
Park," or field, of which the Mayor for the year had the profits ; or Harton or 
Hartland, where the Portreeve was chosen at the Court Leet ; or Modbury, with 
a great nine days' fair, proclaimed by the Portreeve and Borough Jury at the 



THE LORDS BOROUGH 163 

The men of Alresford, only twelve miles distant from 
Petersfield, counted themselves more fortunate. 1 Here the 
ecclesiastical potentate of the south of England, the Bishop 
of Winchester, had, in 1570 or 1572, granted a written 
constitution to " our Borough and Town of New Alresford," 
making the local governing authority independent of the 
Manorial Court. "Know ye therefore," runs this verbose 
seignorial Charter, "that we, the said Bishop, have granted, 
and for us and our successors for ever ordained, that for the 
future there shall be for ever within our Town and Borough 
of New Alresford aforesaid one Bailiff and eight Burgesses 
of the better and more creditable inhabitants." In the 
involved legal phraseology of the day, the Bishop proceeds 
to name the first holders of these offices, but he provides that 
they shall choose from among themselves the Bailiff year by 
year, and fill vacancies in their own number by co-option. 
The Bishop does more than this. He starts this seignorial 
Corporation with two Courts of its own : one termed a Court 
Baron or Three Weeks' Court, for the settlement of disputes 
and debts among the inhabitants, and the other, a Court of 
Pie Powder, for the regulation of the great fair of Alresford 
to which the whole country-side then resorted. Moreover, 
he expressly relinquishes to his nascent Corporation certain 
of the powers usually connected with the holding of the Court 
Leet or Lawday, such as "Bloodshed, together with the 
amercements and pains thereof " ; the " Assize of Bread, Ale 
and Wine " ; the making orders " and constitutions among the 

site of the old market cross ; or Newton Abbot and Newton Bushell, two 
moieties of one parish, each governed by its own Portreeve, chosen annually at 
the Lord's Court (History of Devonshire, by R. N. Worth, 1895, pp. 240, 
307, 319; "Early History of the Manor of Hartland," by R. P. Chope, 
in Proceedings of Devonshire Association, 1902, vol. xxxiv. pp. 418-454 ; 
Modbury, by G. A. Cawse, 1860 ; Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1880, Part I. pp. 17, 37, Part II. pp. 840, 860 (Bovey Tracey and 
Harton) ). Such, too, may have been Colyford in Dorsetshire, reputed to have 
been a chartered Borough, and having a Mayor who took the profits of the fair 
(The Book of the Axe, by G. P. R. Pulman, 4th edition, 1875, pp. 789-790). 

1 For Alresford we have seen only MS. copies of the Charters ; the MS. 
archives of the Manorial courts, 1657-1720, 1781-1835 ; and sundry unconsecu- 
tive archives of 1628-1705, jurors' book, 1825, etc. A minute book of the 
Corporation, mentioned in 1880, was not found. See also Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1880, Part I. pp. 8, 141 ; report of local inquiry by 
the Charity Commissioners in Hampshire Chronicle, 26th March 1887 ; also 
Sketches of Hampshire, by John Duthy, 1839, pp. 107-108. 



164 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

artificers and other inhabitants of the Borough " ; the " con- 
trolling and correction of weights and measures " ; and the 
making of By-laws " for the public good " and their enforcement 
by fine and distress. The Corporation was to act as Eeeve, 
and thus secure to its own officers the collection of the 
Bishop's rents. The Bishop even ceded the fair and the 
markets, with their profits and tolls. Yet he retained his 
Hundred Court and his Court Leet or Lawday, at which the 
Bailiff and Burgesses, together with all the adult male in- 
habitants, were bound to appear. 

Notwithstanding these liberal concessions and express 
stipulations of autonomy, fortified by all the paraphernalia 
of parchment and seal, we do not find, in actual practice, that 
the Bailiff and Burgesses of Alresford amounted to much more 
than the Mayor and Aldermen of Petersfield. Discouraged 
by a great fire in 1689, which swept away church, market 
buildings, and council house, they gave up holding the Three 
Weeks' Court, which was their only machinery for making 
By-laws, etc. Throughout the eighteenth century we see 
them, without jurisdiction of their own, contentedly using the 
Bishop's Court to get' their officers including even the 
Bailiff appointed and their regulations enforced. The 
markets and fairs became steadily less frequented and less 
valuable. But the little Corporate body still derived some 
revenue from stallage and tolls, and retained the ownership 
of a few cottages, which kept up some fragments of Municipal 
dignity, allowed of a few charities, and provided an annual 
feast. Undiscovered by "the Municipal Corporation Com- 
missioners of 1835, this miniature Corporation, having only 
one paid officer, the Deputy Hayward, with twenty shillings 
a year, lingered on until 1887, when its property was, by 
scheme of the Charity Commission, transferred to trustees for 
charitable purposes, and the Corporation itself was finally 
dissolved. 1 

1 The Bishop of Winchester created other Manorial Boroughs on his vast 
estates, enjoying various degrees of autonomy. One of these was Gosport, which 
always styled itself a Borough, and in 1684 strenuously defended its independ- 
ence against the claim of the Mayor of the adjoining Borough of Portsmouth to 
exercise jurisdiction and take certain ancient dues. From the MS. records 
of the Bishop's " Court Leet and Court Baron" which we have consulted from 
1623 to 1835, we gather that this Court was held by the Bishop's Steward 
twice a year. There was, however, also a "Three Weeks' Court" held by the 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 165 

In the little " Borough " of Altrincham 1 in Cheshire in 
1689, and for long after, probably numbering only a few 
hundreds of families we have an interesting example of a 
Lord's Borough of great antiquity, having, in strict law very 
little autonomy, and still less of independent Municipal 
structure, and yet contriving to perform, throughout the 
eighteenth century, practically the whole civil government of the 
town, including most of the work done elsewhere by the Parish 
Vestry and the Justices in Petty Sessions. The " Court Leet 
and Court of Pleas," which we may regard as the descendant 
of the Portmanmoot or Borough Court conceded by Seignorial 
Charter about 1290, was one of the Hierarchy of Courts of 
the Barony of Dunham Massey. 2 Held every six months 

Clerk or Bailiff, nominally on behalf of the Lord of the Manor. The principal 
part was played by the Homage or "Grand Jury," the members of which were, 
we imagine, summoned by the officers whom the former Jury had itself 
nominated. This Jury submitted annually the names of persons to fill the 
offices of "Bailiff"' (called also Beadle in 1701), Constable (at first one only, 
latterly twelve), Overseer of the Ferry or Passage, Ale-taster or Aleconner, 
Coal-meter, and Cryer. We find the Jury in 1623 levying a rate for erecting 
a cage and stocks, and making various regulations for the cleansing of the 
streets and ditches. A sixty years' gap in the records at this point may have 
coincided with the encroachments of Portsmouth. From 1684 to the middle 
of the eighteenth century the presentments show us a government of the 
ordinary type, the Jury struggling to maintain the authority of the Court, 
fining absentees, presenting the common nuisances of obstruction of the streets, 
filthy hogsties, dirt and dung left unremoved, pigs wandering at large, etc. 
In 1698 "a standing law" is made that "every housekeeper do once every 
week for ever cleanse the kennel " ; and another that ' ' no person do from 
henceforth keep above one boat to let, to work " in the passage or ferry by 
which so many of the men of Gosport lived, and then to let it only to "settled 
inhabitants." From about 1750 the presentments become rapidly fewer, and 
the Court sinks to a mere apparatus for annually appointing the Bailiff and 
Constables. Without Charter, without property, and without a Corporate 
Magistracy, the claims of Gosport to be a Borough seem to have been forgotten ; 
it was not discovered by the Municipal Corporation Commission in 1835 ; and 
it remained without effective local autonomy until the formation of a Local 
Board (now Urban District Council) under the Public Health Acts. 

1 For Altrincham the student should consult the MS. records of the Courts 
of the Barony of Dunham Massey, 1689-1835, and of Altrincham, 1658-1835, 
for access to which we are indebted to the Earl of Stamford and to Mr. Hall, 
the courteous Steward of the estate ; First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2575 ; ditto, 1880, pp. 9 and 652 ; Historical 
Antiquities, by Sir Peter Leycester, 1673, pp. 203-204 ; History of Cheshire, by 
G. Ormerod, 1819, vol. i. pp. 399, 417 ; in 1828 edition, vol. i. p. 536, etc. ; 
History of Altrincham and Bowden, by A. Ingham, 1879. 

2 At the Court of the Barony of Dunham Massey we see amerced inhabitants 
and officers (e.g. Surveyors of Highways) of Altrincham among other places. 
New Freeholders are presented by the " Freehold Jury." Among the names of 
the "Leet Jury " we note those of Altrincham residents. 



166 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

before the Lord's Steward and the "Mayor of the Borough," 
and attended by a " Grand Jury " or Grand Inquest of 
Freeholders of the Borough, it elected annually all the officers 
of the town ; presenting, in the case of the Mayor, three 
names from which the Steward chose one. Besides a 
Mayor, a Bailiff, and two Constables, along with such usual 
officers as Burleymen, Finders, Ale-tasters, Dog-muzzlers, 
Scavengers, and Market-lookers, we see this tribunal appoint- 
ing its own " Laylayers " to assess and collect the rates that it 
levied; and even, throughout the eighteenth century, the 
Surveyors of Highways and the Overseers of the Poor. 1 In 
the background (just as we were at Bamburgh) we are conscious 
of separate meetings of the Burgesses or Freeholders some- 
times of " the Mayor and Burgesses " who may perhaps have 
carried on the executive government between the six-monthly 
Courts. These Burgesses were, for the first half of the 
eighteenth century, systematically " admitted " by the Jury at 
the Lord's Court, and sworn by the Steward, on their succession 
to their burgages, serving in due course the various offices in 
rotation. After 1759 this formal admission seems to have 
been disused, and the Freeholders fade out of sight. A 
remnant of the former custom was, however, preserved, in the 
presentment, year by year, of one Freeholder as a " colt " or 
recruit to the Grand Jury. 

What was remarkable at Altrincham, down to the latter 
part of the eighteenth century, was the amplitude of the 
jurisdiction of the Borough Court. It not only regulated its 
extensive Town Field, cultivated in the usual strips, and the 
wide common pastures, 2 but also sanctioned the enclosure and 

1 The appointment of "Lay lay era" or Assessors at the Court continued 
down to 1839, at least. Assessors of the Land Tax were also appointed by the 
Court. We suspect that the nomination or appointment of Overseers of the 
Poor and Surveyors of Highways passed out of its hands early in the nineteenth 
century, when a church was built at Altrincham, and we assume that local 
Vestry meetings then began to be held. 

2 " Ordered that the Town Field be enclosed ... on the 2nd of February 
each year, and that person that neglects making up his payments by that 
time appointed shall be amerced in ten shillings. . . . That the Pinners of the 
Town Field neglecting doing his office from the 2nd day of February yearly till 
such time as the last or least parcel of corn or hay therein shall safely be gotten 
out by the owner thereof ; that if any damages should happen by either horse, 
cow, sheep, or swine, etc., . . . the Pinners shall be liable to make good treble 
damage, . . . and that for every default made by tethering, or leasowing in the 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 167 

improvement of successive portions of land by individual 
owners. It closed footpaths when it thought fit upon any 
lands within the Borough. It was exceptionally active in 
enforcing the scouring of ditches, and also in defining the 
boundaries between individual properties. 1 But the same 
Grand Jury of Freeholders paid equal attention to what we 
may call police and sanitary functions. They dealt with 
tumults and affrays, finding in 1716 that one J. E. " has 
made a disturbance and tumult of a high nature," for which 
they "do amerce him in ten shillings." 2 The Altrincham 
Court even rivalled the Manchester Court Leet in the 
elaborateness of its By-laws regulating the personal conduct 
of the inhabitants, especially as regards Sabbath breaking, 
the harbouring of " inmates," carrying " fire from house to 
house uncovered," 8 and the fouling of the Town Wells. 4 It 
gradually accumulated a long array of officers, each charged 
to enforce some particular obligation. The Court was a 
particularly active Market authority, though all the profits of 
the Market, like those of the Cornmill, 5 went to the Lord. It 
even performed various Municipal services, paving and 
lighting the streets, maintaining a water-supply by public 
pumps and fountains, keeping a fire-engine, 6 and undertaking, 
by a Municipal Bakehouse, to provide accommodation for all 
the baking for hire within the Borough even enforcing, for 
the sake of regulating the hours, etc., a strict monopoly of 
this service, and laying down the " rules of baking." T 

night, shall forfeit ten shillings " (MS. Records, Altrincham Corporation, 26th 
April 1699). 

In 1698 the Pinners of the Town Field present persons for "tethering his 
little blind mare in the same Town Field and breaking the tether, and going 
loose eating George Clayton Junior's pease," and for "tethering his nag and 
breaking the tether in the Town Field in the open day to the damage of the 
corn" (ibid. 12th October 1698). 

1 Ibid. 20th October 1773 ; 14th October 1778. 

2 Ibid. 25th April 1716. 3 Ibid. 15th April 1719. 

* " If any one wash his hands or feet at the Town Well [he] shall pay 
twelvepence " (ibid.). 

6 In 1712 various persons were amerced for "withdrawing their grist from," 
or "not grinding at" the Lord's mill at Dunham (ibid. 23rd April and 1st 
October 1712). 

8 Ibid. 15th April 1762. 

7 " We do make an order that no one do make a common practice to allow 
others to bake in his oven to the hindrance of the Common Bakehouse of the 
Town, on pain of sixpence" (ibid. 21st October 1696). 

" We find by a former order that the Baker of the Bakehouse has disregarded 



168 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

But what distinguishes Altrincham, so far as we know, 
from the Lord's Courts and Manorial Boroughs in other parts 
of England, was its curious usurpation of all the civil powers 
of the Parish and its Vestry. The Court, by its Grand Jury, 
not only appointed, in flagrant disregard of the statutes, the 
Surveyors of Highways and the Overseers of the Poor, 1 but 
also received and allowed their accounts, and gave them 
frequent and peremptory orders. 2 We find the Court even 
deciding what Statute Labour and Team Duty should be 
exacted for the roads, and contracting in the matter with 
the Turnpike Trustees. The Court took repeated action 
against the harbouring of inmates. 3 It governed the poor, 
ordering those in receipt of relief to be " badged," 4 directing 
particular children to be apprenticed, 5 compounding with 
putative fathers for bastard children, 6 appointing a salaried 
Overseer, and, in 1750, contracting at eighteenpence per 
week per head for the maintenance of all the inmates of the 
workhouse. 6 We discover the same all-embracing Court 
ordering the destruction of sparrows (" a very injurious bird 
within the limits of this Township ") r ; paying for the prose- 

the order of drawing it at such an hour, being six o'clock in the evening ; and 
do make a further order that the said Baker of the Common Bakehouse for the 
future do heat the oven at a sufficient time that he may draw for supper at six 
o'clock" (MS. Records, Altrincham Corporation, 4th April 1711). 

In 1741 the Baker was again peremptorily ordered "to set bread in the 
public oven at seven o'clock " in summer, and eight o'clock in winter, "and not 
before" (ibid. 14th October 1741). 

In 1743 the tenant of the Bakehouse was ordered to bake "so early in the 
morning as that the inhabitants . . . may have their puddings, pies, and other 
eatables out of the oven precisely at twelve o'clock " (ibid. 1 2th October 
1743). 

Owing to the " Public Bakehouse " being insufficient, a new one is ordered to 
be built, and the prohibition of other baking for hire is repeated (ibid. 19th 
April 1769). The Baker continued to be negligent, and was amerced (ibid. 21st 
October 1772). Two Jurymen were deputed to inspect, and "to regulate the 
rules of baking" (ibid. 6th May 1778). 

1 Ibid. 26th April 1720. 

2 See, for appointment of Surveyors, ibid. 15th May 1717 ; for instructions 
to them, 7th October 1725 ; for regulation of Team Duty and Statute Labour, 
22nd October 1760 ; for agreement with the local Turnpike Trustees, 20th 
October 1773. 

s In 1709, for instance four Aldermen were ordered to " go through the Town 
and review what inmates are come into the Town, and give a full account to the 
Overseers" (ibid. 12th October 1709). 

4 Ibid. 15th April 1719. " 6 Ibid. 26th April 1720. 

e Ibid. 13th April 1758. 

7 Ibid. 16th October 1755, 19th April 1763, and 22nd April 1789. 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 169 

cution of felons l ; and finding (by hiring substitutes) the 
quota of militiamen demanded from the Township or 
Borough. 2 There was, in fact, throughout the eighteenth 
century no Vestry meeting in Altrincham. 

The Altrincham Court continued to be held long after 
the close of the eighteenth century continues, in fact, even 
to this day (1907), formally to elect its "Mayor" and other 
officers. But after the close of the eighteenth century we 
see its functions shrinking gradually into those of a mere 
Leet, presenting petty nuisances. The trial of civil suits, 
which we find down to 1662 recorded in the same minutes 
as the other business, seems, in the course of the eighteenth 
century, to have become detached as a separate Court Baron, 8 
which went on hearing an ever-dwindling number of pleas 
down to 1793. The regulation of the commonfields gradually 
ceases, presumably with the progress of enclosure. From the 
first quarter of the eighteenth century we are conscious of 
" Town's Meetings " of inhabitants, occasionally ordered and 
paid for by the Borough Court, at which various common deci- 
sions were taken. 4 Towards the end of the eighteenth century 
the Constables, the Surveyors, and the Overseers seem increas- 
ingly to have regarded these Town's Meetings as their real 
superiors, rather than the Borough Court, with its Jury of Bur- 
gesses, now representing only a small minority of the residents. 
In 1802 the Borough got a church built having hitherto wor- 
shipped at the church of the extensive Parish of Bowden and 
presently started Churchwardens of its own, and formal Vestry 
meetings, with which the Town's Meetings probably became 
merged. 6 As the local organ of civil government, the Borough 
Court had been superseded by the Township Vestry and the 
Petty and Special Sessions of the County Justices of the Peace. 6 

1 MS. Records, Altrincham Corporation, 12th May 1736. 

2 Ibid. 15th October 1759. 

* In 1712 the Borough Court fines a man twenty shillings " for proceeding 
at law against R. C." presumably before some other tribunal "contrary to 
several orders of this Court" (ibid. 1st October 1712). 

4 " We agree to have no more Town's Meetings but what's at the expense of 
those that appear, and to meet at the Court-house" (ibid. 5th May 1742). 

6 We see them, for instance, adopting the Lighting Act, just like an ancient 
autonomous parish. Provision was specially made in the Municipal Corporations 
Act of 1883 for a continuance of the ancient appointments of Mayor, etc., at 
Altrincham (46 and 47 Viet. c. 18, sec. 23). 

8 The neighbouring Borough of Stockport, also established by Seignorial 



i;o THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

More remarkable in various respects was the working 
constitution of Lewes, an ancient market-place and " Borough 

Charter in the thirteenth century, had many features in common with Altrinc- 
ham. Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, whilst their formal con- 
stitutions were almost identical, the Lord's Steward seems, at Stockport, to have 
retained the real power. It was the Steward who selected the Jury of the Great 
Court Leet or Portmote, from among the freeholders (who were all required to 
be sworn and admitted as Burgesses) ; the Steward chose annually four persons 
as suitable to be Mayor, of whom the Jury elected one ; the Steward paid the 
Mayor a small salary from the Lord's funds, and required him to be in attend- 
ance at the Lord's Court ; the Steward even selected the Constables, for formal 
appointment by the Court. But the industrial development which, in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century, transformed the two square miles of rural town- 
ship around the village of Stockport into an irregular agglomeration of mills, 
factories, and workmen's cottages, and numbering, by 1801, more than 14,000, 
and by 1831, more than 25,000 persons, deprived the Lord of the Manor of all 
control over anything but his actual rents. The jurisdiction of his Court Baron 
in petty debt cases quietly faded away about 1764 ; the presentments of nuisances 
at his Court Leet became steadily more perfunctory and less respected, partly, no 
doubt, because the disparity between them and the actual needs of the town 
became ever more glaring ; an Inclosure Act in 1805 and a Court of Requests Act 
in 1806 incidentally superseded ancient seignorial rights ; until finally, in 1826, 
the principal inhabitants completed the decay of the Manorial authority by 
obtaining a Local Act, under which the paving, cleansing, lighting and watching 
the town was taken over by a body of Street Commissioners. As at Altrincham, 
there had been, at Stockport, no Vestry meetings ; not even for the great parish 
of which the township formed only a part. By a peculiar custom the four 
Churchwardens were, down to our own day, chosen annually by the four Lords 
of Manors in the parish, who were called (from 1464 at least), the " prsepositi " 
or "the four posts" of the parish. This was all the more remarkable in that 
the lands of these proprietors were exempt from the Church Rate, their share 
being paid out of the Poor Rate for the whole parish. The Churchwardens so 
chosen rendered no accouuts to any Vestry (Stockport Ancient and Modern, 
by H. Heginbotham, vol. i., 1877, pp. 199, 211, 268). 

Notwithstanding the absence of any Royal Charter or Corporate Justices, 
and the complete decay into which had fallen any powers that this Manorial 
Borough may once have exercised, Stockport was included in the Municipal 
Corporations Act of 1835 as a Municipal Borough, whilst Manchester and 
Salford, having similar thirteenth - century Seignorial Charters, were, like 
Altrincham, denied this privilege. We attribute this distinction partly to the 
insignificant fact that Stockport's chief officer was called a Mayor, and not 
a Boroughreeve ; and partly to the accident that the Municipal Corporation 
Commissioners had no detailed information showing the purely Manorial 
character of Stockport before them, owing to the refusal of T. J. Hogg, one of 
their number, to present, with what he considered undue haste, the reports on 
the towns that he had visited. 

For Stockport we have relied on the Report on Certain Boroughs by T. J. 
Hogg (Municipal Corporation Commission), 1838, p. 129 ; Home Office Domestic 
State Papers and Magistrates Book (in Public Record Office) for 1818-1819 and 
1835 ; Stockport Ancient and Modern, by H. Heginbotham, 1882-1892 ; History 
of the County Palatine and City of Chester, by G. Ormerod, vol. iii. pp. 788-806, 
edition of 1882 ; East Cheshire, by J. P. Earwaker, vol. i., 1877, pp. 329-421 ; 
Stockport Inclosure Act, 45 George III. c. 91 (1805) ; Stockport Court of 
Requests Act, 46 George III. c. 114 (1806) ; Stockport Paving and Lighting 
Act, 7 George IV. c. 118 (1826). 



THE LORDS BOROUGH 171 

Town " of Sussex, once of considerable importance, and in 
1689, though much decayed, still sharing with Chichester the 
honour of being the capital of the county. 1 We find it at 
that date without anything in the nature of a Chartered 
Corporation, divided into four parishes ; styled a Borough, and 
governed for all Municipal purposes as a single unit, under a 
peculiar close body. " There is, and always hath been," records 
the Steward of the Manor in 1662, " time out of mind within 
this Borough a Society of the wealthier and discreeter sort of 
the townsmen, commonly called ' The Twelve/ out of which 
society the Constables are always chosen, the elder, of course, 
according to his seniority ; the younger is chosen by the elder, 
with the consent of the greater part of the Jury (sworn at the 
Lawday), out of such of the Society as were never formerly 
Constables within this Borough ; for never was it known that 
any man was twice younger Constable or twice Headborough ; 
and these Constables then elected make choice of their Head- 
boroughs with consent as aforesaid (of the greater part of the 
Jury) and of the other officers before remembered, at the Law- 
day, without any contradiction or altercation by the Steward. 
The Society known as 'The Twelve' are never so few as 
twelve, nor more than twenty-four, and upon death or removal 
are supplied by election of the greater part of the subsisting 
Society. Town charges disbursed by the Constables for the 
common good of the inhabitants are yearly viewed, examined, 
allowed, and taxed in August or September by the Twelve, 
who in confirmation thereof subscribe their names to the 
Assessment, which is a sufficient warrant to the Headboroughs 
for the collection thereof. Now, town charges are of this or 
the like nature, viz. 40s. per annum to the Clock-keeper and 

1 We have not examined the MS. records of Lewes, which have been well 
extracted in Ancient and Modern History of Lewes and Brighthelmston, by 
William Lee, 1795, and The History and Antiquities of Lewes, by T. W. Hors- 
field, 1824-1827 ; see also the papers by W. Figg and Rev. E. Turner on "Old 
Lewes " and ' ' The Ancient Merchant Gild of Lewes and the subsequent Muni- 
cipal Regulations of the Town" in Sussex Archaeological Society's Collections, 
vol. xiii., 1861, and vol. xxi., 1869, pp. 90-107; The Gild Merchant, by C. 
Gross, 1890, vol. ii. p. 145 ; History . . . of Sussex, by T. W. Horsfield, 
1835, vol. i. p. 201 ; Historical . . . Account of the Coast of Sussex, by J. D. 
Parry, 1833, p. 325 ; History of . . . Surrey and Sussex, by Thomas Allen, 1829- 
1830, vol. ii. p. 543 ; Victoria County History of Sussex, vol. i., 1905, pp. 382-383. 
It was overlooked by the Municipal Corporation Commission of 1835, but was 
reported on by that of 1880 (Report, Part I. pp. 60, 144-145). 



172 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

Bell-ringer; payment for mending and repairing the market- 
house, sessions house, bridge, stocks, cucking-stool, pillory, 
butts for whipping rogues, conveying malefactors to gaol, for 
the suppression of disorders and restraining offenders ; also of 
later times disbursements for King's provision of wheat, oats, 
coals, carriages, etc. ; brazen weights and measures ; charges 
on the shire town." l 

What may once have been the exact distribution of 
authority in Lewes between the Manorial Court and the 
peculiar Fellowship of the Twelve, is not easy to determine. 
During the seventeenth century, at any rate, we see the power 
of the Twelve steadily waning, their functions of passing By- 
laws and taxing the town being gradually assumed by the 
Leet Jury. Towards the end of that century, we are told, 
" political and religious divisions . . . seem to have paved the 
way for the above-noted encroachments on the ancient rights 
of the Fellowship," until in 1709 the record of their meetings 
comes to an end, and in 1720 their last surviving member 
dies. From this time forth Lewes was governed by its two 
" High Constables," annually presented by the Jury at the 
Lord's Court, and sworn in by the Steward; by the Head- 
boroughs nominated by the High Constables ; by the Lord's 
Court itself, which occasionally made By-laws and suppressed 
nuisances ; and by quite " extra - legal " meetings of the 
inhabitants, " publicly convened in their Town Hall " by the 
High Constables. The government of Lewes, in fact, during 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bears a singular 
resemblance to that which we have described at Braintree, 
which did not claim to be a Borough, but which had the same 
kind of Fellowship or Company, working in close connection 
with the Lord's Court, equally coming to an end at the 
beginning of the eighteenth century, to be in both cases 
succeeded by public meetings of the inhabitants. But Braintree 
was a single parish, and its Fellowship was regarded as merely 

1 History of Lewes, by T. W. Horsfield, 1824, p. 174, quoting an account of, 
1662. "The Constables, in conjunction with the Twelve, exercised the 
privilege of decreeing laws for the due regulation of the town, and even pushed 
their authority so far as to commit to prison, or to the stocks, those who 
ventured to question the legality of their decrees, and refused to conform to their 
requirements" (ibid. p. 176). There had also been a subordinate body called 
the Twenty-four ("The Ancient Merchant Gild of Lewes," by Rev. E. Turner, 
Su&sex Archaeological Collections, vol. xxi. , 1869, pp. 90-107). 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 173 

a Close Vestry, to be in due course replaced by an Open 
Vestry. 1 The four little parishes of Lewes, claiming collectively 
to rank as a Hundred, cannot be supposed to have had one 
Vestry in common, either close or open. Moreover, the Lewes 
Fellowship levied a " Town Tax " upon the whole Borough for 
the Constables' expenses, including whatever was laid out for 
the common purposes of the town, whenever the little property 
of the Borough did not suffice. Payment of this rate which 
certainly seems of doubtful legality was apparently usually 
made without question, but it was spasmodically resisted as 
early as 1584, when it was enforced, as it had been "time out 
of mind," by distraint and sale. 2 We find it again resisted in 

1 So too, at Brighthelmston, the little fishing village whose development 
into the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton we have already described, there 
seems to have been in the sixteenth century a government like that of Lewes 
or Braintree we know not whether to call it a Manorial Borough. " From 
time immemorial the government of the Borough (or Lower Town) with which 
the [Upper] Town was connected, was entrusted to two . . . Headboroughs who 
sat alternately in the Borough Court, or together if necessity required it, and 
the Jurors, or sworn Assessors of this Court, were selected from such of the 
Decenners or Frankpledges as were in attendance, having no causes to be tried. 
Hence the origin of the Society of the Twelve, of whom such frequent mention 
is made in the Books of Customs, and whose duty it appears to have been to 
act as a Committee of Counsel to the Headboroughs, thereby securing to them- 
selves rights and privileges which ' the landmen ' [of the Upper Town] did 
not possess. . . . They claimed the exclusive right of composing the Jury 
of the Borough Court, and on the Lawday. The choice of the Constable, 
as well as of the Headboroughs, rested chiefly with them. They filled up 
vacancies in their own body, and pleaded immunity from the Borough Common 
Fine." But this supremacy of the fishermen did not endure. The Elizabethan 
Commissioners of 1580 revised the "customs" so that the government was 
shared equally between those "of the sea" and those "of the land." The 
prosperity of the Lower Town seems, however, rapidly to have declined, and 
it was finally ruined by the great storm of 1703. The Society of the Twelve 
each of whom, as at Braintree, had once had his own "street or circuit" to 
superintend came to an end about 1772 ("The Early History of Brighton," 
by Rev. E. Turner, in Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. ii., 1849, pp. 38-52). 
As at Braintree, the fact that Brighton formed but one parish resulted in 
the quasi - municipal powers lapsing to the Open Vestry already described. 
Another case of connection between the Lord's Court and a "Twelve" is 
afforded by East Stonehouse, Devonshire, a Manor included in the parish of 
St. Andrew's, Plymouth, but never in Plymouth Borough. In 1594 it was 
completely under the rule of its Lord, but regulations were made with " the 
consent and frank assent of twelve discreet and able persons of and within the 
said town and liberties" (History of Devonshire, by R. N. Worth, 1895, pp. 
226-229). 

2 "Here I think fit to remember," says an old authority, "that about the 
twenty-sixth year of Queen Elizabeth, ten of the most aged of the Twelve came to 
John Shirley, Esq., afterwards Serjeant at Law, whose clerk I then was, to 
have his opinion what course might be taken against such refractory persons 
as refused to pay town charges assessed as aforesaid. But before he delivered 



174 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

1721, when the members of the Court Leet Jury agree to 
indemnify the Constables for any costs they might be put to 
in enforcing it. 1 In 1765, when the Borough had lost most 
of its property, and the Town Tax was more than ever needed, 
an adjourned Lawday results in a similar indemnity by " fifty- 
six of the most respectable inhabitants of the Borough." 2 
Finally, in 1772, the public meeting resolves "that the 
Constables and Jury at the Court Leet or Lawday chosen, 
shall and do continue to have power to make and collect a 
Town Tax for defraying the necessary expenses of the Borough." 8 
Thus fortified, the High Constables and Jury seem to have 
gone on levying such a Town Tax as was required, in 1822- 
1823 amounting even to as much as one shilling in the pound. 4 
Another variety of the Lord's Borough one exhibiting 
all the worst features of the close Municipal Corporations 
that we shall hereafter describe is seen in the Mayor and 
Burgesses of Arundel, the little town nestling under the 
ancient Sussex castle of the Duke of Norfolk. 5 Here the 

his resolution he demanded of them what they used to do formerly in the 
like cases. Their answer was that, time out of mind, they had ever levied such 
taxation by distress after three days, the tax not satisfied, to sell the goods 
distrained, rendering the overplus to the owners thereof which course he told 
them was warrantable by usage, and so justifiable by law. Distresses, by 
opinion of Serjeant Heath and Mr. Foster, are justifiable by law, and may 
legally be maintained, being made and confirmed by common consent of the 
inhabitants of the whole Borough time beyond all memory, consisting of four 
parishes, attendant at one Lawday, and that the charges are public, lying 
upon the whole inhabitants as in one Borough, and not as divided parishes " 
(Ancient and Modern History of Lewes and Brighthelmston, by William Lee, 
1795, pp. 191-192). 

1 Ibid. p. 211. a Ibid. p. 212. 

3 History of Lewes, by T. W. Horsfield, 1824, p. 211. 

4 Ibid. p. 229. This little Manorial Borough, not being reported on in 
1835, went on unchanged, the High Constables and Jury levying annually their 
extra-legal Town Tax to eke out the Corporate revenues. By 1880, when the 
population had grown to 6000, it yielded 70 a year. In 1806 the principal 
inhabitants had obtained a Local Act constituting a body of Street Commissioners 
to pave, light, cleanse, and watch the Borough (ibid. p. 223, and Appendix, 
p. xliii). Lewes was created an ordinary Municipal Corporation in 1881, 
contrary to the recommendation of the Municipal Corporation Commission of 
1880 (Report, Part I. p. xi). 

6 MS. Minutes, Arundel Corporation, 1539-1835; ditto of "Borough 
Court," 1758-1835; MS. Archives, Court Leet, 1722-1740; First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 672 ; History 
and Antiquities of the Castle and Town of Arundel, by Rev. M. A. Tierney, 
1834 ; Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. vii. 1854 ; History of . . . 
Western . . . Sussex, by J. Dallaway, 1815-30, vol. ii. Part I. pp. 90-183 ; 
History . . . of Sussex, by T. W. Horsfield, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 122-132 ; 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 175 

organisation of an ancient "Borough," mentioned in Domesday, 
had been defined by " articles of agreement " ratified and 
recorded by two of the Judges of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
on the occasion of some dispute, 1 and this working constitution, 
unfortified by any Charter, remained practically intact down 
to 1835. In the various manuscript records of the old 
Corporation between 1689 and 1835, we can watch the 
administration carried on in the name of the Borough by 
the " Company " or " Society " of Burgesses, a close body of 
indefinite number, 2 consisting in practice only of about a 
dozen members, and open only to those whom the existing 
members chose to admit. This body, existing independently 
of any other authority, owned valuable water meadows, 
cottages, market and quay dues, and the Town Shambles. It 
held the " Borough Court " every three weeks, which like 
the Court Baron granted to the men of Alresford not only 
determined pleas of debt and trespass, but also made By-laws, 
confirmed the appointment of officers, and received and acted 
on presentments of nuisances, short weights and measures, 
and individual defaults. 

Meanwhile the Lawday, or Court Leet and View of 
Frankpledge of the Earl of Arundel, was being held annually 
by his Steward. At this Court the members of the 
" Company " or " Society " of Burgesses, and indeed all the 
adult male inhabitants, were bound to attend, and the Mayor 
was chosen. But the members of the Jury, who, as we 
have seen, were the primum mobile of such a Court, were 
selected by the outgoing Mayor, who was expressly bound 
to return to the Steward a majority of the Company or 
Society of Burgesses, adding to them " so many other of the 
principal inhabitants as shall make up the full number of, 
four-and-twenty according to the ancient custom." 8 Thus 

History of the Counties of Surrey and Sussex, by T. Allen, 1829-1830, vol. ii. 
pp. 520-524 ; Victoria County History of Sussex, vol. i., 1905, pp. 383-384. 

1 In these "articles" (to be found in the MS. records of the Borough) 
the men of Arundel make good their claim to be free from any interference 
from the officers of the Hundred Court of the Earl of Arundel, thereby re- 
minding us of the existence of a Hierarchy of Courts in the once more extensive 
Honour of Arundel, which, in the eleventh century, included the two whole 
Rapes of Chichester and Arundel, and more than 90 square miles. 

2 There are traces of its having been twenty-four in number. 

8 Compare the similar custom at Alnwick, described at p. 191. 



176 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

it was the Close Body of the Company or Society of Burgesses 
that controlled the Jury. The Jury chose two of the Close 
Body, out of whom " the Commons, not being of the Jury," or, 
as we read later, " the scot and lot men," elected one to be 
Mayor for the ensuing year. All the other officers two 
Constables, two Portreeves, two Aleconners, two Searchers 
and Sealers of Leather, and two Affeerors were nominated 
by the Jury, which also " presented " the usual urban nuisances. 
We need not describe the complicated interaction of 
the Company or Society of Burgesses and the Lord's Court. 
To all intents and purposes this exclusive little group of 
Burgesses, though preserving the form of subordination to the 
Lord's Court, had become the sole Municipal authority of the 
town, and completely master of their own proceedings. We 
cannot discover that, beyond maintaining a certain Municipal 
pomp and ceremony, this Company or Society of Burgesses 
was of any appreciable utility to the inhabitants. It is true 
that they held the Borough Court, but they charged high 
fees to suitors, and they let both the civil and criminal sides 
of this tribunal gradually sink to mere forms. 1 At one time 
half the Church Rate was contributed from Corporate funds, 
to the ease of the inhabitants, but this was refused after 1822. 
The Mayor and Burgesses claimed to be the " Bridgemasters " 
of the ancient stone bridge over the Arun, but they threw 
the cost of its repair upon the Poor Rate. They levied all 
the dues they could on the scanty market. They owned the 
quay, and exacted tolls on all goods landed from the river. 2 
They reserved for themselves the filling of all the local offices, 
the ex-Mayor even by custom always becoming one of 
the parish Overseers for a year. 3 But all this became, during 
the eighteenth century, mainly a matter of ceremony and 
routine, the duties being neglected or left to the two or 

1 It seems from the scanty records that the so-called "Borough Court" 
took over from the Court Leet after about 1740 the work of dealing with the 
presentments of the usual urban nuisances and defaults, which we find the 
Constables and Portreeves making between 1758 and 1800 in the Borough 
Court, after which these, too, become perfunctory and formal. 

2 The paving, cleansing, lighting, watching, and improving the town had 
been abandoned to a body of Street Commissioners, established by Local Act 
(25 George III. c. 90) in 1785. The Mayor and Burgesses were ex officio 
Commissioners, along with other citizens named in the Act, and qualified by 
property ownership. 

8 MS. Minutes, Arundel Corporation, 4th April 1769. 



THE LORD'S BOROUGH 177 

three paid subordinates. The scanty manuscript records of 
their proceedings make it plain that the Burgesses regarded 
themselves, not as trustees, but as absolute owners of their 
revenues, which they shamelessly shared among their members. 
The pasturage on the water meadows was reserved exclusively 
for the members' cattle ; the members got profitable allotments 
in severalty and beneficial leases. 1 Serving the office of 
Mayor, a privilege which came round to each Burgess every 
eight or ten years, was rewarded by an allowance of 100, 
" the profits, dues, rents, and benefits arising from the quay 
and the butchers' shambles," and other perquisites. 2 The 
" feastings " of the little company were almost incessant. At 
each three-weekly meeting of the Borough Court there was 
a feast to the Burgesses and their wives and all the officers. 
At every meeting of the Burgesses there was a dinner. At 
the annual Court Leet there was a dinner for the Burgesses 
and Jury. On the annual receipt of a buck from the Duke 
of Norfolk there was a " venison feast." 8 At " the going 
forth " of the retiring Mayor there was a " great feast." At 
every admission of a new Burgess there was "a handsome 
entertainment of eatables and drinkables for the Mayor and 
old Burgesses and their wives." 4 If we mistake not, the 
Mayor and Burgesses of Arundel must have provided them- 
selves with a costly banquet nearly every other week 
throughout the year. Nor were these feasts extended to 
the town at large. The Burgesses repeatedly instruct the 
Mayor not to invite non-burgesses, under penalty of a fine. 5 
So profitable and attractive was membership of this convivial 
Company, closely cemented by family relationship, identity of 
religious creed and similarity of political opinions, that the 
fee exacted from those who were favoured with the privilege 
of Admission was gradually raised from 7 in 1726 to no 
less than a hundred guineas in 1828, in addition to a 
sumptuous banquet. 6 By 1833 the Company, now styling 

1 MS. Minutes, Arundel Corporation, 30th April 1744 ; History of . . . 
Arundel, by Rev. M. A. Tierney, 1834, p. 709. 

2 See the list of Mayors, 1798-1826, in MS. Minutes, Arundel Corporation. 
8 Discontinued after 1831, ibid. 7th June 1831. 

4 Ibid. 8th Oct. 1741 and 27th Nov. 1830. 

5 Ibid. 12th Sept. 1649 ; ditto, 1701. 

6 Ibid. 3rd Oct. 1726, 21st Sept. 1738, llth March 1789, 17th Nov. 1796, 
17th April 1828, and 27th Nov. 1830. 

VOL. II. PT. I N 



178 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

itself a Municipal Corporation, though claiming no Corporate 
Magistracy, had definitely shrunk to a fixed number of thirteen 
Burgesses, one of whom served as a Mayor. Their admitted 
Corporate revenues seem then to have amounted to about 
300 a year. With the record that we have indicated it 
is not surprising that the Mayor and Burgesses of Arundel 
thought it prudent, in 1833, to keep all inquiries at arm's 
length. They refused to allow even the Duke of Norfolk's 
chaplain to complete his ducal history from their records. 1 
The Government fared only slightly better. The Mayor and 
Burgesses of Arundel formally declared that they regarded 
the issue of a Koyal Commission for an inquiry into the 
Municipal Corporations as "an exercise of the prerogative 
which they are advised is illegal, and which they think would 
be dangerous to the liberty of the subject ... a violation of 
the Bill of Rights, an intrusion on the rights of Englishmen " ; 
and though they did not persist in refusing to have anything 
to do with the Commission, they confined their information 
to the barest minimum. 2 



(e) The Enfranchised Manorial Borough 

It is, as we already stated, not easy to draw a line between 
a Manorial Borough in which the Corporate body was as 
practically autonomous as that of Arundel, and those Boroughs, 
demonstrably Manorial in their origin, in which the connection 
with the Lord's Court had become only formal. In the two 
neighbouring Boroughs of Christchurch and Lymington, in 
Hampshire, 3 where the population in 1831 was between one 

1 History and Antiquities of the Castle and Town of Arundel, by Rev. M. A. 
Tierney, 1834, preface, p. vii. 

2 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. 
p. 667. 

3 For Christchurch, see the large MS. volume in which an extensive series 
of miscellaneous records (1485-1857) is bound up ; MS. Acts of Privy Council, 
9th and 18th November 1670 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 1251; ditto, 1880, parti, p. 24 ; part ii. 
p. 108 ; The Antiquities of the Priory of Christchurch . . . with some general 
particulars of the Castle and Borough, by Benjamin Ferrey and E. W. Bayley, 
1834 and 1841. For Lymington, see MS. Minutes of Corporation, 1574-1835; 
First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 
743 ; History of Lymington, by David Garrow, 1825.; Records of the Corporation 
of the Borough of New Lymington, by C. S. Barbe, 1848 ; Old Times revisited in 
the Borough and Parish of Lymington, by Edward King, 1879 and 1900. See 



THE ENFRANCHISED MANORIAL BOROUGH 179 

and two thousand, the connection with the Lord of the Manor 
had, by the end of the seventeenth century, sunk into nothing 
more substantial than the ceremonial swearing in of the in- 
dependently chosen Mayor and other officers at the Lord's 
Court, and the payment of a fee-farm rent to the representative 
of some ancient grantor. In each of these Boroughs there 
was a Close Body of Mayor and Burgesses, of unknown origin, 
existing by prescription independently of any other authority, 
occasionally called " the Company," appointing all the officers, 1 
and disposing of the trifling town lands and the equally 
insignificant tolls and dues of market and harbour. Neither 
Corporation held any Court, though there are traces of informal 
arrangements among the Burgesses for compulsory arbitration 
in disputes. 2 During the seventeenth century both these 
Corporations had been active in making By-laws for the good 
government of their Boroughs, organising the " Watch and 
Ward," setting the Assize of Bread, repairing bridges and 
causeways, paving the streets, and even " paying the poor." 
In the latter part of that century we see their activities 
dwindle away. They continued, however, to control their 
markets and their little harbours, and maintain some Municipal 
dignity. 8 By the end of the eighteenth century they had still 

also, for both these and other neighbouring Boroughs, the paper on "Early 
Boroughs in Hampshire," by T. W. Shore, in Archaeological Review, vol. iv. 
1889; Topographical Remarks relating to . . . Hampshire, by Richard Warner, 
1793 ; General History of Hampshire, by B. B. Woodward, T. 0. Wilks, and 0. 
Lockhart, 1861-1869. 

1 At Christchurch the earlier dependence of the Borough had left a mark in 
the oath of the Burgesses, who swore on admission to "maintain all accustomed 
and ancient services of right belonging to the Lord of the Castle of the Honour 
of Christchurch, and now in the inheritance of the Right Honourable Henry 
Earl of Clarendon, whose Burgesses you are" (MS. Records, Corporation of 
Christchurch, 20th September 1693, etc.). There seems originally to have been 
only "a Portreeve or Prepositus, of late time," it was said in 1670, "for 
better credit called a Mayor," but merely the "sworn servant" of the Lord 
(MS. Acts of Privy Council, 9th November 1670). In the eighteenth century 
we find the Company of Burgesses nominating three of their number for Mayor, 
of whom the "Commonalty" or resident householders chose one (see the full 
description in MS. Minutes, Christchurch, 19th November 1805 ; and First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. ii. 
p. 1254). 

2 MS. Minutes, Christchurch Corporation, 25th January 1641. 

3 At Lymington the Corporation exacted a licence fee (in 1563 and 1699) 
from any person who should " drag for oysters upon the haven " (MS. Minutes, 
Lymington Corporation, 1699) ; and from 1711 onwards this fishery was let on 
lease, with reservation to the Corporation of power " to set a moderate price for 
all such oysters" (ibid. 3rd December 1711). 



i8o THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

further declined, existing thenceforth only for the election of 
members of Parliament, the periodical leasing of the remnant 
of their property and their dues, and the expenditure of the 
proceeds on an annual " Mayor's Breakfast " or other festivity, 1 
latterly paid for by the " patron " of the Parliamentary seat. 2 

At the very top of our series of Manorial Boroughs we 
place the little rural township of Godmanchester in Hunting- 
donshire, for many centuries completely enfranchised from 
seignorial influence, fortified by successive Eoyal Charters, 
occasionally enjoying a Commission of the Peace of its own, 
and only falling short of the full status of a Municipal 
Corporation in never actually acquiring the power of creating 
its own Corporate Magistracy. 8 Yet, looked at from another 

1 History of Lymington, by David Garrow, 1825, p. 48. 

2 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. 
ii. p. 1255. 

Chipping Campden, in North Gloucestershire once an important wool- 
stapling centre received a Royal Charter in 1604, confirming a then existing 
prescriptive Corporation of the Bailiffs and Burgesses. This Corporation con- 
sisted of a Common Council, made up of fourteen Capital Burgesses (two of them 
serving as Bailiffs) and twelve Inferior Burgesses. The Capital Burgesses were 
alone eligible for election as Bailiffs, and it was they alone who elected the 
Bailiffs, and filled vacancies among the Capital and Inferior Burgesses alike. 
But there was also a body of Freemen, recruited by Birth and Apprenticeship, 
and the payment of half a crown as fee. In ancient times the privilege of 
trading or pursuing any craft had been confined to the Freemen, and in 1780 
and 1794 the Common Council vainly strove to enforce this monopoly. There 
was a Court of Record, held every four weeks, at which civil actions up to 
6 : 13 : 4 had once been tried, but which had come by 1689 to be merely a 
name for the periodical meetings of the Bailiffs and Burgesses. The town was 
by this time in slow but continuous decay ; the revenues of the Corporation 
gradually sank to next to nothing ; and it came more and more under the 
influence of the chief local landowner, the Earl of Gainsborough, who was always 
appointed High Steward. Undiscovered by the Municipal Corporation Com- 
missioners in 1835, it lingered on, with population dwindling to under 2000, until 
1886, when it was finally dissolved under the Municipal Corporations Act of 
1883 (46 and 47 Viet. c. 18), and its little property vested by scheme of the 
Charity Commissioners in 1889. See MS. Minutes, Chipping Campden 
Corporation and Town Trust and also those of Vestry ; Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1880, part i. pp. 23-24; "The Manor and 
Borough of Chipping Campden," by Rev. S. E. Bartleet, in Transactions of the 
Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, vol. ix., 1884, pp. 134-195 ; 
Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire, by R. Atkyns, 1768, pp. 161- 
168 ; New History of Gloucestershire, by S. Rudder, 1779, pp. 319-324 and 
Appendix. 

3 Our chief sources of information as to Godmanchester have been the elaborate 
MS. Archives (" Stock Book," "Book of Entries," and " Court Book ") of the Cor- 
poration from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries ; see also First Report 
of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2235 ; and 
History of Godmanchester, by Robert Fox, 1831. 



THE ENFRANCHISED MANORIAL BOROUGH 181 

standpoint, the Parish and Borough of Godmanchester is only 
one step removed from the Chartered Township, such as we 
have seen in Beccles and Wisbech, or from such Lordless 
Courts as Cartmel and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea ; full, indeed, of 
survivals from the still more rudimentary Village Meeting or 
Court of the Manor of the primitive agricultural community. 

It does not fall within the plan of this work to trace the 
rise of Godmanchester from its position as a Manor in Ancient 
Demesne, nor to describe how its residents got from King John, 
in return for the substantial fee-farm rent of 120 a year, a 
grant of the Manor itself, with all its profits and prerogatives. 
Confirmed by various subsequent Royal Charters and Letters 
Patent, the "men of Godmanchester" maintained their 
privileges and immunities until, by Charter of 1604, they 
were expressly incorporated as the Bailiffs, Assistants, and 
Commonalty of the Borough of Godmanchester. From that 
time forth we find the Borough governed by two Bailiffs, 
chosen annually out of their own number by a Close Body 
made up of the two Bailiffs for the time being and twelve 
Assistants, which met as a " Burghmote," recruited itself by 
co-option, and was served by a Sub-Bailiff, Recorder, Deputy 
Recorder, and Town Clerk of its own appointment. The 
Borough had its own Coroners by prescription, this office being 
always filled for a year by the retiring Bailiffs ; its own three- 
weekly " Court of Pleas " for civil suits of trespass and debt, 
as well as for conveyances of property ; its own annual Court 
Leet, View of Frankpledge, and Court Baron; and its own 
Fair or Mart, with the customary Court of Pie Powder. 
Within the wide area of the Borough, which extended over 
seven square miles of cornfield and meadow, there was except 
the somewhat distant jurisdiction of the County Justices no 
competing authority. 1 The Borough Corporation had not even 
to fear the rivalry of the Parish Vestry, for by a peculiar and 
almost unique custom, the Bailiffs and Assistants of Godman- 
chester were themselves the Vestry of the conterminous parish, 
appointing the Churchwardens and Sexton, nominating the 
Overseers and Surveyors, making the Church Rate, and acting 

1 The Bailiffs and Coroners were even sworn in at the Borough's own Court, 
though they were afterwards resworn, and their names enrolled, at Quarter 
Sessions (History of Qodmanchester, by R. Fox, 1831, p. 152). 



1 82 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

in all respects on behalf of the parishioners. 1 Finally, we 
have to add that this all-embracing little Corporation took for 
itself escheats and deodands within its own area ; and as Lord 
of the Manor owned all the extensive wastes and commons. 

It is the popular administration and collective use of the 
seven square miles of commonfields, water meadows, and 
valuable pastures that form the characteristic feature of the 
Godmanchester of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
The Borough, as James the First declared in his Charter, con- 
sisted " altogether, or for the most part, of agriculture and 
husbandry," the few hundred families concentrated in the four 
ancient streets 2 proudly turning out in procession, if we may 
believe Cotton and Camden, no fewer than " nine score ploughs 
in a rural pomp " to welcome any monarch who passed through 
their little village community. 8 The Borough records abundantly 
reveal the character of the local industry. Much the most 
important part of the work of the Bailiffs and Assistants 
between 1604 and 1803 was connected with the commonfield 
agriculture and the management of the town lands, the 
elaborate stinting of the common pastures, the sharing of " the 
Freemen's Fen" between the separate herds of the two sides 
of the town, 4 the preservation of the " wood, willows, or 

1 In this combination of Select Vestry with Manor ownership Godmauchester 
comes near to Cartmel, with its sixteenth-century "Fellowship of the Four- 
and-Twenty " ; it has obvious resemblances to Braintree on the one hand and 
Lewes on the other ; in some respects we are reminded of Newbiggin-by-the- 
Sea ; but the only other case known to us in which a definitely incorporated 
Municipal body acted as the Select Vestry is that of St. Ives in Cornwall 
(History of St. Ives, Lelant, and Zennor, etc., by J. H. Matthews, 1892). We 
have not investigated the actual origin of the Select Vestry in either of these 
cases. In Godmanchester the habit of the Bailiffs and Assistants to act as the 
Vestry was challenged in the ecclesiastical court in 1712 ; but they " appeared, 
justifying the custom for sixty, seventy, or eighty years, so that the prosecution 
slept" (MS. Minutes, Godmanchester Corporation, 14th October 1712; a 
precedent of 1624 is printed in the History of Godmanchester by R. Fox, 1831). 

2 We do not know how far the traces of ancient divisions in the Bonnigh 
may be significant ; there was a " West Side " and an " East Side," each having 
its own Coroner, its own "cow-commons," and its own common herd daily 
driven out and home by its own Neatherd ; moreover, at the annual Court, when 
twelve Jurors were sworn, three were taken from each of the four streets. 

3 History of Godmanchester, by R. Fox, 1831, p. 322. 

4 MS. Records, Godmanchester Corporation, 7th May 1707. It is not quite 
clear to us who exactly were the Freemen, or what were their peculiar privileges. 
The Municipal Corporation Commissioners of 1833-35 seem to have been 
convinced that the Freemen comprised all sons or daughters of Freemen, as well 
as persons admitted by purchase ; and that Freemen were alone eligible to be 
Assistants, aloue entitled to trade within the Borough, alone eligible to serve as 



THE ENFRANCHISED MANORIAL BOROUGH 183 

bushes," l and the discreet felling or cutting of these " to hedge 
in calves' pasture " or " to hedge the causeway." 2 As the 
arable land, though owned in severally by the possessors of 
the " nine score ploughs," was divided into the usual innumer- 
able strips, parted only by green grass balks, and cultivated in 
great commonfields, we see the Bailiffs in 1700 summoning 
" all the farmers to appear at Court Hall to appoint a Hadland 
Day according to the old custom ; who did agree that none 
should sow barley [in the commonfield] before Friday 21st 
March, and that day only badlands [headlands ?]." 8 In 1792 
it is still necessary that the Bailiffs, Assistants, and inhabitants 
generally, in public meeting assembled, should agree, " in order 
to secure the grain from trespass," to obtain more control over 
the use of the commonfield for pasture, by imposing a tax of 
two shillings for each horse turned out. 4 As in the more 
primitive village communities, some of the meadows were 
annually divided up by lot for individual mowing ; and we see 
the Bailiffs and Assistants solemnly ordaining in 1Y28 that " no 
Lot Grass shall be mowed for the year ensuing." 5 They make 
formal order " that no gleaners do go into the [Corn] Field to 
glean until Wednesday next, and that they come not into the 
Pease Field until harvest be done." 6 They have also to 
regulate and, when they will, to let on lease the profitable 

Free Suitors in the Court of Pleas, and alone entitled if they owned or occupied 
" commonable " houses, being ancient tenements within the Borough to share 
in the common pastures. But the Charter of 1604 does not create " Freemen," 
but only " Burgesses," and mentions none of the above privileges. It expressly 
authorises the co-option of Assistants from among the " Burgesses and 
inhabitants. " It was the inhabitants (or at any rate the owners or occupiers of 
the ancient tenements) who were entitled to the immunity from toll anywhere in 
England, and exemption from Jury service outside the Borough, as Tenants in 
Ancient Demesne. We noticed no trace in the records of the enforcement of 
any exclusive right of trading. It was probably the owners and occupiers of 
the ancient tenements who were referred to as Burgesses. It was to them not 
their sons and daughters residing elsewhere that the full privileges of commoners 
on the Borough pastures had been originally confined, but during the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries the owners and occupiers of divided and new tenements 
were more and more admitted. In 1803 the Inclosure Award "assigned the 
right to the owners and occupiers of commonable houses without reference to the 
qualification of Freedom," and this was confirmed by a judgment of the Court of 
Common Pleas, 20th November 1830 (History of Godmanchester, by R. Fox, 
1831, p. 154). 

1 MS. Records, Godmanchester Corporation, 13th December 1697. 

8 Ibid. 14th April 1698 and 13th February 1699. 

8 Hid. 12th March 1700. * Ibid. 7th August 1792. 

6 Ibid. 3rd October 1728. Ibid. 23rd July 1691. 



1 84 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

common fishery in the Ouse, 1 to insist on the millers down 
stream opening the sluices in due time to prevent floods ; 2 and 
to construct proper " overshots or water flashes " to keep their 
water meadows irrigated and yet not drowned. 8 The most 
important Municipal enterprise in the whole history of the 
Borough is, in 1792, the draining of the flooded meadows, 
which is carried out at the expense of " an equal acre tax on 
all and singular meadows " within the Borough. 4 The busiest 
officers of the little community during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries were not the Constables or the Ale-tasters, 
but the Haywards, Field Reeves, Grasshirers, Holmekeepers or 
Greenkeepers, Neatherds, Gamekeepers, and Mole-catchers. The 
presentments which these officers make to the Borough Courts 
relate, not to the usual urban nuisances, but to such offences as 
" turning his horse foot-loose into the meadows," 5 " for his horse 
being stalled upon a common balk before the grain was carried 
away on both sides," 6 " turning his horse into the holmes 
contrary to the Constitutions " ; 7 " going into the stubble with 
his sheep, being twice taken . . . before Michaelmas," 8 
"keeping two calves upon the waste-ground before Ascension 
Day " ; 9 " not keeping a bull upon the commons," or " keeping an 
insufficient bull " ; 10 " setting his fold in the tilth-field after 
Michaelmas " ; n or " feeding his flock of sheep in the Pease 
Field before Martinmas " ; 12 or " mowing a balk . . . abutting 
against West Gores." 1S Almost the only nuisance that may be 
called urban in its character is the " chimney out of repair, and 
very dangerous of fire " in the street of thatched cottages, that 
the Jury was constantly presenting at the beginning of the 
seventeenth century. 14 

With the high price of corn, and the desire for improve- 
ments in agriculture, the temptation to the Burgesses of 
Godmanchester to obtain an Inclosure Act became at last 
irresistible, and in 1803 all the commonfields were redivided 

1 MS. Records, Godmanchester Corporation, 7th October 1725. 

2 Ibid. December 1689, 22nd October 1725. 

8 Ibid. 4th February 1726. * Ibid. 13th December 1792. 

6 Ibid. 10th July 1690. Ibid. 7th and 28th August 1707. 

* Ibid. 21st September 1699. 8 Ibid. 7th August 1707. 

9 Ibid. 30th April 1691. 10 Ibid. 12th May 1692, 7th July 1698 
11 Ibid. 9th November 1693. 12 Ibid. 4th November 1714. 

13 Ibid. 12th August 1714 

14 Ibid. 15th January 1691, 12th October 1732. 



THE ENFRANCHISED MANORIAL BOROUGH 185 

among the owners of the strips and enclosed in distinct free- 
holds. With them seems to have gone most of the vitality of 
the Corporation. The business of the " Court of Pleas " 
dwindled away to a few petty debt cases, and after 1805 the 
meetings became formal. The Court Leet continued to be 
held twice a year, chiefly for the appointment of Bailiffs, 
Coroners, and Constables, the presentments becoming more and 
more perfunctory. There still remained roadside wastes and 
five separate commons to be regulated, weights and measures 
to be occasionally inspected, and various ancient charities to be 
administered. Godmanchester increased between 1801 and 
1831 in population, and presumably in material productivity, 
if not in prosperity. Yet it is impossible for those who have 
read its" seventeenth and eighteenth century records to watch 
without regret the passing away of the earlier life, when these 
couple of hundred little farmers, with their nine score ploughs, 
pastured their common herds, drew lots annually for the 
privilege of mowing the several plots of meadow grass, in Open 
Court decided what crops to sow in each part of their common 
demesne, simultaneously ploughed and sowed and reaped their 
scattered strips in the common tilth-fields, and made what use 
they could of the long grass balks by which the strips were 
divided. This collective agriculture may have been primitive 
and uneconomic in its character. The agricultural revolution 
which we saw taking place at Great Tew may have been 
difficult to accomplish. Yet as we watch the common life in 
the little community of Godmanchester, and watch the dying 
out of the spirit of fellowship, of the sense of common interests, 
and of what we may call a communal consciousness, that the 
common agriculture cannot fail to have promoted, we must 
realise how grievous was the accompanying social loss, when it 
was replaced, in the English rural village, by capitalistic 
farming on an exclusively commercial basis. 1 

1 The class of Enfranchised Manorial Boroughs seems to have included, by 
1835, about a score of other towns in different parts of England, having 
populations in 1831 of between 500 and 3500. The governing authority was 
either a close council or officers practically nominating each other, without any 
real control by a Lord of the Manor, but without, on the other hand, any 
Corporate Magistracy. Such, we imagine, were Appleby (Westmoreland) ; 
Brackley (Northamptonshire) ; Calne, Chippenham, and Westbury in Wiltshire ; 
Camelford, Grampound, Marazion, and St. Ives in Cornwall ; Chard, Ilchester, 
and Yeovil in Somerset ; Garstang (Lancashire) ; Newtowu and Yarmouth in 



186 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 



(/) Manor and Gild 

We pass now to a little group of Boroughs in which the 
government was shared between a Manorial Court and one or 
more Trade Gilds. The existence of Merchant or Trade Gilds 
or Companies was, as we shall presently show, characteristic 
in 1689 of a small but important class of Municipal Cor- 
porations, including the City of London. Even in the other 
Municipal Corporations we find, as a rule, a class of Freemen 
recruited by Apprenticeship an institution from which it 
may possibly be argued that Trade Gilds must have once 
existed. But whether in a fully developed form, or only as 
a rudiment or remnant, Gild structure is almost universally 
absent from the scores of Manorial Boroughs of which we 
have given samples. In so far as there existed, within these 
jurisdictions, any class of Burgesses or Freemen, these were 
connected either with the tenure of land or with mere inhabit- 
ancy the " suitors " of a Court Baron or the " resiants " of a 
Court Leet. To this generalisation the Manorial Boroughs of 
Northumberland and Durham present a remarkable exception. 

The most interesting example of this group is the Borough 

the Isle of Wight (Hampshire) ; Ruyton in Shropshire ; Sudbury (Suffolk), and 
Tenterden (Kent), to the latter of which we have already referred (p. 60). As 
to most of these, see First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
Appendix, vols. i.-iv. ; Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1880 ; for 
Chard (not then reported on) see Proceedings of Somersetshire Archaeological and 
Natural History Society, vol. xxvii. parts i. and ii., 1882-1883, and The Book of the 
Axe, by G. P. R. Pulman, fourth edition, 1875 ; for Sudbury (also not reported 
on) see R. v. Mayor of Sudbury, in Reports of Cases, etc,, by J. Dowling and A. 
Ryland, vol. ii., 1823, pp. 651, 660 ; and Election Cases, by J. Philipps, 1782, 
pp. 131-216. A town might acquire not only the Manorial rights, but also 
a Charter from the King, and yet not develop. James I. incorporated the 
town of Blandford in Dorsetshire, and granted it the Manor, but conferred upon 
it no magisterial authority. The Bailiff and Burgesses continued until 1835 a 
Close Body, recruiting themselves by co-option, holding, by their Steward, their 
own Court Leet, but letting their Court of Record go into desuetude about 
1780. Without any important Municipal functions, they were kept alive by 
possessing a revenue of a hundred pounds a year or so from rents and market 
tolls which was spent mainly in paying a few subordinate officers, with some 
Corporate feasting. With an unprogressive population of between two and 
three thousand, it is not easy to understand why this Manorial Borough was 
included in 1835 as a Municipal Corporation, whilst others were omitted (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 1133 ; History 
and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, by J. Hutchins, vol. i., 1861, pp. 214- 
246). Hemel Hempstead (Herts), chartered by Henry VIII., remains to this day 
(1907) unincorporated (History of Hertfordshire, by N. Salmon, 1728, p. 116). 



MANOR AND GILD 187 

of Alnwick already mentioned as part of a Hierarchy of 
Courts which, except for the interpolation of a Trade Gild, 
would have been included in the common class of Lord's 
Boroughs. But even as a Lord's Borough Alnwick would have 
had a distinguishing characteristic. Instead of showing any 
progressive emancipation from its Lord, it was, between 1689 
and 1835, brought more completely under his control. It 
might, indeed, by 1835 almost have claimed a class by itself, 
as a disfranchised Lord's Borough. 1 

What exactly had been the status of the Burgesses of 
Alnwick ,in former centuries, and at what period of their 
history the Trade Gild or Gilds had been added to the Manorial 
structure, we are not here concerned to discover. At the 
Revolution the government of the little town was shared 
between two distinct but closely interwoven authorities the 
Chamberlains, "Four -and -Twenty," and "Common Gild" of 
Freemen on the one hand, and on the other the Court Leet 
and Court Baron of the Earl of Northumberland for the 
" Manor and Borough." 

The constitution of the extra-manorial body, the Chamber- 
lains, "Four-and-Twenty," and "Common Gild," was determined 
by no Charter or other instrument. It had apparently been 
developed in the course of centuries by mere usage. The base 
was the whole body of Freemen of the Borough, recruited by 
Birth, Apprenticeship, and occasional co-option. At the end of 

1 We have sought to unravel the intricacies of the constitutional history of 
Alnwick from the voluminous MS. Records of the Corporation, which extend 
over three centuries ; from the scanty MS. Records of one of the Trade Com- 
panies (the Tanners) ; the ' ' Articles of Agreement " between the Borough and 
the Duke of Northumberland, 1762 ; Seven Letters to the Freemen of Alnwick 
respecting their differences with the Four-and- Twenty upon Borough affairs, by 
an Old Craftsman, 1782 ; Address to the Burgesses and Freemen of the Borough 
of Alnwick, by the Chamberlains, 1782 ; An Address to the Freemen of the 
Borough of Alnwick, by T. H. Bell, 1815 ; Address to the Freemen of Alnwick, 
1816 ; An Appeal to the Public on the present existing Grievances of the Burgesses 
or Freemen of the Borough of Alnwick, 1819 ; 8 George IV. c. 27 (Alnwick 
Paving Act, 1822) ; an anonymous History of Alnwick, 1822, in the Newcastle 
Public Library ; Historical . . . View of Northumberland, by E. Mackenzie, 
1825, vol. i. pp. 433-484 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. iii. pp. 1411-1419 ; " Feudal and Military Antiquities of Northumber- 
land, etc., "by Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, 1858 (vol. ii. of Memoirs of Archaeological 
Institute for 1852) ; the valuable History of the Borough, Castle, and Barony of 
Alnwick, by George Tate, 1866-1869; Report of Municipal Corporation Commis- 
sion, 1880, part i. pp. 6-8 ; The Alnwick Corporation Act, 1882 (1901) ; and the 
recent Annual Accounts of the Chamberlains now printed for the information 
of the Freemen. 



1 88 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

the seventeenth century these Freemen apparently included 
most of the householders of the town, and probably all the 
journeymen who were not householders. 1 They were like 
the Freemen of Newcastle and Durham, Morpeth and Hexham 
grouped in separate Trade Companies, 2 each with its own 
Alderman and other officers, its own Corporate funds, its own 
periodical meetings, and its own internal regulations. The 
rule was that a candidate for the " Freeledge," 8 or Freedom of 
the Borough, had first to be admitted to one of the Trade 
Companies, and then passed as qualified by the "Four-and- 
Twenty." In the seventeenth century, at any rate, and during 
the first decade of the eighteenth, this body of Freemen was 
occasionally also convened in " Common " or " Public " Gild, 
for the purpose of deliberating upon and assenting to the 
projects of the " Four-and-Twenty." * 

1 From 1650 to 1835 the number of Freemen seems always to have been 
between 250 and 300. In 1801 there may have been 700 or 800 houses ; in 
1689 probably not more than half that number. 

2 Of these Companies, ten were still existing in 1833 (those of the Merchants, 
Cordwainers, Skinners and Glovers, Weavers, Black and White Smiths, Tailors, 
Butchers, Carpenters and Joiners, Tanners and Coopers). A detailed study of 
these Companies, in connection with those of Morpeth and Hexham, Durham 
and Gateshead, and in comparison with those of Newcastle-on-Tyne, might 
prove of interest and value. Their old records are to be found in the custody 
of surviving members ; see also History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1866-1869, 
vol. ii. ch. xvii. pp. 320-350. 

3 This use of "Freeledge" as equivalent to "Freedom" of a Borough or a 
Trade Company seems peculiar to Northumberland and Cumberland ; see the 
cases of Newbiggin and Holy Island, pp. 149, 161. It may be of significance that 
the ancient "farms" of Northumberland were called "freeledges" (see the 
preceding volume, The Parish and the County, pp. 179-181). 

4 From a cursory inspection of the MS. Records prior to 1689, as well as 
from what is in print, we gather that Common Gilds were held fairly frequently 
in the first half of the seventeenth century, both for passing the Chamberlains' 
accounts and for sanctioning the proposals of the Four-and-Twenty. After 
the Restoration they seem to have been held less frequently, and to have been 
restricted to making By-laws as to the "stint" of the Town Moor. After 
1711, aa we shall explain, they ceased to be held. From that date, whenever 
the Four-and-Twenty (now calling themselves the Common Council) desired 
the opinion of the Freemen, we see the Aldermen of the Companies invited to 
call meetings of their several Companies, and to submit the question to them. 
In 1815 we notice the Four-and-Twenty inviting the Aldermen only to meet at 
the Town Hall and deliberate on their proposals (An Address to the Freemen 
of the Borough of Alnwick, by T. H. Bell, 1815). We are told that "very early 
and frequent opposition was made to this assumed authority, as appears from 
the Order Books of the different trades, wherever the Freemen are threatening 
that if the Four-and-Twenty neglected to hold the Common Gilds, they would 
throw down the inclosures, and lay into common again those parts that had 
been taken in" (Hist-ory of Alnwick, anon., 1822, pp. 328-329). 



MANOR AND GILD 189 

By 1689 the "Gentlemen of the Four-and-Twenty" had 
absorbed into their own hands at any rate all the executive 
authority of the Borough and much of the legislative power. It 
was the Four-and-Twenty that annually selected from among 
its own members four persons to serve as Chamberlains, who 
were, in fact, the executive officers of the Borough. It was the 
Chamberlains and Four-and-Twenty that enacted By-laws on 
all sort of subjects, even determining their own constitution 
and the rights of the Freemen at large. 1 It was this body that 
managed the Town Moor and the charitable endowments, the 
school and the place in which the market was held. It was 
this body that appointed the " Minister," Clerk, and Sexton of 
the parish church ; that chose the Surveyors of Highways ; 2 
that raised the money required for the train-bands ordered by 
the Deputy-Lieutenants of the County, 8 and levied rates upon 
the inhabitants for the repair of the highways and the primitive 
requirements of an urban community. 4 It was the " Four-and- 
Twenty " who were the sole judges of the validity of the claims 
to the " Freeledge," as well as the sole grantors of the privilege 
of admission to persons other than those entitled by Birth or 
Apprenticeship. 6 Finally, it was the members for the time 
being of this mysterious "Four-and-Twenty," which often 
comprised twice that number, who alone filled vacancies in 
their own ranks, and increased or limited the total membership 
of this governing clique. 6 

1 MS. Book of Orders, Corporation of Alnwick, 7th August 1677. 
8 Ibid. 9th April 1675. 

3 Ibid. 17th October 1690. 

4 For instance, in 1694, a "Sess laid on all the houses and lands . . . 
three times according to the Book of Rates," for water-supply (ibid. 7th August 
1694); "four times the Book of Rates" for the highways (ibid. 23rd April 
1729). 

6 History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1866-1869, vol. ii. p. 239. 

6 In 1623 the body numbered 24 ; in 1647, 28 ; in 1667, no fewer than 
57 ; in 1690 and 1694 there were at least 43 and 35 members respectively, and 
in 1709 there were at least 38 (History of Alnwick, by G. Tate, vol. ii. p. 256). 
In 1717 it is "ordered by the Chamberlains and Four-and -Twenty that no man 
be admitted a Four-and-Twenty man for the future till the death of another, 
and that upon the death of any of the present Four-and-Twenty so many new 
ones shall be chosen in the room or stead of such dying " (MS. Book of Orders, 
Corporation of Alnwick, 7th October 1717). "In the Borough books," we 
are told, "there is an order to this effect, We, the Chamberlains and Four- 
and-Twenty, sensible of the inconvenience of a too extended Executive, and 
disregarding the vulgar opinion that there is wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, 
do hereby agree that the Four-and-Twenty shall for the time to come consist of 



190 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

Meanwhile the other governing authority of the town- 
the Court Leet and Court Baron of the Earl of Northumberland, 
with its Steward, its Bailiff, and its Jury for the Earl and for 
the King was nominally in a position of superior dignity. 
It was the Bailiff appointed by the Lord who was the nominal 
head of the town, 1 and who is found, at any rate from 1537 
down to 1697, joining with the Chamberlains and Four-and- 
Twenty in the administration of Borough affairs. 2 It is at the 
Lord's Court that the Chamberlains and all the other Borough 
officers the Constables, the Keepers of the Causeway, the 
Tasters of Ale, Overlookers of Bread and Flesh, the Moorgrieves, 
the Herds, the Market-lookers, the Keeper of the Pinfold, the 
Manager of the Town Clock, and the Keepers of Pants and 
Pumps, are presented, appointed, and sworn. It is the Jury 
of this Court that, in the seventeenth century, passes By-laws 8 
for the good government of the Borough, and even gives specific 
orders to the Chamberlains and Four-and- Twenty. It was 
this Court that, throughout the whole period from 1689 to 
1835, punished those who committed nuisances and decided 
civil actions between the inhabitants. But in spite of all this 
show of power, the Lord's Court had sunk, by 1689, into 
being a mere appanage of the Chamberlains and " Four-and- 

no more than seven-and-twenty " (History of Alnwick, anon., p. 824). We 
have not found such an order ; and from other allusions (see An Appeal to the 
Public on the Present Existing Grievances, etc., 1819), we infer that the order of 
7th October 1717 is that referred to. At no time (until the modern revolution 
of 1882) was the body elected either by the Freemen at large or by the 
Companies. 

1 It was part of the Earl's case in 1758 that his Bailiff "ought to be the 
chief officer and the person of greatest pre-eminence and authority in the govern- 
ment of the Town and Borough." This pre-eminence and precedence was 
conceded by the Four-and-Twenty in the Articles of 1762, though it was stipu- 
lated that he should not be a member of the Four-and-Twenty unless he was a 
Freeman (History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1868-1869, vol. ii. pp. 291, 295). 
In 1799, when the Lord insisted on this pre-eminence being recognised, the Four- 
and-Twenty took counsel's opinion "whether the Acts of Parliament which 
come directed ' To the Chief Magistrate or Head Officer of Alnwick ' shall be 
received by the Chamberlains or given up to his Grace theDuke of Northumberland's 
Bailiff." The answer may be inferred from the fact that the Four-and-Twenty 
presently ordered such communications to be delivered to the Bailiff (MS. Book 
of Orders, Corporation of Alnwick, 18th and 28th January 1799). 

2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 255. 

3 On 17th April 1654, for instance, the Court Leet and Court Baron made 
regulations as to the customary annual horse-races, the enjoyment of the common 
pasture, and paving and cleansing the streets (MS. Book of Accounts and Orders, 
among Alnwick Corporation Records). 



MANOR AND GILD 191 

Twenty." The Jury, upon whose presentments and verdicts 
everything depended, was, by ancient usage, confined to Freemen 
of the Borough, and, in practice, to members of the " Four-and- 
Twenty." l So long, therefore, as the " Gentlemen of the Four- 
and-Twenty " were united among themselves, and retained a 
preponderating influence among the Freemen, their practical 
autonomy was tolerably secure from interference by the Lord's 
officers. But there was a weak point in the claim of the 
Borough to this autonomy. The powerful family of the 
Percies had, it was true, somehow or another, permitted an 
extra - manorial constitution to grow up at the very 
gates of the Castle. They had apparently conceded to 
the Burgesses, at some period or another, undefined rights of 
user over the "Forest of Aydon," or Town Moor, a large 
tract of land outside the walls of the Borough. But none of 
the ordinary franchises had been parted with ; " Markets and 
fairs, tolls and wastes of the town, and all other royalties," 2 the 
Manor and its Courts, belonged to the Lord and to the Lord 
alone. Moreover, the Lord owned the public bakehouses, and 
even when others were allowed to grow up he exacted an 

1 "At these early periods," says the local historian, "most of the jurors, if 
not all of them, were members of the Four-and-Twenty. ... At an early 
period the Court Leet Jury and the Four-and-Twenty may have been the same 
body. ... A Corporate record . . . says ' a note of the Twenty-four, as the 
addition is put to them for making up the number at the Court holden the 27th 
day of April 1647,' and this is followed by twenty- eight names." . . . "Early in 
the seventeenth century . . . the Jury of the Court Leet . . . were . . . the 
Four-and-Twenty " (History of . , . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1868-1869, vol. i. p. 348, 
vol. ii. pp. 239, 256). This, however, is not proved. All that is certain is that, in 
the eighteenth century, it could be said that " the Freemen exclude all freeholders 
who are not Freemen from the Juries " (ibid. vol. ii. p. 256). 

2 Case submitted to counsel on behalf of the Lord in 1753 (History of . . . 
Alnwick, by George Tate, 1868-1869, vol. ii. p. 289). 

"Though the tolls of the markets and fairs were claimed by the Lord of the 
Manor, the Market Place belonged to the Corporation, who exercised control and 
directive power both over it and over the streets of the town. They paid to 
Thomas Harvies, in 1637, ' Is. for going with the drum at the fair both Sunday 
and Monday ' ; at an earlier period, in 1612, market keepers were paid by them. 
The Common Bellman, or Town's Servant, enjoyed a perquisite from stalls in 
the Market Place, for when one was appointed in 1675, it is said 'he shall have 
all the perquisites to that office excepting six stalls to Jane Grey. ' They were 
at the expense of cleaning the Market Place and keeping it in repair ; in 1720 
it was paved for them, and at the same time the old and new crosses were 
repaired. 'The Corn Market' was paved in 1755 at the cost of 5 : 8 : ; 
in the following year they paved 'the Horse Market' ; in 1761, 'paving the 
Market Place' cost 10 : 12 : 4 ; and in 1765, 'for Market Place paved round 
the Shambles ' 17 : 18 : 9 were paid " (ibid. vol. i. p. 447). 



192 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

annual fee from each of them. 1 He had owned the public 
brewhouse, and he still levied a similar annual fee on every 
alehouse in the Borough. 2 He even claimed a toll on salt, 
and exacted a small annual fee from every retail shop that 
sold this necessary article, as an acknowledgment of his ancient 
feudal claim. 3 

From 1689 to 1750 we see in the manuscript records the 
" Four-and-Twenty " successfully pursuing their policy of 
concentrating in their own hands all the government of the 
Borough. Throughout this period the Castle dominating the 
town lay in a ruinous condition, and the heirs of the Percies 
were absentees. The representatives of the Lord of the Manor 
evidently became the boon companions of the principal 
Burgesses who made up the Four-and-Twenty, who, as the 
accounts show, " treated the officers of the Lord of the Manor, 
even in Alnwick Castle itself, with no meagre supply of wine 
and other spirituous liquors." 4 In return, the Steward and 
the Bailiff evidently failed to inquire too curiously by what right 
the Four-and-Twenty sank shafts for coal in the Town Moor, 5 
took money for the quarrying of freestone there, and even, in 
order " to augment and increase . . . the revenues belonging 
to our Town ... for the good of the said Town, and for the 
maintaining of its rights and privileges," enclosed hundreds of 

1 This fee continued to be taken until about 1800 (History of . . . Alnwick, 
by G. Tate, 1868-1869, vol. i. p. 448). 

2 Not relinquished until 1860 (ibid. vol. i. p. 448). 

3 Down to about 1830 (ibid.). 

4 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 264. Here are a few specimens out of many : 

" 1635. For a gallon of burnt wine bestowed on the Lord's Commissioners, 4/. 

"1658. Wine bestowed on my Lord's officers, 6/. 

"1718. To the Castle three quarts canary, 7/6 ; 3 quarts white wine, 6/6 ; 
3 bottles claret, 7/6. 

" 1728. Sent down to the Castle, 6 bottles of arrack punch, 18/ ; 4 bottles of 
French wine, 10/ ; 3 bottles of white wine, 4/. 

"1748. One dozen of French claret, 2:5:0; paid to servants at the 
Castle, ll/." 

After 1753, when, as we shall see, the Lord and the Borough went to war, 
these payments ceased. 

6 In 1693 it was ordered by the Four-and-Twenty, "Whereas there was a 
former order . . . that every several Trade of the Town was to pay out of their 
respective Trade Monies for the carrying on of winning a colliery in our 
Common, . . . that . . . those that have not paid such sums to the Chamberlains 
shall pay in the said sums that is behind to the present Chamberlains . . . 
that upon refusal . . . the Chamberlains shall sue every such Alderman for 
such offence in the sum of 38/ by way of action " (MS. Book of Orders, 
Corporation of Alnwick, 22nd May 1693). 



MANOR AND GILD 193 

acres of this common pasture, and let them in farms, 1 without 
any compensation to the Lord of the Manor. They even went so 
far as publicly to declare, without contradiction by the Lord or 
his officers, that " time out of mind the Freemen or Burgesses of 
the Town and Borough . . . have had and now have the free- 
hold and inheritance of Alnwick Moor or the Forest of Aydon." 2 

In this policy of improvement the Four-and-Twenty some- 
times found themselves out of harmony with the general body 
of Freemen. The enclosure of so much of the Town Moor, 
and the letting of the farms to the highest bidder, for instance, 
roused in 1711 a storm of indignation. " Idle and disorderly 
persons," noted the Four-and-Twenty, " enemies to the well- 
being and good government of our Town and Borough, on two 
several times in the night privately pulled down great part of 
the inclosures. 8 The Four-and-Twenty put down this rebellion 
with vigour, not merely prosecuting and disfranchising the 
rioters and their abettors, but also ceasing, from that time 
forward, to summon any " Common Gild," so that the Freemen 
lost even their last remnant of control over the administration. 
" Quiet men," writes the apologist of the Four-and-Twenty, 
" disliked Gilds, which tradition said presented scenes of 
uproar and confusion ... So bad a fame, indeed, did Gilds 
enjoy as to become proverbial ; often when boys were engaged 
in noisy, uproarious play have I heard the exclamation, ' Bairns, 
what a gild ye are making ! '" 4 

For the first half of the eighteenth century we may 
watch the vigorous little oligarchy of the Four-and-Twenty 
administering the affairs of the Borough at its own will and 
discretion regulating the common pasture, letting the farms, 
providing a water-supply by a rate, rebuilding the shambles, 
widening streets, and erecting ornamental gates out of the 
Town Stock, subscribing 400 towards a turnpike road on 
condition that the gates were placed some distance away from 
the town, 5 scrutinising the indentures of apprenticeship to 
prevent the multiplication of Freemen, 6 maintaining the 

1 MS. Book of Orders, Corporation of Alnwick, 24th June 1698. 

2 Ibid. 3rd May 1711. 

3 History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1868-1869, vol. ii. 276. 

4 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 272. 

6 MS. Book of Orders, Corporation of Alnwick, 23rd and 28th August 1752. 
6 It was found that youths living in the country were being nominally 
VOL. IT. PT. I 



194 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

Freemen's monopoly of carrying on trade, protecting the 
humbler members of the Trade Companies from oppression by 
the " Great Brethren/' l administering the common school, 
wrangling with the Four-and-Twenty, or Select Vestry, of the 
Parish as to the choice of a clergyman, and successfully 
insisting, by threatening to withdraw the stipend, upon the 
appointment of an Englishman and no Scot ; 2 supporting, by 
fair means or foul, their own candidates for the representation 
of the County ; 3 expelling members of their own body for 
misbehaviour, and disfranchising Freemen who dared to dis- 
pute their will. 4 But this autocracy was tempered through- 
out by a good-natured sympathy with popular amusements. 
" Jolly men," it was said, " were the authorities of the town 
in these days, and diligent in seizing on public events as 
occasions for indulgence in drinking, feasting, and uproarious 
enjoyment ; . . . they had one unvarying creed : whoever was 
king, and whatever occurred, they must be jolly. Though 
modest in amount at first, these indulgences reached a pitch of 
extravagance towards the middle of the eighteenth century." " 
Horse-racing, bull-baiting, 6 the music of the Town Waits, 

apprenticed to Freemen, in order to gain admission ; and it was ordered " that 
forever hereafter no man shall take an apprentice unless the said apprentice 
serve his master in his own house in the Town for five years " (MS. Book of Orders, 
Corporation of Alnwick, 25th April 1695 ; see also Orders of 22nd February and 
25th April 1698, 21st November 1699, and 25th April 1705). 

1 ' ' Whereas there hath a great difference happened between the Free Tailors 
of this Borough and the Great Brethren of that trade, for the determining of 
which, according to the ancient custom of this town, the Free Tailors have 
appealed to the Chamberlains and Four-and-Twenty, who upon a full hearing of 
the Free Tailors and the Great Brethren, . . . ordered . . . that the box, 
orders, and other writings belonging to the said Company of Tailors be forthwith 
delivered to the Free Tailors, and shall from henceforth be ever kept by the 
Freemen and their successors" (ibid. 2nd October 1691). 

2 Ibid. 12th September 1660, 29th September 1697, and 8th August 1722. 
It adds to the difficulty of understanding the government of Alnwick, that there 
was from at any rate 1693, and probably for a century earlier, a "Four-and- 
Twenty of the Parish," which we have described as a Select Vestry (The Parish 
and the County, 1906, pp. 179-181), quite distinct from the Four-and-Twenty 
of the Borough ; and that it was nevertheless the latter body which provided 
the salary of the clergyman, and chose both him and the Parish Clerk and 
Sexton. 

3 MS. Book of Orders, Corporation of Alnwick, 4th February 1748 ; History 
of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, vol. i. p. 474. 

4 MS. Book of Orders, Corporation of Alnwick, 18th June 1700. 
6 History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, vol. i. p. 321. 

c The Alnwick bull-baiting was renowned. " When a bull was baited, the 
Market Place was crowded with spectators thousands were sometimes there ; 
and such exhibitions were not infrequent ; towards the close of last century as 



MANOR AND GILD 195 

who were perpetually parading the Borough in yellow plush 
breeches, blue coats, and gold lace, and above all, the annual 
carnival on St. Mark's Day, when the boundaries were ridden, 
and the curious ceremony of the admission of young Freemen 
by their " leaping the well " 1 was performed, were all provided 
for the entertainment of the inhabitants at the expense of the 
Borough funds. If the Chamberlains and the other " Gentlemen 
of the Four-and-Twenty " brightened their wits at the tavern 
almost every Thursday at the public expense, 2 they were 
certainly not niggardly in their provision of popular amuse- 
ments. And they were, at any rate, stalwart guardians of the 
independence of the Borough and the rights of the Freemen, 
perpetually stretching these to the utmost possible point. 

But an evil day was at hand for the independence of 
the Borough of Alnwick. In 1749 Sir Hugh Smithson, 

many as seven bulls were baited in the course of one winter. . . . The rope by 
which the bull was fastened to the ring was tied around the root of the horns, 
and was about fifteen feet long, and dog after dog was let loose upon htm and 
endeavoured to tear his flesh, till, maddened with rage, he sought to gore his 
aggressor or toss him into the air. Sporting men then kept and trained bull-dogs 
and gloried in their achievements, and the masters were careful and watchful 
of them while engaged in the fight ; and if any was likely to fall exhausted 
before the power of the bull, the master would rush forward, and drag the dog 
away all foaming at the mouth, and covered with sweat and blood, and plunge 
him into the cool water of St. Michael's Trough ; and then, refreshed it may 
be with the bath, back he ivould be brought to try again his prowess with the 
bull. Sport this may have been to vitiated tastes ; but cruel sport it was to 
the bull, and to many of the dogs it was death. On October 25th, 1773, a bull 
was baited in Alnwick, and treated with such brutal wantonness that he lay 
down and expired. On November llth, 1783, another was so baited, that 
enraged he threw down two tradesmen, one of whom had his leg broken, and the 
other received a severe wound in the head. One bull broke loose and galloped 
wildly through the streets, tossing dogs lifeless into the air, and trampling down 
those blocking his way. ... I recollect the two last bull-baitings in Alnwick. 
Though a miserable, it was an exciting scene ; the market was crowded with 
women as well as men ; they were clustered in the windows, on the cross, on the 
Town Hall stairs, and on the Shambles. I still seem to hear the loud 
bellowings of the bull, the deep barkings of the dogs, the shoutings of the men, 
mingled with the shrieking of the women, as the crowd swayed to and fro with 
the changing fortunes of the fight" (History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 
1866-1869, vol. i. p. 432). 

1 For contemporary notices of this somewhat ridiculous ceremony, which was 
made the occasion for a popular festival, see Report of Historical Manuscripts 
Commission on the Portland MSS., vol. vi. p. 108 ; Gentleman's Magazine, 
February 1756, vol. xxvi. p. 73 ; Journal of John Wesley, 25th May 1753 ; 
Observations on Popular Antiquities, by John Brand, vol. i. p. 240 of 1841 
edition; The Provincial Souvenir, by W. W. Fyfe, 1845; and History of 
. . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1866-1869, vol. ii. pp. 241, 251. 

2 Thirty meetings are expressly mentioned in 1771, with tavern expenses 
(ibid. vol. ii. p. 266). 



196 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

inheriting through his marriage the north -country estates of 
the Percies, and becoming Earl (and presently Duke) of 
Northumberland, fixed on Alnwick Castle as his residence. 
Combining the business habits of a successful London doctor 
with an overweening sense of the importance of the Percies, 
he started to define and enforce his powers as Lord of the 
Manor. We need not enter into the intricacies of the nine 
years' litigation that followed, when semi-mythical Charters 
were invoked against casual inquisitions by County Juries ; 
ancient customs pleaded in opposition to feudal rights, and 
the arbitrary usurpations of one of the parties balanced 
against the mean encroachments of the other. 1 But the 
Four-and-Twenty, with their scanty store of Town's Stock, 
were no match for the great nobleman's unlimited resources 
in money and patronage. As might have been expected, he 
soon found agents, even among the Four -and -Twenty, for 
securing his will. A compromise became inevitable, and 
"Articles of Agreement" were made in 1762 between the 
Lord on the one hand and the Common Council on the other. 
It is characteristic of the eighteenth century that both the 
Municipal Constitution of the Borough and the property rights 
of the Freemen were settled by these Articles for more than 
a century, without any decision either of the Legislature or 
of the judicial tribunals on the subject. Broadly speaking, 
the then existing Constitution was confirmed. 2 The close 
body of the Four-and-Twenty was to continue to govern the 
Borough without the intervention of the Freemen. In 
return, the Four-and-Twenty had to admit that the Earl of 
Northumberland was, in the fullest sense, Lord of the Borough 
and Manor. His Bailiff, though not necessarily one of the 
Four-and-Twenty, was to be the titular head of the Borough. 
The soil and the " royalties " of the whole Borough, and of 
the Forest of Aydon, which the Burgesses called the Town 
Moor, were acknowledged to be vested in the Earl, the rights 
of the Freemen over the Moor being definitely limited to 
certain specified uses. It followed that no part of this 

1 History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, 1866-1869, vol. ii. pp. 288-293. 

2 The principal constitutional alteration was that, instead of four only, eight 
persons were annually to be presented for Chamberlains, of whom the Steward 
chose four. 



MANOR AND GILD 197 

extensive area could thenceforth be enclosed or improved 
without his consent. 

What remains of the history of the Borough of Alnwick 
is not exhilarating reading. For a few more decades the 
" Gentlemen of the Four-and-Twenty " persist in their attempt 
to develop the Municipal revenue, but they find themselves 
perpetually thwarted in any proposals of inclosure by the 
Lord's insistence on the lion's share of the advantage to be 
gained. Meanwhile, partly, it is said, at the instigation of 
the Lord's agents, 1 the Freemen once more strove to recover 
their control over the Borough affairs. From 1780 onwards 
we see the Four-and-Twenty repeatedly assailed by the dis- 
contented townsfolk. 2 For the last quarter of the eighteenth 
and first two decades of the nineteenth centuries, there raged 
in the little town a war of pamphlets and excited controversy 
for and against the autocratic rule of the Four-and-Twenty. 
This eventually led to years of tumult and litigation, from 
which the Close Body in 1819 emerged triumphant. 3 But 
in the contest its spirit had been broken ; and though it 
triumphed over the Freemen (whose ancient monopoly of 
trade had gradually become unenforceable and disused), it 
found itself definitely in a position of subserviency to the 
Lord of Alnwick. From this time forward, far from claiming 
to be the government of the Borough, the members of the 
Common Council welcomed every occasion of abandoning 

1 "About three years ago," it was said in 1781, "several of the Freemen 
were sent for in a private manner at different times by some agents of the Duke 
to a certain public-house, and their minds were poisoned with artful insinua- 
tions, and alarmed with apprehensions as to their rights and privileges " (Seven 
Letters to the Freemen of Alnwick, by an Old Craftsman, 1782, Letter III.). This 
able pamphlet was written by the Clerk of the Corporation, and paid for by it 
(History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, vol. ii. p. 299). 

2 Apart from accusations of secrecy and irresponsibility, with some occa- 
sional extravagance, we gather that the differences between the Four-and- 
Twenty and the rank and file of the Freemen turned on the policy to be pursued 
with the Town Moor. The Four-and-Twenty wished to effect permanent im- 
provements, even at the cost of some immediate sacrifice of income, and to spend 
a part of the income on public objects needed by the Borough as a whole. The 
rank and file of Freemen resented anything that curtailed the present use of the 
Moor by themselves, and they objected to any expenditure, whether on the 
improvement of their property for the future or on objects of public utility, which 
diminished the sum to be divided in the current year. We shall describe 
subsequently the calamitous results of a similar attitude of the Freemen of 
Berwick-on-Tweed (see Chap. IX.). 

3 History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, vol. ii. pp. 296-305. 



198 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

public obligation and public authority. In 1822, with the 
help of their patron, they got passed a Local Act, throwing 
upon the rates various services formerly paid for out of the 
Town's Stock, and incidentally establishing a body of Street 
Commissioners, 1 which became the effective governing authority 
of the Borough. When in 1833 the Municipal Corporation 
Commissioners came to Alnwick, the Four-and-Twenty and 
their officers loudly protested that they were not a Municipal 
Corporation at all. With their enthusiastic approval the 
Duke of Northumberland managed, in spite of the fact that 
Alnwick was now a crowded town of nearly 7000 inhabitants, 
to get it struck out of the schedule of Boroughs to which the 
Municipal Corporations Act applied. 2 The statutory body of 
Street Commissioners accordingly went on ruling the town, 
and levying rates for services once performed by the ancient 
Corporation. 8 In 1854, after fourteen years' renewed agita- 
tion, the long dispute with the Duke as to his rights in the 
Town Moor was brought to an end by an Inclosure award, 
which conceded to him, in compensation for his purely 
honorific rights as Lord, no less than 237 acres as his own 
unincumbered freehold, and vested the remainder, discharged 
from any pasturage rights, in trust for the Freemen and their 
widows. 4 The final stage in the century-long process of 
disfranchisement of the ancient Corporation of Alnwick was 
reached in a Parliamentary committee room in 1882. Here 
the ignorance of the Legislature and the indifference of the 
Government Departments concerned, permitted, in direct con- 
tradiction of the recommendation of the Municipal Corporation 
Commission of 1876-1880, the passage into law of a Bill 5 
which converted the Corporation into nothing but the trustee 

1 3 George IV. c. 27 (Alnwick Paving Act, 1822). The population had 
grown in 1821 to 5927. 

2 History of . . . Alnwick, by G. Tate, vol. ii. pp. 305-307. 

3 This body of Street Commissioners was eventually merged in an Urban 
District Council, established as a Local Board in 1850 under the Public Health 
Acts. The Municipal Corporation Commission of 1876-1880 recommended the 
incorporation of Alnwick as an ordinary Municipal Borough, but this course 
has not been adopted. On the contrary, the Municipal Corporations Act, 1883 
(46 and 47 Viet. c. 18, sec. 19), expressly exempted it. 

4 Award of 27th February 1854, confirmed by the Inclosure Commissioners, 
2nd March 1854 ; for the preceding agitation, see History of . . . Alnwick, by 
G. Tate, vol. ii. pp. 307-315. 

6 45 and 46 Viet. c. 23 (Aluwick Corporation Act, 1882). 



MANOR AND GILD 199 

of a group of property owners, and finally transformed what 
had once been the Corporate inheritance of the town into 
the private freehold, subject only to devoting 500 a year 
to keep up the Freemen's School, of the existing Freemen, 
with their widows and descendants. 1 

1 The County of Northumberland had a number of other towns which 
claimed to be " Boroughs by prescription," and may at one time have possessed 
some of the characteristics of Manorial Boroughs. The principal were Hexham, 
Haltwhistle, Mitford, Corbridge, Alnmouth, Bamburgh, and Warkworth, some 
of which had had old Seignorial Charters. Practically no remnant of Municipal 
structure remained in 1689 in any of them, except Hexham, which still had its 
four Craft Gilds or Trade Companies, each electing annually its Alderman and 
other officers, like those of Alnwick and Morpeth. The Borough was divided 
into four "Wards, from each of which six members were taken to form a ' ' Four-and- 
Twenty " remarkably like the Fellowships of Braintree and Lewes respectively 
which greatly declined towards the close of the seventeenth century, up to 
which time it had been levying rates, and (in conjunction with the Bailiff, 
Constables, the Companies, and the Lord's Court) governing the Borough. The 
Bailiff, the former Seneschal of the Archbishop for the Palatine Liberty of 
Hexhamshire, was appointed by the Lord for life, and continued during the 
eighteenth century to be the principal authority in the Borough. At the Hier- 
archy of Courts which he held for the Manor of the whole Liberty, and especially 
at the Court for the Borough of Hexham, a whole array of officers were ap- 
pointed, usually one for each of the four Wards, including Constables, Market- 
keepers, Appraisers and Sealers, Ale-tasters, Surveyors of Highways, Pounders, 
Townherds, Waits, and Scavengers. The Steward held twice a year a Court of 
Record, styling itself Court of Pleas, claiming power to try all civil actions 
without limit, which is mentioned in the House of Commons Returns of Courts 
of Law of 1828 and 1840. There was also a "Side Court," or Court Baron, 
held before the Bailiff quarterly, or oftener if required, for petty debt cases. 
But the Courts and Companies of Hexham rapidly faded into insignificance 
during the eighteenth century, until there was little more than the survival of 
ancient titles to distinguish it from a mere parochial and Manorial administra- 
tion. It was not inquired into by the Municipal Corporation Commissions of 
1835 or 1880, any more than the other extinct Northumbrian Boroughs, and to 
this day it has no more than an Urban District Council (An Essay towards a 
Histoi'y of Hexham, by A. B. Wright, 1823 ; Historical . . . View of Northumber- 
land, by E. Mackenzie, 1825, vol. ii. pp. 267-284 ; Northumberland County His- 
tory, vol. iii., 1896, by A. B. Hinds, pp. 20-104, 254-295). 

In the ancient City of Durham we have a Manorial Borough exhibiting some 
of the peculiarities of Alnwick. We have the same curious intermingling of 
Manor and Gild, the same independent existence of Craft Gilds or Trade Com- 
panies, and the same practical supersession of seignorial authority by a popular 
body. But at Durham the evolution had been registered by successive Charters 
of the Bishop, whose power as Lord of the Manor was merged in his authority 
as Palatine Lord, which enabled him to create recognised Municipal Corpora- 
tions. The last of these Charters established in 1780 a Council of twelve Alder- 
men and twenty-four Common Councillors, annually electing one of the Aldermen 
to be Mayor for the year. The Aldermen served for life, vacancies being filled 
by the Council as a whole. The Common Councillors, on the other hand, were 
to be chosen annually by the Mayor and Aldermen from among the twelve Com- 
panies, two from each. The Companies had their own several administrations, 
annually electing officers to enforce the By-laws, which were in 1728 formally 
revised and re-enacted by the Corporation as a whole. None were permitted to 



200 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

(g) Arrested Development and Decay 

To present any accurate summary of this long series of 
pseudo-municipal authorities is no easy task. We find them, 
as has been shown, all over England ; from Northumberland 

trade unless free of one or other of these Companies. Those entitled, to become 
Freemen had to be proposed at three successive quarterly Courts of the Corporation, 
and to be approved by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors. All this rigidity 
and exclusiveness, upheld in the Court of King's Bench in 1756 (Green v. Mayor, 
etc., of Durham, Reports of Cases, etc., by Sir J. Burrow, vol. i. p. 127), broke 
down in 1761 under the temptation to create new Parliamentary electors ; when 
we gather that all trade restrictions ceased to be enforced. The Bishop had 
even ceded to the Corporation in 1602 his right to hold the Manorial Courts in 
that part of the Borough which was in his own Manor ; and what was called the 
Court Leet, View of Frankpledge, and Court Baron of the Borough, was regularly 
held at the Gildhall twice a year, when all the Burgesses had to answer to their 
names, some minor Manorial business was formally transacted, and petty debt 
cases were tried the Town-Clerk, and not any Manorial officer, issuing the 
summonses and taking the fees. The administration of the market and the 
revenue from tolls had equally passed into the hands of the Borough authorities. 
The Bishop even included the Mayor for the year, together with the Mayors of 
his other Manorial Boroughs of Stockton and Hartlepool, in the Commission of 
the Peace for the County, and appointed him one of the Judges of the Court of 
Pleas. 

Local Acts had been obtained in 1790 (30 George III. c. 67) and 1822 (3 
George IV. c. 26) establishing a body of Street Commissioners, of which the 
Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors were members ex officio. 

We were informed that no minutes or other records of the Corporation exist 
of a date prior to 1835, or indeed prior to the present generation. See the 
First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iii. 
pp. 1511-1512 ; History and Antiquities of Durham, by W. Hutchinson, 1787, 
vol. ii. pp. 13-36 ; General View of the Agriculture of Durham, by J. Granger, 
1794, p. 9 ; Historical and Descriptive View of the City of Durham, 1824, pp. 
63-80 ; Historical . . . View of Durham, by E. Mackenzie and M. Ross, 1834, 
vol. ii. pp. 419-427 ; History of Durham, by R. Surtees, vol. iv. 1840, pp. 
72-78 ; Extracts from the Halmote Court of the Prior of Durham, 1296-1384 
(Surtees Society, vol. Ixxxii., 1889) ; Memorials of St. Giles, Durham (ibid. vol. 
xcv., 1896) ; The County Palatine of Durham, by G. T. Lapsley, 1900 ; Victoria 
County History of Durham, by the same, vol. i., 1905, pp. 306-309. 

The Bishop of Durham, as Lord Palatine, created other Boroughs, such as 
Barnard Castle, Darlington, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Northallerton (in Yorkshire), 
Stockton, and Sunderland, which seem to have had the characteristics of what 
we term Manorial Boroughs, none of them having their own Corporate Magis- 
tracy, and all of them being connected in some way with the Lord's Court. In 
Barnard Castle, Darlington, and Northallerton, practically no remnant of Muni- 
cipal organisation survived to 1689, the government during the eighteenth 
century being purely Manorial and parochial. Darlington was made a Municipal 
Corporation in 1867 ; the other two have still only Urban District Councils. 
In Sunderland a new Charter of 1634 was allowed to lapse, and though the 
"Capital Burgesses" and " Stalliugers " continued to exist, and to maintain 
rights of common on the Town Moor (Hicks v. Clark, 1722, in Reports of Cases, 
etc., by Sir C. Levinz, vol. ii. p. 252), the government of the Borough was carried 
on by the Lord's Court, with its Bailiff, and (from 1717) by the Harbour Com- 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DEC A Y 201 

to Cornwall, from Lancashire to Kent ; on the borders of 
Wales, amid the fens of the Eastern counties, and in the heart 
of the Midlands. In respect of their number and of the area 
of their jurisdiction, these Manorial Boroughs stand, as a class, 
midway between the thousands of active Lords' Courts and the 

missioners under a series of Local Acts. In Gateshead, where there were even 
separately incorporated Craft Gilds or Trade Companies chartered between 1557 
and 1671, analogous to those of Durham, the Borough organisation had been 
crushed by the jealousy of Newcastle-on-Tyne, to which it was actually annexed 
in 1553 by the short-lived statute 7 Edward VI. No. 10. When this was re- 
pealed the Bishop leased the Manor and its Courts, the Borough Tolls, and the 
valuable " Salt meadows," in such a way that these all fell into the hands of the 
Corporation of Newcastle. The last Bailiff was appointed in 1681. Between 
1626 and 1740 there were four " Wainmen " appointed to collect a small toll on 
loaded waggons, but this was resisted in 1740 and abandoned. Nothing re- 
mained to the Burgesses or burgage owners of Gateshead but their rights of 
common, the only local officers being the two Stewards and the four Grassmen 
whom, from 1695 onwards, they annually appointed in public meeting ; the 
Reeve and Hayward of the purely Manorial Halmote Court held by the lessee of 
the Manor ; and the parochial officers appointed by the Close Vestry of the 
Four-and-Twenty that we have already described. Hartlepool and Stockton 
were more fortunate in having " Mayors " whom the Bishop could include in the 
Commission of the Peace for the County, and appoint to be Judges in his Court 
of Pleas. At Stockton, indeed, the Burgesses or burgage owners elected the 
Mayor annually, though this had to be done at the Bishop's Court Leet ; and 
the Steward of the Bishop acted as Recorder, and sat with the Mayor at the 
other Manorial Courts of the year. Ex- mayors were styled Aldermen, but seem 
to have had no powers or duties. There was a Town's Serjeant, who was appointed 
Constable, and walked in procession before the Mayor "in a large wrapping 
cloak trimmed with lace." Stockton, Sunderland, and Gateshead were accepted 
as Municipal Corporations in 1835, and made such and duly reformed by the 
Act of that year. Hartlepool was not so accapted, and was only incorporated in 
1851. See History and Antiquities of Durham, by "W. Hutchinson, 1794 ; 
History of Durham, by R. Surtees, 1816-1840 ; Historical . . . View of 
Durham, by E. Mackenzie and M. Ross, 1834 ; History and Antiquities of 
Durham, by W. Fordyce, 1857 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1835 ; Antiquities of Gainford . . . comprising the . . . history 
of . . . Barnard Castle, by J. R. Walbran, 1846 ; History and Antiquities of 
the Parish of Darlington, by W. H. D. Longstaffe, 1854 ; paper by the same on 
" The Trade Companies of Gateshead " in Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xiii. 1862 ; 
Memorials of the Life of Mr. Ambrose Barnes (Surtees Society, 1866) ; History 
of Hartlepool, by Sir Cuthbert Sharp, 1851 ; History and Antiquities of North- 
allerton, by C. J. D. Ingledew, 1858 ; History of Northallerton, by J. L. 
Say well, 1885 ; Parochial History and Antiquities of Stockton-on-Tees, by J. 
Drewster, 1796 and 1829 ; Historical View of Monkwearmouth . . . and . . . 
Sunderland, by George Garbutt, 1819 ; History of Sunderland, by J. Burnett, 
1830 ; History and Antiquities of Sunderland, by J. W. Summers, 1858 ; Sunder- 
land, by T. Potts, 1892. 

Sheffield already in 1689 a town of several thousands of people, and destined 
to reach, by 1835, a population of nearly 80,000 presents us with a remarkable 
example of unco-ordinated local jurisdictions. This Manorial Borough had a 
very early Seignorial Charter analogous to those of Manchester and Stockport ; 
yet it resembles Beccles in getting also a Royal Charter in Elizabethan times ; 
Wisbech in its government by the Freeholders ; Tetbury in its connection with 



202 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

couple of hundred of Municipal Corporations, in the Cities and 
Boroughs that were entitled to create their own Justices of 
the Peace. In diversity and complexity of constitution these 
Manorial Boroughs occupy a similar intermediate position. 
What is remarkable is the almost fantastically minute gradua- 

trust property, and Alnwick both in its relations with the Lord of the Manor 
and in the interpolation of a Gild. At Sheffield, however, all the various 
jurisdictions remained distinct. In 1297 the Lord Furnival conceded by 
Charter to his "free tenants" of Sheffield, that they should hold in fee farm, 
on payment of a small annual sum, all the lands they had hitherto held of him 
upon other obligations. Whether from this origin or from older date, we find 
various pieces of land in the town owned and administered by what was called 
the "Common Burgery" of Sheffield, meaning, apparently, public meetings of 
Freeholders or " Burgesses" electing a "Town Collector." A Royal Charter of 
1554 established a second body, the "Twelve Capital Burgesses and Commonalty 
of the Town and Parish of Sheffield," a close council of twelve, renewing itself 
by co-option, to administer certain property which had been forfeited under 
Edward VI. as being for superstitious uses, and which was then restored. The 
Capital Burgesses and the Common Burgery, though distinct in their origin, 
their membership, their property, and the purposes to which this was devoted, 
were apparently long closely connected. They even used the same seal. The 
Capital Burgesses were in effect, we are told, a self-elect "Court of Aldermen." 
They remained, however, a distinct Corporation, and came more and more to 
regard themselves as an ecclesiastical body, having as their primary duty the 
repair of the parish church and the provision of stipends for three clergymen. 
Accordingly they were eventually often styled the "Church Burgesses." But 
they always devoted part of their income to relieving the poor and repairing 
bridges and highways. There was a third Corporate body, the Cutlers' Com- 
pany, under Act of Parliament of 1624, empowered not only to make regulations 
for the trade of cutlery, but to enforce such regulations over the whole of 
Hallamshire. Meanwhile the Duke of Norfolk, as Lord of the Manor, continued 
not only to administer the market and to take the other profits of the Manor, 
but also to hold both a six-monthly "Court Leet, Grand Court Baron, and 
Court of the Honour or Assembly Inquest," called briefly the " Sembly Court " 
and regular Three Weeks' Courts for petty debt cases. " Upon every 
Sembly Tuesday," we read in 1637, "is assembled upon Sembly Green, where 
the Court is kept, ... at least 139 horsemen with horse and harness provided 
by the . . . tenants to appear before the Lord of the Manor." The Common 
Burgery, as the Freeholders of the Manor, or the Homage, retained, notwith- 
standing their separate organisation, also a close connection with the Lords' 
Courts. Their accounts, from 1567 onwards, show that they paid for the 
dinner and the writing out of the lengthy presentments of the "Jury of the 
Sembly Quest," which was probably (as at Alnwick), composed exclusively of 
their members. The Jury appointed two Constables, two Searchers of Flesh, 
Fish, Bread, and Ale, two officers to compel all butter and eggs to be sold only 
in the market, two others to do the same for corn, six Overseers for mending 
Highways, four Searchers and Sealers of Leather, three officers to protect the 
town wells from pollution, two persons to see that swine were ringed, and four 
more to collect the Swineherd's wages. The Jury also made By-laws and dealt 
with nuisances. During the seventeenth century (as at Tetbury), Commissioners 
inquired into the administration of the trust property, and a decree was made 
in 1681 vesting the property of the Common Burgery in thirteen persons, 
vacancies among whom were (unlike Tetbury) to be filled by election of the 
" iuhabitauts," by which (as was eventually settled in 1817) was to be under- 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DECA Y 203 

tion of the steps by which the different members of the series 
pass one into another. There is, as Miss Bateson pointed 
out, " every gradation from a subjection only very slightly t 
modified by privilege to a complete system of burghal self- 
government." l If a single highly evolved organisation had, 
at all the various stages of its development from the Lord's 
Court of a rural Manor right up to the most fully 
developed Municipal Corporation, been successively photo- 
graphed for the information of future generations, these different 
pictures could hardly have represented the several stages more 
strikingly than do the hundreds of distinct local authorities 
simultaneously existing in the eighteenth century. We seem 
to see crystallised before us at various stages organisms that 
were proceeding along two converging lines of development. 
As compared with the subordination to the Lord and his 
officers, which is the mark of the Lord's Court, both series 

stood freeholders. In the eighteenth century one of these ' ' Town Trustees " 
was called "Town Regent" or "Town Collector," and the others were known 
as Assistants. Occasional "Town's Meetings" of Freeholders were held to 
choose a Collector, to elect new Assistants to fill vacancies, to appoint a Town 
Clerk (in 1707), and, now and again, to pass some resolution as to the property. 
These meetings seem to have been attended only by between ten and a hundred 
persons. There was a Beadle ; there were Town Waits ; there were presently 
Town Scavengers. 

Exactly how the functions of government were, divided among these four 
distinct authorities (in addition to the Parish Vestry and its Poor Law and 
Highway Officers) varied from generation to generation. What is remarkable 
is that they all remained in full and separate activity right down to 1835, and, 
it may almost be said, down to the present day. A Local Act in 1818 
established a fifth authority, a body of Street Commissioners, and relieved the 
Burgery of its obligations in cleaning, lighting, and watching the streets. 
Another Local Act of 1827 regulated the procedure of the Burgery, and com- 
pelled publication of its accounts. A Charter established, as a sixth authority, 
an ordinary Municipal Corporation in 1843, which presently absorbed the 
Street Commissioners, but left all the other jurisdictions unimpaired. For 
Sheffield, we have not seen the MS. records, which have been fully extracted 
in Records of the Burgery of Sheffield, by J. D. Leader, 1897 ; see also Add. 
MSS. 27,538 in British Museum, as to the negotiations with the Lord of the 
Manor, 1719-1727 ; Hallamshire, by J. Hunter, 1st edition, 1819, 2nd edition, 
1869 ; New and Complete History of the County of York, by T. Allen, 1828-1831, 
vol. iii. ; The Picture of Sheffield, 1824 ; various papers in Associated Architectural 
Societies' Reports and Papers, vols. xii. and xiii., 1874-1876; Yorkshire Past 
and Present, by T. Baines, vol. ii., 1877; Extracts from the Earliest Book of 
Accounts belonging to the Town Trustees of Sheffield, by J. D. Leader, 1879 ; 
Chapters in the History of Sheffield, 1832-1849, by J. Parker, 1884 ; Character- 
istics of some Inhabitants of Sheffield at the close of the Eighteenth Century, by 
W. Smith, 1889 ; Old Sheffield Jottings, by J. D. Leader, 1891 ; The House of 
Waltheof, by S. 0. Addy, 1893 ; Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century, by 
R. E. Leader, 1901. 

1 Medieval England, by Mary Bateson, 1903, p. 395. 



204 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

exhibit an ever-growing autonomy. Both series exhibit also a 
steady increase in extra-manorial or pseudo-municipal structure, 
especially in the form of a standing administrative organisation 
existing between the meetings of the Courts. In one set of 
cases autonomy seems to precede the growth of structure ; in 
the other set of cases, the growth of new structure antedates any 
kind of autonomy. Thus, at Chipping Sodbury we see the begin- 
ning of a partial autonomy in the right conceded to the Jury of 
the Lord's Court to present three persons for the appointment 
of one of them by the Steward to be head of the town, with the 
correlative right of this head, whether called Bailiff, Portreeve, 
or Mayor, to select the Jury for the following year. Even 
Birmingham in 1800, for all its importance and magnitude, is 
constitutionally to be distinguished from a Lord's Court only 
by the fact that, somehow or another, the Bailiffs had come to 

* choose the Jury and the Jury to elect the Bailiffs, independently 
of the will of the Lord or his Steward. 1 At Gosport and 
Clun, where exactly the same arrangement prevailed within 
the Lord's Court, the Bailiffs held also a separate Court for 
the settlement of civil actions among the inhabitants. At 
Alresford this separate Court had been expressly granted by 
Seignorial Charter, along with the Fairs and Markets, the 
Court of Pie Powder, and a great deal of Leet jurisdiction, 
though the Lord still held his View of Frankpledge or Lawday. 
Finally, at Tetbury, where the sixteenth-century constitution 
was almost identical with that of Birmingham in 1800, we 
may actually watch the development in the course of the 
seventeenth century of a Bicameral Close Body, strangely 
similar to that of many Municipal Corporations, entirely 
replacing the Lord of the Manor, and concentrating in itself 
the whole of the Manorial powers. We may trace a similar 

growth of autonomy, leading to a development of new structure, 

1 We may see something like local autonomy conceded even with regard to 
the appointment, not only of the Bailiff, but even of the Steward of the Court. 
In the Privy Council in 1676, "a report from Attorney General, about appoint- 
ing a Steward to hold a Leet on Whitmonday yearly at Kingsborough, within 
the Isle of Sheppey, as also a certificate under the hands of the most substantial 
inhabitants, principal land occupiers, and ancient jurymen of the Court called 
Kingsborough . . . representing P. T. , gentleman, as a fit person to be Steward 
of the said Court, was read. Ordered that the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
determine as to the fitness of P. T., and pass a grant under the seal of the 
Exchequer under such small rent as he shall think fit " (MS. Acts of Privy 
Council, 17th May 1676). 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DEC A Y 205 

in a series of cases in which the Lord of the Manor had either 
been non-existent, or had let his powers fall into abeyance. 
From such mere village communities as Berwick in Sussex, 
and Aston and Cote in Oxfordshire, we ascend by examples 
like Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, to such Chartered autonomous 
townships as Beccles and Wisbech, the powers of which are 
indistinguishable from those of a Municipal Corporation except 
for their inability to create their own Justices of the Peace. 
On the other hand, a different series begins with Holy Island, 
with its standing " Four-and-Twenty," existing by virtue of 
tenure, and yet in attendance as a Jury at the Lord's Court. 
We might adduce scores of interesting variations dependent 
upon the ownership of certain ancient burgage tenements, 
developing into self-renewing " Common Councils," with more 
or less connection with the Jury of the Lord's Court, and more 
or less the creatures of the Lord's Steward. 1 More interesting 
is it to trace the series through Lewes, with its " Company of 
the Twelve " of unknown origin ; and Arundel, with its 
" Fellowship " gradually taking on all the paraphernalia of 
Municipal pomp, but still revolving round the Lord's Court ; 
up to Christchurch, where the connection with the Lord of the 
Manor had by 1689 become shadowy; and Lymington, elect- 
ing its own member of Parliament, and virtually identical with 
the common type of Municipal Corporation, but for the lack 
of Corporate Justices. Elsewhere we may see the new 
structure beginning, not with any development of the Homage 
Jury, but with a glorification of the Eeeve and Headboroughs 
into a Mayor and Aldermen, 2 at first combined, as at Wotton 
and Berkeley, or as at Altrincham, with complete subordination 
to the Lord. This may be carried a stage farther, with growing 
autonomy, in instances such as Chipping Campden and Stock- 
port. Finally, in Godmanchester and Blandford Forum, with 
Eoyal Charters, we have this type of Manorial Borough attaining 
complete emancipation from any Lord, and wielding all the 
Manorial powers, but not those of Justices of the Peace. In one 

1 Thus at Clitheroe, in Lancashire, it is the two Bailiffs and " the Inquiry 
Jury " which acts as a permanent Common Council ; vacancies on the " Inquiry 
Jury" being filled by co-option from among the "Freemen," that is, those 
occupiers of "Free Borough Houses" who have been duly "presented" as 
Freemen by the "Inquiry Jury" in the Borough Court (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. p. 1485 ; and supra, pp. 48, 
156). 2 Or elsewhere Portreeve or Bailiffs, 



206 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

small group of Manorial Boroughs, concentrated in Northumber- 
land and Durham, we may even see this progressive autonomy 
and growth of extra-manorial structure associated with a con- 
stit utional development peculiarly typical of the most advanced 
of the Municipal Corporations, namely, a body of Freemen, 
recruited by apprenticeship to Freemen, and organised in Gilds 
or Trade Companies for the regulation of their several crafts. 1 
It is a curious paradox, significant of the way in which the 
Manorial Borough runs into the Municipal Corporation, that 
one town, Morpeth, merely because it happens to have assumed 
the power of creating its own Corporate Justices, has to be 
omitted altogether from the class of Manorial Boroughs ; 
though it was even more dependent on its Lord than Alnwick, 
and was, in fact, the Borough in which the special peculiarities 
of the Northumberland and Durham group of towns were most 
markedly developed. And throughout the Principality of 
Wales the combination of subordination to the Lord, with 
rudimentary Gild structure and the power to create Corporate 
Justices of the Peace, is so frequent, that we have found it 
impracticable to draw any line at all between the different 
Boroughs, which we leave to be described together in a separate 
chapter. 2 

It is interesting to note that, if we may assume the 
Manorial Borough to have arisen out of the Lord's Court, it 
is the Court Baron side, not the Court Leet, which, at any 
rate in the great majority of instances, furnished the oppor- 
tunity and the means of pseudo- municipal development. 8 

1 Apart from the Northumberland and Durham towns, we may almost say 
that apprenticeship, as a method of admission to Borough or Corporation 
privileges, is unknown in the Manorial Boroughs. The burgess-ship or "free- 
ledge " is usually connected with an estate in land ; sometimes, as at Clitheroe 
and Godmanchester, in certain ancient tenements ; sometimes, as at Stockport 
and Wisbech, in any freehold. Very occasionally, as at Alresford and Tetbury, 
it is the whole body of inhabitant householders who are regarded as Burgesses, 
but in these cases the governing authority is always a close body, renewing 
itself by co-option. Only in two or three cases (outside Northumberland and 
Durham) do we find, in a Manorial Borough, any mention of apprenticeship in 
connection with civic rights, and then only (as at Chipping Campden and Berkeley) 
in the form of apprenticeship to any inhabitant householder of the Borough, 
which may be regarded as no more than a method of "gaining a Settlement" 
under the Poor Law, entitling the apprentice eventually only to the rights of a 
settled inhabitant. 

2 See pp. 232-260, Chap. V. "The Boroughs of Wales." 

3 The incident in this connection puzzled a learned lawyer well versed in 
the practice of the Lord's Court. ' ' How the Mayor of a Corporation conies to 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DEC A Y 207 

This applies both to the function of hearing pleas of debt 
and to that of managing the common interests in the land. 
In many cases, as at Chin, Gosport, and Arundel, we find the 
Manorial Borough holding a " Three Weeks' Court," or other 
tribunal for the settlement of disputes, whilst the Lord con- 
tinues to hold his own Court Leet and View of Frankpledge. 
At Alresford we actually see the Lord granting to his " Free 
Borough" the privilege of holding the Court Baron, whilst 
retaining for himself the View of Frankpledge or Lawday. 
At Christchurch and Wisbech there is evidence that the 
nascent Manorial Borough found it desirable to take to itself 
the power of settling disputes among the inhabitants, even 
without definite authority, by establishing a voluntary arbitra- 
tion tribunal. Elsewhere, as at Chipping Campden, the Manorial 
Borough would get a similar jurisdiction conferred upon it by 
Eoyal Charter, under the name of a Court of Eecord, whilst 
leaving unimpaired the Lord's Court Leet. It is only in a 
few cases, such as Tetbury, Clitheroe, and Godmanchester, that 
we find the Manorial Borough attaining to the dignity of 
holding its own Court Leet for the presentment of nuisances 
and amercement of offenders ; and then only as an incident of 
the ownership of the Manor itself. And, corresponding with 
this course of development, we shall see when we come to the 
Municipal Corporation that it was almost invariable that the 
Corporate body should possess what we may call Court Baron 
powers, and hold a civil debt Court, whilst in some instances 
the Court Leet would still be held by an external Lord of the 
Manor. 

The connection of the Manorial Borough with the Court 
Baron, rather than with the Court Leet, is still more clearly 
seen on the property side. Practically all the Manorial 
Boroughs had commons and wastes to manage, even if few 
were in the position of Godmanchester, with its commonfield 
agriculture. It is, in fact, these common rights to landed 
property that gave substance and strength to the embryo 
Corporate body. "Not much is involved," says an able 

be elected in this Court by the burgage-holders, suitors to the Court Baron, is 
a paradox which the editor is unable to solve " (Jurisdiction of the Courts Leet, 
by J. Ritson, 3rd edition, 1816, p. 8). The learned Steward of the Savoy 
could have discovered the explanation in the development of the Manorial 
Borough from the Lord's Court. 



208 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

modern historian, " in being a Free Borough. Any little rural 
township became a Free Borough so soon as its Lord turned 
the holdings of his serfs into burgages, abolished villein 
services, and took money rents instead." l But to convert 
this nominal " Free Borough " into a continuously existing 
Corporate entity, with perpetual succession, what was needed 
in practice was the guardianship and administration of a 
common stock. Professor Maitland tells us in fact, that " the 
evolution of a Borough Corporation is very closely connected 
with . . . the emergence of a freely disposable revenue which 
the Burgesses will treat as the income of the town." 2 This 
common stock might, as at Tetbury, begin in a charitable 
donation. It might, as at Melton Mowbray and Wisbech, 
arise in a co-operative purchase by the inhabitants. But in 
the great bulk of instances the common stock consisted of the 
proceeds of the rights of user of the commons and wastes, or 
even the ownership of lands and tenements at a quit rent. 
" A Corporate personality," observes Professor Maitland, " is 
hardly required until there is a Corporate income " ; and it 
was the agricultural interests administered by the Homage 
Jury of the Lord's Court, not the jurisdiction over the conduct 
of the inhabitants furnished by the Jury of the King, that, as 
at Beccles, provided the earliest Corporate income. And it 
was these interests in land that were often destined to increase 
in value. " A considerable part," in the change from a loose 
aggregate of joint owners to the evolution of a Borough Fund, 
says Professor Maitland, was " played by those leases of waste 
and common land which the community begins to grant in 
answer to an increasing demand for building sites." 

Whether the governing council of a Manorial Borough, 
where such existed, developed out of the Homage Jury, and 
the ownership of ancient burgages ; or out of a Leet Jury of 
resiants perpetuating itself into a Common Council, we watch 
it always tending to become a Close Body, renewing itself by 
co-option. This was, we can now see, constitutionally inevit- 
able. The ownership of rights of common, or of the ancient 

1 A History of Municipal Government in Liverpool to 1835, by Professor 
Ramsay Muir, 1906, p. 15 ; see also History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock 
and F. W. Maitland, 1895, vol. i. p. 640 ; Mediceval Manchester and the Be- 
ginnings of Lancashire, by J. Tait, 1904 p. 62. 

2 Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitland, 1898, p. 204. 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DEC A Y 209 

burgage tenements, was concentrated in a definite section of 
the population, which exhibited no inclination to lessen its 
possessions by admitting new-comers to participation. On the 
contrary, we see the descendants of the original co-owners 
taxing the " foreigner " or " stallinger " by market tolls, fees 
for opening shops, and wharf dues. 1 Even when the governing 
authority of a Manorial Borough had little or no common 
property, and had arisen merely from the absence or in- 
difference of the Lord of the Manor, possibly from the Court 
Leet of resiants, the fact that (as at Birmingham) this Jury 
was summoned by the Bailiffs, and the Bailiffs were chosen by 
the Jury, necessarily created a permanent body into which no 
outsider could force himself. And except in the little group 
of Northumberland and Durham Boroughs, the oligarchy which 
arose out of the Court of the Manor was, in the Manorial 
Boroughs, not widened by the existence of a class of Freemen. 
In many of the Municipal Corporations, as we shall see, it 
was this class of Freemen, into which outsiders were always 
entering by the humble portal of trade apprenticeship, that 
established, and in a few cases preserved to the last, a 
Democracy of craftsmen as the very base of the Corporate 
structure. 

But the Manorial Borough drew from the Court of the 
Manor also the seeds of decay. Its very separation from the 
Lord of the Manor lessened its authority. The fact that it 

1 In the Manorial Boroughs, at any rate, there is no connection to be traced 
(outside Northumberland and Durham) between the exceptional taxation of 
" foreigners " and the maintenance of a monopoly of trading by a Gild or Gilds 
of merchants or craftsmen. Where ' ' foreigners " were required to pay a fee on 
opening a shop (as at Berkeley, Gosport, Godmanchester, etc.), or where 
exceptional tolls were exacted from them in market or on the landing stage, 
this exaction was, in its intention, fiscal and not prohibitory. It represented 
either the claim of those who had entered into obligations (as, for instance, to 
pay a fee farm rent for the Borough) to compel others to contribute, or else 
(where the Borough owned the land in fee simple or the Manorial rights) merely 
the assertion of proprietary rights. It was not that the co-owners were not 
monopolistic ; we find them, in fact, not only eager to exclude from their 
Borough "inmates" or lodgers, and the non-settled poor generally, but also 
perpetually striving to prohibit the assignment of "stints " to foreigners (as at 
Arundel), and even the letting of the freeholder's right to ferry passengers for 
hire (as at Gosport). We find no trace of any particular Craft defending a 
monopoly. In fact, almost the only trace of Municipal craft regulations in 
these Boroughs is that at Alresford, in 1570, the Lord expressly granted to his 
new Borough the power to make orders and regulations amongst artificers, 
though in whose interest it is not clear. 

VOL. II. PT. { ? 



210 THE MANORIAL BOROUGH 

seldom acquired the Court Leet powers, and the growing 
insufficiency of these powers even where it possessed them, 
prevented it from building up the police authority over 
negligent or turbulent citizens, which the growth of an urban 
population required. Moreover, the Homage Jury which had 
made By-laws and levied contributions without question, so 
long as it coincided approximately with all the principal 
inhabitants, lost both these powers when it became a Close 
Body in the midst of a large population excluded from its 
counsels. These Twelves or Four - and - Twenties, these 
" Companies " and " Fellowships " the direct descendants of 
the Homage Jury drew their authority to regulate and tax 
from the ancient principle that a common agreement among 
a majority of the freehold tenants of the Manor was binding 
on the whole of them. This authority could hardly be 
stretched, even by the assumption of the title of Common 
Council, to cover a regulation and taxation of persons quite 
unconnected with the Manor. But perhaps the greatest blow 
to the authority of the Manorial Boroughs as to the Lord's 
Court was the Inclosure Act, which in so many cases trans- 
formed common uses into unrestricted individual ownership, 
and thus made unnecessary any collective administration of 
the land. Finally, in the constant aggrandisement by Acts of 
Parliament of the Justices of the Peace, the Parish Vestry, 
and the new Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes, the 
Manorial Borough found itself progressively superseded in its 
quasi-municipal functions, and tended to revert to the status 
of a mere Lord's Court. 1 Of this reversion the City and 
Borough of Westminster offers the most complete instance ; 

1 In some cases this reversion had taken place before 1689, and the town 
accordingly finds mention in our preceding chapter. Thus, if we had been 
describing Manchester in the fourteenth century, with its Seignorial Charter, 
granting to the Burgesses the right of electing the Boroiighreeve, the privilege 
of deciding civil suits among themselves, and of holding their own Port- 
manmote, we must have included this among our Manorial Boroughs. But 
by the end of the seventeenth century the Manchester Burgesses had for some 
reason lost their autonomy, and the Manorial Borough had become no more than 
a highly evolved specimen of a Lord's Court. Thus, Miss Bateson says that 
"many village groups, Boroughs in little else but name, showed no commercial 
vitality, and became Manors again both in fact and in name, when villainage 
had lost its onerous character. Manchester is a case in point" (Mediccval 
Englaiid, 1066-1350, by Mary Bateson, 1903, p. 395). It thus affords an 
interesting analogy to other cases of reversion, such as the so-called City and 
Borough of Westminster. 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND DEC A Y 211 

one all the more striking, because the Manorial Borough in 
this case was the seat of the National Legislature and the 
home of a swarming urban population ; because it had been 
dignified by the higher title of City ; and because its pseudo- 
municipal structure was of comparatively modern growth, and 
its constitution had been deliberately fortified by the authority 
of an Act of Parliament. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

WE end our survey of Manorial Boroughs by the most anoma- 
lous of them all, the so - called " City and Borough of 
Westminster." l We shall not inquire how it had come about, 
as was subsequently recited, that " the government of the 
Borough of Westminster and the Liberty thereof was, by 
several grants of princes and by immemorial usage, in the 
Abbot and Convent of Westminster, and was in all times 
executed by officers by them appointed and in the Courts to 
them belonging." 2 What seems to have existed, in the early 
part of the reign of Elizabeth, was a highly developed Manorial 
government, of which no actual records have yet been found, 

1 The constitutional history of Westminster appears to have been very 
inadequately investigated by the numerous authors who have dealt with its 
more picturesque features. Besides the abundant MS. Minutes of the Vestries, 
the Paving Commissioners, and the Court of Sewers, elsewhere referred to, the 
student will consult those of the -Court of Burgesses, which exist (imperfectly) 
from 1611 ; the "Act for the Good Government of the City and Borough of 
Westminster," 27 Elizabeth, c. 17 (1585) ; the Orders and Ordinances made 
under it, 1585, 1719, and 1720, reprinted in House of Commons paper, No. 666, 
of 27th June 1853 ; the Acts 29 George II. c. 25 (1756), and 31 George II. c. 17 
(1758) ; A Brief Account of the Powers given to and exercised by the Burgess 
Court of Westminster, by an Inhabitant (n.d., about 1720) ; The Case of the Dean 
and Chapter , . . with regard to the Bill for regulating the Nightly Watch, 
1720 ; A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill for regulating the 
Nightly Watch, 1720 ; Instructions and Orders given in charge by the Deputy 
Steward . . . to the Jury, 1734 ; The Power and Practice of the Court Leet of 
the City and Liberty of Westminster displayed, 1743 (attributed to Sir Matthew 
Hale) ; Observations on the Police or Civil Government of Westminster, by E. 
Sayer, 1784 ; Inquiry into the Nature and Duties of the Office of Inquest Juryman 
. . . also the law for . . . Westminster, by a Citizen (James Newell), 1824 ; 
Report of House of Commons Committee on the State of the Nightly Watch, 
1812 ; ditto, on the State of the Police of the Metropolis, 1816 ; ditto, 1822 ; 
Report of Westminster City Council for 1902-1903. 

2 The Case of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster with respect to the Bill 
for Regulating the Nightly Watch, 1720. 

212 



BURLEIGH'S CONSTITUTION 213 

but which evidently had a High Steward, a Deputy Steward, 
a High Bailiff who exercised within the Liberty all the 
authority of a Sheriff, a High Constable, a Town Clerk, a Clerk 
of the Market, a " Searcher of the Sanctuary," and the " Mayor, 
Society and Clerk of the Staple." * The so-called * City and 
Borough " was at that time divided into twelve Wards, and 
was served by at least two Juries, and a bevy of Scavengers 
and Constables. In the year 1585 the office of High Steward 
happened to be filled by the Queen's principal minister, Lord 
Burleigh, and he seems to have been concerned, as well he 
might be, at the rapid increase of houses ; " the parting and 
dividing of ... tenements " ; the aggregation, around the 
ancient Sanctuary, of people " without trade or mystery . . . 
given to vice and idleness, living in contempt of all manner 
of officers within the said City " ; the wandering of unringed 
hogs on " the common at Tuthill," and even in the streets ; 
the unchecked depositing of dung and filth in all public places, 
and the utter lack of any provision for cleansing or lighting 
the noisome thoroughfares. The powers of the Manorial 
officers to " correct and reform " these abuses being " not 
sufficient in law," Burleigh induced Parliament to reinforce 
them by a statutory enactment. 

(a) Burleigli's Constitution 

The Act of 1585, whilst recognising and implicitly con- 
firming all the existing authorities, established, as part of the 
Manorial constitution, an entirely new Court. This tribunal, 
the Court of Burgesses, consisted of twelve Westminster 
tradesmen two of them designated Chief Burgesses 
appointed for life by the High Steward, with twelve others 
as Assistant Burgesses, appointed by the whole Court. Both 
Burgesses and Assistants were unpaid, and obliged to serve 
for at least one year under penalty of a fine- To each 
Burgess there was committed the entire charge of one Ward, 
it being expressly enacted that he should, with his Assistant, 
" do and deal in everything and things as Aldermen's Deputies 
in the City of London lawfully do or may do." Sitting as 
a Court, the Burgesses were to make " Orders and Ordinances," 
and to " hear, examine, determine, and punish according to 

1 All referred to as already existing in 27 Elizabeth, c. 17 (1585). 



214 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

the laws of this Eealm, or laudable and lawful custom of the 
City of London," certain limited classes of offences" matters 
of incontinences, common scolds, and of inmates, and common 
annoyances " only. The Act was only to continue until the 
end of the next ensuing Parliament. 1 

What Burleigh had in view in this experiment was to 
make some provision for the prevention of nuisances in West- 
minster, without setting up at the gaes of the Eoyal Palace 
any such independent Corporation as the City of London, or 
even as the ordinary Enfranchised Manorial Borough that 
we have described. With this object the appointment of 
the Burgesses was left in the hands of the High Steward, 
without any intermixture of popular election, or even of co- 
option. Neither individually nor as a Court were the 
Burgesses made Justices of the Peace, the full authority of 
the Middlesex magistrates being expressly preserved intact. 
The Burgesses, who were to be "merchants, artificers, or 
persons using any trade of buying or selling," were, in fact, 
given the powers, not of Aldermen of the City of London, but 
of the Aldermen's Deputies only. What these Westminster 
shopkeepers were intended to do, as appears from their first 
"Orders and Ordinances," evidently drawn up under the 
direction of Burleigh himself, 2 was, Ward by Ward, to keep 
a constant supervision over their neighbours, to report to the 
Court the delinquencies of these neighbours in the grievous 
matter of the " harbouring of inmates " ; in the use of un- 
lawful weights and measures, the sale of diseased meat, and 
other market offences ; in the neglect of the householder's 
obligation to pave, cleanse, and light the street opposite his 
frontage ; and in the constant failure of duty of such of them 
as served as Constables and Scavengers. Above all, they 
were peremptorily to put down the wandering hogs, the festering 
dung-heaps, and the manifold other nuisances of the streets. 

We have been unable to explore the early history of this 

1 This Statute, treated as a private Act, "being omitted from the Statute 
Book and very little known" (The Power and Practice of the Court Leet of the, 
City mid Liberty of Westminster displayed, 1743, p. 7), was separately published 
in 1730 and 1806, and included in A Collection of Acts of Parliameid relating 
to the Local Government of . . . Westminster, 1837.' 

2 Orders and Ordinances of 27th May 1585, reprinted in H. C., No. 666, of 
27th June 1853. 



BURLEIGH'S CONSTITUTION 21 

interesting experiment. The Act of 1585 was seven times 
successively renewed for short terms, until, in 1640, it was 
possibly, it seems, by legislative inadvertence made 
permanent. 1 From the scanty records that we have seen, 
we derive the impression of a body of no little activity, 
meeting every Tuesday as a Court of petty police, receiving 
abundant presentments from individual Burgesses and the 
officers, and severely fining, whipping, and imprisoning offenders 
against their By-laws. 2 In the dislocations of the Eebellion 
the Westminster Court of Burgesses evidently suffered from 
its dependence on the Dean and Chapter, and may even have 
gone for a time into abeyance. 3 When in 1705 the records 
enable us to resume the story, the Court is again at work, 
but with sadly diminished authority. The power of making 
By-laws had become practically disused. 4 There had grown up 
in the meantime, in the powerful Close Vestries on the one 
hand, and in the Westminster Commission of the Peace on 
the other, two rivals for the government of Westminster, 
between which Burleigh's makeshift supplement to the 
Manorial authority was destined to be flattened into a mere 
formality. During the first half of the eighteenth century 
we may watch the gradual failure of the Court of Burgesses 
to maintain its position, and the supersession of this or that 
part of its authority by the Vestries or the Justices. This 

1 31 Elizabeth, c. 10 (1589) ; 35 Elizabeth, c. 7 (1593) ; 39 Elizabeth, c. 18 
(1597) ; 43 Elizabeth, c. 9 (1601) ; 1 James I. c. 25 (1603) ; 21 James I. c. 28 
(1624) ; 3 Charles I. c. 4 (1627) ; 16 Charles I. c. 4 (1640). 

2 MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 1611-1616. 

3 In 1645 an Ordinance of the Long Parliament made the provision required 
by the cessation of the Dean and Chapter (see The Pageant of London, by R. 
Davey, 1906, vol. ii. p. 240). Between 1660 and 1689 the Privy Council 
displayed great and constant activity with regard to Westminster affairs. We 
find it perpetually intervening to secure the better paving and cleansing of the 
streets, the organisation of the Scavengers and their relation to the Raker, 
the measures to be taken in visitations of the plague, the repair of the highways, 
and the multiplication of vagrants and beggars. But the Council deals always 
with the Justices and the Vestries, and never once alludes to the Court of 
Burgesses (MS. Acts of Privy Council, 1660-1689). We may note that the 
High Constable of Westminster successfully petitioned for the grant of a scarlet 
cloak to wear at the coronation of James II. (ibid. 8th April 1685). 

* "This power," it was said later, " has seldom been exercised to any great 
extent. . . . Most probably this neglect arose from the refusal of the in- 
habitants to comply with the Ordinances of the Court of Burgesses, and the 
want of a fund in that Court to support the expense of enforcing the observance 
of them " (Observations on the Police or Civil Government of Westminster, by 
E. Sayer, 1784, p. 8). 



2i6 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

failure was due, no doubt, in great part, to the change of 
principle that we have elsewhere described, which was every- 
where gradually superseding the obligatory service of the 
householder, enforced merely by Manorial authority, by a rate- 
paid staff of professional subordinates, under the supervision 
of the Justices of the Peace, the Vestry, and the Parish Officers. 
But Burleigh's experimental constitution had its own -inherent 
weaknesses. Government by the Westminster shopkeepers, 
especially when it took the form of the exercise of individual 
authority behind the screen of a Corporate jurisdiction, though 
this, as was afterwards noted, had " neither a power to make 
Freemen, nor erect a Corporation of Trade " l was, in the early 
years of the eighteenth century, found to rival in corruption 
and petty oppression the analogous administration of the con- 
temporary Trading Justices themselves. 

During the first half of the eighteenth century, at any 
rate, the Court of Burgesses kept up both the paraphernalia 
of a judicial tribunal and the dignified ceremonial of the Court 
of an ecclesiastical potentate. On a stated day in November 
of every year, " the Deputy Steward, Burgesses and Assistants, 
High Constable and Clerk, met in Court between the hours 
of 10 and 11 in the forenoon, where, after they had put on 
their gowns, they went (all the Beadles belonging to the 
several Wards 2 . . . going before them with their silver- 
headed staves . . .) to the Deanery of Westminster, where, 
when they came, they were immediately admitted into his 
Lordship's presence in the Jerusalem Chamber, whereupon his 
Lordship, with his attendants and the whole Court following 
him, went to the Court House." 3 At this annual sessions the 
Dean himself presided, and there would be received any 
important communications from the great nobleman who 
filled the office of High Steward ; a new Deputy Steward 
or new Town Clerk would occasionally be sworn in ; messages 
from Ministers of State would be transmitted by the High 

1 A New and Complete Survey of London, by a Citizen and Native of London, 
1742, vol. ii. p. 1198. 

2 It was "ordered that no Beadle belonging to this Court do presume to 
appear in Court without his blue livery coat on " (MS. Minutes, Westminster 
Court of Burgesses, 25th September 1705). 

3 Ibid. 24th November 1713. The Dean of Westminster was at this date 
also Bishop of Rochester. 



BURLEIGH'S CONSTITUTION 217 

Steward for consideration, and other formal business would 
be transacted. Of more practical importance was the less 
dignified sessions of the Court in October, when, under the 
presidence of the Deputy Steward, the " Leet Jury and Jury 
of Annoyance " would be sworn and formally charged, and the 
forty or fifty Constables, together with various Scavengers 
and other officers, would be appointed. By December of the 
same year this " Leet Jury and Jury of Annoyance " would 
have handed in to the Court the last of its several rolls of 
presentments, and would be discharged. At the same meeting 
another Jury, called the "Wardmote or Christmas Jury," 
would be appointed, apparently to collect certain monies 
allocated to the discharge of poor debtors, the feeding of poor 
prisoners, and the relief of the poor generally. 1 This Jury was, 
in its turn, discharged early in the following January. At an 
April sessions of the Court another " Leet Jury and Jury of 
Annoyance" would be sworn to make the same sort of pre- 
sentments as its autumnal predecessor. For the next two 
months these presentments would come before successive 
meetings of the Court, some of them being allowed to be 
traversed, when we presume they were tried before an ordinary 
Traverse Jury. 2 Besides ceremonial business and the sup- 
pression of nuisances, the Court dealt, now and again, with 
other matters appertaining elsewhere to a Municipal Corpora- 
tion. We find it, now and again, setting the Assize of 
Bread. 3 It licensed the twenty-four Members of the Society 
of Bridge-porters who alone enjoyed the privilege of trans- 
porting burdens to and from "the Queen's Bridge" in New 
Palace Yard and all the wharves of the City. 4 There was 
even a body of Waits, or town musicians, who were sworn 
into office, and enjoined to provide themselves with silver 

1 High Steward's letter, in MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 
20th December 1726. 

2 See, for instance, a case in which a woman was presented on the 24th 
January 1710 by the Jury of Annoyance for the combined offence of "keeping 
a disorderly house " and ' ' also for a house of office very nauseous and offensive " ; 
and her traverse was tried on 31st January 1710, when she was found not 
guilty (ibid. 24th and 31st January 1710). 

3 Ibid. 28th April 1710 ; 20th March 1741, etc. A broadsheet of the 
Assize so set in 1735 is in the British Museum. 

4 Ibid. 9th December 1707 ; 28th July and llth August 1713. The 
" Queen's Bridge " was a landing-place probably a short pier close to the 
Palace of Westminster. 



218 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

badges bearing the Westminster arms, that they might be 
known as entitled to the privilege of playing in the streets. 1 
For the transaction of all this business we reckon that there 
were some thirty sessions of the Court in each year, always 
held on a Tuesday at the ancient Court House. 

But the individual work of the Burgesses must far have 
exceeded that done by them as a Court. At the beginning 
of the eighteenth century the extensive duties that Burleigh 
had originally cast upon them in the way of personal inspec- 
tion of street and market had, it is true, to some extent been 
superseded. It was now for the Constables and Beadles, 
together with the members of the " Jury of Annoyances," to 
clear the Wards of " inmates " and vagrants ; to discover 
broken pavements, heaps of muck, encroachments on the 
thoroughfares, and other nuisances, and to present the various 
market offences. But new and important duties had been 
placed upon the individual Burgesses and Assistant Burgesses. 
The drunken revels and brutal manners of the citizens of the 
Eestoration, together with the robberies and assaults com- 
mitted by the criminals of an unpoliced city then approaching 
100,000 in population, had become sufficiently scandalous to 
make imperative the systematic organisation of " watch and 
ward " in the streets by night and by day. The appointment, 
payment, direction, and superintendence of this force was, for 
each of the Wards into which the City continued to be divided, 2 
left entirely in the hands of the Ward Burgess and Assistant 
Burgess. The only paid assistance at their command was 

1 Their privileges are protected against certain parochial rivals (MS. Minutes, 
Westminster Court of Burgesses, 17th and 24th January 1710) ; they ask to have 
their particular "walks" rearranged (21st October 1735, 8th December 1741) ; 
and are ordered to share equally all their receipts (22nd December 1741). Fifteen 
years later they are divided into five divisions, each consisting of "two hautboys 
and a bassoon," allocated to a particular "walk " (ibid. 9th December 1756). 

2 The twelve ancient Wards were increased to sixteen on the creation of 
separate new parishes in the seventeenth century. Gradually, as it was found 
necessary to augment the staff of Constables, Beadles, etc., a multiplication of 
Wards took place without any change in the number of Burgesses, the word 
being thenceforth used in a new sense for a smaller division, more analogous to 
that of the Precinct of the City of London. " Of late years," it was complained 
in 1743, "since the increase of buildings, they have of their own accord divided 
each parish into almost as many Wards as twelve, and they don't choose the 
Burgesses for any particular Ward, but, in general, for the Liberty " (The Power 
and Practice of the Court Leet of the City and Liberty of Westminister displayed, 
1743, p. 11). 



BURLEIGWS CONSTITUTION 219 

that of the Beadles, several of whom were appointed by the 
Court, apparently on the nomination of the Ward Burgess, 
and paid between 25 and 45 a year each. Meanwhile the 
number of householders who were annually compelled to serve 
as Constables (or to provide deputies) had been steadily 
augmented ; and it was the Ward Burgess who had to 
determine which householders should be summoned to the 
October meeting of the Court, and forced to accept this 
onerous office under penalty of a fine. The nightly watch, 
too, had been greatly increased, and the individual Burgesses 
were ordered to enforce on every householder the performance 
of this unpaid service ; and to bring to the Court " the 
number of houses in their respective Wards that do pay to 
watch [in lieu of personal service], what number of [paid] 
Watch [men] are maintained, and what further number is fit 
to be increased." l It was the Burgess of the Ward who had 
to organise, inspect, and command this primitive police force. 
He had to " appoint in writing the courses and turns of the 
Constables and of the said watch, and the order wherein the 
several persons . . . shall appear and keep watch." He had 
even to turn out at night to inspect them, and to see that the 
watch was " kept with men of strong and able bodies " ; and 
that " the Constables, Beadles, and Watchmen " duly attended 
to their work night by night. He had to assess, according to 
his discretion, the sums to be paid by the householders who 
wished to escape personal service ; to organise the collection 
of this optional rate ; to record and account for the proceeds ; 
and to direct the expenditure of this money, over and above 
the salaries of the Beadles, in the hire of suitable Watchmen, 
paid by the night, whom the Burgess had himself to appoint. 2 
To the obligation imposed by Burleigh on the selected 
Westminster shopkeeper of acting as Inspector of .Nuisances 
and forming part of a petty tribunal, there had accordingly 
been added, between 1660 and 1720, the responsible duties 
of Superintendent of Police and Collector of Eates involving, 

1 MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 9th July 1706. 

2 The Burgesses evidently clung to their authority. A Constable who had 
taken upon himself to appoint a new Watchman in place of one who had 
resigned, was formally reprimanded by the Court (ibid. 25th July 1717). They 
refused to admit the Parish Beadle of St. Clements Danes as a paid Watchmaff 
(ibid. 20th November 1750). 



220 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

day by day aud night by night, the personal direction of an 
untrained and incompetent force of Ward police, as well as the 
assessment, collection, and expenditure of the semi-compulsory 
levy by which alone the service could be maintained. 

Such being the kind and amount of unpaid public work 
exacted, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, from 
every member of the Court of Burgesses, we might have 
expected to find the shopkeepers and artificers of Westminster 
pleading excuses, or paying the statutory penalty of 10 to 
escape this onerous service, or at any rate refusing to 
continue in office beyond the obligatory year. The records 
reveal exactly the opposite. At a time when the citizens of 
Westminster were perpetually evading, or " fining " for, the 
offices of Constable, Churchwarden, and Overseer, we find no 
one ever refusing to serve as Burgess or Assistant Burgess. 
No Burgess is found laying down his office until advanced age 
or infirmity absolutely compels retirement, whilst there are 
plaintive appeals from Burgesses and Assistant Burgesses 
against being removed from office for neglect or misbehaviour. 1 
Admission to the Court of Burgesses became, in fact, a coveted 
privilege. From 1706 onward we find it ordered that every 
new Burgess or Assistant Burgess shall "pay his footing" to 
the extent of 10 and 5 respectively, euphemistically called 
" the necessary " charges of the Court, and apparently devoted 
to some form of conviviality. 2 

What exactly formed the attractiveness of the office of 
Burgess we can only conjecture from indirect evidence. The 
Westminster Court of Burgesses, unlike most Close Corpora- 
tions, had no Corporate property, 3 and levied as a Court no 
rate. The Burgesses had only power, but of this a profitable 
use could be made. From a communication of the High 
Steward in 1726, it appears that every Westminster citizen 
had still to pay " head money " perhaps as " essoin pence " 
formerly a revenue of the Manorial authorities, but now 

1 MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 3rd April 1711. 

2 Ibid. 4th March 1706. 

3 The Burgesses complained of their Corporate poverty. " There is," it was 
said, " no public fund out of which the Burgess Court can defend their authority 
against . . . contemners, as in most other Cities and Corporations " (A Brief 
Account of the Powers given to and exercised by 'the Burgess Court of West- 
minster, 1720, p. 16). 

4 MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 5th October 1714. 



BURLEIGH'S CONSTITUTION 221 

devoted to charitable purposes ; and that this was collected 
and distributed by the Burgesses. The High Steward had to 
appeal to them not to abstract more than 100 a year from 
this charitable fund as their own personal perquisites. 1 We 
catch occasional glimpses of such unexplained items as "paid 
to sixteen Burgesses 1 : 5s. each." 2 Of far greater amount 
was the levy for the expenses of the watch, " than which," we 
are told in 1714, "nothing is more abused." 3 In the absence 
of any fixed basis of assessment, of any definite pound rate, of 
any regular system of collection, of any adequate book-keeping, 
and of any effective audit, each Burgess was, it seems, left 
to raise what he liked, or rather what he could, from the 
grumbling householders of his Ward. The expenditure of this 
Ward revenue was equally uncontrolled. The Burgess seems 
to have appointed whom he chose as Watchmen, to have paid 
them what he thought fit, and to have dismissed them at his 
pleasure. What happened to the payments which the house- 
holders nearly always preferred to make rather than serve as 
Constable is not clear, except that the Court displayed a most 
suspicious eagerness to swell this source of revenue, levying 
(as was said in 1720) "great sums on the inhabitants under 
colour of fines." 4 "If a man pays his fine," it was com- 
plained in 1743, "the payment they pretend does not excuse 
him from serving the office except for that year, but he is 
eligible and may be elected in the following or any other 
succeeding year, as if he had never fined, by which means 
they harass any inhabitant of the Liberty they have a mind 
to in a most extraordinary manner, for most people will 
sooner fine than serve the office, because it requires so 
continual an attendance that a man acting as Constable can 
do nothing else. This choice is no way confined to take the 
oldest or properest inhabitants, but a man just come in is 
often chosen, when people who have lived there half their 
lives (by coming down properly) are omitted and forgotten." 5 

1 MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 20th December 1726. 

2 Ibid. March 1711. 

3 Parochial Tyranny, by Andrew Moreton (i.e. Daniel Defoe), 1714, p. 13. 

4 A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Sill for regulating the 
Nightly Watch in the City and Liberties of Westminster, 1720, p. 25. 

6 The Power and Practice of the Court Leet of the City and Liberty of 
Westminster displayed, 1743, p. 13. In 1726 the Court resisted an attempt of 



222 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

But besides the fines exacted by the Court, there is evidence 
of a system by which the individual Burgess levied blackmail 
on householders, who willingly gave bribes in order to escape 
being nominated as Constables or jurors. 1 Such corrupt 
dealings of the Burgesses and Assistant Burgesses led naturally 
to corruption among the jurymen and the officers, high and 
low. It was fondly supposed " that no method can be more 
just to inquire into offences than by such a Jury " as that of 
the Westminster shopkeepers, for, it was said, "they see the 
offences themselves and do not trust the evidence of others, 
so that they cannot be imposed upon by false evidence, or 
aggravating circumstances, or misrepresentations of things by 
partial and prejudiced persons." 2 But the members of the 
Annoyance Jury could, it is only too plain, be placated, 
and induced not to cause trouble by presenting particular 
nuisances. 3 The High Bailiff and the High Constable became 
notorious in their several spheres for systematic blackmail and 
oppression taking bribes for passing over jurors, " compound- 
ing fines with the keepers of gaming and other disorderly 
houses," 4 favouring publicans in the billeting of soldiers, 5 and 

the High Bailiff to take these fines for himself (MS. Minutes, Westminster 
Court of Burgesses, 8th September 1726). 

1 Ibid. 6th November 1716, 21st October and 20th December 1718. 

2 A Brief Account of the Powers given to and exercised by the Burgess Court 
of Westminster, 1720, p. 14. 

3 The Court investigated in 1726 "a complaint . . . against the Foreman 
of the Annoyance Jury and other jurymen for corruption and a notorious breach 
of their oaths as jurymen." One of the extensive "keepers of hogs," who 
were fed on the waste products of the London distilleries, had been amerced by 
the Jury for this nuisance, but had induced the Jury subsequently to withdraw 
this interference with his business. The Foreman and some other members of 
the Jury confessed their guilt, and were fined 10 and 5 each (MS. Minutes, 
Westminster Court of Burgesses, 9th February 1726). 

4 An Account of the Endeavours that have been used to suppress Gaming 
Houses, 1722, p. 9. The special position occupied by the High Bailiff made 
him, in many respects, virtually an independent officer, controlled neither 
by the High Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, nor by Quarter Sessions, 
with results that were sometimes scandalous. Thus it was reported to the 
Prime Minister about 1760, that "William Morris or Morrice . . . son-in-law 
to Bishop Atterbury, whilst High Bailiff . . . acted in that office in a very 
vile and scandalous manner, taking yearly pensions of gaming houses and 
bawdy houses to remit their fines when convicted at the Sessions " (Add. MS. 
33,053, p. 223). 

6 "Your Memorialists during the time of their being Constables have had 
frequent opportunities to hear, and have found several oppressions on the 
victuallers by the undue and illegal billeting or quartering of soldiers by Mr. 
Arthur Rawlinson, High Constable of the City and Liberty. Your Memorialists 
have found that the said Arthur Rawlinson hath quartered two soldiers upon 



MUNICIPAL ATROPHY 223 

exacting excessive costs in all the proceedings of the Court. 
At the bottom of the hierarchy the venality of Under Bailiffs, 1 
Beadles, Constables, and Watchmen became proverbial. 

(6) Municipal Atrophy 

The eighteenth century saw a continuous shrinking up of 
the Court of Burgesses that we now proceed to describe. We 
wish that we could attribute this shrinking up to any recogni- 
tion, by Parliament or public opinion, of the defects inherent 
in the very form of Burleigh's experimental constitution to 
a conviction, for instance, of the inevitability of the misuse of 
power when entrusted to uncontrolled individuals "of mean 
degree," each acting in and for his own neighbourhood. Un- 
fortunately, the local authorities by which, between 1720 and 
1756, the Court of Burgesses was gradually superseded the 
local Justices of the Peace and the Close Vestries were 
equally defective in their constitution, and no less corrupt 
perhaps even more oppressive in their administration. 

some poor people who retail beer, not near the quantity of others who have one 
and some no soldiers quartered on them, and hath been guilty of other irregu- 
larities and oppressions in his office " (MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of 
Burgesses, 27th October 1741; see also 20th April 1725). At the Parlia- 
mentary election of 1741, the High Constable ordered all the Petty Constables 
to vote for the two candidates that he favoured, and threatened all the publicans 
with extra billeting if they dared to vote for any one else (Review of the late 
Election of Members of Parliament for the City of Westminster, 1741). 

1 "The summoning Bailiffs pay 20 per annum each to the High Bailiff . . . 
for liberty to summon the Juries. So great a power being lodged in such low 
hands, the Justices found the consequences ; for at a Quarter Sessions, where 
several (keepers of gaming houses) were to be prosecuted, the summoning 
Bailiff did (as he has since declared upon oath), by the direction of two 
Burgesses, summon ten persons, and those tea persons . . . who . . . were 
found to be, several of them, tradesmen that were daily employed by those very 
persons that were to be prosecuted ; others were bail for the prosecuted. . . . 
And he owned that he knew them so to be when he returned the panel " (An 
Account of the Endeavours to suppress Gaming Houses, etc., 1722, p. 10). It is 
therefore not surprising to read, a little later, that "by having all fines and 
forfeitures belonging to him, his place is rendered very profitable" (A New 
and Complete Survey of London, by a Citizen and Native of London, 1742, vol. ii. 
p. 1198). The High Bailiff usually bought the office from the previous holder 
latterly for as much as 4000 and paid 150 a year rent for it to the Dean 
and Chapter, making out of the fees, so it was alleged, only 450 a year 
(Report of House of Commons Committee on the Office of High Bailiff, see 
Hansard, vol. xx., Appendix Ixv. 1811). It is clear that, as Home Tooke 
declared in 1806, "the High Bailiffs office is a very lucrative one; it is 
purchased openly of the Dean and Chapter ; they have great emoluments, and 
the holding of the election is one of their privileges " one which enabled the 
High Bailiff to mulct Home Tooke, as a candidate in 1794, of nearly 400 
(Home Tooke refuted, by Veritas, 1807). 



224 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

Burleigh had expressly reserved to the Justices of 
Middlesex their general County jurisdiction over the City and 
Borough of Westminster. Down to the Eebellion these 
Justices seem to have refrained, as a rule, from encroaching 
on the sphere assigned to the Court of Burgesses. Under the 
Protectorate, however possibly because of the abeyance of a 
Court dependent on an ecclesiastical potentate we gather 
that a separate Commission of the Peace was issued for 
Westminster. We hear of " His Highness's Justices assigned 
to keep the public peace within the Liberty of the late Dean 
and Chapter," meeting periodically to deal with vagrants, 
ale-houses, etc. 1 After the Eestoration this separate Commis- 
sion of the Peace continued to be issued, and though we find 
the Court of Burgesses again sitting, the Justices of the Peace, 
whether acting for Westminster or for Middlesex as a whole, 
never relinquished the authority over the Westminster in- 
habitants which they had assumed. They seem, in fact, 
constantly to have sought to abstract additional powers from 
what they regarded as an upstart rival jurisdiction. 

We note first the growth and activity of the Westminster 
Justices in Petty and Quarter Sessions. The Minutes that 
exist from 1707 onwards show them, as we have elsewhere 
described, to have met frequently, and to have exercised an 
active and minute control over the Overseers of the Poor 
and the Surveyors of Highways of the several Westminster 
parishes. But they were also exercising authority over the 
Constables, who, as we have seen, were the officers of the 
Court of Burgesses ; we find them, too, supervising the 
Scavengers whom the Burgesses considered as exclusively 
their own servants ; whilst the entire control of alehouses, 
vagrants, and " inmates " had evidently passed to Quarter and 
Petty Sessions. 2 By 1720 we see the Justices taking upon 
themselves freely to remove from office Constables whom the 
Court of Burgesses had appointed ; to audit the accounts of 

1 Several Orders inade and agreed upon by the Justices of the Peace for the 
City and Liberty of Westminster, 1655. 

2 It was noted, about 1720, in defence of the Court of Burgesses, that 
whereas their unrepealed By-law of 1586 fixed the maximum number of ale- 
houses in Westminster at 100, the Justices had permitted them to increase to 
over 2000 (A Brief Account of the Powers given to and exercised by the Burgess 
Court of Westminster, circa 1720, p. 12). 



MUNICIPAL ATROPHY 225 

Scavengers, 1 and to punish them for neglect of duty ; and to 
insist that the Constables for Westminster, like those for other 
parts of the County, should make regular presentments to 
Petty and Quarter Sessions. 2 In 1720, when London was 
alarmed at the approach of the Plague, then raging in 
Marseilles, the Justices, both in Quarter and Petty Sessions, 
took up the whole range of street nuisances, and entirely 
ignoring the Court of Burgesses set themselves to discover 
what steps could be taken to improve the public health. In 
a remarkable report laid before the Middlesex Quarter Sessions 
in 1721, we see the Justices dealing with exactly the kinds of 
nuisances for the suppression of which Burleigh had, more 
than a century before, created the Court of Burgesses the 
dangerous harbouring of " inmates " in the overcrowded tene- 
ments, the myriads of hogs, the noisome accompaniments of 
the slaughterhouses, the accumulation of dung and filth in the 
streets, the broken pavements and unscoured kennels, and so 
forth. 3 The Westminster Justices even took upon themselves 
to order the Constables and Beadles to make a complete 
survey, street by street, of the pavements of particular parishes, 
and report all defects to them. 4 The Constables, Beadles, and 
Scavengers did not know which authority to obey; and we 
find them refusing to execute the orders of Justices, whilst 
more than ever neglecting the duties assigned to them by the 
Burgesses. 5 In 1722 the conflict comes to a head in an 
almost insolent resolution of the Middlesex Justices which 
directly challenged the right of the Court of Burgesses even to 
exist. The Court of Quarter Sessions, " being informed that 
the Burgesses within the City and Liberty of Westminster in 
this County do keep Courts and set fines on several of His 
Majesty's liege subjects . . . and also appoint Scavengers, 

1 MS. Minutes Petty Sessions, Westminster, 27th October 1720. 

2 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Middlesex, 16th April 1718. The Govern- 
ment in 1719 seems to have been on the side of the Justices. In that year the 
Secretary of State took counsel's opinion as to whether the Justices could not 
themselves appoint Constables, ignoring the Court of Burgesses. The opinion 
was in the negative (Home Office Domestic Entry Book, in Public Record 
Office). 

3 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Middlesex, 12th October 1721. 

* MS. Minutes, Petty Sessions, Westminster, 29th September 1721. 

5 The Court complains that "many of the Constables and Beadles have 
thought fit to retuni to the Court omnia bene " (MS. Minutes, Westminster 
Court of Burgesses, 19th December 1723). 

VOL. II. PT. I Q 



226 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

make rates, and collect great sums of money on pretence of 
cleaning the streets within the said Liberty without any legal 
authority so to do," 1 refers it to a committee of its own 
members to inquire what Courts are actually so held, and by 
what authority. 

Meanwhile a struggle had been going on as to which body 
should exercise the new statutory powers that Parliament was, 
in this generation, conferring. Over Watch and Ward the 
Court of Burgesses maintained its authority for three-quarters 
of a century after the Eestoration. When, for instance, in 
1678 and 1685 the new parishes of St. Anne, Soho, and St. 
James's, Westminster, were created, "new Wards and new 
Burgesses ... for the government thereof" were duly consti- 
tuted, and new Watchmen appointed. 2 In 1706, and again in 
1720, Bills for a reorganisation of the service under the 
control of the Justices and the several parishes were rejected 
by the House of Commons. 3 In the latter year the " Lords 
Justices " then administering the government in the absence 
of the King on the Continent called upon the Court of 
Burgesses for a report of its organisation of the Watch, suggest- 
ing certain improvements, which, the Burgesses adopted, and 
were then able to claim to have, as against the Magistrates, 
the support of the Lords Justices' approval. 4 But the Justices 
of the Peace presently made a flanking movement. When at 
last public opinion was prepared to substitute a rate-paid staff 
for individual personal service, the most plausible proposition 
was to entrust the direction of the new force to bodies claim- 
ing to represent the inhabitants of each locality, and already 
levying "pound rates." Thus, when Bills were put forward 
by the Vestries of the several parishes of Westminster 
bodies which, as we have described, were in close alliance with 
many Justices and Members of Parliament we find the 
Legislature, in spite of constant protests by the Dean and 
Chapter and the Court of Burgesses, endowing one parish after 
another with full and complete power to organise, under the 

1 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Middlesex, 7th December 1722. 

2 The Case of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster vrith respect to the Bill 
for regulating the Nightly Watch now depending in Parliament, 1720. 

3 House of Commons Journals, 7th February 1706, etc. 

4 Additional Rules and Ordinances of 22nd September 1720 ; reprinted in 
H. C. No. 666, of 27th June 1853. 



MUNICIPAL ATROPHY 227 

general supervision of the Justices, its own parochial Watch. 1 
Before the middle of the eighteenth century the authority of 
the once-powerful Burgesses over the Watch was treated as 
entirely at an end, and they had to content themselves with 
the power of annually selecting about fifty of their neighbours 
to fill the hated office of Constable a power which was 
evidently made to yield an income to the Court in the shape 
of fines apparently appropriated to the so-called expenses of 
the Court meetings. 

With regard to paving and cleaning the streets the 
Burgesses were more quickly routed. Already in 1662 an 
Act of Parliament, confirmed by others in 1670, 1690, and 
1697, 2 had entrusted, not to the Burgesses, but first to Special 
Commissioners and then to the Justices, the enforcement of 
the householder's obligation to pave and cleanse in front of 
his house down to the kennel. The authority of the Burgesses 
under their Act of 1585 was, however, not thereby abrogated ; 
and between 1720 and 1730, in particular, we watch the two 
rival powers striving one against the other for the control of 
this service. When it was proposed to have two Surveyors 
for each Ward to see to the scavengering, under the control of 
the Justices, the Court of Burgesses retorted that the streets 
outside Westminster over which the Justices already had 
control were worse than those within its boundaries. 8 The 
Justices insisted that the Constables should make presentments 
to Sessions of all negligent householders, whilst the Burgesses 

1 House of Commons Journals, 28th February, 18th and 28th March 1735, 
8 George II. c. 15 (St. George's, Hanover Square, and St. James', Piccadilly), 
1735, amended as regards St. George's by 29 George III. c. 75 (1789), 7 
George IV. c. 121 (1826) ; 9 Geo. II. c. 8 (St. Martin's-in-the-Fields), 1736 ; 9 
George II. c. 13 (St. Paul's, Covent Garden), 1736, amended by 10 Geo. IV. c. 
68 (1S29), House of Commons Journals, 16th February 1736 ; 9 George II. c. 
17 (St. Margaret's and St. John's), 1736 ; 9 George II. c. 19 (St. Anne's, Soho), 
1736 ; 4 George III. c. 55 (St. Clement Danes), 1764, amended by 49 George 
III. c. 113 (1809) ; 14 George III. o. 90 (St. Mary le Strand and Precinct of 
the Savoy), 1774, which also amended the prior Acts of the other Westminster 
parishes ; 50 Geo. III. c. 84 (Liberty of the Rolls), 1810. See Report of the 
Westminster City Council for 1902-1903, pp. 33-36. An attempt to reorganise 
the Watch under the Burgesses, with new powers, did not succeed (A Proposal for 
Regulating the Nightly Watch within the City and Liberty of Westminster, 1755). 

2 13 and 14 Charles II. c. 2 ; amended by 22 Charles II. c. 12 ; 2 William 
and Mary, sess. 2, c. 8 ; 8 and 9 William III. c. 37. 

3 The Case of the Inhabitants of the Liberty of Westminster against the Clauses 
proposed by the Justices , . , to a Bill now passing to require Quarantine, 1700 
or 1720(?). 



228 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

required the Jury of Annoyances to present them to the 
Court of Burgesses. 1 We need not here describe the stages 
by which the service of scavengering was transferred 2 either 
by agreement between the Close Vestries and the Justices, or 
later on by Local Act 3 from the unpaid Scavengers, enforcing 
the householder's obligation and co-operating with the 
" Raker," who contracted to take away the heaps of filth, to 
Committees of the Vestries, employing contractors or their 
own labourers to sweep the streets and remove the whole 
refuse of the City. Nor can we here recount the similar 
evolution of the service of street lighting. 4 What, however, 
we have to notice is the conviction, gradually forced upon 
Parliament, that the substitution, for the irregular pavements 
laid down by the householders defective and constantly in 
bad repair of a complete and uniform roadway for the ever- 
growing wheeled traffic, was an operation far beyond the 
means and capacity of any of these authorities. A special 
statutory body had at last to be established by Acts of 176 1- 
1765, entitled the Westminster Paving Commissioners, 5 with 
rating and borrowing powers more nearly adequate to what 
turned out to be the most costly Municipal enterprise of the 
eighteenth century. 6 

By the middle of the eighteenth century the Court of 

1 In 1724 the authority of the Burgesses to appoint Scavengers was disputed, 
the parish of St. Margaret's taking upon itself to appoint its own. The Grand 
Jury thereupon presented the parish officers, and claimed that the appointment 
of Scavengers ought to be made by two Justices. Against this view the Court 
of Burgesses indignantly protested (MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of 
Burgesses, 30th June 1724). 

2 In 1728 the Court of Burgesses tried to strengthen itself by new officers, 
appointing, in imitation of the Corporation of the City of London, two 
" Serjeants or Yeomen of the Channel " an office which does not seem to have 
lasted long. 

3 Among such local Acts were 12 George I. c. 25. (St. James's Square), 
1725 ; 24 George II. c. 27 (Golden Square), 1751 ; 25 George II. c. 23 (St. 
Margaret's and St. John's), 1752, see House of Commons Journals, 28th March, 
10th April 1753 ; 6 George III. c. 56, private (Berkeley Square), 1766 ; 14 
George III. c. 52 (Grosvenor Square), 1774. 

4 When, in 1737-1738, the Court of Burgesses contemplated getting powers 
to put up lamps to light the streets, the Vestries protested that this service 
" should be parochial and not general " (MS. Vestry Minutes, St. Martin 's-in- 
the-Fields, 9th and 17th March 1738). 

6 2 George III. c. 21 (1761) ; 3 George III. c. 23 (1763) ; 4 George III. c. 
39 (1764), and 5 George III. c. 50 (1765). 

6 We trace the history of the Westminster Paving Commissioners in our 
subsequent volume, Book IV. Chapter IV. ("Street Commissioners"). 



MUNICIPAL ATROPHY 229 

Burgesses had shrunk, we are told, to "but a shadow of 
power." They had become " unable to chastise the insults 
offered to them in their own Court." l Parliament now made a 
last attempt to galvanise into activity the ancient method of 
local administration the enforcement, by a Jury of Present- 
ment, of the householder's obligation to do all that the common 
good requires, and to refrain from doing anything that is 
injurious to the King's subjects. By the Act of 1756 the 
Juries of the Court of Burgesses were placed on a new 
statutory footing. Twice a year the Court was to appoint an 
" Annoyance Jury " of not more than forty-eight householders, 
who were expressly empowered to present all manner of 
nuisances, active and passive. It was significant of the low 
estimation into which the Burgesses had fallen that Parliament 
expressly transferred from them to a second Jury, to be called 
the " Leet Jury," made up of one or more householders from 
each parish, not exceeding thirty, the selection and nomination 
of the whole of the Constables for Westminster, now grown to 
eighty in number ; and required these to be formally appointed, 
with the High Constable, at a " Court Leet," to which the 
Burgesses might be invited if the High Steward chose. 2 The 
Burgesses thus lost the last remnant of their profitable power, 
and the pseudo-municipal government set up by Burleigh 
reverted to what was practically a Lord's Court, equipped with 
two statutory Juries and a statutory power of adjournment, to 
which the once potent Burgesses and Assistant Burgesses 
formed no more than a sort of honorary council. 

For a few years this Annoyance Jury, summoned by the 
High Bailiff and prodded on by the Deputy Steward -these 
officers sharing between them a large part of the amercements 3 
annually paraded the streets of Westminster. Divided into 
three detachments, each under its own foreman, these forty- 

1 Reasons for the Petition for better Paving, Cleansing, and Lighting the Streets 
of Westminster, 1753 (?). 

2 29 George II. c. 25 (1756), amended by 31 George II. c. 17 (1758) and 3 
George III. c. 23 (1763). 

3 By the Act of 1758 (31 George II. c. 17) the High Bailiff was entitled to 
retain for himself one-fourth of the amercements. By order of the Court of 
Burgesses of 1757 small salaries and gratuities were assigned out of the balance 
to the Town Clerk, the Deputy Bailiff, and the Cryer and Mace-bearer ; and the 
remainder was to be divided equally between the Deputy Steward and the 
Chief Burgesses "for the use of the Court" (MS. Minutes 5th April 1757). 



230 THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER 

eight Westminster shopkeepers went up and down for a 
fortnight, inspecting Weights and Measures and viewing 
" encroachments," handing in long rolls of presentments at 
successive Courts. But as decade follows decade the rolls 
grow shorter and more perfunctory, and the annual perambu- 
lation becomes increasingly a mere occasion for a convivial 
meeting; so that it could be said in 1812 that the Jury was 
made up of favoured householders put on in order to enable 
them to escape service as Constables. 1 Already in 1784, 
when a careful writer set out to describe " the Police or Civil 
Government of Westminster," he could omit all reference to 
this Jury, and dismiss the Court of Burgesses itself as a mere 
Leet at which the ceremony of swearing in the Constables 
was gone through. The Constables themselves, he said, were 
under no effective direction. 2 The High Steward in Court 
Leet could fine them for neglect, but had no authority to give 
them orders. The Justices assumed a right to give them 
orders, but had neither power to appoint nor power to punish 
them. The prevention of street nuisances became year by 
year increasingly the subject of specific legislative enactment, 
enforced by parochial officers and the summary jurisdiction of 
the Magistrates, first under various clauses in the Local Acts 
which the Vestries and other local bodies were promoting, and 
then under the general statute for the Metropolis which 
Michael Angelo Taylor piloted through Parliament in 1817. 
43y this time, at any rate, if not before, it was clear that all 
the real powers of government had passed away from the 
statutory supplement which Burleigh had added to the 
Manorial structure of the so-called " City and Borough " of 
Westminster. But the anomalous Court of Burgesses was not 
swept away, nor even formally stripped of its statutory or 
customary powers. Eight into Victorian times the High 
Steward, the High Bailiff, the High Constable, 3 the Leet Jury, 

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on the State of the Nightly 
Watch, 1812, pp. 36, 80, etc. 

2 Observations on the Police or Civil Government of Westminster, with a 
Proposal for a Reform, by Edward Sayer, 1784, p. 12. 

3 Early in the nineteenth century the High Constable continued to be 
appointed by the High Steward and Court of Burgesses, and received a small 
.stipend (apparently 30 a year) from the Deputy Steward for relieving him of 
part of his work. He had under his supervision the thousands of public-houses 
in Westminster. "The inadequacy of the sum to the performance of the duty 



MUNICIPAL ATROPHY 231 

the Annoyance Jury, and even the Burgesses and Assistant 
Burgesses, continued to exist and to walk through their parts, 
their position and functions becoming ever more exclusively 
ceremonial. In 1766 they were provided, by the generosity 
of the Duke of Northumberland (who purchased the ancient 
Guildhall for the purpose) with a permanent meeting-place. 1 
On every possible occasion they laid loyal addresses at the 
foot of the throne. The last important entry that we find in 
their Minutes is a pompous protest, extending over many 
pages, at the negligence of some Court official in omitting 
formally to notify to " this ancient jurisdiction, coeval with 
our very monarchy itself," the arrangements made for Nelson's 
funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral. 2 

of the office," reports a Stipendiary Magistrate in 1812, "occasions that officer 
to resort to other means. The moment, therefore, he is appointed, he commences 
coal merchant and dealer in tobacco for the express purpose of serving the public- 
houses with these articles, thereby placing himself under obligations to the 
very people whose conduct he ought jealously to watch. . . . The last High 
Constable about eighteen months ago absconded with some public money in his 
hands, and his brother, quite a youth, has been appointed " (Sir K. Birnie to 
Home Secretary, 14th January 1812, Home Office Domestic State Papers in 
Public Record Office, No. 845 of 1812). This office was allowed to fall into 
abeyance in the middle of the nineteenth century, but cannot be said to have 
been abolished until the final abolition of the Court of Burgesses in 1901 
(Annual Report of the Council of the City of Westminster for 1902-1903, 
pp. 31-32). 

1 MS. Minutes, Westminster Court of Burgesses, 23rd October 1766. 

2 Ibid. 20th January 1806. The Annoyance Jury continued until 1861, 
when it was abolished by 24 and 25 Viet. c. 78, which authorised the Court of 
Burgesses to appoint instead one or more Inspectors of Weights and Measures, 
a power itself superseded by 52 and 53 Viet. c. 21 (1889), which made the Lo: ion 
County Council the authority for this purpose. The Court of Burgesses itself 
went on meeting, as a friendly social gathering, maintained by an annual 
subvention of 500 from the Government, the object or origin of which had 
been forgotten. By the Court of Burgesses' Scheme, 1901, made under the 
London Government Act, 1899, this obsolete and anomalous tribunal was 
finally abolished, and its property a mace, a loving-cup, a snuff-box trans- 
ferred to the Metropolitan Borough Council of the then newly created " City of 
Westminster" (Report of the Westminster City Council, 1902-1903, p. 31). 



CHAPTEK V 

THE BOKOUGHS OF WALES 

So far we have dealt only with local governing authorities 
which fell short of the powers of full Municipal Corporations 
in not being able to create their own Corporate Justices of the 
Peace. We have seen by what minute gradations the various 
classes of authorities were separated from each other, and how 
markedly they resembled a continuous series. Even the line 
dividing what we have termed the Manorial Borough from the 
Municipal Corporation will be seen, on closer examination, to 
be blurred by intermediate forms. It is, we think, a con- 
firmation of this view that, when we come to consider the 
fifty or sixty so-called Boroughs in "Wales, we find them 
exhibiting these very characteristics to an even greater degree 
than the Boroughs of England, to such a degree, indeed, that 
we have been unable to make any lines of division among 
them. The different specimens, as we find them co-existing 
between 1689 and 1835, creep so closely one on the heels of 
the other that we are compelled to include, in a single chapter, 
the whole continuous series, from the most rudimentary village 
constitutions, scarcely to be distinguished from the Lord's Court 
of a rural Manor, up to fully fledged Municipal Corporations, 
with their own Quarter Sessions and their own Sheriffs; 
sometimes Counties in themselves ; and in one case unique 
among Boroughs anywhere in England or in Wales even 
having a separate Gustos Eotulorum and Lord-Lieutenant. 

We accord the more willingly a separate chapter to the 
Welsh Boroughs, notwithstanding their resemblance to those 
of England, in that they formed, between 1689 and 1835 at 
any rate, an exceptionally important part, and a specially 

232 



THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 233 

characteristic feature of the Local Government of the Princi- 
pality. Whether owing to the late introduction of English 
Manorial forms, or to the systematic organisation that followed 
the conquests of Edward I., we find the privileges of a " Free 
Borough" scattered more lavishly about Wales than about 
England, possibly with the view of attracting settlers round 
the castles and creating English garrisons, 1 whilst these 
" Free Boroughs," nevertheless, remained more generally under 
the rule of the Lord of the Manor or of the Lordship, the 
Constable of whose great castle was frequently the titular 
Mayor of the Borough. Thus we see among the Welsh 
Boroughs, much more frequently than among the English, a 
relatively high development of Municipal structure coupled 
with a low degree of autonomy. We find Boroughs with 
elaborate constitutions, a full array of Municipal officers and 
Borough Courts of their own, returning members to Parliament, 
and possessing Eoyal Charters, remaining nevertheless in strict 
subordination to the Lord of the Manor. We may even find 
fully fledged Chartered Municipal Corporations, with their own 
Justices of the Peace and their own Quarter Sessions some- 
times even excluding the officers of the County and never- 
theless subject to a very real control by the Lord. The 
burgageship was, except in half a dozen Boroughs, closely 
connected with the tenure of property, the new Burgess being 
admitted at the Lord's Court, sometimes only with the Lord's 
express sanction. Only in half a dozen cases could admission 
be claimed by Birth or Apprenticeship. 2 The Lord's Steward, 
who was often the Constable or Deputy Constable of the 
Castle around which the Borough had been founded, usually 

1 "One of the features of Welsh society . . . was the marked distinction 
between the people of the towns and the country districts." The towns, once 
" practically Norman-English garrisons," only slowly became assimilated by the 
Welsh-speaking rural districts; "and it was not difficult, even at the com- 
mencement of the (nineteenth) century, to find a market town distinctly English, 
while the surrounding country was occupied by people who habitually spoke 
the Welsh language " (The Welsh People, by J. Rhys and D. Brynmor-Jones, 
1900, p. 479). 

2 In the following Welsh Boroughs there were, between 1689 and 1835, 
Trade Gilds or Companies, viz. : Haverfordwest, Carmarthen, Brecon, Cardiff, 
Denbigh, and (a mere remnant) Ruthin. On the other hand, Dr. Gross finds 
evidence of the existence in the fourteenth century of the Merchant Gild in no 
fewer than thirty Welsh towns, among which Brecon and Ruthin do not occur 
(The Gild Mercliant, by C. Gross, 1890, vol. i. pp. 16-18). 



234 THE BOROUGHS OF IV ALES 

performed the functions of a Kecorder, and his Deputy some- 
times even bore that title. In marked contrast with England, 
this general Manorial supremacy throughout all Wales was 
recognised and confirmed by Act of Parliament as late as 
1535-154 3, 1 when the Stewards of Manors and Lordships 
were expressly authorised to hold their Courts Leet and Courts 
Baron and Lawdays ; to decide civil suits up to forty shillings ; 
and to exercise full Manorial jurisdiction even if they had not 
formerly done so, without any words exempting from such 
jurisdiction the Boroughs within the Lordships or Manors. 
On the other hand, the same statutes conferred generally upon 
the Mayors, Bailiffs, and head officers of Corporate towns in 
Wales, whether subject to the authority of the Lord of the 
Manor or not, a privilege never generally conferred by statute 
upon the English Boroughs, viz. the right to try personal 
actions by Juries of six men. The result was" to increase, in 
the fifty or sixty tiny "Boroughs," each numbering in 1689 
only a few score or a few hundred families, a confusion of 
Manorial and Municipal jurisdictions and rights that was 
already almost beyond unravelling. 2 

1 27 Henry VIII. c. 26 (1535) and 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 26 (1543) ; 
The Welsh People, by J. Rhys and D. Brynmor-Joues, 1900, pp. 368-383. 

2 Exactly how many Welsh Boroughs there were in existence between 1689 
and 1835, and precisely which of them enjoyed an independent Corporate 
Magistracy, we have been unable to determine. Their title of Borough, and to 
some extent their status, was confirmed by the legislation of 1535-1543. The 
statute providing for the Parliamentary representation of Wales (27 Henry VIII. 
c. 26, 1535) established one Member for each "Borough being a shire-town," 
their pay being collected from all the "ancient Boroughs." This was ap- 
parently felt as an injustice by the Boroughs which were not shire towns, and 
35 Henry VIII. c. 11 (1543) enabled all the Cities and Boroughs in each 
county to share in the election of the Borough Member assigned to that county 
(History of the Parliamentary Representation of the County of Cardigan, by John 
Hughes, 1849). There were, we gather, nearly sixty places reputed to be 
Boroughs and sharing as such in electing Members of Parliament. (See the 
various papers relating to the Charters to Welsh Boroughs, by Henry Taylor, 
R. W. Banks, G. G. Francis, and others, in Archceologia Cambrensis, especially 
vols. iv. ix. and x. of 4th series, and vol. ix. of 5th series ; The Parliamentary 
History of the Principality of Wales, by W. R. Williams, 1895 ; The Representa- 
tive History of Great Britain, by T. H. B. Oldfield, 1816, vol. vi. p. 118). 
But these Boroughs must have been extremely small. The whole population of 
Wales in 1689 cannot have exceeded 350,000 ; and it only rose, by 1801, to 
550,000 (without Monmouthshire). It seems doubtful whether there was, in 
1689, any Borough of 3000 population. Even in 1831, after great expansion, 
there were only eight Boroughs with more than 5000 population, whilst the 
most populous of all (Carmarthen) did not reach 10,000. Eighteen Boroughs 
in Wales were confirmed aw Municipal Corporations, and reformed, by the Act 
of 1835. 



INCIPIENT A UTONOM Y 235 

(a) Incipient Autonomy 

It is difficult, amid the dozeiis of decrepit little hamlets 
among the "Welsh hills that called themselves Boroughs, to 
know which to pitch upon as the most embryonic specimen. 
We ignore for this purpose the dozen or more of tiny villages 
in which Borough privileges had become obsolete, leaving 
behind them nothing more than the memory of ancient grants 
or Charters, and perhaps a titular Mayor, without powers or 
functions, it might be, as at Prendergast in Pembrokeshire 
(which is said to have once been a separate jurisdiction exclud- 
ing the County officers), nothing more than a custom to elect 
as Mayor him " who had been oftenest drunk through the 
year." J Perhaps the least to be distinguished from a mere 
rural Manor was the Bailiwick of Gladestry and Colfa, a part 
of the Hierarchy of Courts of the Lordship or Manor of 
Cantref Moelyuaidd in Radnorshire, that we have already 
referred to. Here the Lord's annual Court Leet and monthly 
Court Baron was the sole governing authority. But by 
prescription " the right of the estrays " belonged, we are told, 
" to the Freeholders, and a Freeholder in one of the said town- 

1 Haverfordwest and its Story, 1882, p. 128 ; Abergwilly, too, elected a 
Portreeve (Carmarthen Journal, 15th October 1830). Among such entirely 
obsolete Boroughs may be classed the town of Mold (Flint), which, even in the 
days of Leland, had but "the name of a Mayor," and continued throughout 
the eighteenth century to hold a burlesque election of a "mock Mayor" in the 
"Wake week" (Cambro- Briton, March 1820, p. 259); Overton, in the same 
county, Chartered in the thirteenth century (First Report of Municipal Corpora- 
tion Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2819 ; ditto, 1880 ; Overton in Lays Gone By, 
by G. J. Howson, 1883) ; Abergele, in Denbighshire (see Records of Denbigh 
and its Lordship, by J. Williams, 1860, p. 225) ; Bala, in Merionethshire (see 
Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 1849, vol. i.) ; Builth, in 
Brecknockshire (ibid.) ; Caerphilly, in Glamorganshire (ibid.) ; Caerleon, in 
Monmouthshire ("Caerleon," by T. Wakeman, Archccologia Cambrensis, vol. iii. 
1848, pp. 328-344) ; Fishguard, conjectured to have been Chartered by John 
("Antiquities of Northern Pembrokeshire," by Idrison in ibid. 3rd series, vol. i., 
1855, p. 271); Harlech, in Merionethshire, "reduced to a few poor cottages" 
("Documents relating to the Town and Castle of Harlech," by W. W. E. Wynne, 
in ibid. vol. i., 1845, and vol. iii., 1848 ; " Letters concerning Harlech," by the 
same, ibid. vol. iv., 1858) ; Holt, in Denbighshire, with a Mayor chosen at the 
Court Leet (R. v. Roland, Reports of Cases, etc., by R. V. Barnewall and Alderson, 
vol. iii. p. 130) ; Kevin, in Carnarvonshire (Report on Certain Boroughs, by 
T. J. Hogg, 1838, pp. 97-105) ; Newport, in Pembrokeshire, a mere Lord's 
Leet appointing a Mayor (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 353 ; Description of Pembrokeshire, by G. Owen, edited by 
H. Owen, 1892, preface, p. x), and Newtown, in Montgomeryshire (Report on 
Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, pp. 107-112 ; "Newtown, its Ancient 
Charter and Town Hall," by R. Williams, in Poun/sland Club Collections, vol. xi., 
1879). 



236 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

ships was alternately and annually returned at the Court 
Leet to take the estrays, as also to serve the office of Chief 
Constable." In the person of this representative of the 
Freeholders, keeping for them a common purse, we seem to 
have the merest germ of autonomous structure. Within the 
same Lordship we find several Boroughs, with minutely 
graduated increases in complexity and independence. 1 
Presteign, a Borough by prescription, was hardly more 
advanced than Gladestry and Colfa. It had no Burgesses 
entitled to vote for Members of Parliament, and its Bailiff, 
the Head of the town, was appointed at the Lord's Court. 
At Ehayader and Knighton the Boroughs had Burgesses, 
being Freeholders admitted and sworn at the Lord's Court, 
but no more elaborate organisation than a Bailiff, who 
collected the rents, estrays, and fines, and governed the town. 
But there was a beginning of autonomy in the constitution of 
the Court. In both Boroughs the practice was for the Bailiff 
for the time being to present two other names with his own, 
and for the Steward to choose one of them ; but if any of the 
Burgesses made another nomination of three persons, the 
choice of which trio should be presented to the Steward was 
made by vote of the resident Burgesses, still leaving the final 
selection to the Steward. The Burgesses of Knighton had the 
further privilege that any two of them present at the Court 
Leet might object to the admission of any new Burgess ; that 
the eldest son of a deceased Burgess could claim admission ; 
and that the Burgesses collectively might nominate any person 

1 For the Radnorshire Boroughs, see supra, p. 48 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, vol. i. p. 355 ; "History of Radnorshire," by J. Williams, 
in Archceologia Cambrensis, 3rd series, vol. iv. Another of them, New Radnor, 
which covered a fifth of the whole County, but had, even in 1833, only 2461 
inhabitants, was much further advanced in Municipal structure. It had 
an independent Close Body of a Bailiff, two Aldermen, and twenty-two other 
Capital Burgesses, renewing itself by co-option. The Bailiff and the Aldermen 
acted as Justices, and the Borough had a Recorder who presided at Quarter 
Sessions. But for all this show of autonomy, the Corporation was, throughout the 
eighteenth century, absolutely subservient to the family of Lewis, a member of 
which filled the post of Recorder for generation after generation. In the survey 
of the Manor of Avan Wallia in 1659, we see a Borough (A van Burgus) where 
a Court was held monthly before a Portreeve, and there were Burgesses who 
placed three names before the Lord's Constable, who appointed one of them to 
be Portreeve ("Manorial Particulars of the County of Glamorgan," by G. T. C. 
in Archceologia Cambrensis, 4th series, 1879, vol. ix. pp. 125-127). There 
were probably many such incipient Borough organisations in the Wales of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 



INCIPIENT A UTONOMY 237 

to be a Burgess, whether a freeholder or not. They were also 
exempt from the tolls of the Borough Market ; their Bailiff 
had the profit of the wool weights in the Town Hall and half 
the " pitching dues " at markets ; and they had once owned a 
wood and exercised powers over the wastes of the Manor. 1 

More elaborate structure than these Eadnorshire Boroughs, 
but scarcely greater autonomy, is seen at Caerwys 2 in the 
County of Flint, Chartered by Edward I. in 1290, a little 
market town sharing with the other Flintshire Boroughs in the 
privilege of electing a Member of Parliament, but of which 
the population can never have exceeded a few hundreds. 
Here we find a Eecorder, two Bailiffs, a Cryer, and a body of 
Burgesses forming what claimed to be a Borough. But it was 
the King, or his agent, who appointed both the Eecorder and the 
Cryer, to hold office during his pleasure ; it was the Eecorder 

1 Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire, may perhaps be classed with these 
Radnorshire Boroughs, though there the Portreeve was, by 1833, beginning to 
take upon himself some of the minor functions of a Justice of the Peace (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. pp. 287-288). Its 
ancient dignities were specially preserved by the Municipal Corporation Act, 
1883 (46 and 47 Viet. c. 18, sec. 20). The Boroughs of Hay and Crickhowell, in 
Brecknockshire, had nothing but Bailiffs appointed at the Lord's Court (History 
of Brecknockshire, by E. Poole, 1886, pp. 210, 220). 

At this grade of structure and autonomy, though with numerous minute 
variations, we may place N"ewborough in Anglesey, which once had a Merchant 
Gild and a Hanse, but had dwindled by the end of the seventeenth century into 
no more than a village possessing a Mayor, and some Burgesses, with a rapidly 
decaying civil Court. Deprived of the parliamentary Franchise in 1709, by 
1833 it was all but obsolete (Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 
1849, vol. i. (under Beaumaris) ; " Antiquitates Parochiales," by Rev. H. 
Rowlands, in Archceologia Cambrensis, vol. i., 1846, pp. 305-307 ; First Report 
of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2807). On the other 
hand, though Bardsey, on the island of the same name, off the coast of 
Carnarvonshire, had a Recorder as well as a Bailiff and a Constable, appointed 
at the Lord's Court, it was not called a Borough (Short History of Bardsey, 
by Evan Richard, in Cambrian Register, vol. iii., 1818, p. 198). Tregaron, in 
Cardiganshire, had really been a Borough with a Mayor, its Burgesses voting for 
Parliamentary representatives, but we cannot find that it had any other 
Municipal structure at all ; and, 1742, the House of Commons decided that it had 
forfeited its Charter (Cardiganshire, by G. E. Evans, 1903, p. 101 ; Parlia- 
mentary History of Cardiganshire, by John Hughes, 1849 ; "Account of the 
Parish of Caron"in Cambrian Register, vol. ii., 1796, p. 386). Wiston, in 
Pembrokeshire, was also a Parliamentary Borough, and had a Mayor and a Grand 
Jury of Burgesses, but the Lord of the Manor was supreme, and the government 
was practically that of an ordinary Manor (First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 421). 

2 "The Place of Caerwys in Welsh History," by E. Owen, in Archwologia 
Cambrensis, vol. viii. of 5th series, pp. 166-183 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 2610 ; ditto of 1880, p. 
21 ; Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 1849, vol. i. 



238 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

who held the Court which transacted all the business ; it was 
the Cryer who nominated the Bailiffs; the Bailiffs selected the 
Burgesses who were to form the Jury ; and the Jury admitted 
at its pleasure other inhabitants to be Burgesses. 1 Sometimes 
the Lord's authority was manifested both at the base and at 
the head of the Corporation. Thus, at Llanelly, in Carmarthen- 
shire, in 1689 a tiny fishing village of a few hundred in- 
habitants, but nevertheless an ancient Borough, it was the 
Lord's Steward who selected the Jury, which presented persons 
to serve as Portreeve, Serjeants at Mace, " Layerkeeper," Town 
Cryer, Haywards and Ale-tasters as well as inhabitants to be 
Burgesses for appointment or admission by the Steward. 
Practically all the interest of the Burgesses was concentrated 
in the administration of the commonfields ; and when in 1807 
an Inclosure Act vested these in a body of trustees, no new 
Burgesses were admitted. 2 

1 Similar conditions existed at Rhuddlan (Flint), also a Royal Borough, 
Chartered in 1284 (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. pp. 2835-2840 ; ditto of 1880, p. 100). We gather from the scanty MS. 
records of Aberavon in Glamorganshire, a decrepit little fishing port of a few 
score families, that this ancient prescriptive Borough, Chartered by the Lords of 
Glamorgan, had no more elaborate structure or greater autonomy. The Lord's 
Steward chose the Portreeve out of three persons nominated by the Jury of the 
Lord's Court. The twenty-five senior Burgesses enjoyed each three acres of 
Borough Land (MS. Minutes, Corporation of Aberavon, 1847-1863, preserved 
in a volume of extracts only ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 163 ; "Lords of Avan,"in Archceologia Cambrensis, 3rd series, 
vol. xiii., 1867, p. 3 ; Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 1849, 
vol. i.). Here, too, we may place Pwllheli, in Carnarvonshire, though the 
townsmen are said to have elected the Bailiffs and Town Steward (Report on 
Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, pp. 113-125 ; Carnarvon Herald, llth 
October 1834). In a similar position was Llanidloes, in Montgomeryshire, an 
ancient reputed Borough, which had once done a great trade in flannel, but 
chose its Mayor at the Lord's Court, and was entirely subjected to the Mostyns 
and the Wynns (Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, pp. 43-56 ; 
"Parochial Account of Llanidloes," by E. Hamer, in Powysland Club Collections, 
vols. iii., iv., v., vi., vii., viii., and ix., 1871-1876). 

Scarcely more advanced beyond the mere Lord's Court was the ancient 
Borough of Flint, with Royal Charters, a population in 1831 of 2216, and all 
the paraphernalia of Mayor, Bailiffs, and Burgesses. These all depended on the 
Court Leet of the Constable of the Castle, who was himself Mayor ; his Deputy 
was Recorder, chose the Jury, and made all appointments (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. pp. 2679-2682 ; Historic 
Notices of Flint, by Henry Taylor, 1883). 

At Criccieth, "a pleasant fishing village" in Carnarvonshire, an ancient 
prescriptive Borough, the office of Mayor was said to be hereditary in the family 
of Ormsby, Constables of the Castle and Lords of the Manor (Report on Certain 
Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, pp. 24-28 ; North Wales Chronicle, 9th 
October 1832). 

2 Llanelly Inclosure Act, 1807; Cambrian, 18th September 1818; Car- 



INCIPIENT AUTONOMY 239 

In the little fishing port of Swansea with a population of 
some 1700 persons, and as yet unconscious of its destiny as a 
great metallurgical and mercantile centre the Lord's authority 
was at the end of the seventeenth century less apparent. 1 
There was a considerable development of Municipal structure, 
and under Charters of the Commonwealth the head officer of 
the town had even presumed to call himself Mayor. Besides 
the Court Baron of the Lord there was an independent Court 
of Pleas of the Borough, having a civil jurisdiction unlimited 
in amount, which was held from three weeks to three weeks. 
There was throughout the eighteenth century what was 
unusual in Welsh Boroughs, an indefinite body of Burgesses, 
admitted by rights of Birth, Marriage, and Apprenticeship, as 
well as by simple gift. There was an independently existing 
Close Body a Portreeve and twelve Aldermen recruiting 
themselves by co-option from the Burgesses. There existed 
Corporate property yielding 1800 a year, and a revenue from 
tolls of 1000 a year, burdened, however, by a debt which, in 
1833, seems to have amounted to over 20,000. On the 
surface the Corporation maintained the appearance of inde- 
pendence, subject only to a right in the Lord of the Manor to veto 
any improper appointment. But it is clear that, beneath the 

narvon Herald, 24th May 1834 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1835, Appendix, vol. i. pp. 305-310 ; ditto of 1880, pp. 61-62; Old 
Llandly, by J. Innes, 1902. Llanelly became in the nineteenth century an 
important port and metallurgical centre the subject of no fewer than twenty-four 
Local Acts and Provisional Orders with a population in 1831 of 4173, and in 
1901 of 25,617. It obtained a Local Board (nowan Urban District Council) in 1850. 

An example of the same type is furnished by the little Borough of Usk, in 
Monmouthshire, where we see the Lord's Court attended by an indefinite body of 
Burgesses who elected a Portreeve, but these Burgesses were themselves recruited 
by the nominees of the Lord. It was at his Court that the Bailiff was appointed. 
The Lord also had the appointment of the Recorder, who held his Court, 
summoned to it which jurymen he chose, and evidently controlled the Portreeve, 
under whose direction the Bailiff and Constables acted. When in 1821 the 
Jury wanted to present a new Burgess, the Recorder declined to admit him on 
the ground that the " Lord of the Borough " (the Duke of Beaufort) had given 
him no instructions to admit additional Burgesses (Cambrian, 3rd November 
1821). See Report of House of Commons Committee on Corporations, 1833 ; 
First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, vol. i. p. 
413 ; ditto of 1880, pp. 117-118. 

1 Swansea Charters, by G. G. Francis, 1867 ; Siluriana, by D. L. Isaac, 
1859, p. 244 ; Contributions towards a History of Swansea, L. W. Dillwyn, 
1840 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, 
vol. L p. 383 ; House of Commons Return as to Freemen, 1840 ; Cambrian for 
1818-1834. Swansea was included as a Municipal Corporation under the Act of 
1835. 



240 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

surface, the Lord enforced his will whenever he chose to do so. 
Legally he may have let lapse all beyond the right, through 
his Steward, of vetoing any appointment of an Alderman to be 
Portreeve, a Burgess to be Alderman, or any person to be 
Common Attorney, Layerkeeper, or Water Bailiff. But this 
right of veto sufficed to make him the supreme authority in 
every department. These various positions entitled their 
holders to what became, with the growth of the port, lucrative 
privileges and emoluments. The result, if we read the story 
aright, was simply a scramble among Burgesses and Aldermen 
for the Lord's favour. 1 

1 By 1801 the population had increased to 6099, and by 1831, if we include 
certain suburbs, to more than twice that figure. Other Boroughs at about this 
grade were Loughor (Glamorganshire), with a Recorder, Portreeve, Serjeants at 
Mace, and other officers, chosen at the Court Leet of the Lord (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 315) ; Newport (Pembroke- 
shire), with a Mayor and a Court Leet Jury selected by him, the Jury admitting 
new Burgesses, and the Lord appointing the Mayor from among three persons 
nominated by the Jury (ibid. vol. i. p. 353 ; "Description of Pembrokeshire" 
by G. Owen, in Cymmrodorion Record Series, No. 1, 1891) ; Llantrissant 
(Glamorganshire), population in 1831, 956, with a Portreeve appointed in much 
the same way, twelve Aldermen, and other officers (" Llantrissant Castle, " by J. S. 
Corbett, in Archceologia Cambrensis, 6th series, vol. i., 1901, p. 5 ; First Report 
of Municipal. Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 311) ; Kenfig (Glamorgan- 
shire), with a somewhat elaborate Municipal structure, ultimately dependent on 
the Constable of the Castle, who was the Lord's agent (ibid. vol. i. p. 269 ; 
" Kenfig Charters" in Archceologia Cambrensis, 4th series, vol. ii. 1871 ; " The 
Borough of Kenfig," by R. W. Llewellyn, ibid. 5th series, vol. xv.) ; Lampeter, 
in Cardiganshire, with a population in 1831 of 1197, with a Portreeve and 
Burgesses chosen at the Lord's Court ; re-established as a Borough by a new 
Charter of 1814, but practically subject to the Lord of the Manor (First Report 
of Municipal Corporation Commission 1835, vol. i. pp. 283-285; "Charters 
connected with Lampeter," by Rev. "W. H. Davey, in Archceologia Cambrensis, 
5th series, vol. xv., 1892, pp. 308-314 ; Lampeter, by G. Eyre Evans, 1905 ; 
MS. Acts of Privy Council, 27th May, 14th August, and 13th December 1813). 

On the other hand, the prescriptive Borough of Kilgerran, in Pembrokeshire, 
had become independent of any Lord, though without progressing far in 
structure. This "Lordless Court" was presided over by a Portreeve whom the 
last Jury of Burgesses had appointed, and who himself summoned the new Jury, 
and appointed Bailiffs (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 279). Much the same seems to have been the position of St. 
Clears, in Carmarthenshire, with a population of 1083 under a Portreeve and 
Court Leet (ibid. vol. i. p. 377). Llandovery (Carmarthenshire), with a popula- 
tion in 1831 of 1766, had secured great autonomy by its Charter of 1485, the 
Burgesses freely choosing their Bailiff, who held "Hundred Courts" monthly 
for trial of civil and criminal cases. But all this had long before fallen into 
decay, none but the annual Court of the Lord was held, and practically no other 
Municipal structure existed in 1833 than a Bailiff, elected by the Burgesses at 
the Lord's Court, who appointed six Constables, committed offenders for trial, 
and administered the Town Hall and the Markets (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 301). 



THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH 241 

(6) The, Welsh Manorial Borough 

We select from our materials two of the most typical of 
the Welsh Manorial Boroughs, of which we happen to have 
explored the manuscript records between 1689 and 1835, for 
that more detailed description which alone can convey an 
impression of the actual working of these quaint constitutions. 
The little Denbighshire town of Euthin, clustering round the 
castle built by Edward the First, was one of the places at 
which the County Justices met in Quarter Sessions, using an 
ancient building known as the Town Hall. 1 At the same 
Town Hall the Steward of the Lord held his Court twice a 
year " for the Lordship and Borough of Kuthin." This Court 
was served by two separate Juries called by the Steward ; and 
two sets of officers presented by the Juries for the Lordship 
and the Borough respectively. There was the " Grand Jury " 
or " Grand Inquest " of the Lordship, acting for an extensive 
district, attended by Constables and Tithingmen for the several 
townships ; nominating persons sometimes by custom from 
house to house 2 to serve as Constables ; presenting roads 
and bridges out of repair, defective stocks and pinfolds, foot- 
ways stopped up, gates and fences lying low between neigh- 
bours, 3 ditches and sewers unsecured and overflowing, land- 
owners enclosing commons, cottagers squatting on the wastes, 
and Freeholders " abstracting " their suit of Court. Within the 
Lordship was the little town of Euthin, which had been made 
a " Free Borough " by Charter of Henry VII., but had fallen 
into decay as early as 1636. It is not easy to make out from 
the scanty records of the Court what exactly was the relation 
of the Borough government, the jurisdiction of which extended 
for " half a league " in all directions from the centre of the 
town, to the Courts of the Lordship. There was a Borough 
Jury, or " Borough Inquest," nominating two of the inhabitants 
to serve as "Aldermen and Chief Magistrates" 4 for the en- 

1 MS. Records of the Manor of Ruthin, 1722-1798, in the Public Record 
Office ; Court Rolls of the Lordship of Ruthin, by R. A. Roberts (Cymmrodoriou 
Record Society (1893) ) ; First Report of the Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. iv. p. 2849 ; papers in Syegones relating to Wales and t/ie Border 
Counties, 1876-1877 ; An Account of the Castle and Town of Ruthin, by R. New- 
come, 1st edition, 1829 ; 2nd edition, 1836. Ruthin was included in the Act 
of 1835. 2 MS. Minutes, Ruthin Coxirt, 20th October 1759. 

3 "For wanting of a gate that is necessary to keep neighbourhood between 
neighbours" (ibid. 17th April 1755). * Ibid. 22nd October 1754. 

VOL. II. PT. I R 



242 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

suing year ; presenting four others as Constables, four as Town 
Serjeants, and two as " Leavelookers " ; amercing Burgesses and 
resiants who failed to attend the Court ; making their own set 
of presentments, distinct from those of the Grand Jury of the 
Lordship ; fining innkeepers without licences, and butchers 
selling " blown " meat ; presenting dangerous structures, de- 
fective causeways or pavements, 1 noxious smells, outstanding 
steps, uncovered cellars, filthy hogsties, and the innumerous 
other nuisances of a little town. The Aldermen were assisted 
by a Close Body of " Capital Men " or Common Councillors, 
sixteen in number, who were chosen jointly by the two 
Aldermen immediately after their own election, and who 
assumed the right to be summoned to serve on the Jury which 
chose the Aldermen. By immemorial custom they were all so 
summoned, and most of them attended claiming, indeed, that 
the proceedings would be invalid unless the Jury was composed, 
to the extent of at least a majority, of Common Councillors. 
The two Aldermen for the year received and controlled all the 
funds of the little Corporation ; they had the privilege of 
nominating the two Churchwardens of the parish, and their 
joint consent was necessary to the admission of any new 
Burgesses by the Council. Whether the two Burgesses 
annually chosen as Aldermen had any right to act as Magis- 
trates is far from clear. The County Justices disputed their 
jurisdiction, but the action that was brought did not con- 
clusively decide the point. It was reported in 1835 that the 
Aldermen had, during the eighteenth century, held Petty 
Sessions, but we do not feel sure whether such magisterial 
action as they occasionally took went beyond committing 
offenders for trial, and exercising the sort of authority that we 
find often used by a Mayor. The four Constables, one for each 
Ward, were appointed by the Aldermen and Common Council 
jointly, and sworn in at the Court. In 1766 one of the Con- 
stables presented the Borough " for not erecting a pillory and 
stocks," when " the sum of four pounds will build the same " ; 
and in this sum the Borough was apparently amerced. 2 More 
real, perhaps, was the quaint array of "Javelin Men," perhaps 
identical with the Town Serjeants, whom the Town main- 

1 MS. Minutes, Ruthin Coiirt, 17th April arid 18th October 1735. 
* Ibid. 27th April 1766. 



THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH 243 

taiued, "dressed in handsome liveries, armed with old- 
fashioned halberts," to give a little colour to the Aldermanic 
processions. In a single entry of 1748 we catch a glimpse 
rare in these Welsh Boroughs of Gild organisation, confirmed, 
it appears, by Charter of Henry VII., and also centring in the 
Lord's Court, at which " encroachers " upon the privileges of 
the duly apprenticed Company-members are presented for 
amercement. 1 There was evidently a well-frequented market, 
which had at one time yielded a considerable revenue to the 
Borough; and the tolls were, even in 1835, leased for 110 a 
year. How the actual administration of this Manorial Borough 
was divided among the Recorder, the Aldermen for the year, 
the Common Councillors, the Borough Jury, the several Trade 
Companies, and their officers, and how far during the 
eighteenth century all alike stood in subordination to the 
Lord's Steward, who presided at the Court, and to the County 
Justices who rode in to hold Sessions in the Town Hall, we 
must leave to be unravelled by the local antiquary. By 1835, 
it is clear, the owner of the Manor had come to possess over- 
whelming influence : nominating inhabitants to be Burgesses, 
addressing a letter to the Foreman of the Jury recommending 
the two persons to be chosen as Aldermen, continuing the same 
persons in that office year after year, giving one of the two 
places to the deputy Steward of the Manor, who had in 

1 "We, the Stewards of the Companies of Grocers, Tailors, Halters, and 
Smiths, and in behalf of all the several traders of the said Companies and 
Fraternity of the whole, do present the persons as under-named that have not 
served their apprenticeships with any of the said Fraternity, nor have gained 
their settlement within this Borough or the Liberties thereof, who are now at 
this time encroachers upon the said Fraternity (ten names) " (ibid. 7th May 
1748). One of the Companies continued to exist down to 1835 ; this was that 
of the Cordwainers, which had apparently absorbed the former Companies of 
Tanners, Curriers, Skinners, and Saddlers. 

We might class as a decayed or undeveloped Ruthin, the tiny Borough of 
Dinas Mawddwy, in Merionethshire, in 1793 a mere cluster of "mud cottages with 
rush-clad roofs " (Letters written during a Tour through North Wales, by Rev. 
J. Evans, 3rd edition, 1804, p. 75) ; which had a " Mayor" who claimed to be 
a magistrate, and who did actually participate in the licensing of beershops. 
He was in effect appointed by the Lord of the Manor, and in form chosen at an 
annual assembly of Burgesses grandiloquently called ' ' the General Sessions of 
the Peace," which was in fact a Court of the Manor, from three persons 
nominated by the Lord. The Steward of the Lord acted as Recorder and held 
the Manorial Courts (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. pp. 2673-2674 ; " Relics of Dinas Mawddwy," by E. L. Baruwell, hi 
Arch&ologia Cainfrrensis, 3rd series, vol. xiv., 1868, p. 202). 



244 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

practice the selecting of the Jury ; and appointing the Recorder 
(who acted as Clerk to the Aldermen) during pleasure. 

But the best vision of these Welsh Manorial Boroughs 
is afforded by the archives of the little port and market 
town of Aberystwyth in Cardiganshire, of which the population 
in 1689 was probably only a few hundreds; in 1801, 1758; 
and in 1831, 4128. l To the little community that gathered 
round the new castle, erected at the mouth of the Paver Eheidol 
by Edward I., there had been granted by him in 1278 a 
Charter, making the town a " Free Borough," with two fairs 
and a weekly market, and an exclusive right of trading in the 
persons admitted as Burgesses. This Charter of 1278, con- 
firmed and extended by several others, does not refer specifically 
to any organisation for government. What Edward the First 
conceded to the fishermen and traders of Aberystwyth in this 
respect was apparently the privilege of holding the Manorial 
Court (heretofore, we assume, held by a Steward for the King), 
exercising its jurisdiction without seignorial interference, and 
taking its profits for the local communal purposes. The 
lordship or ownership of the Manor itself, apart from its 
profitable Court, seems never to have been formally conveyed. 
Nor is it clear whence was derived the title and office of 
Mayor. The earliest recorded mention of such an officer is in 
1615, and in 1673 the town is described as "governed by a 
Mayor and other sub-officers." 2 In 1689, and annually down 
to 1834, we find the Mayor for the time being issuing at 
Easter and Michaelmas, in the name of the King, a writ to the 
two Bailiffs of the Borough, requiring them to proclaim the 
holding of the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge ; and to 
summon between thirty and forty of the leading Burgesses, 

1 See MS. Presentment Book, Court Leet, Aberystwyth (Cardiganshire) 
(extant only from 1690) ; MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, 1739- 
1835 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commissioners, 1835, Appendix, 
vol. i. p. 171 ; Aberystwyth Guide, 1816 ; Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by 
Rev. G. Eyre Evans, 1902 ; The New Aberystwyth Guide, by T. J. Llewellyn 
Prichard, 1824 ; Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 1849, vol. i. ; 
New Guide to Aberystwyth, by Thomas Owen Morgan, 1848 ; Old Aberystwyth, 
by David Samuel, 1890 ; History of Cardiganshire, by S. R. Meyrick, 1810 ; 
Carmarthen Journal, 17th October 1834, 8th May and 27th November 1835 ; 
Carnarvon Herald, 29th November 1834 ; A History of the Parliamentary 
Representation of the County of Cardigan, etc., by John Hughes, 1849. 

2 Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. Gi E. Evans, 1902, p. 9 ; 
Britannia, by Richard Blome, 1673, p. 268. 



THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH 245 

whom the Mayor himself designated in the writ. 1 At the 
"Easter Leet" and "Michaelmas Leet," thus held by the 
Mayor in person, the Jury, consisting of such of those 
summoned as attended, the number being made up in Court 
to at least twelve persons, calling themselves, by the way, 
the " Grand Jury for the Town, Liberty, and Borough of 
Aberystwyth," 2 admitted new Burgesses, heard complaints 
from any one who chose to prefer them, and made presentments. 
At " the Michaelmas Leet " the Jury annually " presented " the 
persons to be appointed officers of the town for the ensuing 
year the Mayor, the Coroner, and the two Bailiffs and the 
two Constables. 3 Apparently the choice of the Jury was, in 
fact, final. But the phraseology is merely that of submission 
of a name for confirmation. " We, the said Jury, do present 
A. B., etc., to be a fit person to be Mayor of the said town," etc. 
We see, as a matter of fact, the Mayor-Elect always presenting 
himself to the next Court of Quarter Sessions of the County 
for the purpose of taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; 4 
but there seems no case in which the selection made by the 
Jury, for this or any other office, was objected to. The Mayor 
was not a Justice of the Peace ex qfficio, nor was the person 
chosen usually (or possibly ever) included in the Commission 
for the County. This Court Leet, meeting normally only twice 
a year (and not, in fact, making any effective use of the power 
of adjournment), was, with the officers that it annually appointed, 
the only governing authority 5 belonging to the town, other than 
the usual institutions of the parish. Hence it is not surprising 
to find that the County Justices in Quarter, Petty, or Special 
Sessions, and the High Sheriff himself, had, as a matter of fact, 
no less jurisdiction in the "Town, Liberty, and Burgh of 

1 From the lists of 1737-8 it seems that the same persons did not, at that 
date, serve year after year ; though this seems, later, to have become the 
practice. 

2 Aberysluiyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, p. 5 ; MS. 
Presentment Book, 13th October 1809. 

3 In 1708 we see the Court Leet appointing two "Searchers and Sealers of 
Leather," under Act of 1 James I. (ibid. 18th May 1708). Occasionally it 
selects persons to be Constables. 

4 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, llth January 1786. 

6 Between 1736 and 1835 various persons are, in the contemporary docu- 
ments, designated Aldermen (Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. . 
Evans, 1902, pp. 10-14). It does not appear how these were appointed, or what 
position they held, but they were presumably those who had served as Mayor. 



246 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

Aberystwyth " than elsewhere in Cardiganshire ; except that 
the Borough chose its own Coroner, and claimed to be exempt 
from the jurisdiction of the County Coroner ; l and except that 
it formed a district outside those of the High Constables of the 
County, and that its own Mayor seems to have acted as High 
Constable. 2 

We shall realise more clearly the position of this " Free 
Borough" if we run over the various functions of the local 
government in such a town, and see by whom they were 
performed between 1689 and 1835. In many respects the 
most important of these functions, as we see them in the 
contemporary English Boroughs, were those exercisable only 
by Justices of the Peace. In Aberystwyth there were no 
Municipal Justices. For all the services of the " Single 
Justice " and the " Double Justice," the town was dependent 
on the nearest resident gentry who happened to be in the 
County Commission of the Peace. Without their help the 
profane swearer could not be fined, the drunkard set in the 
stocks, or the vagrant whipped. We do not find that the 
Mayor had even the power of committing to the county gaol, 
for trial by Quarter Sessions, or to the next " Grand Sessions 
of Wales " (which took the place of the English Assizes), 
persons accused of larceny, assault, or felony. The only 
offences which the town dealt with by its own officers were 
the nuisances cognisable by the Court Leet, such as failing to 
fulfil the householder's common obligations to keep the street 
pavement clean and in repair, and disobeying the numerous 
regulations as to the enjoyment of the common pasture. 
Unlike many Boroughs, Aberystwyth had not even a lock-up, 

1 Though the Court Leet had elected a Coroner from the date of the earliest 
extant records, his right to act did not go unchallenged. In 1810 the Jury 
indignantly "presents " that one of the Coroners of the County "has encroached 
upon the rights and privileges of this Town, Burgh, and Liberty by holding 
three several inquisitions within the limits and boundaries thereof." The 
Court thereupon amerces him in the sum of 2 (MS. Presentment Book, 
Aberystwyth, 14th May 1810). We do not gather what was the result of the 
dispute, but the Court Leet continued to appoint its Coroner to the last. 

2 The Mayor of Aberystwytli, like the Mayor of Cardigan and the Portreeve 
of Lampeter the two other "Boroughs" within the county was always 
reported to the Court by the Sheriff, in obedience to the command in the writ 
issued to him and recorded on the Sessions Roll, along with the five High 
Constables of the Hundreds of the County, and the five Bailiffs for these divisions. 
(See, e.g., MS. Sessions Rolls, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, Trinity 1765 ; 
ibid., Easter 1775, from which the Portreeve of Lampeter is omitted.) 



247 

or any sort of prison under its own administration, the House 
of Correction in the town being erected, maintained, and 
administered by Quarter Sessions. 1 Similarly, we see the 
town unable to license its own alehouses, or to authorise the 
performance of stage plays 2 in the building that was called 
the Gild Hall or Town Hall, though it was the County that 
owned it, and paid its keeper, as it had paid for its erection. 3 
It was, too, the County Magistrates who appointed the Overseers 
of the parish, supervised their relief of the poor, gave them 
instructions, and allowed their accounts. It was the County 
Magistrates who appointed the Surveyor of Highways, instructed 
him what streets to repair, enforced for him the performance 
of Statute Labour, and authorised now and again his levy of a 
Highway Kate. 4 When we turn to the specially urban services 
of paving, cleansing, lighting, and watching the streets, we see 
the town making shift with the powers of the Court Leet ; 
presenting and fining householders " for want of mending and 
clearing the gutter " in the cobblestone pavement in front of 
their respective houses, for making dunghills in the public 
street, for not making the gutters level with the rest of the 
pavement, for " not clearing their mixen from the street," for 
leaving carts and waggons in the street, or " for laying of 
rubbish, dirt, dust, or dunghills before their respective doors." 5 
But it is long before the town ventures upon any collective 
service of this kind. When the inhabitants wish to have a 
Scavenger it is to the County Justices that they resort, and 
Quarter Sessions appoints such officers for the town, under the 

1 It had its own stocks and whipping-post, which (like any mere parish) it 
had to maintain. The Jury, in 1708, "present the stocks, whipping-post, and 
common ground ... to be out of repair, and ought to be repaired by the 
inhabitants of the said town and liberty " (MS. Presentment Book, Aberyst- 
wyth, 18th May 1708). The whipping-post is not mentioned after 1761, and 
after this date we hear, too, no more of the want of a ducking-stool, but 
presentments as to the stocks occur down to 1810, and they were not removed 
until 1821 (Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 
97-104). 

2 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, 15th July 1812. 

3 Ibid., llth January 1786, 10th January and llth July 1821. 

4 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, 3rd April 1832, autho- 
rising a rate of a shilling in the pound on the whole town for the repair of the 
Marine Terrace. 

5 MS. Presentment Book, Aberystwyth, 21st April 1812 ; Aberystwyth and 
its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 110-115 under dates 1713- 
1774. 



248 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

powers provided for unincorporated towns by the Act of 17 15. 1 
Presently the Court Leet takes it upon itself to appoint a 
Scavenger, who seems to have served without payment. 2 Even 
after 1801, when the town increased by leaps and bounds, 
doubling its population within thirty years, it failed to accomplish 
any paving or lighting at the public expense, or the provision 
of night watchmen. Its power of organising Municipal 
services was, indeed, limited, for the Court Leet could levy no 
rate. The income from the town property was small, and it 
does not seem to have occurred to any one that, if no influential 
person seriously objected to the expenditure, the Parish Vestry 
might have included any necessary item in the Church Rate, if 
not in the Poor Eate. We see, however, no indication that 
there was any desire for the organisation of such common 
services. By far the largest part of the business of the 
Court Leet was concerned with the management of the 
common pasturage and wastes adjoining the town, over 
which their Eoyal Charters had given the Burgesses inde- 
feasible rights, not, however, differing in kind or degree from 
those exercised elsewhere by Manorial authorities. 3 Next in 
importance to the common pasturage were the markets and 
fairs and the haven afforded by the river. Over all these 
the Court Leet exercised such scanty regulative power as in 
fact existed. We see the Jury vainly striving, by repeating 
its general denunciation of offenders, to get the weights and 
measures inspected. 4 It was the Justices in Quarter Sessions 
who appointed and paid the Clerk of the Market and Inspector 
of Corn Eeturns ; and the Justices at last instruct him to 
procure standard weights and measures and to inspect those 

1 1 George I. stat. 2, c. 52 ; MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, 
13th January 1747 ; 10th January 1759, llth January 1786. 

2 It is interesting in 1811-1815 to find the Scavenger paying 8 or 10 for 
the privilege of holding the office doubtless for the value of the manure and 
ashes. Later on we see the Churchwardens and Overseers for the year formally 
appointed Scavengers, in order that they may employ the paupers on the work 
(MS. Presentment Book, 22nd October 1811 ; Aberystwyth and its Court Led, 
1902, p. 26). 

3 Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 157-164. 
In 1740 the Court Leet appoints an officer to "survey" the common lands to 
prevent geese, swine, and mangy horses being placed upon them (MS. Present 
ment Book, Aberystwyth, 10th April 1740) ; and in 1812 two such officers are 
appointed "to oversee the wastes," the Mayor "to. pay them that which he 
thinks reasonable" (ibid. 21st April 1812). 

4 Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 79-81. 



THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH 249 

in use. 1 In order to get any expensive improvements effected 
in the Market or the Harbour, these had both to be placed in 
other hands: the market, in 1823, by lease to six inhabitants 
who undertook to erect a building; and the harbour, in 1780, 
by a Local Act vesting it in trustees. 2 Though the Court 
Leet had, by Charter, the right to exclude all but Burgesses 
from trading, and to admit new Burgesses only at its own 
will, 3 we see this exclusive privilege becoming obsolete early 
in the eighteenth century. The Court Leet makes spasmodic- 
ally a few presentments against " foreigners," which evidently 
fail to be enforced. 4 In fact, from 1740 onwards, practically 
the only valuable incident of the status of Burgess apart 
from the right to turn out beasts on the common was the 
Parliamentary Franchise that it carried. The main importance 
of the Court Leet lay in its power of admitting new Burgesses, 
and thus controlling the share of the town (along with the 
four other Boroughs of Cardiganshire) 5 in the election of a 
Borough Member. Between 1740 and 1778, and again 
between 1812 and 1817, such new Burgesses were admitted 
in great batches ; over nine hundred, mostly not resident, on 
payment by each of two pounds eleven and sixpence in fees, 
being thus introduced just prior to particular elections. 6 

The scanty records that alone exist of the Municipal 
government of Aberystwyth do not permit us to infer with any 

1 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Cardiganshire, llth January 1786, 
15th July 1795. 

2 Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 88 ; 20 
George III. c. 26 ; New Guide to Aberystwyth, by T. 0. Morgan, 1848. 

3 In 1734, three of the persons "presented" by the Jury for admission as 
Burgesses were " not allowed by the Mayor " (MS. Presentment Book, 
Aberystwyth, 1734 ; Aberystioyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 
1902, p. 144), which we do not understand. 

4 ' ' We present D. R. and J. L. for buying sheep and goat skins, lamb and 
kid skins within the said Town and Liberty aforesaid, not being qualified as 
Burgesses and Freemen of the said Town, to the nuisance and inconvenience of 
those that are so qualified and exercise the trade of Skinners " (MS. Present- 
ment Book, Aberystwyth, 18th May 1708). We have found but one other case 
of a person specifically presented for this offence, viz. a "periwig-maker and 
barber" in 1739 (Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, 
p. 79), but general presentments of " foreigners" are made at intervals down to 
1743, after which the Burgesses' trading privilege ia not mentioned. 

6 Viz. Cardigan, Lampeter, Adpar (disfranchised in 1742), and Tregaron 
(disfranchised in 1730) (House of Commons Journals, 7th May 1730 : History 
of Cardiganshire, by S. R. Meyrick, 1810 ; History of the Parliamentary Repre- 
sentation of the County of Cardigan, by John Hughes, 1849, p. 8). 

6 Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 145-156. 



250 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

confidence how the constitution actually worked, or whether it 
underwent between 1689 and 1835 any important change. 
From first to last the fishermen and little traders who made 
up the resident Burgesses appear to have been overshadowed 
by the neighbouring gentry, notably by the family of Pryse of 
Gogerthan. Down to about 1730 we gather that the govern- 
ment was in the hands of the gentry ; a Pryse is frequently 
Mayor ; the office is held by other landed proprietors ; and 
the jurors all sign their names and affix their seals. Between 
1*730 and 1780 a great change takes place, probably not 
unconnected with two separate proceedings in the Court of 
King's Bench on writ of quo warranto, and a more strict enforce- 
ment of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. 1 From 1730 
the mayoralty comes apparently more and more to be filled by 
the middle-class folk of the town, though for a generation the 
Jury continues to be made up of persons who could at least 
sign their names and affix their seals. From the middle of 
the eighteenth century we see the administration putting on 
more and more of the forms of the close Municipal Boroughs 
of the period. The presentments of the Jury at the Court 
Leet are made to serve as resolutions of a Town Council. No 
longer confined to the designation of persons to serve offices, 
neglects and defaults to be remedied or punished, and offenders 
to be amerced, they take on both legislative and executive 
form. New rules are made, decisions on policy are formulated, 
expenditure is ordered to be incurred, bills are directed to be 
paid, and even leases of land are granted all under the 
ancient formula of presentment. The Court takes it upon 
itself to create new offices, and to give new titles to the old 
ones. A Chamberlain is appointed from 1763 to hold the 
funds of the "Corporation of Aberystwyth." 2 The Bailiffs 
become " Serjeants at Mace," and one of them eventually the 
Bellman. At last there is even appointed a Town Clerk, an 
office created towards the end of the eighteenth century, and 
filled by the chief Tory solicitor of the town. 3 At the same 
time we see a distinct worsening in the status of the members 
of the Jury, who evidently become more than ever subservient 
to the real rulers of the town. Out of the seventeen members 

1 Aberystwyth and its Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, pp. 20-21, 170- 
171. 2 Ibid. p. 25. 3 Ibid. p. 26. 



THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH 251 

of the Jury of 1779 only six can sign their names, the others 
making their marks. From the latter part of the eighteenth 
century, at any rate possibly from an earlier period the 
whole administration was evidently in the hands of a small 
clique of well-to-do merchants and shopkeepers, mainly Tory 
in politics and largely Anglican in religion, who took it in 
turns to fill the different offices, summoned the same persons 
(principally non-resident tenants of the local squire and 
Member for the Borough) year after year to serve on the 
Jury, and perpetuated their own rule, to the exclusion of all 
the other inhabitants, 1 until an elected Town Council was 
established by the Municipal Corporations Act. It is to be 
recorded to their credit that, under the influence of the 
leading local merchant, they kept all their little communal 
property together, refusing always to sell the freehold, and 
granting, even to their own members, only leases for terms of 
years. 2 That such leases were sometimes granted on unduly 
favourable terms to members of the ruling clique was the 
subject of popular allegation in 1834, 3 which the records now 
show to have been not without foundation. 4 It is needless to 
say that the accounts were not published ; nor, save for being 
perfunctorily laid before the Jury at the Michaelmas Leet, 
either audited or inspected. 5 

1 During the fifty years 1786-1835, the mayoralty was monopolised by 
fifteen persons only one, the leading merchant, serving at least twelve times. 

2 Aberystwyth audits Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, p. 15. 

3 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commissions, 1835, Appendix, vol. i. 
p. 173. 

4 The Court Leet Jury of 1780 presented that a lease for ninety-nine years 
of a plot of land should be granted to the Mayor for the time being, without 
any entry of the presentment being made. The Mayor promptly sold the lease 
for 100, and this sum was never credited to the town. It was found necessary 
in 1828 to buy back the lease at the town's expense {Aberystwyth and its 
Court Leet, by Rev. G. E. Evans, 1902, p. 49). 

6 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, Appendix, 
vol. i. p. 173. 

A stage further than Aberystwyth was, perhaps, the shire town of Cardigan, 
the population of which by 1831 was only 2795. Here, too, there were no 
Corporate Justices, and the only Court was the Court Leet of the Manor, which 
the Corporation owned, which it designated the Mayor's Court, and at which 
new Burgesses were admitted. At the Michaelmas Court the Mayor and 
Coroner, together with the Constables, were appointed, on the presentment of 
the Jury or "Grand Inquest" of Burgesses, summoned by the two Bailiffs, 
whom the outgoing Mayor had appointed. But, unlike Aberystwyth, Cardigan 
had also the characteristically Municipal feature of a standing Common Council, 
of thirteen Burgesses, serving for life, which appointed the Town Clerk, 
administered the 200 acres of uninclosed common land, and transacted all the 



252 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

Whilst the Municipal Government of Aberystwyth arose 
out of the Court Leet aspect of the Lord's Court, that of 
Neath in Glamorganshire seems to have been closely inter- 
woven with the Court Baron jurisdiction and its Municipal 
analogue, the Court of Pleas. From the scanty MS. records 
we infer that this reputed Borough Corporation, admitted as 
such by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, had been 
gradually developed from a series of Courts, one styled a 
Court Baron ; one, less subordinate to the Lord's Steward, 

business of the Corporation. It so happens that we have recorded the be- 
ginning of this Common Council, and can see its simple development from the 
Jury of the Court of the Manor. In 1653 it was presented at the Lady-day 
Court ' ' that it was necessary that a Council of Twelve, being Aldermen and 
sufficient Burgesses of the said town, should be added to the Mayor for the 
time being, to advise him for the good of the Corporation." Twelve persons 
were accordingly named by the Jury as the first Council ; and vacancies 
subsequently occurring from time to time were filled by presentment of the 
" Grand Inquest " (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. i. pp. 197-200 ; History and, Antiquities of the County of Cardigan, by 
S. R. Meyrick, 1810 ; Cardiganshire, by G. Eyre Evans, 1903, pp. 6-14 ; 
Lampeter, by the same, 1905, p. 197 ; Carmarthen Journal, 21st March and 
2nd May 1828, 3rd, 17th, and 31st July 1835). 

At Carnarvon, on the other hand, autonomy had progressed further than struc- 
ture. This ancient shire town, with Charters from 1284, was in form governed 
by the Constable of the Castle, appointed by the Crown to be Mayor during its 
pleasure. There was no Council, and there were no Courts beyond the Court 
Leet (designated the Borough Court), no Corporate magistrates, and legally no 
Municipal officers but a Recorder or Town Clerk, whom the Mayor appointed 
and who acted as Deputy Mayor ; and two Bailiffs. But there was an indefinite 
number of Burgesses who had to be admitted at the Court, and who were 
entitled to various immunities ; and the Crown had tacitly devolved on them 
all the current administration. At the Court Leet the Burgesses at large 
elected the two Bailiffs, who really governed the Borough, together with Town 
Stewards, who acted as Treasurers, a Coroner, Serjeants at Mace, Constables, 
etc. Under this simple organisation, Carnarvon, from the opening of the 
nineteenth century, advanced in population and trade, having, in 1831, 6877 
inhabitants. The Corporation bought fire engines, made new gates through the 
old walls, built markets, provided a new water-supply, and (in 1832) even 
followed Manchester in erecting its own gasworks piling up, it must be added, 
a debt of 9000 (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
in summary tables only ; Account of Dolgelly and Carnarvon, anon., 1820 (?) ; 
Old Karnarvon, by W. H. Jones, 1882 and 1889; "Charter granted by 
Edward I. to the Town of Carnarvon, 1284," by H. L. J., in Archceologia 
Cambrensis, 3rd series, vol. iii., 1857, pp. 173-178 ; Carnarvon Herald, 1832- 

1834, passim ; North Wales Chronicle, 20th March and 2nd October 1832). 
The little Borough of Conway in the same county seems to have been in a 

similar constitutional position, but remained on a much smaller scale (Report 
on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, pp. 14-21 ; "Conway Municipal 
Records," by E. Owen, in Archceologia Cambrensis, 5th series, vol. vii., 1890, 
p. 226 ; History and Antiquities of the Town of Aberconway, by R. Williams, 

1835, p. 96 ; Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 1849 ; Conway 
Parish Register, by A. Hadley, 1900, p. xi). 



THE WELSH MANORIAL BOROUGH 253 

called a Borough Court; and one termed a Court of Pleas, 
forming part of a Hierarchy of Courts in the wide domains 
of the Abbey of Neath. We catch a glimpse at the end of 
the seventeenth century of a Court held before " the Constable 
of the Castle and the Portreeve," a Court at that time styling 
itself a Court Leet, at which " the Grand Jury and Homage " 
make the usual presentments, admit Burgesses, and appoint a 
Portreeve and the ordinary officers. We have a vision of a 
thriving little town, having its own Court apart from that of 
the Lord, owning Corporate property, maintaining an organised 
Watch, and enjoying a large measure of autonomy. But the 
Lord encroaches on their rights and seeks to bring them into 
subjection to his own Court; and, in spite of resistance, 
apparently succeeds in his aim, the records between 1759 to 
1797 showing the town business as transacted at the Lord's 
" Court Baron." Meanwhile there was also being held every- 
month " His Majesty's Court of Pleas," also before the Steward 
and Portreeve, at which the Aldermen and Burgesses attended. 
At this Court occasional civil suits were tried before a Jury, 
Constables were appointed, the rota of inhabitants to serve 
the Watch was regulated, and defaulters were fined. By 1813 
the meetings are called " Hall Days," the trial of actions is 
silently dropped, and we read definitely of the election of 
officers for the Borough of three persons being chosen, out 
of which one is appointed Portreeve, and similarly in the 
case of Aldermen, Common Councillors, Common Attorneys, 
Serjeants at Mace, Ale -tasters, Sealers and Searchers of 
Leather, Layerkeepers, Constables, and Burgesses. In 1818 
the minutes become styled " Minutes of the Corporation of 
Neath " ; the meetings are uniformly called " Hall Days," 
except that formal entries of a " Court of Pleas " are inter- 
polated, without any but formal business being recorded ; 
and for the ensuing seventeen years, down to 1835, the 
proceedings become more and more assimilated to those of 
an ordinary close Corporation. 1 

1 MS. archives of the Corporation of Neath (old notebook without date ; 
proceedings of the "Court Baron," 1759-1797 ; ditto of the "Court of Pleas," 
1759-1818; Minutes of the Corporation, 1818-1835); Cartce et alia munimenta, 
by G. T. Clark, vol. ii. ; Original Charters and Materials for a History of Neath 
and its Abbey, by G. G. Francis, 1835 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 333. 



254 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

(c) The Welsh Municipal Corporation 

In the ancient Borough of Cardiff population in 1689 
only a few hundreds, and even by 1801 no more than 1870 1 
we see a transitional form between Swansea and Aberyst- 
wyth on the one hand, and (as we shall presently describe) 
Brecon and Carmarthen on the other. We need not recount 
the foundation of Cardiff as a " Free Borough " by Seignorial 
Charter of 1183, or the gradual elaboration of its privileges. 2 
By Royal Charters of 1600 and 1608, the Bailiffs, 
Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Town of Cardiff became a 
close Corporation. " The Aldermen," we are told, " fill up 
their own body ; the Common Council fill up the vacancies 
among the Chief Burgesses ; and the sole power that is 
exercised by the Burgesses at large (who may themselves be 
appointed in any number by the Bailiffs) is that of electing 
four of the self-elected Aldermen, out of whom the Constable 
of the Castle is to appoint the two Bailiffs." 3 To this close 
Corporation more extensive powers had been accorded than to 
any of the Welsh Boroughs that we have hitherto described. 
The Bailiffs, Aldermen, and Burgesses of Cardiff held the markets 
and fairs, took the tolls, administered the little harbour and the 
river, and collected tonnage dues on shipping, and an import 
duty on slates, owned houses and lands within the Borough, and 
hundreds of acres of heath in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed 
a Municipal income that, by 1833, reached over 1000 a 
year all upon a nominal quit rent to the Lord of the 

1 Even in 1796 Cardiff "was chiefly an agricultural centre for the surround- 
ing district ... a centre for markets and fairs " (The Welsh People, by 
J. Rhys and D. Brynmor-Jones, 1900, p. 525). By 1831 its population had 
risen to 6187, and the transformation had just begun. 

2 We have not examined the MS. records of Cardiff, four volumes of which 
have been elaborately printed by the Corporation (Cardiff' Records, edited by 
J. H. Matthews, the "Archivist to the Corporation" ; see the review in English 
Historical Review, vol. xvi. p. 550, by W. H. Stevenson). See also House of 
Commons Journals, 20th January 1774, and the Paving and Lighting Act of 
1774 ; Cambrian, 15th and 22nd May and 2nd October 1818, 31st July 1819, 
and 15th December 1821 ; Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 
1849, vol. i. ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. 
p. 187 ; History of the Town and Castle of Cardiff, by "W. L. Jenkins, 1854 ; 
Growth of Cardiff from 1875 to 1880, with some Particulars of Cardiff in the last 
Century, 1880 ; Cartce et alia munimenta quce ad dominium de Glamorgan 
pertinent, by G. T. Clark, vol. ii. ; The Gild Merchant, by C. Gross, 1890. 

3 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 190. 



THE WELSH MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 255 

Borough. 1 There was an independent body of Burgesses or 
Freemen, recruited by Birth, Marriage, and Apprenticeship, as 
well as by gift, organised in Gilds or Trade Companies, each 
under its own Master and Assistants. 2 The Freemen were 
not only exempt from the tolls and dues levied by the 
Corporation, but also from most of those levied in other 
cities and towns an exemption which Cardiff dealers suc- 
cessfully maintained " in various parts of England in the 
first half of the nineteenth century ... on production of a 
Certificate showing that the claimants were Freemen." 3 
Finally, the Corporation had large magisterial powers in- 
dependent of the County. The two Bailiffs were the Judges 
of the Court of Eecord, the Coroners for the Borough, and 
the Eeturning Officers at the Parliamentary election. The 
Corporation had its own Borough gaol ; it alone held Courts 
within the Borough ; its monthly Court of Kecord under the 
Bailiffs had unlimited jurisdiction to determine civil suits, 
whilst its two Bailiffs, its Steward, and the senior of its 
Aldermen were (with the Constable of the Castle) Justices of 
the Peace, with jurisdiction exclusive of the County Justices, 
and power to hold Quarter as well as Petty and Special 
Sessions. Yet, with all these large and indefinite powers of 
a full Municipal Corporation, Cardiff combined a subjection 
to the Lord of the Borough greater, in fact, than that in 
which lay many a humbler Borough. Some of the steps by 
which the little community of Burgesses had during the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gradually attained the forms 
of constitutional autonomy are, indeed, still to be traced. 
The Constable of the Castle (or, as some said, the Lord's 
Deputy Constable), who was the Lord's nominee and agent, 
was, according to the terms of the earlier Charters, himself 
the Mayor of the Borough and its chief officer, and long 
presided over the " Town Court " or Common Council. He 
was the first magistrate of the town, and he remained through- 
out a necessary part of the quorum of the Bench, the other 
Justices being, in fact, merely additional to himself. The 

1 In the seventeenth century the Earls of Pembroke ; from 1683 to 1775 
the Viscounts Windsor; from 1775 the Marquises of Bute, were successively 
Lords of Cardiff. 

2 Cardiff Records, by J. H. Matthews. 

3 Ibid. vol. i., 1898, p. 3. 



256 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

Court of Quarter Sessions itself, which the Cardiff Justices 
came to hold, seems to have arisen merely by a silent and 
imperceptible transformation of the Court Leet of the Lord. 1 
All the elaborate Municipal structure of the Borough depended 
on appointment by his Constable. The Town Clerk, who was 
the officer of the Court of Eecord, and seems to date only 
from 1729, was his own nominee, appointed under his seal. 
Most of the other officers of the Borough the Ale-taster, the 
Serjeants at Mace, the Water Bailiffs, the Toll- Gatherers, the 
Keepers and Clerks of the Markets, Shambles, and Fairs, 
the Common Attorneys of the Court of Eecord were finally 
chosen by him from a list of persons submitted by the Bailiffs. 
Even the Bailiffs themselves were similarly selected by him, 
out of a list of four of the Aldermen submitted by the 
Burgesses on Charter Day. The Lord was thus able, through 
the Constable or Deputy Constable of his Castle, to favour 
those Burgesses who forwarded his views, and especially to 
exclude permanently from lucrative or honourable office any 
person whose action or opinions he disliked. 2 The result was, 
as we are told, that " from the reign of Anne to that of 
George the Fourth, the vitality of the Corporation lay 
dormant, while the Lords were increasingly strengthening the 

1 The Borough, as we learn from a memorandum by the Town Clerk of 
1818-1825, was "divided into four Wards, and the Jury presented in each. . . . 
The parties presented generally submit and pay three - and - fourpence each, 
together with the fees of process, by way of fine " (Cardiff Records, by J. H. 
Matthews, vol. ii., 1900, p. 128). The uniform amercement is, as we have seen, 
characteristic of Courts Leet. In the seventeenth century the "Grand Jury" 
of the Court was diligently presenting nuisances, and "intruders in the Town " ; 
we find it also presenting the boundaries of the Borough, and by no means 
restricting itself to finding true bills. In 1666, indeed, we see the Court held 
as a Court of Survey of the Lord, declaring the customs of the Manor, including 
the obligation of every Burgess to do suit and service (ibid. vol. ii. p. 68). Only 
later does the Court take on the distinctive characteristics of Quarter Sessions. 
This Cardiff Court, expressly reported in 1824 the ablest Municipal lawyer of the 
day (H. A. Merewether), " considering the matters presented by the Jury, will, 
I have no doubt, upon proper inquiry and accurate search, be found to be also 
the Court Leet ; and the ancient title of the Court will, I imagine, be found to 
have been Sessio Pads et Curia Domini Regis." To this opinion the editor 
of the published records appends the footnote, "This surmise is undoubtedly 
correct " (ibid. vol. ii. p. 130). In the following chapter we shall describe a 
similar evolution, by imperceptible gradation, of the Court of Quarter Sessions 
out of the Leet jurisdiction of the Manorial Court, in Dorchester, Pevensey, 
and other English Boroughs (pp. 350-355). 

2 For a spasm of rebellion in 1818, see Cambrianj 8th, 15th, and 22nd May 
1818 ; and Cardiff Records, by J. H. Matthews. 



THE WELSH MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 257 

ties which bound the town to the Castle. The Council 
Chamber in the Gildhall became an office for the transaction 
of Castle business ; and the rarely held meetings were occupied 
with little more than the installation of Bailiffs and Aldermen, 
who were nominees of the Lord, and devoted to his service." l 

1 Cardiff Records, by J. H. Matthews, 1900, vol. ii. pp. 112-113. 

Various other Welsh Boroughs in which there were Chartered Justices of the 
Peace were in a position of real dependency similar to that of Cardiff. Thus, 
at Montgomery the Burgesses, who obtained their burgess rights by birth, claimed 
to own the Manor, and nominally elected their two Bailiffs, who licensed the 
beershops and did a few other magisterial acts. But the Lord of the Lordship 
disputed this claim, and unquestionably appointed the High Steward, who 
(along with the Coroner) presented a list of six persons, from among whom the 
Burgesses made their choice. The High Steward or his deputy held the Court 
Leet, which was the only tribunal of the town (after a three-weekly Court of 
Record had become disused in the middle of the eighteenth century) ; and the 
County Justices dealt with all the offences. In practice, the Borough was 
entirely under the thumb of the Lord of the Lordship (Mr. Hogg's Report on 
Certain Municipal Corporations, 1838, pp. 85-89 ; Antiquities of Shropshire, by 
II. W. Eyton, vol. xi. ; "Ancient Charters of the Borough of Montgomery," in 
Powysland Club Collections, vol. xxi., 1887). We gather that Cowbridge in 
Glamorganshire was in a similar constitutional position to Montgomery (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. pp. 221-224 ; 
Cambrian, 15th September, 2nd October, and 20th November 1834). So, too, 
may have been Llanfyllin, in Montgomeryshire, with a somewhat complicated 
constitution (Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, p. 35 ; 
"Llanfyllin, some Additional Items of Municipal History," in Powysland 
Club Collections, vol. xxiii. p. 121). 

The Borough of Welshpool in Montgomeryshire had two Bailiffs, a Recorder, 
and a Steward, who were Justices of the Peace, and held both civil and criminal 
Courts. They were nominally elected by the Burgesses, but were chosen in 
practice by the Jury of Burgesses at the Court of the Lord of the Lordship, by 
whom they were really appointed (Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 
1838. pp. 140-145 ; Correspondence in Archceologia Cambrensis, vol. xiii., 1882 ; 
"Welshpool : Materials for the History of," by M. C. Jones, in Powysland Club 
Collections, vols. vii., xii., xiii., xiv., xv., xvii., xix., xxi., and xxiv.). 

We have little information as to the actual position of Beaumaris in Anglesea ; 
in 1831 a Borough of 2500 inhabitants, with a close body of "Mayor, Bailiffs, 
and Burgesses," which exercised the powers of the Lord of the Manor, but held 
no Manorial Courts. By Charter the Mayor, Bailiffs, and Recorder were 
Justices of the Peace. A Court of Record was held down to 1779 (Topographical 
Dictionary of Wales, by 8. Lewis, 1849, vol. i. ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. pp. 2583-2590). 

So, too, at Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire (population in 1801, 1150 ; and in 
1831, 1435) there was a Chartered Corporation of Mayor, Aldermen, Bailiffs, 
and Burgesses ; with a close body, recruiting itself by co-option, and admitting 
new Burgesses by birth or gift ; and a Corporate magistracy, with Quarter 
Sessions, besides a disused Court of Record and an obsolete Hundred Court 
(First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. pp. 273-276 ; 
"Kidwelly Castle," by G. T. Clark, in Archceologia Cambrensis, 2nd series, 
vol. iii., 1852, p. 3 ; Description and History of the Castles of Kidtcelly, et-c., by 
G. T. Clark, 1852 ; The Welsh People, by J. Rhys and 'D. Brynmor- Jones, 
1900, p. 423). 

The neighbouring Boroughs of Pembroke and Tenby in Pembrokeshire 

VOL. II. FT. I. S 



258 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

Few and far between were the Welsh Boroughs that had 
attained to greater heights of real autonomy, to a more elaborate 
Municipal Constitution, or to a larger independence of the 
County Magistracy than Aberystwyth or Cardiff. But although 
differing from these in working constitution only by minute 
gradations, Brecon, Denbigh, Carmarthen, and Haverfordwest 
reach, in form, a level more closely corresponding with that of 
the English Municipal Corporations that we shall presently 
describe. In each of these Boroughs there was a Corporation 
nominally independent of any Manorial Lord ; each had Trade 
Gilds or Companies of Freemen ; each held its own civil and 
criminal Courts, and took the fees and fines for its own 
Corporate purposes ; each created within itself its own Justices 
of the Peace, with whom the County Justices could not 
interfere. Carmarthen, moreover, which was between 1689 
and 1835 the most populous town in all Wales, 1 was a County 
of itself ; and Haverfordwest, in 1791 " the handsomest, the 
largest, and genteelest town in South Wales " which had a 
body of nearly 300 Freemen, recruited by Birth, Apprentice- 
ship, Marriage and gift, who met in Common Hall, and elected 
their Mayor, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, and Common Councillors by 
popular vote, was not only a County of itself, but also had its own 
Gustos Eotulorum and Lord Lieutenant, thus reaching a degree 
of independence of the County attained in England only by the 
City of London. 3 These four Corporations so closely resembled 

present a curious twin autonomy, the same persons long continuing to be the 
dominant members of both Corporations, which had practically emancipated 
themselves from seignorial control. Nominally the Mayor was elected by the 
Burgesses, but practically the whole power was in the hands of a Close Body in 
each case, which was more interested in maintaining its influence in electing 
the Member of Parliament for the Pembroke Boroughs than in Municipal 
administration, which became, however, of importance when the population of 
Pembroke rose, by 1831, to 6511, whilst that of Tenby only reached 1942. In 
both Boroughs the Mayor was chosen alternately from "town and country," 
and acted as Magistrate (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. pp. 365, 402 ; History of Little England beyond Wales, by E. Laws, 
1888 ; Welshman,. 1832-1834). 

1 Population in 1801, 5548 ; rising by 1831 to 9955, beyond which it has, 
in over seventy years, scarcely increased. 

2 A Tour to Milford Haven, by Mrs. Morgan, 1791, p. 195, etc. The 
population in 1831 was 5240, beyond which it has during seventy years scarcely 
increased. 

8 As we have already explained ("The Parish and the County," Book II. 
pp. 311-312), all the English Boroughs, even those that were Counties of them- 
selves, were nevertheless in some respects within the jurisdiction of the Lord 



THE WELSH MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 259 

in form the English Municipal Corporations about to be 
described that we spare the reader any detailed description 
of their constitutions. What need here be said is that they 
all reveal traces of an earlier Manorial status not essentially 
dissimilar from that of Swansea or Cardiff, out of which they 
had in some way or another emerged. The Men of Brecon 
had, down to the sixteenth century, had a Bailiff appointed by 
the Lord, and though they bought their Manor for a substantial 
fee farm rent, they seem to have parted with many of their 
Manorial lights ; and though their Eoyal Charter gave the 
Corporation great apparent autonomy, we find it, in practice 
at any rate, after 1754 as abjectly subservient to the Morgans 
as Aberystwyth was to the Pryses. 1 Denbigh, which had 
started with a Seignorial Charter, fortified this by nearly a 
dozen Eoyal Charters, extending over three centuries, and 
made itself independent of any Lord, and even of the County 
Sheriffs ; and the Corporation exercised all the Manorial powers, 
as well as holding Petty and Quarter Sessions. 2 Carmarthen, 
which had formerly had Provosts and Bailiffs for the two halves 
of the Borough appointed by their respective Lords, became 
apparently completely emancipated, but sank into such chaos 
in 1762 that its Corporation lapsed by non-appointment to 
fill vacancies, and a new Charter had to be obtained from the 
King, establishing a Corporation exactly like those of the 
English Boroughs. 3 Finally, Haverfordwest, which chose its 

Lieutenant of the County at large in which they were geographically situated, 
though the Liberty of the Cinque Ports ranked in this respect as a County. 
The City of London, the only exception, had no Gustos Rotulorum or Lord 
Lieutenant, but a Commission of Lieutenancy under the Lord Mayor. 

1 "The Corporation," it was said in 1828, like all the other Corporations 
in Wales, "are . . . the tools of the patron, who conducts all their motions 
like figures in a puppet show" (Article on "Welsh Boroughs" in Carmarthen 
Journal, 19th September 1828). See MS. Minutes, Corporation of Brecon, 
1668-1807 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. 
p. 177 ; History of the County of Brecknock, by T. Jones, 1805, vol. ii. ; 
Topographical Dictionary of Wales, by S. Lewis, 1849, vol. i. ; Illustrated 
History of Brecknockshire, by E. Poole, 1886 ; Carnarvon Herald, 18th October 
1834 ; Welshman, 12th December 1834. 

2 First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. 
pp. 2661-2669 ; An Account of the Castle and Town of Denbigh, by R. Newcome, 
1829 ; Ancient and Modern Denbigh, by J. Williams, 1856 ; Review of this in 
Archceologia Cambrensis, 3rd series, vol. i., 1855, pp. 69-72, 185-190 ; Records 
of Denbigh and its Lordship, by J. Williams, 1860 ; Carnarvon Herald, 6th, 
13th, and 20th December 1834. 

3 Cambrian, 1819-1822; Carmarthen Journal, 1824-1836; Welshman, 
1832-1834 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. 



260 THE BOROUGHS OF WALES 

Mayor and other officers at what was called a Hundred Court, 
found itself governed, in practice, for all its apparent Democracy 
and autonomy, by a set of Justices of the Peace commissioned 
by the King and nominated by the Lord Lieutenant whom the 
King had appointed to rule over the " County of the Borough " ; 1 
and this potentate seems, indeed, to have exercised as 
dominating an influence in the actual working of its 
constitution as did the Constable of the Castle at Cardiff. 2 

p. 203 ; Royal Charters and Historical Documents relating to the Town and 
County of Carmarthen, by J. R. Daniel - Tyssen and A. C. Evans, 1878; 
Carmarthen and its Neighbourhood, by W. Spurrell, 1860 and 1879. 

1 Although the Mayor, Sheriffs, and Recorder, whom the Burgesses chose 
at the "Hundred Court," were, by Charter, Justices of the Peace, the King 
issued his own Commission of the Peace for the County of the Borough of 
Haverfordwest, including the leading notables of the town ; and as the persons 
appointed to the Chartered offices were, as a matter of fact, always taken from 
those in this Commission, they never acted as Justices by Charter, but always 
with their colleagues as Justices by Commission. 

2 Haverfordwest and its Story (anon.), 1882 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 233 ; House of Commons Return as 
to Freemen, 1840 ; Carmarthen Journal, 1829-1835 ; Welshman, 4th May 
1832 and 3rd October 1834. It is interesting to see the Town Council of 
Haverfordwest, in evident succession to a Manorial Court, deciding (like the 
Lord's Court of Great Tew) upon the course of cultivation of its commons, and 
making a levy to defray the working expenses. In 1665 it is "ordered that 
the commons called Portfield be set out for ryeland ; Burgesses to pay 6s. 8d. 
per acre, and strangers 13s. 4d. per acre, and inhabitants paying in the Royal 
Aid 8s. per acre" (Town Council Minutes, 2nd March 1665, in ffaverfordwest 
an/l its Story, p. 100). 



CHAPTER VI 

THE MUNICIPAL COKPOEATION 

OUR survey of the ascending series of partially enfran- 
chised communities, enjoying various degrees of privilege or of 
exemption from County jurisdiction from the rural Manor 
under its Lord's Court up to such essentially Municipal 
governments as Arundel or Alnwick brings us at last to the 
Municipal Corporation. In this chapter we abandon, for the 
time, our presentation of individual type specimens, in order to 
lay before the student a systematic analysis of the constitutional 
elements of the Municipal Corporation as it existed at the 
Ee volution, and of its development between 1689 and 1835. 
And this analysis must, we fear, be long ; for it is true to-day, 
as Madox quaintly said nearly two centuries ago, that " whoso 
desireth to discourse in a proper manner concerning Corpora ted 
Towns and communities must take in a great variety of matter, 
and should be allowed a great deal of time and preparation." l 

1 Firma Burgi, by T. Madox, 1726, preface. Perhaps because the sources 
for an account of the Municipal Corporations between 1689 and 1835, though 
abundant, are bewildering in their extent, variety, and local dispersion, we have 
not found any previous analysis of much use. The MS. Minutes are in nearly 
all cases preserved and accessible to the student. Especially at Liverpool, Leeds, 
Bristol, Plymouth, Norwich, Beverley, Newbury, Gloucester, York, Nottingham, 
Leicester, Southampton, Derby, Coventry, Exeter, Ipswich, Berwick-on-Tweed, 
Peuzance, Deal, Cambridge, Reading, Winchester, Romsey, Oxford, Chipping 
Norton, Woodstock, Dorchester, and above all, the City of London, have we 
found these admirably kept volumes of great use. Some of the Corporations 
(among which those of London, Leicester, Northampton, Cardiff, Bristol, 
Norwich, Nottingham, and Colchester may be honourably mentioned) are proceed- 
ing to print and publish their earlier records. In other cases (as at Liverpool, 
Southampton, Bath, and Carlisle) this is being done by voluntary effort. It 
is to be hoped that these enterprises will be continued down to at least 1835. 
The numerous town histories, so conveniently catalogued in Dr Gross's Biblio- 
graphy of English Municipal History, unfortunately seldom contain much in- 
formation about local government in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

261 



262 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

Our first difficulty was to arrive at any precise definition 
of the subject-matter. When in 1833 the Whig Government 
appointed the well-known Royal Commission to inquire into 
all the Municipal Corporations of England and Wales, it was 
found impossible even to frame an exact list of those which 
were in existence, still less to give any precise definition of 
what constituted a Municipal Borough or a Municipal Corpora- 

An exception must be made for the quite admirable History of Municipal 
Government in Liverpool, by Professor Ramsay Muir, 1906. On the other hand, 
the voluminous report and appendices of the Municipal Corporation Com- 
missioners, comprising nearly 4000 pages, afford a picture of the constitution 
and working of the boroughs reported on, as they were in 1833, unparalleled 
in extent, systematic completeness, and elaboration of detail. The actual 
evidence taken by the Commissioners was not officially recorded, but local 
summaries exist, in more or less detail, of that given at Boston, Cambridge, 
Dover, Gateshead, Hull, King's Lynn, Liverpool (two versions), Newcastle-on- 
Tyne (two versions), Norwich, Nottingham, Poole, Reading, Warwick, and 
Yarmouth. No reports were published on Carnarvon, Colchester, New Romney, 
Saffron Walden, Sudbury, or Yarmouth, though for the last-named we have 
the summary of the evidence. The whole report is summarised, not very 
accurately, in A. J. E. Cockburn's Corporations of England and Wales, 1835, 
and Sir J. R. Somers Vine's English Municipal Institutions, 1879. More 
valuable is the paper contributed by Joseph Fletcher (who had worked as 
assistant secretary to the Commissioners) to the Journal of the Royal Statistical 
Society (vol. v., 1842) ; and the elaborate analytic index to the First Report and 
its four volumes of appendices, which was published in 1839 (unfortunately not 
invariably accurate). The Second Report (1837), relating to the City of London, 
and the Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg (1838), were not included 
in this index. The Report and Evidence of the House of Commons Select 
Committee on Municipal Corporations, 1833, must also be referred to. Refer- 
ences to other material for particular towns, and to the Municipal Corporation 
Reform Act itself, are given elsewhere, though we have preferred, in this chapter, 
to cite principally the 1835 Report (as being most accessible), on those points as 
to which we have ground for belief that its description applied equally to 1689 
as to 1833. The titles of the principal general treatises on English Borough 
Corporations will be found in Dr Gross's Bibliography (pp. 15-48), to which 
must be added the various works of Mary Bateson and F. W. Maitland both 
lost, alas ! to English historical scholarship in 1906 which we have found 
of the greatest use. We must mention, too, Mrs. J. R. Green's brilliant Town 
Life in the Fifteenth Century, 1894 ; the admirable work done by Professors 
Ramsay Muir and James Tait on Liverpool and Manchester respectively ; that 
of Rev. W. Hudson on Norwich ; and that of Mr. Adolphus Ballard on The 
Domesday Boroughs. Of French and German authors, Gneist, in his Self -Govern- 
ment, 1871, gives a good historical, legal, and statistical analysis of Municipal 
history, and of the situation before and after the 1835 Act ; and Dr. Joseph 
Redlich's Englische Local- Verwaltung (1901 ; translated as English Local Govern- 
ment, by J. Redlich and F. W. Hirst, 1903) affords an admirable critical 
survey. The English reader will find in Surveys Historic and Economic, by Pro- 
fessor W. J. Ashley, 1900, pp. 167-249, and in the History of Modern Liberty, 
by J. Mackinnon, 1906, vol. i. pp. 142-144, a brief summary of the Municipal 
theories of Savigny, Arnold, Nitsch, Gierke, Hegel, von Maurer, Keutgen, Flach, 
Varges, von Below, Wilda, and Sohm ; see also " L'Origine des Constitutions 
Urbaines au Moyeu Age," by H. Pirenne (Revue Historiquc, vol. liii., 1893, and 
vol. Ivii., 1895). 



THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 263 

tion. 1 The privilege of incorporation, with the rights of legal 
personality and perpetual succession, and the use of a common 
seal, had been granted by Charter or statute to all sorts of 
bodies, religious, commercial, or educational, having no connec- 
tion with local government. We cannot be sure that all the 
existing or reputed Charters were genuine ; still less is it 
beyond dispute what exactly they meant. The muniments of 
Municipal Corporations are obviously incomplete, and have not 
always been in proper custody. Moreover, many Corporations, 
like those of the City of London, Bedford, and Oxford, claimed 
to exist by mere prescription, and to have possessed Mayors, 
Aldermen, or Burgesses, wielding extensive powers of govern- 
ment, and enjoying large privileges, long prior to their receipt 
of a Charter recognising their incorporation. It may possibly 
be true, as Miss Bateson has urged, that, in strict law, some 
formal act was necessary for the formation of a Borough. 
" In the Middle Ages," it is said, " towns did not grow, but 
were made. A village, just because it was a large one, could 
not gradually come to be called a Borough any more than it 
can nowadays. A definite legal act was necessary to sever it 
from a Hundred, and give it a Hundred Court of its own. 
Wherever we can go back to the beginning this formal act of 
creation can be traced." 2 The trouble is that, just in those 
cases in which we find no such legal act, there is no beginning 
to go back to ; and we cannot simply assume that every 
Municipal Corporation had its own Hundred Court. Many 
towns, as we know, " long ago received a few Chartered privi- 
leges from a mediaeval baron," who had declared that they 

1 A list of 302 "cities, boroughs, and towns corporate" was appended to 
the House of Commons Committee Report on Promulgation of the Statutes (Dec. 
1796), but it does not seem to have been supplied to the Commissioners or 
known by them, as it includes places into which they did not inquire, and 
excludes others into which they did inquire. At least a third of the total 
cannot be said to have had Municipal Corporations. The Commissioners them- 
selves found the definition quite impossible. It would have been equally 
impossible, we are told, to give any precise definition of a Municipal Borough 
or a Municipal Corporation in the thirteenth century (History of English 
Law, by Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, 1895, vol. i. p. 653). Comyns' 
Digest could give no better definition than that " Borough imports an ancient 
town of principal note, and which enjoys particular privileges " (first edition, 
1762, vol. i. p. 613). "No accurately exhaustive list of our Corporate Boroughs 
ever was or ever could be made " (Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitland, 
1898, p. 23). 

2 Mcdiceval England, 1066-1356, by Mary Bateson, 1903, p. 125. 



264 

should be " Free Boroughs," and they were accordingly, though 
without Hundred Courts of their own, " allowed a precarious 
place on the roll of English Boroughs," l which might harden 
into permanence. Others, again, like that of Arundel, did in 
fact possess all the attributes of incorporation without having 
at any time received any Charter whatsoever. " There were," 
it is true, things which a Borough " could not do unless it 
obtained a privilege from the King. It could not, for example, 
institute Coroners, for that would have disturbed the justiciary 
scheme of the shire of which the Borough formed a part. It 
could not declare that its own officers should do that work of 
summoning, distraining, and arresting which had theretofore 
been done, even within Borough walls, by the Sheriff. Nor 
could it take from the Sheriff the power and duty of collecting 
those rents and tolls which were due to the King." 2 But 
none of these rights, as will hereafter abundantly appear, was 
indispensable to a Borough or to a Municipal Corporation. 
We might have expected to find some line of demarcation in 
the completeness with which the particular urban community 
had actually enfranchised itself, whether with or without a 
Charter, from the control of its Lord. 3 But this, as we have 
seen, would compel us to rank as Municipal Corporations 
Birmingham and Newbiggin, where the Lord had long ceased 
to intervene, and to omit from this class such Chartered Muni- 
cipalities as Morpeth and Cardiff, where the Lord of the Manor, 
notwithstanding the existence of Borough Justices of the Peace, 
and even of Borough Quarter Sessions, was still the mainspring 
of the constitution. Nor does the right to return representa- 
tives to the House of Commons afford us any guidance. 
Members of Parliament were elected by places which had 
never been imagined to be Municipal Boroughs, or to possess 
any sort of Corporate government, whilst many undoubted 
Municipal Corporations never exercised this privilege. The 
terms used in the various communities are equally distracting. 

1 Township and Borough, by F. W. Maitland, 1898, p. 17. 

2 The Charters of the Borough of Cambridge, by Mary Bateson, with intro- 
duction by F. W. Maitland, 1901, pp. viii-ix. 

3 Comparatively few of the couple of hundred undoubted Municipal Corpora 
tions of 1689 were in towns which, like "the Leicester of Domesday Book, 
stood, as a Free Borough should, on no man's land, and in no Hundred " 
(Records of the Borough of Leicester, by Mary Bateson, vol. i., 1899, p. xii). 
See The Domexdny Borowjhs, by A. Ballard, 1&04. 



THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 265 

Some obvious Municipal Corporations had no Mayors and no 
Aldermen, but merely a Bailiff just as Tetbury had ; a Port- 
reeve like many a Devonshire village ; a Warden recalling a 
hospital or a college ; or a pair of Bailiffs just as Birmingham 
had. On the other hand, many a village, like Fishguard and 
Overton, completely dependent on its Lord, and without 
magisterial jurisdiction, called the petty officers appointed at 
the Lord's Court by the high-sounding titles of Mayor and 
Aldermen. Similarly, whilst some Municipal Corporations 
knew nothing of burgage tenure, nor of Freemen or Burgesses, 
Lords' Courts up and down the country swore in new Free- 
holders and other immigrants as Burgesses or Freemen ; whilst 
at Alnwick, which can rank only as a Manorial Borough, 
there was, as we have seen, a numerous body of Freemen, 
recruited by Birth, Apprenticeship, Marriage, and Co-option, 
and organised into Trade Gilds, which dominated the town 
government down to the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Nor was the size or population of the town any certain guide. 
There were Municipal Corporations in villages of a few 
hundreds, or even of a few scores, of inhabitants ; whilst 
flourishing communities, like Blakeney in Norfolk, during the 
Middle Ages, and Manchester and Sheffield in the eighteenth 
century, had noner Not all Municipal Corporations possessed 
markets, whilst many places without pretension to incorpora- 
tion had enjoyed them from time immemorial. 1 It may be 
that, in the Middle Ages, the distinction turned on whether or 
not the place paid to the subsidies at the rate of one- fifteenth 
(like the rest of the County), or, as a Borough which the King 
himself had created or recognised as existing by prescription, 
at the rate of one-tenth. 2 But this arbitrary distinction, 
which affords us, in the absence of complete lists of the 

1 ' ' Considering the great part that the market plays in certain theories as 
to the origin of Boroughs, it is noteworthy that of the forty-two markets 
mentioned in Domesday Book, only eleven are situate in places that are called 
Boroughs" (The Domesday Inquest, by A. Ballard, 1906, p. 181). 

2 Mediaeval Manchester and the Beginnings of Lancashire, by James Tait, 
1904, p. 54. Thus the town of Stretton, in Rutland, being charged as a 
Borough with its share of a tenth, appealed in 1453, and produced Royal 
Letters Patent conceding to the inhabitants that they should not be charged to 
tenths " with the King's Burghs and Towns of Ancient Demesne," notwith- 
standing that they may have paid such in the past, but that they should be 
"taxed and charged to all Quimiines and Quotas of Quiimmes together with 
the men of the Geldablc" (Firma Luryi, by T. Madox, 1726, pp. 80, 81). 



266 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

places which paid tenths instead of fifteenths, but little 
historical guidance, fails us completely by 1689, when tenths 
and fifteenths were alike obsolete. Similarly, we cannot, in 
1689, take as our test the assumed distinction in the repre- 
sentation at the ancient County Court or at the Assizes, where 
the Township, it is said, appeared by the Eeeve and four men, 
whilst the Borough came as an independent Hundred by its 
own twelve men. 1 We come at last to the fact of enfranchise- 
ment from the County officers, and this we think the really 
significant attribute. Even this proves too indefinite to mark 
off with any precision the Municipal Corporation from the 
Manor. The whole of the individual type specimens that we 
have described in the preceding five chapters resemble each 
other and the true Municipal Corporations to be presently 
analysed, in enjoying exemption from the jurisdiction of one 
or other of the officers of the County. None of them, nor yet 
the Municipal Corporations themselves (with the exceptions of 
Haverfordwest, Berwick on Tweed, the City of London, and the 
Liberty of the Cinque Ports), were wholly exempt from County 
jurisdiction just as none of them, not even the City of 
London, could exclude either the King's Judges on their 
circuits, or the officers of the King's Courts at Westminster. 
Nevertheless it is in this direction that we find the line of 
demarcation for the period between 1689 and 1835, between 
those members of the series which can, and those which 
cannot, conveniently be classed as Municipal Corporations. 
As we saw in our preceding volume, 2 it was the Justices of 
the Peace who became, in the eighteenth century, the real 
rulers of the County. Similarly, we find that it was the 
Borough Justices of the Peace who, in this period, more and 
more became the dominant influence in the Municipal Corpora- 
tion. We shall therefore, in the following chapters, include as 
true Municipal Corporations all those communities which, 
whether by prescription or Charter, actually enjoyed the 
privilege of clothing one or more of their members or officers, 

1 In the sixteenth century St. Albans pleaded that it was a Borough 
because it had sent members to Parliament. "A test by which, perhaps, they 
really set more store was the sending of a Jury of twelve Burgesses to answer 
for the Borough before the Justices in Eyre" (Afediceval England, 1066-1550, 
by Mary Bateson, 1903, p. 396). 

2 English Local Government, Vol. I., "The Parish and the County," Book II. 



THE INSTRUMENT OF INCORPORATION 267 

within the limits of the Borough, without personal appoint- 
ment by the Crown, with the well-known powers elsewhere 
given by the Commission of the Peace. 1 It is upon these 
Boroughs numbering in England and Wales about two 
hundred that we shall, for the rest of this volume, focus our 
attention, 2 though we shall not abstain from citing the many 
features in which the members of the series below this arbi- 
trary line resembled those above it. 

(a) The Instrument of Incorporation 

To the lawyer of the seventeenth century, as to his 
successor of to-day, it seemed clear that the privilege of 
incorporation the creation of a fictitious person, as a legal 
entity having perpetual succession could be obtained on)y 
from some legal instrument; in fact, omitting the mediaeval 
possibility of incorporation by the Pope and the modern inter- 
vention of an Act of Parliament, 3 only by a grant from the 

1 Merewether pointed out in 1822 that the holding of Petty Sessions has 
been typical of incorporated Boroughs since, at any rate, the sixteenth century, 
when the "tourn or leet" lost its criminal jurisdiction. A "usual clause in 
Queen Elizabeth's Charters ... is that which makes the Mayor and some of 
the Aldermen Justices of the Peace, and gives the Borough the power of holding 
Sessions of the Peace " (A Sketch of the History of Boroughs and of the Cor- 
porate Right of Election, etc., by H. A. Merewether, 1822, p. 22). Maitland, 
too, drew attention to the importance of the special Royal Peace conferred on 
fortified places as marking off the Borough from the village (English Historical 
Review, vol. xi., 1896; Domesday Book and Beyond, 1897, pp. 184-185, 192- 
193). 

2 We estimate the number in England and Wales in 1689 as between 199 
and 205, according to the view taken of certain anomalous cases. For even the 
possession of magisterial jurisdiction does not afford an absolutely certain test. 
In some cases, as we have seen among the Boroughs of Wales, it cannot be 
stated with certainty whether any Corporate member or officer actually exercised, 
or was legally entitled to exercise, magisterial powers. In a few other cases 
(Brackley, Clun, Thornbury, etc.) magisterial powers had fallen completely 
into disuse. In some Boroughs (those of the County of Durham, for instance) 
the Corporate body could not create a Justice ; but its Mayor for the time being 
was, as a matter of fact, always included, virtute offitio, in the Commission of 
the Peace for the County. Omitting all these cases, we make the total of true 
Municipal Corporations in 1689 to have been 199. 

3 Statutes determining or modifying the constitutions of Municipal' Corpora- 
tions were, of course, not unknown prior to 1689. The early Acts relating to 
Southampton, Plymouth, Hull, and the City of London are notable examples, 
whilst the governing Council of Northampton was changed from an elective to a 
close body by Act of 1487. But such cases of statutory intervention were, 
prior to 1689, comparatively rare. Nor must we quite ignore other formal 
instruments. The whole question of the Instrument of Incorporation, and its 



268 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

Crown, which was usually expressed in a Koyal Charter. It 
might, therefore, be supposed that the constitutions of the 
couple of hundred of Municipal Corporations of 1689 were all 
definitely fixed and easily to be ascertained. This was very 
far from being the case. By 1689 most Boroughs had 
received successive Charters inconsistent with each other, 
and it became open to question which of them was the more 
authoritative. 1 This uncertainty as to which among several 
Charters was to be considered the " Governing Charter " was 
immensely increased by the events immediately preceding the 
accession of William and Mary. 2 It does not fall within the 
plan of this work to describe the assaults which had been 
made, first, by Charles the Second, and then by James the 
Second, upon the independence of the Municipal Corporations. 
The proceedings taken against the Corporation of the City of 

variation from age to age the relative prevalence and the particular degrees of 
validity and scope of Seignorial Charters confirmed or unconfirmed by Royal 
authority, Palatine Charters, Royal mandates directing constitutional changes, 
Royal grants, Royal Letters Patent, Royal Charters of original grant or of con- 
firmation, or of inspeximus of lost Charters, accepted or not accepted, surrendered 
and enrolled or not enrolled, authorised or not authorised by statute, charitable 
trusts or agreements enrolled in the Court of Chancery, decrees of that Court, 
Gild ordinances enrolled by the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chief Justice pursuant 
to statute of 19 Henry VII. c. 7 (1503) or not so enrolled requires further 
investigation. We have taken the Royal Charter as the most common instru- 
ment. What we say as to the uncertainty as to what it prescribed, its omissions, 
its frequent failure to prevail over contrary " immemorial " custom, and its sub- 
sequent supersession by mere usage or the enactment of a By-law, all applies 
equally, as far as we can make out, to the other formal documents by which 
particular groups of persons assumed to become Corporations. The Municipal 
Corporation Commissioners of 1835 obtained particulars of 1357 Royal Charters 
to Municipal Corporations, to which a few more might be added. Of those 
analysed, 61 dated from before the time of King John (1199) ; 566 from between 
1199 and 1485 ; 598 from between 1485 and 1688 (the Tudors and Stuarts), 
making 1297 in all prior to the Revolution. Between 1689 and 1835 only 60 
were issued (Index to First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1839, 
p. 104). 

1 Thus, no fewer than nine Royal Charters had been granted to the Corpora- 
tion of Havering-atte-Bower in Essex, from 1465 to 1665 ; but the Corporation 
elected to act under those of 1465 and 1559, and ignored whatever in the others 
was inconsistent with them (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. v. p. 2878). At Carlisle there had been "two Charters subsequent 
to the Governing Charter, viz. 16 Charles II. and 36 Charles II. These, however, 
were not accepted, and the Corporation always continued to a.ct under the former 
Charter, 13 Charles I." (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1469 ; compare S. R. Gardiner's 
Commonwealth, vol. iii., 1901, p. 260, etc.). 

2 History of My Own Time, by Gilbert Burnef, 1833, vol. ii. p.' 332 ; 
History of England, by L. von Rauke, 1875, vol. iv. pp. 169-171 ; State Trials, 
vol. viii., 1810, pp. 1039-1388. 



THE INSTRUMENT OF INCORPORATION 269 

London in 1683, when the servile judges, on a writ of Quo 
Warranto, pronounced the Corporation to have forfeited, not 
only its privileges, but also its very existence, struck terror 
into the hearts of Mayors, Aldermen, and Common Councillors 
all over the kingdom. Most of the Corporations were induced 
voluntarily to surrender their Charters, on the assumption 
that they were in some way forfeit ; and to solicit new ones 
from the Crown, in which power was reserved to remove 
members or officers at will, whilst the appointment of the 
more important officers was often made subject to the Eoyal 
approval. Nor would it be worth while attempting to unravel 
the complicated proceedings in the several Corporations during 
these seven years. Charters were declared forfeit or were 
voluntarily surrendered. " It was much questioned," says 
Buruet, " whether these surrenders were good in law, or not." l 
New Charters were given, and again revoked. Sometimes the 
surrenders of the old Charters were formally enrolled ; some- 
times this registration, supposed to be necessary to the validity 
of the surrender, was neglected. Sometimes the new Charters 
were formally accepted, sometimes not. In some cases they 
were acted upon, in others not. Mayors, Aldermen, and 
Councillors were sometimes appointed according to the new 
constitutions, sometimes under the old ones. Those who were 
obnoxious to Charles the Second, as being disaffected to the 
Court, were removed in 1683-84; those who were obnoxious 
to James the Second, as being hostile to Roman Catholicism 
and the dispensing power, were removed in 1686-87 ; and it 
was often uncertain whether the removals, together with the 
consequent new appointments, were valid. When the invasion 
of the Prince of Orange became imminent, James the Second 
hastily restored the old Charters of the City of London, and 
issued a proclamation purporting to restore the constitutions 
of all the other Corporations, except those of which the 
Charters had been declared forfeited by legal judgments, and 
those of which deeds of surrender had been formally enrolled. 2 

1 History of My Own Time, by G. Burnet, 1833, vol. ii. p. 332. 

2 MS. Acts of Privy Council, 17th October and 1st November 1688. The 
Charters of the Boroughs incorporated since 1679 were annulled. All Corpora- 
tions of which deeds of surrender had not been enrolled, and which had not had 
judgments entered against them, were to continue as Corporations, and were to 
fill up vacancies, notwithstanding that the time for so doing had elapsed ; all 



370 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

Some of them acted on this proclamation and some did not. 
Those that were excluded from the proclamation were left in 
a position of exceptionally doubtful legality. Some continued 
to act on the Charters of James the Second, while others 
treated them as null and void. 1 Eventually an Act of 
Parliament declared the illegality of the judgment against the 
Corporation of the City of London, and restored its rights and 
privileges in the widest terms ; whilst for the next few years 
the student of the archives of the Privy Council finds that 
body busy with petitions about new Charters, or Letters 
Patent deciding various points in dispute. 2 It was a necessary 
consequence of the destructive proceedings of the seven years 
1682-1688 that, for the whole of the eighteenth century, 
hardly any Municipal Corporation could feel assured that any 
particular element in its constitution, or any particular form 
that it affected in its practice, would be upheld by the Courts 
at Westminster, if any person chose to dispute an election. 8 

members of such Corporations claiming by Charter, Letters Patent, or Grant, 
since the surrender or judgment, were to be removed ; the Attorney-General was 
to cancel the surrenders made but not enrolled ; all Corporations of which deeds 
of surrender had been enrolled, or against which judgment had been duly entered, 
were to have their ancient Charters restored, and the former members and 
officers reinstated, etc. It is not clear exactly how much was supposed to be 
effected by the proclamation itself as distinguished from the steps which it 
promised should be taken. By a second proclamation, a fortnight after the 
first, the Corporation of Exeter, which had been excepted from the first by mis- 
take, was declared to be within its terms ; and the ancient Charters of four 
other Corporations, against which judgment had actually been entered, or the 
surrenders of which had actually been enrolled, were nevertheless declared to 
be restored. 

1 The Corporation of Oxford, which, besides older instruments, had Royal 
Charters of 1606 and 1684, chose to ignore the latter, and only partially to act 
on the former. On an information "filed by the Attorney-General in 1697 for 
the purpose of enforcing a clause contained in it, the Corporation, in their answer, 
disclaimed the obligation of that Charter, in any points which abridged their 
previous liberties and privileges, and were supported in their position by the 
judgment of the Court" (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 98). 

2 MS. Acts of Privy Council, 1689-1699, relating to Winchester, Coventry, 
Nottingham, Dunwich, Colchester, Plymouth, Bewdley, Southwold, Deal, 
Tewkesbury, etc. 

3 Thus Portsmouth found its Charter of 1684 upset when litigation arose, 
on the technical point that the surrender of the previous Charter had not been 
enrolled, and was therefore invalid ; whilst the invalidity of this surrender, 
which had been recited as forming the consideration for the new Charter, made 
the latter fail for want of consideration, and rendered its acceptance a nullity 
(Butler v. Palmer, in Reports of Cases, etc., by William. Salkeld, pp. 190-191 ; see 
Practical Treatise on the Laio of Corporations, by James Grant, 1850, p. 46). 
The Corporation thereupon resumed under the old Charter (First Report of 



THE INSTRUMENT OF 1NCORPORA TION 271 

But there was a further ground for uncertainty as to what 
was legally the constitution of a Municipal Corporation. 
" During the Middle Ages," wrote Maitland, " the function of 
the Eoyal Charter was not that of ' erecting a Corporation,' or 
regulating a Corporation which already existed, but that of 
bestowing liberties and franchises upon a body which, within 
large limits, was free to give itself a constitution from time to 
time. 1 ... It was very free ... to develop a conciliar 
organ, one council or two councils, to define the modes in 
which burgherhood should be acquired, to adopt the ballot or 
the open vote, and generally to be as oligarchic or as democratic 
as it thought fit. And at least from the fourteenth century 
onwards a large use was made of this liberty. Elaborate 
constitutions were established, and after a few years abolished, 
and some of our Boroughs had revolutions enough to satisfy a 
South American Eepublic." 2 Nor did these revolutions come 

Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. p. 802). At Bewdley the new 
Charter of 1685 was acted upon as valid for thirteen years, until, in the keen 
struggle for power between the two great families of the town in 1708, a flaw 
was discovered, litigation ensued, the Charter was declared void, and the old 
Charter of 1606 was reverted to. In 1708, "At the single instance of a noble 
lord, a new Charter was forced upon an ancient Corporation " (Speech made in the 
House of Commons upon the late Ministry's forcing a New Charter on the Town 
of Bewdley without a surrender of the Old, 1710, Somers' Tracts, vol. xii., 1814, 
p. 671). The other party did not relinquish its hold, and " for two years, in con- 
sequence of the Charters, Bewdley had two Corporations, and two Bailiffs who 
fulminated against each other like rival Popes " (History of Bewdley, by John 
R. Burton, 1883, pp. 44-45). With the change in the political complexion of 
the House of Commons in 1710 came a resolution declaring the Charter of 1708 
to be void. Steps were taken for its repeal ; but the restoration of Whig power 
in 1714 found it still in being, and it was not subseqiiently disputed (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. p. 1771). 

1 The "men" of Bedford, for instance, had received numerous Royal 
Charters and Letters Patent varying and increasing their Corporate powers and 
privileges, but none of them had denned the constitution (ibid. vol. iv. 
pp. 2103-2105). The ancient Borough of Ludlow, governed by a "Twelve and 
Twenty-Five " from time immemorial, and furnished with an array of Royal 
Charters granting to the Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Commonalty the widest 
range of liberties, franchises, and immunities, had no constitution fixed by Royal 
Charter until that of 38 Elizabeth (1596). "Know ye that we, willing that 
the aforesaid old and ancient manner and form of governing in the Town or 
Borough aforesaid be from henceforth for ever inviolably in all respects duly 
observed " appears as the preamble of the elaborate constitution prescribed in 
that year (Copies of the Charters and Grants to the tmvn of Ludlow, n.d. pp. 103- 
104). In 1537 Henry VIII. had issued what was called a "Decretal Order," 
confirming the ancient usage, and in 1597 the Court of Exchequer pronounced 
another " Decretal Order" to the same effect (ibid. pp. 213, 222). 

2 Cambridge Charters, by Mary Bateson, with introduction by F. W. Mait- 
land, 1901, pp. viii, ix. The student of Charters will note that in all Charters 



272 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

to an end in the sixteenth or the seventeenth century. Only 
a small number of Corporations thought it worth while to 
strengthen their position during the eighteenth century by 
applying for new Charters. 1 But we could give innumerable 
instances, in both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of 
radical changes in the constitution of particular Municipal 
Corporations, brought about merely by the adoption of a new 
By-law or standing order. 

The most common of these changes during the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries was exactly similar to that which 
we have shown to have taken place at this very period in 
numerous urban and rural Parish Vestries the establishment 
of a Close Body to stand in the place of the general body of 
Burgesses. The " Twenty-Four," recites one of these Municipal 
By-laws, " shall be instead of the whole commonalty, and no 
other of the commonalty to intermeddle upon pain of five 
pound." ' A lesser revolution might be effected by a By-law 
relating to the election or qualifications of the Common 
Council, the Aldermen, or the Justices of the Peace; usually 
of a restrictive tendency, either in transferring the right to 
appoint to a smaller body, or limiting the persons eligible for 

after the Restoration not only in the Charters granted by Charles II. and 
James II. but also m those granted by William and Mary and by the subsequent 
monarchs the exact constitution of the Municipal Corporation is the dominant 
consideration. Few Municipal Corporations were, however, governed by these 
later Charters, which usually effected only particular amendments of the local 
constitutions. 

1 Among them, Minehead in 1716, Pontefract in 1717, Lostwithiel in 1731, 
Tiverton in 1737, Maidstone in 1743, Colchester in 1757, and Saltash in 
1774. Most of these applications for new Charters to existing Municipal 
Corporations were occasioned by some lapse in the succession of members or 
officers, or some failure. to fulfil the obligations of the Corporation. See, for 
Minehead, Home Office Domestic State Papers in Public Record Office, vol. v., 
1716; for Pontefract, ibid. vol. x. 30th September 1717, and MS. Acts of 
Privy Council, vol. ii. p. 45, 17th October 1717 ; for Lostwithiel, ibid. vol. ii. 
pp. 460, 624, 25th October 1731 and 20th April 1732 ; for Tiverton, new 
Charter of 1737 ; for Maidstone, MS. Acts of Privy Council, vol. viii. pp. 316, 
580, 617, etc., 15th February 1743, 7th November 1744, 8th January, 8th and 
17th July 1745, 14th May 1747 ; for Colchester, ibid. vol. xvi. p. 620, etc., 
8th November 1757 and 9th February 1758, 21st December 1761, 2nd January 
1762, and 29th April 1763 ; for Saltash, new Charter of 1774. 

2 MS. Minutes, Corporation of Romney Marsh (Kent), 1604. By its ancient 
Charter this Corporation comprised the whole commonalty of the Marsh, who 
had, down to 1604, administered their affairs in public meeting, and chosen 
from among themselves a Bailiff and ten Jurats. From that date the 
whole work was done by the Close Body, filling vacancies in its own ranks by 
co-option. 



THE INSTRUMENT OF INCORPORATION 273 

appointment. 1 Many of the officers actually at work in the 
Municipal Corporations, exacting fees and controlling the 
conduct of the inhabitants, had no better sanction for their 
existence and activities than resolutions of the governing 
body or immemorial custom. 2 And with regard to the 
qualification to be required in a Burgess or Freeman, though 
this was, in a sense, the very foundation of the Corporation, 
the changes were so frequent and so casual that it is clear 
that they were hardly regarded as alterations in the 
constitution. 3 In the early years of the nineteenth century the 
spirit of the age led a few close Corporations voluntarily to 
open their ranks to a somewhat larger circle, by resolutions 
reviving the assembly of Freemen in Common Hall, and by a 
transfer to such assemblies of the election of some of the great 
officers, and more or less of the administrative control. 4 

1 Thus, at Maidstone, in 1764, the Common Council made a By-law 
abrogating the right of Burgesses to vote either for Common Councillors or on 
the admission of new Burgesses. This, however, was set aside by the Courts in 
1766 (The Charters and other Documents relating to th-e King's Town and 
Parish of Maidstone, by W. R. James, 1825, p. 228). A By-law of the Municipal 
Corporation of Chester in the reign of Henry VIII. confined the choice of 
Aldermen to members of the Close Body, although neither the previous nor the 
subsequent Charters contained any such limitation. Notwithstanding litigation 
on the point in 1735, the By-law continued in force down to 1835 (Gentleman's 
Magazine, April 1735, vol. v. p. 217 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2622). So at Romsey, Hampshire, the Municipal 
Corporation did not scruple, in 1742, to enact by By-law that the Aldermen 
should henceforth be chosen only from among the Capital Burgesses, and the 
Mayor only from among the Aldermen, although the Governing Charter of 1608 
had imposed no such limitation, and had expressly made every Burgess eligible 
for either place (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1331). At Cambridge, which had received 
numerous Charters from the reign of Henry I. to that of Charles I., an extremely 
complicated method of choosing the Mayor had been arranged by By-law as 
early as 1345. This was varied by another in 1568, which was abrogated in 
1786, when the old method was reverted to (Newling v. Francis, in Reports 
of Cases, etc., by Durnford and East, vol. iii. p. 189 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2185 ; Practical Treatise on the Lav: 
of Corporations, by James Grant, 1850, p. 81). 

2 This does not apply merely to Constables, Ale-tasters, or Beadles inherited 
from the Lord's Court or accreted from the Gilds and Companies, but also to 
such powerful functionaries as the Chamberlains and Town Clerks of some 
Municipal Corporations. 

3 Thus, at Monmouth, where the Charters contained no provision as to the 
admission of new Burgesses, both the method of admission and the qualifications 
were altered from decade to decade according to the will of the dominant 
majority (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. 
p. 324). The Corporation of Poole, Dorset, made residence obligatory (ibid. 
vol. ii. p. 1321). 

4 Tims, at Plymouth, Devon, a By-law of 1803 led to the four or five hundred 
Freemen being summoned to Common Hall nearly every month, to elect the 

VOL. II. PT. I T 



274 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA T10N 

There were, however, some Corporations, and not a few 
institutions in many others, for which no better warrant was 
claimed than prescription. Many of these, as we found to 
be the case with the Close Vestries, we suspect to have had 
their origin in By-laws adopted at comparatively recent dates, 
the record of which had been lost or forgotten. " It was," we 
are told, " in the fortieth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign that 
the judges, upon the application of the Privy Council, 
determined that from usage, within time of memory, a By-law 
may be presumed, restraining to a select body the right of 
election of the principal corporators, though vested by the 
ancient constitution in the popular assembly." l The Courts 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries continued to 
accept long-sustained usage as evidence of there having been 
a By-law instituting the practice. 2 We have accordingly to 
relinquish the idea of discovering the constitutions of the 
Municipal Corporations from their Charters, or of confining 
our examination of them to what may be supposed to have 
been the strict law. To the student of English Local 
Government between 1689 and 1835, what is important is 
what actually existed, not what subsequent lawyers might 
eventually decide ought legally to have existed. With the 
Municipal Corporation as with the Parish and the County, it 
was the actual local usage that was significant, rather than 
law and the lawyers. 8 

Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, etc., and a standing Committee of twenty-one 
(MS. Records, Plymouth Corporation, 1803-1835 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. pp. 579, 581). At Chipping Wycombe 
(Bucks) a similar change was made in 1832 with regard to the election of new 
Burgesses (ibid. vol. i. p. 41). 

1 The Law of Municipal Corporations, by J. W. Willcock, 1827, p. 8. 

2 Thus, at Nottingham, the choice of Aldermen was, in practice, confined to 
members of the Close Body, with a tradition of a By-law prior to the earliest 
records, which commence in 1575. "In 1810 this mode of election was called 
in question in the case of the King against Ashwell, in which an information Quo 
Warranto was granted." In proof of the alleged By-law, which could not be 
produced, the defendant ' ' gave evidence of the usage of the Corporation as far 
back as the records of the Corporation went. A verdict was given for the 
defendant as to the fact of such a By-law having existed, and the Court of King's 
Bench . . . held the By-law to be reasonable " (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. p. 1990 ; Reports of Cases, etc., by East, 
vol. xii. p. 22 ; Practical Treatise on the Law of Corporations, by James Grant, 
1850, p. 81). 

3 In the nineteenth century, on the other hand, we iind the Courts 
upholding the words of the Charters, as against the constant usage of the 
Corporation. At Truro, for instance, when a Capital Burgess had been elected 



CORPORA TE JURISDICTIONS 275 

(6) Corporate Jurisdictions 

Although not defining constitutions, the legal instruments 
whether Seignorial Grants, Royal Charters and Letters 
Patent, or deeds of agreement or trust enrolled in the Court of 
Chancery were highly valued by the corporators who so 
jealously preserved them under threefold lock and key in 
ancient town chests. What these documents conveyed was 
not only real estate, but also acquittances, immunities, 
franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions. The character and 
the constitution of the Corporate body was, as Haitian d suggests, 
largely left to shape itself according to the concessions made 
to it. The area over which the Municipal Corporation 
extended, its membership, and the number and character of its 
officers, for instance, were, as we shall see, dependent on the 
kind and extent of the powers which it possessed. The 
development, and even the structure of its governing body, 
between 1689 and 1835, was, as will subsequently appear, 
largely influenced by the amount of its property and by its 
obligation or privilege of electing " Burgesses " to sit in the 
House of Commons. Hence, before we proceed to our analysis 
of the constitution of the Municipal Corporations, we must 
make a rapid survey of the general character of the jurisdictions 
that they exercised. Some Corporations, as we shall see, 
possessed all these jurisdictions ; some only a selection among 
them, with every variety of combination ; and some, again, 
literally only one of them. The only jurisdiction, in fact, 
that was universal to all Municipal Corporations, as we have 
defined them, as it was the only one that was peculiar to them, 
was that involved in the possession of a Corporate Magistracy. 

One of the most important of the powers of the Municipal 
Corporation of 1689 was that connected with real estate, 
within or without the Borough ; a power which had come to 
include a varied series of Corporate rights, amounting, over 
certain lands in nearly every Borough, to complete ownership 

according to custom, but contrary to the directions of the Charter of 1589, his 
election, on being objected to, was, in 1823, declared void (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 657). So at Monmouth, 
where the Common Council had long usurped the right to elect the Mayor, 
which a Charter of 1550 had given to the Burgesses at large, the Courts, on 
appeal made in 1818, upheld the right of the Burgesses, in spite of long- 
continued usage (ibid. vol. i. p. 322). 



276 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

in fee simple. There might still be traces, in the form of 
burgage tenements held at fixed quit-rents which had become 
nominal, of the earliest seignorial commutation of villein 
service into money payments ; there might be remnants of 
Corporate accountability for such quit-rents to the Crown or 
other superior Lord ; the Borough itself might be held in 
fee farm upon an annual payment. Moreover, among the 
successive concessions by the Lord of the Borough there 
would usually have been various Manorial customs as to the 
administration of the commonfields, the stinting of the 
pastures, and the utilisation of the waste, out of which the 
emerging Corporation would have built up autonomous and 
vaguely defined rights over all the land within its area, so 
far as this had not been reduced to complete individual manage- 
ment. 1 The entire complex of rights that we term the Manor 
might even have been acquired by the Corporation, and witli 
it, therefore, not only the power to hold Courts, to which we 
shall presently allude, but also the right to estrays, escheats, 
and other profitable incidents connected with land. But the 
Corporation might own other real estate properly acquired 
from a dissolved Gild or religious house, or simply purchased 
from the King or other owner, or inherited from some pious 
founder for the fulfilment of a trust or merely for the 
" common good." It was for greater assurance in these cases 
that the Charters so often expressly gave the Corporations the 
right of holding, administering, and selling real estate. 

But although the Borough had, even in 1689, nearly 
always some interest in agriculture, it was, of course, pre- 
dominantly a community of traders, master craftsmen, retail 
shopkeepers or dealers of one sort or another, together with 

1 It must not be forgotten that the typical Borough of 1689, like that of 
the thirteenth century, still had, within its boundaries, " fields as the neigh- 
bouring villages had fields ; vast, hedgeless, fenceless tracts of arable land, in 
which the strips of divers owners lay interspersed ' hide meal and acre meal ' " 
(Township and Boroiujh, by F. W. Maitland, 1898, p. 4). The Borough of 
Nottingham, for instance, extended over no less than 15 square miles, and 
included, even as late as 1833, "a considerable quantity of forest, meadow, and 
common land without the walls of the town" (First Report of Municipal Cor- 
poration Commission, 1835, vol. iii. p. 1985). The Borough of Queenborough, 
in Kent, included about 240 acres of open land (Hid. vol. ii. p. 823) ; the 
Corporation of Canterbury exercised jurisdiction over 4 square miles of rural 
"liberties" (ibid. vol. ii. p. 709); that of Coventry over agricultural areas 
20 miles in circumference (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1795). 



CORPORATE JURISDICTIONS 277 

their journeymen or assistants. Thus the "Association of 
Producers" in agriculture had become gradually transformed 
into an " Association of Producers " in commerce and manu- 
facture. This transformation was reflected in the Corporate 
jurisdictions. To the control of the land there was gradually 
added a control of trading. We have seen this in its simplest 
form in some of the most rudimentary Manorial Boroughs, 
innocent of anything like Gild organisation, where the Mayor 
would exact a fee from every newcomer who opened a shop. 
We need not consider such vexed questions as, what was implied 
in the grant of a Merchant Gild so frequent in the thirteenth 
century, or in the rise of the Craft Gilds ; or how far the 
Gild orders were confirmed by the clauses giving the Corpora- 
tions the right to regulate artificers ; or superseded by the 
Statute of Apprentices under which, as a matter of fact, the 
eighteenth-century Corporation usually preferred to take its 
proceedings to prevent "foreigners" (by which was meant 
simply persons not " free " of the Corporation) from interfering 
with the profits of the Burgesses. 

The Burgesses of the Borough desired, however, to attract 
to their town, under certain conditions, both sellers and buyers 
from outside its area. This could best be done by the 
Borough obtaining the right to have a Market on certain days 
of the week or month, or a Mart or Fair on certain days 
in the year. Hence we find this concession frequently made 
by Lord or King to the Municipal Corporation, though, as we 
have mentioned, it was by no means exclusively confined to 
Corporate towns. The privilege might be the right to establish 
a new Market or Fair, or merely the transfer of the ownership 
in a previously existing Market or Fair. This Franchise was, 
even after the Eestoration, still an object of ambition in a 
town aspiring to become a Municipal Corporation. " Our 
being dependent on Sandwich," said the inhabitants of Deal, 
in 1698, "for every article of food, places the people in a 
very great strait, incapacitates the ship-agents and boatmen in 
sending daily supplies to the shipping, and enhances the 
price, causing general complaint among the whole population, 
now exceeding three thousand souls." l But it was more than 

1 Reasoiisfor seeking a Charter for Deal, 1698 ; reprinted in History of Deal, 
by S. Pritchard, 1884, p. 146. 



278 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

a matter of convenience. A weekly market not only saved 
the inhabitants the trouble and expense of taking their wares 
or their custom to another centre, but also furnished the 
Corporation with new sources of revenue and power. 

But in the period between 1689 and 1835, the most 
notorious of all the privileges and franchises of a Municipal 
Corporation, was that possessed by the majority of them of 
returning their own " Burgesses " to sit in the House of 
Commons. This had formerly been an onerous obligation, or, 
if an advantage, it was mainly in being exempt in the matter 
from the jurisdiction of the County Sheriff and from the duty 
of contributing to the expenses of the Knights of the Shire. 
By 1689, however, and still more between 1760 and 1832, it 
had become a valuable privilege, with important results, to be 
afterwards described, upon the constitution and administration 
of those Corporations which possessed it. 

We pass now to the administration of justice in its 
various branches, the most prized among Municipal jurisdic- 
tions. It was, as we shall subsequently show, this function 
more than any other that determined the evolution of the 
working constitution of the Municipal Corporation and its 
relation to the local inhabitants. For the moment it must 
suffice to point out that the right to hold a Court of Justice 
was an integral part of many of the Franchises that we have 
already described. The mere concession by the Lord to his 
tenants of any measure of autonomy in the administration of 
their land was frequently accompanied by permission to hold 
their own Court for the settlement of cases of debt and 
trespass among themselves. 1 When the Burgesses acquired 
the Manor itself, they obtained with it the right to hold the 
Court Leet, View of Frankpledge, and Court Baron. Similarly, 
the grant of a Market or a Fair implied the right to determine 
the disputes and punish the defaults of buyers and sellers, 
either in distinct tribunals, such as the Court of Pie Powder 

1 Jurisdiction in civil suits often limited to personal actions, and still more 
frequently to actions of small amount, but in about fifty towns extending to all 
actions of any amount was exercised in 1689 by nearly all Municipal Corpora- 
tions, there being, as far as we can make out, only about a dozen exceptions. 
Among these were Bossiney, Brading, Chesterfield, Glastonbury, Kidderminster, 
Louth, Macolesfield, Pembroke, and Pevensey. In some Boroughs the Court 
Baron of the Lord still exercised civil jurisdiction. 



CORPORA TE JURISDICTIONS 2^9 

or the Court of the Clerk of the Market, or in such other 
Courts as the Borough possessed. Nor did the jurisdiction of 
the Borough Courts stop at those Borough boundaries which 
were annually perambulated with so much ceremony. Some 
of the market jurisdictions, for instance, extended miles 
beyond. A Municipal Corporation, too, might own land 
outside its own Borough, and might even be, in its corporate 
capacity, Lord of a Manor, the Bailiff to whom a " Bailiwick " 
had been granted, or the Steward or Lord of a Hundred. 
The King, moreover, had often conceded to the Corporation 
express jurisdiction of particular kinds over wide stretches of 
land, many miles of river, and even adjacent parts of the sea. 
The Mayor might be " Conservator " of this or that river, or 
" Admiral " over a whole estuary, entitled to exercise specific 
civil and criminal jurisdiction even over other Boroughs. 

The investment of one or more members of a Municipal 
Corporation with the well-known powers and authorities else- 
where conferred by the Commission of the Peace brings us to 
a new range of jurisdiction. The function of creating a 
Magistracy for the town of holding Petty Sessions, and even 
Quarter Sessions was, as our subsequent chapters will 
abundantly show, the most potent of Municipal Franchises. 
To say that it characterised all Municipal Corporations 
whatsoever, is merely to repeat that we have made the 
possession of this Franchise the logical differentia of the class. 
However elaborate may have been the organisation of a 
Borough and however complete its autonomy, we have left it 
behind us as a Manorial Borough unless it could clothe one 
or more of its citizens with the jurisdiction of a Justice of the 
Peace. After 1689, indeed, the desire of a town to have its 
own Magistrates was the most frequent reason for seeking a 
Charter. 1 But even this essential characteristic does not 
furnish us with a sharp dividing line. The Portreeve or 

1 The inhabitants of Deal, in their Reasons for seeking a Charter (1698), 
stated " that they are obliged to go to . . . Sandwich, whenever they need a 
J.P. for signing Poor's Cess, removal of paupers, etc. ; and sometimes from 
caprice these things have been denied us ; ... that Sandwich puts upon us 
fines for licences of public-houses and does whatever it pleases, and keeps that 
money, and returns none of it to us, which would assist our rates if we were 
separated from that place ; . . . Sandwich monopolises all law and justice " 
(MS. Records, Corporation of Deal ; History of Leal, by S. Pritchard, 1864, 
pp. 144, 146). 



280 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

Bailiff of many a Manor or " Lord's Borough " often assuming 
the title of Mayor claimed vague rights of acting as " Con- 
servator of the Peace," whatever this might mean ; and even 
felt himself warranted, by the ambiguous way in which the 
statutes had sometimes referred to the Mayors, in acting as a 
Justice. 1 Even more perplexing from the standpoint of 
classification were those Boroughs which had no right to 
create their own Corporate Justices, but which had, as a 
matter of fact, acquired the privilege of having the Mayor 
for the time being, and even some other members of the 
Corporation, invariably included in the Commission of the 
Peace for the County at large. There might even be a 
separate Commission of the Peace issued for the Borough ; 
and if this separate Commission was continued decade after 
decade, it might make the Manorial Borough almost in- 
distinguishable in practical working from a Municipal Corpora- 
tion. On the other hand, there were genuine Municipal Corpora- 
tions in which,- although a Corporate Magistracy nominally 
existed, this had become attenuated by disuse, or had even 
fallen into abeyance. The Borough Court of Quarter Sessions 
was not infrequently allowed to lapse. Sometimes even the 
Borough Petty Sessions became merged in that held in the 
town by the County Justices for the surrounding district. 
Such Municipal Corporations were in process of retrograding 
to the status of a Manorial Borough, or even to that of a 
mere Lord's Court. 

The criminal jurisdiction exercised by these Corporate 
Justices varied greatly in scope. At the bottom of the scale 
stood those Corporations nearly forty in number which 
had no Court of Quarter Sessions and had been granted power 
to try and punish only such offences as fell within the jurisdic- 
tion of Petty Sessions ; such as drunkenness and disorderly 
conduct, minor assaults, and the ever-growing series of 
nuisances which the statutes allowed to be dealt with 
summarily. Persons accused of graver offences had to be 
committed for trial at the County Quarter Sessions or the 

1 Thus Dinas Mawddwy, a place which had no Charter, and was governed by 
its Lord's Court, had a Mayor, chosen by the Leet Jury from among three 
persons named by the Lord's Steward. This Mayor -granted ale-house licences 
ab if he were a Justice (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. p. 2673). 



CORPORA TE JURISDICTIONS 28 1 

Assizes. 1 Next in order came those Corporations 2 where the 
Justices could try and punish all misdemeanours, however 
grave, but not even the smallest felonies. Others 3 could try 
and punish all felonies "not affecting life or member," or all 
felonies except manslaughter and murder. 4 Above these 
stood the Corporations 5 in which the Justices could deal with 
all felonies whatsoever in one case 6 even expressly including 
high treason. 

A more definite sliding scale of jurisdictions, by which 
one Municipal Corporation was distinguished from another, 
was the degree of its emancipation from the jurisdiction of 
the Justices of the County at large. The lowest grade of 
Municipal Corporations in this respect were those about 

1 Among the Corporations which had no higher jurisdiction than this were 
Chesterfield (First Keport of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. 
p. 1790) ; Graveseud (ibid. vol. v. p. 2866) ; Ripon (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1710) ; 
and Truro (ibid. vol. i. p. 657). But it is to be noted that, however restricted 
might be the criminal jurisdiction of the Borough Justices, they had, in all 
other respects, the full powers of a County Justice so far as the Borough area 
was concerned. In one respect, indeed, the Justices of the Peace of the most 
insignificant Borough were in a superior position. ' ' The authority of these 
is not revocable as the Commission of the Peace is " (The Justice of Peace, by 
Theodore Barlow, 1745, p. x). 

2 About fifteen in number, in all but four of which the jurisdiction was 
exclusive. 

3 About eighty-seven in number, in two-thirds of which the jurisdiction was 
exclusive. 

4 Leeds (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. 
p. 1621). 

6 About forty-seven in number, all but three (Boston, Buckingham, and 
Wallingford) having exclusive jurisdiction. 

6 Chester (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2623), by the so-called "Crown-mote Court." It 
is to be noted that the extent of the criminal jurisdiction enjoyed by a Municipal 
Corporation was often out of all proportion to its size and importance in 1689, 
still more so in 1835. Among the Corporations entitled to try all 
felonies were not only those of most of the English shire towns, Counties 
Corporate, and Cinque Ports (though some of each of these classes were restricted 
to felonies not touching life or limb), but also such small towns as Dunwich, 
Eveshara, Maldon, Romney Marsh, and Southwold, and (concurrently with the 
County Justices) Buckingham and Wallingford. The tiny Corporation of Ban- 
bury in Oxfordshire had had a gallows formally granted to it, and its Justices 
at the Borough Quarter Sessions long tried even capital cases. An execution by 
their sentence took place about 1746 (ibid. vol. i. p. 11). On the other hand, 
Carmarthen (a County Corporate), Maidstone (a shire town), and so important a 
residential centre as Bath, were restricted to misdemeanours. " The want of all 
power to try felonies," we are told in 1833, "has been long felt at Bath, as an 
evil of serious importance. With a population exceeding 50,000 in the city and 
immediate neighbourhood the most trifling case of larceny must be sent to be 
tried at the County Quarter Sessions or Assizes, which are held at Wells, 
Bridgwater, and Taunton, at the distance of 18, 39, and 50 miles respectively 
from Bath" (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1116). 



282 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

thirty-five in number in which the Borough Justices had 
only concurrent jurisdiction in the town along with the County 
Justices, and could only hold Petty and Special Sessions. 
A higher stage was that of having exclusive jurisdiction within 
the Borough for a Borough Court of Quarter Sessions, 
whether in respect of misdemeanours only, or also of felonies. 
The highest of all these Corporate jurisdictions was possessed 
by those Boroughs over forty in number which absolutely 
excluded the Justices of the County at large from any inter- 
meddling with cases of even the gravest felonies that arose 
within the Borough ; three or four of which not only held 
their own Courts of Quarter Sessions, but also regular Sessions 
of Oyer and Terminer and of Gaol Delivery. 1 

From the standpoint of the Municipal Corporation, the 
right to administer civil and criminal justice carried with it 
three inestimable privileges immunity from attendance at 
the Courts held in other places and by other authorities, the 
settlement of all cases by the Corporate officers themselves, 
and the retention by the Corporation of the fees, fines, and 
other compulsory payments by plaintiffs and defendants. 
What those inhabitants who were not members of the 
Corporation most appreciated was the saving in time, trouble, 
and expense caused by having a tribunal on the spot, with 
magistrates always at hand. It was the popular appreciation 
of this Municipal service that inspired most of the petitions 
for incorporation between 1689 and 1835. On the other 
hand, the monopoly of this magisterial power possessed by 
the Close Body, together with the partiality and oppression to 
which, in a few of the worst cases, this gave rise, were among 
the grievances of the Municipal Eeformers of 1832-35. 

An incident in this local administration of justice, as we 
have already seen in the Court of the Manor and in the 

1 Exeter held sessions of Gaol Delivery (First Report of Municipal Corpora- 
tion Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 490) ; Bristol, of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol 
Delivery (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1171). Southampton held sessions of Oyer and 
Terminer and Gaol Delivery, apparently under a special Commission from the 
Crown, down to 1725 ; and claimed that its Town Clerk should officiate, without 
the Clerk of Assize. We see the Corporation arranging for such separate sessions, 
possibly held by the Recorder, from time to time. Since 1725, however, the 
town has been simply included in the Western Circuit of the Judges (Speed 
MSS. pp. 73-74, in MS. Records, Southampton Corporation ; History of 
Southampton, by J. S. Davies, 1883, p. 188). 



CORPORA TE JURISDICTIONS 283 

Manorial Borough, was the power of prescribing in advance 
what should be the obligations of the inhabitants. It was, as 
we have seen, taken for granted that the Court which dealt 
with individual cases should also formulate By-laws. Nor do 
we find, in fact, that the autonomous Courts of the Municipal 
Corporation exercised in this capacity any more extensive 
legislative powers than did the Courts of the Manorial Borough, 
or even those of the Hundred or the Manor. All alike 
regulated the use of the common lands. All alike defined 
what would be punished as a public nuisance. All alike 
formulated particular obligations of the individual inhabitant 
to do what the common good required. If the Municipal 
Corporation had obtained the insertion, in one of its Charters, 
of a clause giving express power to make By-laws, this gave 
no new sanction, and did not even extend the scope of its 
law-making power beyond that actually exercised by a 
Lord's Court. In one direction, it may be thought that the 
Municipal Corporation had an additional By-law-making power, 
namely, in the regulation of artificers. We do, indeed, find 
that By-laws made by the Corporate body, or by a Gild with its 
sanction, regulating apprenticeship, the right to trade, the 
quality of the wares, and the charges to be made for specific 
services, were, between 1689 and 1835, much more frequently 
characteristic of Municipal Corporations than of Manorial 
Boroughs ; whilst such regulations were almost unknown in 
the Courts of Manors. We find, too, the Municipal Corporations, 
even in the eighteenth century, making new constitutions for 
their Trade Companies, and actually incorporating new ones for 
the regulation of particular trades. 1 But the examples of 
Alnwick and Sheffield sufficiently prove that both Gild 
structure and trade regulation might exist in places dependent 
only upon Seignorial Charters, and still under the dominion of 
the Lord of the Manor. The only real advance in the 
legislative power of the Municipal Corporation, as compared 
with that of a Lord's Court or a Manorial Borough, was, in 

1 As in the City of London, Dover (MS. Records, Dover Corporation, 23rd 
July 1713), Bristol (MS. Records, Bristol Corporation, 17th November 1714), 
and Exeter (MS. Records, Exeter Corporation, 30th March and 22nd December 
1685, 23rd August 1737). At Gateshead, as perhaps at other Boroughs in the 
County of Durham, which we have classed as Manorial Boroughs, Gilds had 
been incorporated by separate Charters from the Bishop as Lord Palatine. 



284 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

fact, that exercised by its Justices of the Peace, and this was 
analogous to that already described in the Quarter Sessions 
of the County. 

The power of the Municipal Corporation to levy taxation 
sprang, it need hardly be said, from the jurisdictions that we 
have described. We may pass rapidly over the right of the 
Corporation to assess upon its own members or . upon the 
burgage tenants, their shares of fee farm rent or other 
Corporate liability; and no less rapidly over such mediaeval 
powers of levying taxation over all the householders of the 
Borough as were involved in the Eoyal or statutory grants of 
murage or pavage. More significant to us, as regards tho 
Municipal Corporation of 1689, is its power to levy taxes 
within its area on the persons buying or selling, or exercising 
a craft. This fiscal power might be connected either with the 
concourse of traders and customers at its Market or Fair, or 
with the monopoly of trading enjoyed by its Burgesses. 
We may regard as merely a development of this power of 
levying contributions upon the operations of traders, such not 
infrequent Corporate rights as the exaction of petty customs, 
" thorough toll " or " toll traverse," and various forms of octroi, 
whether derived merely from prescription, from ancient 
Manorial rights, or from Eoyal grant. What is significant in 
all these Municipal taxes on trading is the series of exemptions 
from them enjoyed by the members of the Corporation, or 
by other privileged groups of traders, master craftsmen, or 
journeymen ; coupled with powers, in one or other authority, 
of regulating admission to these privileged circles, or of 
levying extra taxation on those who were excluded from them. 
Closely connected with these powers and immunities within 
the area of the Corporation was a series of immunities, enjoyed 
by members of the Corporation under Eoyal grants, from 
some or all of the analogous powers of taxation exercised 
by the Corporations of other Boroughs, an exemption some- 
times so extensive as to free the privileged citizens from such 
local taxation throughout the King's dominions. Hence by 
1689, though the widest of these exemptions was becoming 
somewhat difficult to enforce, there was not only a prefer- 
entially taxed class within the Borough; but also, in strict law, 
small and scattered sets of licensed " free traders " passing to 



CORPORATE OBLIGATIONS 285 

and fro amid an intricate network of local octrois covering no 
small proportion of the Kingdom. But, just as we have seen 
with the By-law-making power, all these taxes and immunities 
occur among Manorial Boroughs, and even mere Manors for 
instance, those in Ancient Demesne 1 as well as among 
Municipal Corporations. What was peculiar to Municipal 
Corporations, and that only to those which could hold Courts 
of Quarter Sessions to the exclusion of the County Justices, 
was the power to tax for gaols, maintenance of prisoners, 
vagrants, etc., by a County Rate ; or (in the case of Boroughs 
not being Counties of themselves) by a rate " of the nature of 
a County Eate." 

(c) Corporate Obligations 

To the member of a Municipal Corporation this organisa- 
tion seemed, as we have indicated, a complex of immunities 
and franchises, rights and privileges, which might, in their 
extent and variety, be equivalent to a valuable Corporate 
income. To the King and his ministers, as we may believe, 
the Municipal Corporation appeared in another light. Besides 
the Corporate jurisdictions, which were sources of advantage 
and privilege, there were onerous Corporate duties to be 
performed and burdensome Corporate responsibilities to be 
fulfilled. To the mediaeval statesman, we may imagine, the 
Municipal Corporation was, like the County and the Parish, 
primarily an organ of obligation, by means of which, in 
particular localities, the services required by the community as 
a whole could be performed and exacted. There was, to 
begin with, some Corporate payment to be made in com- 
mutation of, or in substitution for, the tribute formerly 
exacted from individuals. 2 The exemption from the jurisdiction 
of the County Sheriff was accompanied by a corresponding 

1 For the peculiar privileges of Manors in Ancient Demesne, see pp. 22, 183. 

2 The Corporation of Southampton, which had in the Middle Ages enjoyed a 
valuable trade with the Mediterranean, paid 200 a year. " In 1552 the 
King ordered that when the customs of the port did not amount to 200, and 
no ships called carracks of Genoa and galleys of Venice should enter the port to 
load or unload, the town should . . . pay . . . only 50. To this day 
certificates are still prepared every year on 9th November that no carracks of 
Genoa nor galleys of Venice have arrived at the port" (Town Life in the 
Fifteenth Century, by A. S. Green, 1894, vol. ii. p. 305 n. ; History of the Customs 
Revenue, by Hubert Hall, 1885, vol. i. pp. 134, 310, vol. ii. p. 114). 



286 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

obligation to collect the King's revenue and to execute the 
King's writs within the limits of the Borough. The Head of 
the Corporation, if he enjoyed precedence and social consider- 
ation inside his Borough, was also the officer to whom the King 
addressed his orders, and upon whom rested the responsibility 
for the Borough. In the Middle Ages the Municipal 
Corporation had been responsible, if not for the defence of the 
Borough against a foreign enemy, at any rate for the upkeep 
of the wall and the provision of the necessary " harness " 
and arms to equip the citizens ; an obligation succeeded by 
that of duly keeping the Nightly Watch, and above all of 
maintaining the King's Peace within the Borough and 
enforcing the laws of the land. The obligation to send one 
or two Burgesses to sit in Parliament, and to pay their wages, 
was part of the burden of the Corporation ; special obligations 
were incurred in connection with grants of Pavage and 
Murage, 1 of Lastage and Pontage, of Markets and Fairs, of 
Bridge Tolls and Ferries. It was in order to enable the 
Municipal Corporation to fulfil its Corporate obligations that 
it was empowered to command and enforce the personal 
service of its members in any of its offices, and to levy upon 
them such taxation as might be necessary. Nor was this 
Corporate obligation only nominal. Frequent cases show that 
any failure of a Municipal Corporation to fulfil any of its 
responsibilities, or neglect of any of its duties, might be 
sharply punished by a fine leviable on any member of the 
Corporation, by imprisonment of its Head or other officers, 
by the Borough being temporarily " taken into the King's 
hands " and exposed to the tyrannies and exactions of his 
officers, and even by the forfeiture of the privilege of incor- 
poration itself. 2 Moreover, in addition to these national 
obligations, the Municipal Corporation had, in nearly every case, 

1 The grant of petty customs or other dues might be coupled witli an 
obligation to perform particular services ; thus it was alleged that the valuable 
dues levied by the Bristol Corporation had originally been granted " for the 
paving of the city, for the repairs of the city walls and of the Quays purposes 
and objects which have all long ceased, or for which other and most ample 
rates are provided by the Legislature" (Felix Farley's Journal, 1826). 

2 In 1341, as the Municipal Corporations of Hythe and Romney had not 
provided the ships which they were required to find, "the collector of the subsidy 
as well as the King's collectors of wool in Kent, were ordered to ignore their 
Franchises, and tax them just like other men " (Cinque Ports, by Montagu 
Burrows, 1888, pp. 140-141). 



CORPORATE OBLIGATIONS 287 

undertaken more or less responsibility in the capacity of what 
we may call Public Trustee. It had often received grants of 
land or bequests, charged with payments for this or that 
charitable and public object, or left generally in trust for the 
poor. It had in many towns succeeded to, or stepped into the 
shoes of, religious Gilds, and had made itself more or less 
responsible for continuing part of their work. A large part 
of what afterwards became the statutory provision for the 
poor was, down to the sixteenth century, provided by the 
Municipal Corporation. 1 It had established, often by means 
of gifts, collections, or bequests, causeways and bridges, 
hospitals for the aged, schools for boys, and other public 
services, for the maintenance of which it had incurred a 
moral if not a legal responsibility. Down to the end of the 
sixteenth century, when the administrative functions of the 
Parish and the County were still small in amount, the couple 
of hundred Municipal Corporations were performing, we may 
estimate, the greater part of all the services of Local Govern- 
ment that existed. 

By 1689, however, though considerable remnants of these 
Corporate responsibilities still remained, they had very largely 
lapsed. The particular duties which the Municipal Corporation 
had undertaken had, one after another, become attenuated or 
entirely disappeared. The old duty of the defence of the 
Borough against a foreign enemy had passed out of memory. 
The fee farm rent, or other annual payment for the Borough, 
had, with the alteration in the value of money, become almost 
a nominal charge, and had often been redeemed. The 
maintenance of the poor had been taken over by the Over- 
seers of the parishes under the Elizabethan statute. The 
obligation of finding Burgesses to sit in Parliament had changed 
from being a costly burden into a much valued privilege, 
which might be profitable to the Borough, if not even a 
source of pecuniary gain to the Corporation itself. Many 
other obligations had become obsolete, or continued only as 
matters of routine. The King, moreover, and his ministers 
no longer importuned the Municipal Corporations with 
commands ; and ceased, in the eighteenth century, even to 
hold them in any practical way responsible for the Boroughs. 

1 Early History of Eiujlisli Poor Relief, by Miss E. M. Leonard, 1900. 



288 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

To the Hanoverian Monarchs, as to Sir Robert Walpole and his 
successors, it never occurred to connect the existence of a 
Municipal Corporation with any responsibility for meeting 
even the long-standing requirements of its Borough, still less 
the new or changing needs of the inhabitants. The one duty 
of the Corporation that was still recognised was that of 
providing the local Magistracy, and even this was not 
enforced. If a Municipal Corporation let this duty drop, and 
allowed its criminal jurisdiction, like its civil tribunals, to fall 
into abeyance if it ceased to hold Quarter Sessions, and let 
its Petty Sessions dwindle into mere opportunities for com- 
mitting offenders for trial elsewhere the County Justices 
were always ready to take up the work, and virtually to 
reabsorb the Borough in the County. And apart from this 
provision of a Corporate Magistracy, the function of a Municipal 
Corporation as an organ of national obligation was, by the end 
of the eighteenth century, almost forgotten. 

(d) The Area of the Corporation 

Paradoxical as it may seem, the Municipal Corporation 
had, in the vast majority of cases, no one area over which it 
exercised authority. A Municipal Corporation, like the 
Manor and unlike the Parish and the County, was, in fact, 
not primarily a territorial expression. It was a bundle of 
jurisdictions relating to persons, and only incidentally to the 
place in which those persons happened to be. The persons 
were, it is true, always assumed to be connected with some 
geographical centre they were the " Burgesses," the 
"Approved Men," the "Mayor, Masters, and Councillors," 
or "the Mayor, Jurats, and Commonalty," of some Borough 
or City. But it follows from our account of the acquittances, 
franchises, liberties, and immunities which comprised the 
total jurisdiction of a Municipal Corporation, that the areas 
over which authority was exercised might differ widely for 
the different powers, and might in some cases be susceptible 
of no geographical definition whatever. It is true that, where 
a Municipal Corporation had no other powers or functions 
than those of local Magistracy, its area may be said to have 
been strictly that part of the County within which its Justices 



THE AREA OF THR CORPORATION 289 

exercised their authority. But beyond this simple form, every 
additional jurisdiction, it is scarcely too much to say, involved, 
for its operation, a separate and different geographical area. 
Thus we find Municipal Corporations wielding this or that 
power over the areas of one or more Manors ; other powers 
over the areas of one or more Parishes. 1 Their Market, 
Conservancy, and Admiralty jurisdictions might extend for 
miles into adjacent Counties ; far up rivers and creeks, and 
along estuaries and seas ; including wide stretches of upland 
and commons, scattered hamlets and fishing-ports. The area 
within which some of their immunities might be enjoyed 
to which, therefore, their power of securing exemption 
potentially extended was actually co-extensive with the 
Kingdom. It was even wider. There was one at least of 
the Municipal Franchises that had no geographical limits 
whatever, though it is precisely the one which to-day we 
associate most directly with definite boundaries, namely, the 
right to return Burgesses to sit in Parliament. Not a few 
Municipal Corporations made wide use of their power of 
admitting to membership persons residing elsewhere, and they 
could have extended the right to share in their political 
franchise to all British subjects wherever domiciled. Thus, 
the geographical extension of a Municipal Corporation can be 
represented only by an indefinite number of circles, differing 
among themselves from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. One of 
these as we think the most important was the area over 
which the Corporate Justices exercised their magisterial 
powers. This it was, generally coincident with an older 



1 In a few exceptional instances one or other of the Chief Officers of a 
Municipal Corporation had even jurisdiction extending far beyond any of its 
ordinary boundaries. We shall mention subsequently the jurisdiction exercised 
by the Coroners and other officers of the Corporations of the Cinque Ports over 
their Non-Corporate "Limbs" or "Members." The Mayor of Wareham in 
Dorsetshire, who was ex-officio Coroner for that Borough, exercised the powers 
of Coroner also over Brownsea Island and the whole of the so-called Isle of 
Purbeck (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. 
p. 1360). We do not know whether this fact, or that of Poole being a County 
of itself, has any connection with there having occasionally been a separate 
Lord- Lieutenant for the Isle of Purbeck, and a separate Commission of the Peace 
for Poole. The Corporations of Wareham and Poole were always quarrelling 
about their respective rights in Poole Harbour, the one to be exempt from 
" Keyage," the other to levy it (see, for instance, MS. Acts of Privy Council, 
10th February, 20th May, 15th June, and 20th July 1664). 

VOL. II. PT. I U 



2QO THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Manorial or Parochial area, 1 that was usually regarded as 
specially the Borough or City, the boundaries of which were 
periodically perambulated with so much pomp. It is the area 
of this jurisdiction that we find some Municipal Corporations, 
both before and after 1689, intent on extending by Royal 
Charter, in order to prevent the upgrowth, sometimes of rival 
authorities, sometimes of lawless Alsatias, through the neglect 
of the County Justices, or their scarcity around the busy 
trading port or inland manufacturing centre. 

This particular area it was, too, that, in two or three 
dozen towns, we find divided into Wards, divisions of great 
antiquity and unknown origin, which were, more frequently 
than not, non-coincident with the numerous small Parishes 
into which the larger Boroughs were usually parcelled out. 
The number of Wards might be two, four, five, six, eight, 
twelve, twenty-one, or twenty-five ; and, contrary to a 
common impression, we do not find that this division had, in 
the majority of cases, any connection with the Aldermen of 
the Corporation. 2 

1 This area was sometimes (as at Leeds and Maidstone) coincident with a whole 
Parish ; sometimes, as in most of the older shire towns or cathedral cities, it 
included several Parishes (in the City of London, over a hundred) ; in many of 
the smaller Boroughs it was (as we have seen in the cases of so many Manorial 
Boroughs) confined to one Township of a Parish, or to one Manor. But 
occasionally the area was defined by Charter quite irrespective of any of these. 
The Municipal Corporation of Penzance, for instance, exercised its jurisdictions 
within exactly half a mile radius from a central point {infra, Chap. VIII. ; First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 571). 

2 It may, of course, be true of those particular towns, that, " in London, as in 
Norwich, Yarmouth, Ipswich, and Canterbury, Aldermanries, Wards, and Leets 
were in fact synonymous " (History of Boroughs and Municipal Corporations, by 
H. A. Merewether and A. J. Stephens, 1835, vol. i. p. 549). But this does 
not nowadays appear quite so certain as it did. It is true that besides the 
better-known cases above mentioned, the Municipal Corporation of Salisbury 
had five persons called Aldermen, chosen by the Corporation on Charter Day, 
who, by tradition, ought to have presented all misdemeanours and disorders in 
the several Wards to which they were assigned, and who had formerly super- 
intended the ' ' victualling " of the population. So at Wilton. At Canterbury the 
Aldermen were even more definitely connected with the Wards, to each of which 
two were assigned. In each Ward they held a Court annually, of the nature of a 
Court Leet or Wardmote, at which Constables and Borsholders were appointed. 
In "1719, the Aldermen were paid forty shillings each towards holding the 
Courts at their respective Wards " (Canterbury in the Olden Time, by John 
Brent, 1879, p. 105 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. ii. p. 699). So, too, at Winchester, Aldermen were assigned one to each 
Ward ; and at Exeter, two to each Ward. On the .other hand, no such connec- 
tion can be traced in various other Boroughs, such as Pembroke, which 
had two Wards ; Ruthin, St. Albans, Ludlow, and Monmouth, which each 



THE AREA OF THE CORPORATION 291 

What was, however, almost universal was a connection 
between the Ward, the provision of a Constable and the 
obligation of defence, or at least of service in the Nightly 
Watch. In one small Borough where the Corporation was at 
one time under obligation to find, when required, twenty-one 
ships for the King's service, the Borough was deliberately 
divided into twenty-one Wards for this purpose, each Ward 
being required to provide one ship, and being requited by the 
privilege of having one packet-boat in the profitable passage 
service to and from the French coast. 1 But however the 
Wards had been formed, they were, in 1689, commonly made 
use of for the appointment of Constables and the organisation 
of the Watch, and they were not infrequently each placed (as 
we have seen to be the case also in such an unincorporated 
Parish as Braintree and in such a Manorial Borough as the 
City of Westminster), under the individual charge of one of the 
Members of the Governing Council it might be a Jurat or 
Alderman, it might be a mere Common Councilman 2 who 
acted as " Captain of the Watch," or at any rate was 
responsible for " setting the Watch," and was exempted from 

had four ; Alnwick, Carmarthen, Oswestry, and Reading, which had five ; 
Llandovery, which had six ; or Haverfordwest, which had eight. York had 
only four Wards, though it had twelve Aldermen ; Brecon had twelve Wards 
though it had fourteen Aldermen ; Chester twelve Wards though it had 
twenty-four Aldermen ; and Tenby twelve Wards with an indefinite number 
of Aldermen. At Cambridge there were four Wards, presided over, not by 
Aldermen, but by four Bailiffs. Though Bristol and Sandwich had each 
twelve Wards and placed each of them under an Alderman or Jurat, the 
Aldermen and Jurats were appointed quite independently of the Wards, which 
had originally numbered only five in one Borough and eight in the other. And 
at Norwich, where the twenty-four Aldermen were actually assigned to twelve 
districts of the City, these were themselves merely subdivisions of the four 
ancient Wards, apparently made expressly for the purpose. The City of 
London (where, as we shall subsequently describe, the twenty-five Wards were 
subdivided into Precincts, which were Constablewicks) may have been in a 
different position ; though there seems some reason to suppose that, even there, 
the Wards were, as at Bristol, Norwich, and Sandwich, really made for the 
Aldermen, rather than that the Aldermen sprang from the Wards. 

1 Dover, see Cinque Ports, by Montagu Burrows, 1888, p. 82. 

2 Thus, at Dover, when all the householders were required to watch " in 
their turns," the Mayor, Jurats, and Common Councilmen were to be " Captains 
of the Watch," and "to set the Watch," but were exempt from other service 
(MS. Minutes, Dover Corporation, 1st July 1689). Sandwich " was formerly 
divided into eight Wards for purposes of defence, in each of which were two 
Constables ; but from the year 1437 there have been twelve Wards or districts, 
and a Jurat presides over each of them, and annually nominates his Constable 
and Deputy Constable therein, who are sworn " (Collections for a History of 
Sandwich, by W. Boys, 1792, p. 787). 



292 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

other service. Or they might be made use of as magisterial 
districts, for the administration of justice within each of which 
a particular Borough Justice was made specially responsible. 1 

We must add, too, that within the Municipal boundaries 
there were often enclaves, wholly or partially exempt from the 
jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation sometimes con- 
nected with an ancient castle, a cathedral, a shire hall, or an 
ecclesiastical foundation which were usually termed Precincts. 
These were to be found to a greater or less extent in most of 
the ancient shire towns and cathedral cities ; 2 and they often 
led to a tangle of jurisdictions and a complication of responsi- 
bilities which it is impossible to unravel. Occasionally, too, 
the limits of the various jurisdictions were so vaguely defined, 
and so much in doubt, as to be practically unknown. 8 

(e) The Membership of the Corporation 

What may be termed the membership of the Municipal 
Corporation is as difficult to define as its area. Who of right 
belonged to this " society of mortal men," by Charter or 
prescription rendered " immortal, invisible, and incorporeal " ? 
For, as it was said by Madox in 1726, " the Kings of England 
having in several ages past granted divers liberties to their 
towns, it became in some cases doubtful what persons were 
entitled to those liberties. For men that lived together in a 
town were not all of a sort. There were townsmen and 
suburbians, townsmen and co-inhabitants : in fine, some that 
were of the Gild or Gilds of that town and some that were 
not. Many were willing to have the benefit of the common 
liberties but were unwilling to have a share in the common 

1 As at Southampton, MS. Ordinances, 1606 ; in MS. Records, Southampton 
Corporation. 

2 Also in the City of London, Ludlow, Pontefract, Scarborough, etc. At 
Hereford the " Bishop's Fee" extended to half the city, and within it he alone 
had jurisdiction, held his own Courts, appointed his own Manorial Officers, 
and committed offenders to his own prison (Collections towards the History and 
Antiquities of the County of Hereford, by John Duncomb, 1804, vol. i. p. 293). 
The common use of the term Precinct for an exempted area must not be confused 
with its use, as we shall hereafter describe, in the City of London, for a sub- 
division of a Ward. We know of no other town besides London and Norwich 
in which the Ward was subdivided. 

3 As at Kiugston-on-Thames (First Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1835, vol. v. p. 2892). 



THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORPORATION 293 

burdens or payments." l Occasionally, indeed, the membership 
or method of constitution of the governing body of the 
Corporation was set out in the legal instrument by which it 
had been created or ratified. But the recruiting of the 
Corporation that is, the admission of new Freemen or 
Burgesses 2 and the extent of the participation of these in the 
Corporate immunities and Franchises, was seldom provided for, 
except by local tradition, interpreted and amended by successive 
By-laws. And yet, as we shall see, it was exactly the 
character of this membership whether it was great or small 
or resident or non-resident; and how far it included or 
excluded one or other class or classes of the inhabitants 
that determined in each case the working constitution and the 
nature of the administration of the couple of hundred Municipal 
Corporations throughout the Kingdom. 

It is, we think, significant of the course of development of 
the Municipal Corporation that, just as the government of the 
Manor rested almost wholly upon the Homage of the Court 
Baron, and as the burgess-ship of many Manorial Boroughs 
depended on the holding of land, so too, among Municipal 

1 Firma Burgi, by T. Madox, 1726, pp. 50, 279. 

2 ' ' The fact is that none of the early Charters . . . provide for the admis- 
sion of Freemen or Burgesses ; and very few of the more modern Charters " 
(History of tlie Boroughs and Municipal Corporations, by H. A. Merewether and 
A. J. Stevens, 1835, vol. i. p. 248). We do not discuss the controversial point 
as to whether, by the word "communitas " or otherwise, reference was ever made 
in earlier times to any but a privileged class of inhabitants. ' ' Some hold, " said 
a learned antiquary of 1700, "communitas to be a general term that compre- 
hended all persons whatsoever that resided within the Borough ; but the 
Commonalty cannot be taken in this sense, for then they would extend to all 
sorts of people, men, women, children, servants and labourers, who would have 
equal right in the choice of officers and in the government of the Borough, 
which was in no age known. . . . With us the word communitas comprehended 
only a select company chosen for their wisdom and long experience to advise the 
Chief Officer of the place " (Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire, by Sir Henry 
Chauncey, 1700, pp. 241-242). Between 1689 and 1835, at any rate, it was 
always authoritatively assumed that the privileges implied in Municipal incorpora- 
tion were granted, not to all the inhabitants of the place mentioned, but to the 
particular persons or classes designated. See Firma Burgi, by Thomas Madox, 
1726 ; An Historical Treatise of Cities and Burghs or Boroughs, by Robert Brady, 
1704 ; History of the Boroughs and Municipal Corporations, by H. A. Mere- 
wether and A. J. Stephens, 1835 ; Essay on English Municipal History, by 
James Thompson, 1867 ; Town Life in the Fifteenth Centuri/, by A. S. Green, 

1894 ; History of English Law, by Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, 

1895 ; Domesday Book and Beyond, by F. W. Maitlaud, 1897 ; Township and 
Borough, by the same, 1898 ; The Domesday Borouglis, by Adolphua Ballard, 
1904. 



294 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Corporations, we find some limiting their membership to Free- 
holders within the Borough. It is true that these Municipal 
Corporations were, in 1689, few in number ; but it is no less 
significant that they were among the most archaic in type, 
and characteristic of towns of small and stationary population. 
Membership of this kind sometimes extended to all the Free- 
holders of the Borough, 1 and in other cases only to the owners 
of certain ancient " burgage tenements," or immemorial hold- 
ings, 2 to the exclusion of newer houses or other holdings of 
land. Sometimes, the heir-at-law of a Free Burgess, succeeding 
to his freehold tenement within the Borough, was entitled to 
be admitted as a Free Burgess at the Manorial Court ; though 
the purchaser of a freehold within the Borough had to be 
formally presented by the Jury before he could obtain 
admission. In one or two other cases succession to, or 
acquisition of, a freehold tenement within the Borough, 
though, by 1689, no longer the only avenue to membership 
of the Municipal Corporation, was one among several ways 
by which the Freedom could be obtained. 3 In practically 
all these cases, the Freeholders had to go through the 
ceremony of admission to the burgess-ship (including an oath 
of fealty) at a Manorial Court a Court sometimes owned 
and held by the Corporation, sometimes by an individual 
Lord of the Manor. 

In a large class of Municipal Corporations about two- 
fifths of the whole Servitude of Apprenticeship in the Borough 
was one of the ways by which the Freedom could be acquired. 
This apprenticeship had always to be to a master who was, at 
the date of its beginning, himself a Freeman, and usually a 
resident in the Borough. Occasionally there would be further 
restrictions. The apprentice might not be entitled to " take 
up his Freedom," unless his servitude had been for seven 
complete years entirely within the Borough ; unless he had 
lived in his master's household ; unless his master had 
remained a Freeman during the whole period ; unless his 
master had himself in his time served a similar apprentice- 

1 As at Bossiney (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. i. p. 453), Havering-atte- Bower (ibid. vol. v. p. 2878). 

2 As at Pontefract (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1676). 

3 As at Carmarthen (ibid. vol. i. p. 207), Dover (ibid. vol. ii. p. 944), and 
Sandwich (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1046). 



THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORPORATION 295 

ship; or unless he paid a substantial fee. 1 How far the 
system of Corporate recruiting by apprenticeship to a craft 
may be considered as a remnant of previous Gild structure, 
or how far it was merely analogous to the acquisition of a 
parochial settlement under the Poor Law by service of 
apprenticeship within the parish, we must perforce leave to 
be settled by the historian of the Middle Ages. What is 
clear is that, by 1689, this method of recruiting by Servitude 
was, in some Boroughs, rapidly disappearing, and in others it 
was losing its reality. We shall notice hereafter the persistent 
efforts made by one Municipal Corporation after another, 
between 1689 and 1835, to tighten up the conditions, with a 
view either of preventing merely colourable apprenticeships or 
of absolutely restricting their number. But in spite of the 
tendency of this avenue to membership to close up, it continued 
right down to 1835 in all the populous towns in which 
Municipal Corporations existed, and must therefore be ranked 
as one of their most typical characteristics. It was to this 
method of recruiting the Municipal Corporation that England 
owed its patches of exuberant low-grade Democracy which 
gave a peculiar flavour to the electoral history of the principal 
populous ports and trading centres. 2 

The recruitment of Corporate Membership by Apprentice- 
ship had the peculiarity that, so far as the Municipal Corpora- 
tions of 1689 are concerned, it never stood alone, as the only 
avenue to admission. The acquisition of the Freedom by 
Apprenticeship was nearly always supplemented by a power 
in the Corporation, usually exercised by the Governing Council, 
to admit other persons by co- option, with or without the 

1 As at Aldeburgh (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. iv. pp. 2093-2094). In the Corporation of Queenborough, in Kent, 
it was even enacted by By-law that no person should take an apprentice until 
he had himself been nine years a Freeman ; and in 1824 also that no Freeman 
should take a second apprentice until the expiration of the term of the first, 
even if his indentures were cancelled (ibid. vol. ii. p. 827). 

2 At Liverpool, where there were between three and four thousand Freemen, 
nearly all admitted by apprenticeship to the various handicrafts connected with 
shipbuilding, the discontented bankers, merchants, and householders asserted in 
1833 that the " restrictions on obtaining the Franchise have the natural effect of 
limiting it chiefly to mechanics and labourers, and to persons of very limited 
education and property, who are consequently very much dependent on the will 
of others, and peculiarly exposed at elections to the temptations of bribery and 
undue influence " (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2705). 



296 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

exaction of a substantial fee. And along with admission by 
Apprenticeship, we find nearly always admission by Eight of 
Birth, and sometimes also admission by Eight of Marriage. 
The sons of Freemen sometimes only sons born within the 
Borough or after the father's own admission to the Freedom, 
sometimes only the eldest son or the first born after the father's 
admission were entitled on coming of age to take up their 
Freedom. The husband of a Freeman's widow or daughter 
acquired in some Corporations a like privilege. 1 

A small but very important class of Municipal Corpora- 
tions based their membership upon local Gilds or Trade 
Companies. We cannot attempt to explore the history of the 
Merchant Gild or of the later organisations of the Crafts ; or 
even to speculate upon the manner of their interpolation into 
Municipal constitutions, or the extent to which, in their prime, 
they influenced the working of the Corporations. Our 
impression is that the establishment of Gilds had affected the 
constitutions of the Corporations, as we see them in 1689, in 
four main features. It was, we imagine, the Gild which had, 
in many cases, given body to the nascent Corporation, by 
providing the " common stock " or corporate fund, which, as 
we have seen reason to suspect, was both a cause and a sign 
of the growth of the sense of Corporate personality. 2 It may 

1 Admission was (besides frequent or occasional co-option) by Servitude of 
Apprenticeship only, in Aldeburgh, Coventry, and Daventry ; by Apprenticeship 
or Birth in about sixty Corporations ; by Apprenticeship, Birth, or Marriage in 
about seventeen. In Fordwich, Hythe, Kidwelly, Ludlow, Malrnesbury, and 
Ruyton, admission was by Birth or Marriage, but not by Apprenticeship ; in 
Dunwich, Hastings, Higham Ferrers, Huntingdon, Lyme Regis, Macclestield, 
Montgomery, Pevensey, Preston, Rye, Welshpool, and Wenlock, it was by Birth 
alone (together with co-option). The Right by Birth was confined at Boston to 
the sons of Aldermen and the eldest sons of Common Councilmen (First Report 
of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2152) ; and at Lyme 
Regis to the sons of Capital Burgesses (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1306). The Right by 
Marriage might be confined to the widow, or to a daughter, or to a daughter 
born after her father's admission, or to the eldest daughter. At Hereford it 
was limited to the eldest living daughter in cases in which there was no son 
(ibid. vol. i. p. 257) ; at Exeter only to daughters of Aldermen (ibid. vol. 
i. p. 488). 

2 In Liverpool, at any rate, ' ' the Gild . . . was from an early date, and 
perhaps from the first, simply an aspect of the Borough community. Its officers 
were the Borough officers ; its Freemen were admitted in the Portmoot, and this 
admission gave them full burghal rights. . . . Until the creation of the Gild 
the Borough Court and officers would have no funds to dispose of. ... The 
Gild had revenues. . . . It is the Gild, therefore, which gives birth to the first 
vague idea of the Borough as having a Corporate existence, distinct from the 
existence of the individuals who compose it " {History of Municipal Govern- 



THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORPORATION 297 

not improbably have been to the Gild that the Corporation 
owed some of its most distinctive administrative officers its 
Chamberlains, Cofferers or Keymasters, its Common or Town 
Clerk, and, so far as titles are concerned, its Warden, and 
even possibly its Aldermen. It may have been to the Gild 
that the Corporation owed its transformation from an associa- 
tion of owners and occupiers of agricultural land the 
Homage, the freeholders, the group of holders of burgages or 
" burgess parts " into an association of traders and craftsmen, 
with the accession of members who had served an apprentice- 
ship, or had otherwise acquired the " Freedom " of the Borough ; 
together with the consequent relative " democratisation " of 
what would otherwise have been an entirely Close Body. 
Finally it was, we think, from the Gild that the Corporation 
had derived the peculiar feature of the Court of Common 
Hall the exercise, by a general assembly of Freemen, of the 
supreme or ultimate authority. By 1689, however, the 
social importance of the Gilds had long since passed away, 
and the influences which they had exercised had either ceased 
or had been themselves transformed. Nevertheless, in nearly 
a score of Boroughs definite Gild structure still existed, more 
or less interwoven with the Municipal Corporation. 1 In 

tnent in Liverpool, by Ramsay Muir, 1906, pp. 34-35). And at Leicester, Miss 
Bateson thought that the Four-and-twenty Jurats of the Borough were probably 
identical with those of the Gild (Records of the Borough of Leicester, by Mary 
Bateson, vol. i., 1899, p. xlvi). 

1 Among these were Berwick- on -Tweed, Carlisle, Chester, Dorchester, 
Haverfordwest, Hereford, Kingston -on -Thames, Lichfield, London, Ludlow, 
Morpeth, Newcastle - on - Tyne, Richmond (Yorks), Ruthin, Shrewsbury, 
Southampton, Wells, Winchester, and York. It will be remembered that 
Gilds or Companies existed also in the Manorial Boroughs of Alnwick, Durham, 
Gateshead, and Sheffield. Other Boroughs in which Merchant Gilds or Trade 
Companies appear to have existed, but where we have been unable to trace any 
definite organic connection between them and the Municipal Corporation at 
any rate between 1689 and 1835, included Andover, Bath, Brecon, Bodmin, 
Bristol, Cambridge, Carmarthen, Chichester, Coventry, Daventry, Dover, 
Exeter, Faversham, Guildford, Hertford, Kingston-upon-Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, 
Lynn, Monmouth, Norwich, Preston, Reading, Salisbury, St. Albans, and Walsall. 
Thus, in about three-fourths of the two hundred Municipal Corporations of 1689 
we have discovered no trace of Merchant or Craft Gilds or Trade Companies 
having played any part in the town life, or even existed, for at least three 
centuries. On the other hand, Dr Gross has shown (The Gild Merchant, 1890) 
that the Merchant Gild possibly not the Craft Gilds or Trade Companies 
existed at an earlier date in many other towns, without, however, necessarily 
being connected with the Municipal Corporation. Some of the Gilds of Bristol, 
Kingston-upon-Hull, Preston, Southampton, and York may have been survivals 
of this form. The whole subject of the Gild (to which we shall recur in our sub- 



298 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

some of these places, including the greatest of all Municipalities, 
admission to the Freedom of the Corporation was conditional 
upon the applicant having already acquired the Freedom of 
one of the Companies. In other cases no person could 
become " free " of a Company, and thus entitled to participate 
in its privileges or immunities, unless he was already " free " 
of the Municipal Corporation. In other cases, again, the 
Freedom of either body entitled the possessor to the Freedom 
of the other. Finally (as with the holding of land), we see 
the Freedom of a Trade Company ranking only as one among 
various methods of acquiring the Freedom of the Corporation. 
In the other cases (about a score) in which the Gilds can be 
shown to have existed in the towns, we have not been able to 
find any evidence that they were organically connected with 
the Municipal Corporations. 

In about forty of the Municipal Corporations of 1689 a 
fifth of the whole number whilst there was a distinct class 
of Freemen or Burgesses, we can trace no connection between 
the Freedom and either landholding or the exercise of a trade. 
Admission to the Corporation was obtained, not by succession 
to a tenement or by Apprenticeship, but solely by Gift, 
Eedemption, or Purchase that is to say, by co- option 
usually exercised by the Governing Council at its discretion, 
though sometimes qualified by traces of Eight by Birth. In 
the great majority of Municipal Corporations, moreover, 
admission by co-option accompanied and supplemented the 
other avenues to the Freedom. 1 In all these Boroughs, as 
was pointed out in 1827, the Corporation "may make every 
man in the Kingdom a Burgess and voter, and thereby 
introduce universal suffrage, on the one hand ; or by omitting 
to elect new Burgesses as the old ones die off, they may, on 

sequent chapters in connection with Morpeth, Berwick -on -Tweed, Ipswich, 
Leeds, Coventry, Bristol, Norwich, and London) needs further study, and 
especially further investigation of the MS. records. 

1 Admission by simple co-option, whether styled admission by Gift, by 
Redemption, or by Purchase, prevailed in nine-tenths of the Corporations. It 
does not seem to have existed (at any rate between 1689 and 1835) in those of 
Bishop's Castle (Right of Birth only) ; Malmesbury and Ruyton (Right of Birth 
or of Marriage only) ; Carlisle, Lichfield, and Stafford (Apprenticeship or Right 
of Birth only), or Abingdon, Bossiney, Brading, Clitheroe, Orford, Pontefract, 
Romney Marsh, Southwold, Tregony, Warwick, and Weymouth, in which 
various forms of ownership, occupancy, or payment of scot and lot alone con- 
stituted membership. 



THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORPORATION 299 

the other, establish the oligarchy of two or three persons only 
returning the representatives to Parliament," l and, as may be 
added, permanently filling all the offices in the Corporation, 
and disposing of its property. As we shall subsequently 
explain, the Corporations from 1689 to 1835 often passed 
successively from restriction to lavish admission. It is possibly 
owing to a policy of restriction in preceding centuries that we 
find many Corporations without any separate class of Burgesses 
or Freemen. 

There were some fifty Municipal Corporations a quarter 
of the whole which had no Freemen or Burgesses; that is, 
the membership of the Corporation was identical with that 
of the Governing Council, a Close Body, filling vacancies by 
co-option from outsiders. In a few of these cases we have 
proof that a separate class of Burgesses or Freemen had once 
existed ; 2 in others, the Charters contained provisions for the 
admission of persons to be Freemen which do not seem to 
have been acted upon ; in others, again, the former existence 
of a separate class of Freemen may perhaps be inferred 
from the fact that the process of co-option to the Governing 
Council included a formal admission to the Freedom of the 
Corporation. In the majority of these cases, however, we are 
left doubting whether there ever had been in these Boroughs 
a distinct class of Burgesses or Freemen. All these fifty 
freeman -less Corporations had, in 1689, one attribute in 
common. They all belonged to small or stationary popula- 
tions. Moreover, the bulk of them had distinct resemblances 
in their Manorial character to those archaic Municipal Corpora- 
tions of which the Burgesses were occupying owners of land. 
But instead of bearing traces of connection with the Homage 
of the Court Baron, they seem to revolve round the Jury of 
the Court Leet. In many of these little Municipal Corpora- 

1 A Collection of Ancient Records relating to the Borough of Huntingdon, by 
Edward Griffith, 1827, p. 8 n. 

2 It is significant that, in the important Corporation of Leeds, established 
by Charter as late as the seventeenth century, the very existence of a separate 
class of Freemen had, by the end of the eighteenth century, become entirely 
forgotten ; although the MS. Records reveal the existence, in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, of incorporated Trade Companies, with apprentices and 
Freemen, and a "Common Assembly" of the Borough, which had to be 
summoned to make ordinances "touching the working, dyeing, or sale of 
woollen cloth within the Borough " (infra, Chap. VIII. ; First Report of Muni- 
cipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. p. 1617). 



300 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

tions of the South-Western Counties and the Welsh Border, 
we seem, in fact, to be not far removed from that large class 
of Manorial Boroughs that we have described as arising out of 
the Leet aspect of the Lord's Court. We might class with 
these the one or two Municipal Corporations in which the 
Close Body alone enjoyed the powers and privileges of the 
Corporation, but in which the Jury of the Manorial Court 
would admit to absolutely nominal membership any " resiant " 
within the borough, sometimes any person paying scot and 
lot, or any inhabitant householder, irrespective of landholding 
or apprenticeship, birth or marriage. In these cases the so- 
called " Freedom " of , the Borough was little more than 
certified inhabitancy. It is this tiny fraction of the couple of 
hundred Municipal Corporations a fraction which cannot 
even be elevated into a class that alone bears out the far- 
fetched theory of Municipal freedom invented by the Whig 
lawyer Merewether on the eve of the Municipal Eevolution of 
1835. "No plausible solution," he says, "of that difficulty 
[of determining who was by right entitled to the Freedom] 
can be surmised, but that obvious one which the Common 
Law suggests of their being admitted, sworn and enrolled at 
the Court Leet of the Borough, in respect of their resiancy 
within it whereby being Freemen of, or belonging to the 
Borough, they were its Burgesses." * 

It is characteristic of Municipal Corporations that 
wherever Freemen existed, the individuals had always to be 
formally " admitted " to membership of the Corporate body. 
This admission was, in the more archaic Corporations, by 
presentment of the Jury in a Manorial Court, which, as we 
have seen, might be of the nature either of a Court Baron, or 
of a Court Leet, held by the Corporation itself or by a private 
Lord ; in a few of the Corporations of great towns, by the 
Court of a Trade Company ; and in the great majority of 
Corporations, by one or other of the " Courts," or assemblies, 
of the Corporation itself. Just as recruits had to be formally 
admitted, so also could existing members be extruded from 
the Corporate body. This " disfranchisement " might be by 
consent, either through the desire for relief from Corporate 

1 History of the Boroughs and Municipal Corporations, by H. A. Merewether 
and A. J. Stephens, 1835, vol. i. p. 248. 



THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORPORATION 301 

obligations, or for a temporary purpose, such as giving evidence 
in a case in which the Corporation was a party. On the 
other hand, the disfranchisement might be penal in character, 
in retribution for some action deemed to be inimical to the 
Corporation. Provided that all the proper forms were ob- 
served, a Corporation could legally disfranchise a member for 
any reasonable cause ; such as a breach of duty to the 
Corporation or even the commission of an infamous act or 
indictable crime. 1 The fact that members of a Municipal 
Corporation had to be formally admitted, and could be legally 
extruded, emphasises its character as an arbitrarily selected 
group of persons ; in complete contrast, we may point out, 
with a modern Municipality, which is regarded as necessarily 
and irrevocably including all the inhabitants of a given 
geographical district. 

By 1689 what was of importance to the Municipal 
Corporation was not so much the particular methods by 
which the Burgesses or Freemen of the Corporation were 
recruited, as the numerical strength of this class of inhabitants 
privileged in some way or another to participate in the 
Corporate administration or the Corporate advantages. The 
number of the Freemen had, however, a close connection with 
the method by which the Freedom could be acquired. "When 
admission to the Freedom depended on the ownership of 
land, the Freemen necessarily remained only a tiny fraction 
of any growing urban population. Again, if the Freedom 
depended on the grant of consent of a Jury or of the Close 
Body of the Corporation, there was a tendency to restrict 
recruiting to the number required to supply candidates for the 
Corporation offices. Nor was the number of Freemen 
substantially increased by admissions by Eight of Birth and 
Eight of Marriage ; the accessions in these cases being 
usually more than balanced by losses through the decay of 
families, migration, and the inability or unwillingness of 
qualified citizens to take up their Freedom. Hence, the 

1 Thus at Exeter, in 1692, three Freemen were disfranchised for refusing to 
watch, and two for accepting poor relief (MS. Records, Exeter Corporation, 28th 
March and 12th September 1692). In the next year it was "ordered that 
henceforth no Freeman who receives parish alms, or who ... by reason of his 
poverty cannot perform his duty of Watch and Ward, shall give any voice at 
any election of Mayor or Barons to Parliament" (ibid, llth September 1693). 



302 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Municipal Corporations which restricted their admissions to 
persons recruited in any or all of these ways were constantly 
slipping into the already extensive class of Corporations 
having no Freemen outside the membership of the Governing 
Council or Close Body. Moreover, all these ways of becoming 
free of a Municipal Corporation were compatible with non- 
residence, and did, as we shall see, lead to the creation of 
non-resident Freemen with no concern in the good government 
of the Borough. The only broad avenue to the Freedom of a 
Municipal Corporation the only way in which a residential 
Democracy actually came into being was, in fact, the device 
of Apprenticeship to a Freeman in order to exercise a trade 
within the Borough. 1 In those Municipal Corporations in 
which the Freedom acquired by Apprenticeship was 
accompanied by valuable privileges in connection with 
manufacture or trade, we find, as might have been expected, a 
constant pressure to get into the ranks of the Freemen. Thus, 
the Boroughs which had, in 1835, the largest number of 
Freemen relatively to the population the only ones in which 
the population of Freemen exceeded ten per cent of the adult 
male householders had Municipal Corporations in which 
Freedom by Apprenticeship was a reality, especially if the 
Freemen were organised also in active Trade Companies. 
How far these Freemen Democracies really shared in the 
responsibilities of government or the privileges of the Corpora- 
tion we must leave to be considered in our section on 
Municipal Constitutions. 

(/) The Servants of the Corporation 

If we inquire what, to the rural inhabitant who came into 
the town, would have seemed most novel and strange in the 
Municipal Corporation of 1689, the answer may perhaps be 
the prominence and all-pervadingness of the public officers 
who concerned themselves about the little community. It 

1 The Corporation of Preston, though it had by 1833 no fewer than 3300 
Burgesses, without recruiting by Apprenticeship, is hardly an exception. Over 
3000 of these were non-residential, and admitted only for political purposes, 
whilst there were also 300 " Foreign Burgesses " or " Out Burgesses," admitted 
only for market privileges (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. iii. pp. 1687-91 ; Preston Court Lcet Records, by A. Hewitson, 1905). 



THE SERVANTS OF THE CORPORATION 303 

was not that the particular officers would, taken one by one, 
be unfamiliar to him. Many of them, in fact, alike in title 
and in function, were common to both rural Manor and urban 
Corporation. The Municipal Borough, even as late as the 
eighteenth century, continued in most cases to be an agri- 
cultural community, sometimes keenly interested in arable 
comrnoufields and hay meadows, and nearly always in common 
pastures. 1 The Corporations had therefore a whole array of 
what we may call agricultural functionaries of one sort or 
another Haymakers, 2 Grassmen, 3 Pound-keepers or Pound- 
drivers, Woodwards, Tenders of the Town Wood, 4 Neatherds, 
Pasturemasters 5 or Field-drivers, 6 Common-keepers or " Tenters 
of the Common," 7 Mole-catchers, Swineherds or Hogdrivers. 8 
Under some Municipal Corporations 9 he would even have 
found " Burleighmen," whom he would identify easily with 
the familiar " Burleymen " or " Bylawmen." 

Nor would the most bucolic visitor be surprised to find as 
officers of the Municipal Corporation the usual Beadles and 
Constables, Borsholders and Tithingmen, who might be called 
" Dozeners " or Common Wardsmen, who would sometimes 
exercise also such offices as those of Pound-keepers, Ale-tasters, 
or Searchers of the Market. Moreover, if he had come from 

1 At Newcastle-on-Tyne, where every Freeman had his two cows on the 
Town Moor, the Corporation appointed a couple of Noltherds [Nowtherds or 
Neatherds], salaried officers of some importance, who provided two bulls for the 
Moor, and whose duty it was " to collect the herd twice a day at milking time, 
and drive them to the precincts of the town, where they . . . find their way 
of themselves to their several owners. " Eight down to the reign of Victoria, as 
we are told by a visitor, "five or six hundred, or more, of these matronly 
animals may be seen daily on their march homewards, in two grand divisions, 
the one of which enters the town by Percy Street, and the other by Gallowgate, 
all ... immediately on their arrival in the town instinctively broke off into 
detachments, each departing through the cross streets as occasion required, and 
these again subdividing into twos and threes . . . through intricate streets and 
lanes to their places of abode " (A Home Tour through the Manufacturing 
Districts, by Sir George Head, 1840, vol. i. pp. 339-342 ; First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. pp. 1646, 1647). 

2 As at Rochester (ibid. vol. ii. p. 848). 

3 As at Newcastle (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1646). 

4 As at Congleton (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2654). 

6 As at York and Beverley (ibid. vol. iii. pp. 1739, 1455). 
6 As at Bedford (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2108). 
1 As at Derby (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1851). 

8 The Town Swineherd was an important Municipal officer at Shrewsbury ; 
the Hogdriver at Hythe ; and the Swine-catcher at Congleton. 

9 As at Beaumaris (ibid. vol. iv. pp. 2583, 2585). 



304 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

such a highly developed Manorial government as that of 
Manchester, he would have become accustomed, not only to 
such other Municipal officers as Scavengers and Street-wardens, 
but also to the multifarious officers concerned about the 
quality of the wares offered for sale and the management of 
the markets. He would find in some towns " Breadweighers " 
to see that the loaf was of due weight, and " Butter -searchers " l 
to test the quality of the butter. There would be Ale-tasters 
or Ale-conners or Ale-founders, enjoying, as a definite perquisite, 
a glass of ale yearly from each publican ; 2 or half a pint out of 
each brewing. 3 Most Corporations, like many Manors, had 
their Searchers and Sealers of Leather; or there would be 
general " Searchers of the Market," " Market Sayers," " Leave- 
Lookers," or " Markets-Lookers." There might be Herring- 
Packers or Fish Washers. 4 Under many Corporations we find 
Carnals or Carnivals, sometimes known as " Fish and Flesh 
Searchers," 5 or " Flesh wardens." 6 In all markets people were 
accustomed to pay toll, and it was merely a slight peculiarity 
when the Corporation had a special Egg-Collector, who took 
the toll of one egg from each basket, which was the Mayor's 
perquisite ; 7 or when there was a Sample-man, who levied a 
similar perquisite of coals, called the Mayor's Sample, out of 
every consignment. 8 The Municipal Corporations at the 
great ports would have their Coalmeters and Cornmeters, 
Cornmeasurers or Cornprizers ; some of them " Water Bailiffs," 
and others Bridgemen, Bridge-keepers or " Bridge Wardens." 
All these officers were either to be found in the more developed 
among the Manorial governments that we have already 
described, or were obvious variations of them. 

But although the great majority of the minor officers of 
the Municipal Corporation of 1689 would be familiar to the 
denizen of the rural Manor although, in fact, there was 

1 As at Stockton (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iii. p. 1729). 

2 As at Congleton (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2652). 

3 As at Barnstaple (ibid. vol. i. p. 431). 

4 As at Dover (MS. Records, Dover Corporation, 8th September 1701) and 
Rye respectively. 

5 As at Bedford (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. pp. 2108, 2109). 

e As at Ipswich (ibid. vol. iv. pp. 2295, 2304). 

7 As at Newcastle-on-Tyne (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1646). 

8 As at Hull (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1548). 



THE SERVANTS OF THE CORPORATION 305 

scarcely any among them who could not have been found in 
one or other of the Manorial Boroughs that we have described 
the Municipal Corporations, as a whole, were distinguished 
alike by the greater number and variety of the officers at any 
one place, and by the more important part that they played in 
the town life, than in the rural Manor, or even in the typical 
Manorial Borough. This was connected with the fact that 
they held their offices continuously throughout the year ; 
giving up their whole time to their duties, and being habitually 
paid, usually by fees, but sometimes by annual salaries. It 
is in the Municipal Corporation that we find them most 
frequently rejoicing in gorgeous uniforms, and equipped with 
wands or staves of office. 1 The Constable or humble Beadle 
develops into a Town Serjeant, a Mayor's Serjeant, a Serjeant 
at Mace, 2 or even a Sword-bearer. The Bellman becomes the 
" Town Crier " or the " Town Drummer." The amateur and 
honorary Scavenger develops into a " Street Keeper," an 
" Overseer of the Streets," or a " Street Warden," or into a 
" Scavenger to gather the money," having humbler subordinates 
to collect the dirt. 3 On the other hand, the primitive 
Scavenger might be specialised into an organised staff, a 
" Cleaner of the Castle Walks " at a shilling a week ; a 
" Cleaner of Water Grates " at 4 a year ; a " Cleaner of Flags " 
(foot pavements) at half that sum ; a " Sweeper of Streets " 
at four guineas a year ; a " Weeder of Footpaths " at three- 
pence a week ; and even a special " Cleaner of Chandeliers " 
at ten shillings a year. 4 The "Water Bailiff" would, in the 
Municipal Boroughs having ports, blossom into a " Water 
Treasurer," a " Haven Master " or a " Harbour Master," with 

1 At Sandwich " the Hogmace, or Serjeant at Brazen Mace, is first mentioned 
(as Overseer of the Streets) in 1471. He bears a stout staff with a brazen head, 
has a salary of 3 and a livery ... a blue plaited vest with black velvet cuffs 
. . . and a gold-laced hat. . . . The Beadle . . . carries a stout staff with a 
brazen end at the top. His office is to take up vagrants and upon conviction 
to punish them ; and he is to look after hogs and other nuisances in the streets. 
His livery is a laced brown great-coat and a gold-laced hat " (Collections for a 
History of Sandwich, by W. Boys, 1792, pp. 785, 786). 

2 At Southampton, of the four Serjeants at Mace, two "were gaolers, one of 
the Debtors', the other of the Felons' Prison ; the third collected the tolls 
of the poultry and vegetable market; and the fourth was Water Bailiff" 
(History of Southampton, by J. S. Davies, 1883, p. 211). 

3 As at Rochester (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. ii. p. 855). 

4 As at Richmond (Yorks, ibid. vol. iii. p. 1702). 

VOL. II. PT. I. X 



306 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

the custody of the " Silver Oar," a mystic symbol which was 
always taken by him when he accompanied an officer charged 
to make an arrest, or to execute the process of the City Courts, 
on a ship in the current of the river. 1 But in spite of the 
increase in the number and the variety, the dignity and the 
pomp of these officers in spite, too, of their greatly extended 
power of interfering with the conduct of their fellow-citizens, 
and of exacting fees for their activities they had, in the 
process of becoming permanent paid functionaries, lost their 
ancient independent status and authority. The Constable or 
the Scavenger, the Dog-muzzier or the Finder of the Lord's 
Court, was an independent citizen, under no man's orders from 
Leet to Leet, and even at the bi-annual Court acting more as 
an independent initiator of the Jury's presentments than as a 
subordinate official submitting his report. In the Municipal 
Corporation those who bore the same, or even more dignified 
titles, were day by day under the orders of the Chief Officers, 
whom we have now to describe, and subjected to constant 
direction by the Governing Body. The Officers of the Manor 
had, in fact, become the Servants of the Municipal Corporation. 2 

(g) The Chief Officers of the Corporation 

There were in all Municipal Corporations certain great 
officers, usually belonging by virtue of their office to the 
Governing Body, and clothed by Charter or prescription with 
specific authority, for the due exercise of which they were 
responsible only to the law. The number of these officers, 
with their titles and their powers, differed from Corporation 
to Corporation. In some Municipalities we find scarcely 
more than the Head of the Corporation, whether styled 

1 As at Bristol (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. ii. p. 1169). 

2 It may be mentioned that several Corporations, from the City of London 
down to the little Borough of Congleton in Cheshire, kept their packs of hounds, 
with a "Common Hunt," or a "Huntsman," and various "Dog Whippers " 
(ibid. 1835, vol. iv. p. 2652). The Corporation of Congleton long maintained its 
"Bearward," though we do not know whether the "Town Bear" outlived the 
Commonwealth (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2652 ; in 1621 it was ordered that a new bear 
should be obtained by the Bearward, the Town Bear having died). Various 
Municipal Corporations, too, had, like Nottingham, Hythe, and Doncaster, 
their Gamekeeper, or like Scarborough, their 'Warrcner and Gamekeeper. 
Norwich had its " Swanner," to look after the Corporation swans in the River 
Yare (Hid. vol. iv. pp. 2461, 2465). 



THE CHIEF OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION 307 

Portreeve or Warden, Alderman, Bailiff, or Mayor. At the 
other end of the scale stood those Municipal Corporations 
which had added to the important staff of the wealthiest 
and most autonomous Manorial Boroughs the responsible 
functionaries of a County at large. For the purpose of this 
analysis we can divide these great officers into three classes. 
First, we have officers with whom we have, in our series 
of Lord's Courts and Manorial Boroughs, already become 
familiar, as the recipients of the authority ceded by the 
Lord of the Manor Bailiffs, Mayors, Eecorders, Stewards. 
Secondly, there are those that we have watched developing in 
the more important Manorial Boroughs for the transaction 
of their business and the management of their property 
Common or Town Clerks, Chamberlains or Treasurers, 
Attorneys or Eemembrancers. Finally, we see emerging in 
the Municipal Corporation the functionaries of a County 
the Sheriff, the Coroner, the Justices of the Peace and, quite 
exceptionally, the Lieutenancy. We do not wish to suggest 
that this rough-and-ready classification by functions necessarily 
corresponds to any rigid lines between officers. The Mayor 
and the Recorder, sometimes also the High Steward, the 
Bailiffs and the Town Clerk, of a Municipal Corporation 
would combine with their offices the powers and duties of 
Justices of the Peace ; the Mayor might also be the Coroner ; 
the Bailiff might perform the functions of Sheriff; the Town 
Clerk might, as Steward, hold the Borough Courts, and act as 
Clerk of the Peace at the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions. 
Our third class of officers those resembling the officers of 
the County at Large had, in perhaps the majority of instances, 
no separate existence, the powers and obligations being added 
to those of one or other of the Chief Officers inherited from 
the Lord's Court or the Manorial Borough. Only in the 
most privileged Boroughs sometimes the largest, sometimes 
merely those of ancient dignity or importance do we find 
separate officers holding such County offices as those of 
Sheriff and Coroner. 

To take first those Chief Officers who seem to have been 
developed from the Court of the Manor. In our view of 
Lord's Courts, Lordless Courts, Lord's Boroughs, and Enfran- 
chised Manorial Boroughs, we have watched, stage by stage, 



308 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

the gradual rise in activity and power of the nominees of the 
little community of tenants or residents ; and the correspond- 
ing decline in influence of the representatives of the Lord 
of the Manor. Thus, in an ordinary Manor the Lord's 
Steward and the Lord's Bailiff are the rulers, the tenants 
having no other representatives than the Homage or the 
Jury, summoned by the Lord's officers. It was a step in 
advance when the Homage was allowed to present one of its 
number to be Eeeve, who collected the sums due from the 
tenants, and executed the necessary distraints. Such an 
officer perhaps gained intangibly in dignity when he was 
called Portreeve or Boroughreeve, Bailiff, Alderman, or Mayor. 
It was a further stride in independence, perhaps coincident 
with the privilege of paying only a commuted lump sum 
in lieu of all demands, when the inhabitants were accorded 
the right to choose even the "King's Bailiff" (or the Lord's 
Bailiff), either as sole Bailiff, or in addition to the " Town's 
Bailiff." When this stage is reached, there may be practically 
complete autonomy, as it is the Jury which presents the 
Bailiff or Bailiffs by whom the Jury itself is selected and 
summoned the Lord's Steward becoming a merely formal 
president of the Court, recording its will. It was usually 
only a recognition of this practical autonomy when the Lord 
permitted the Mayor or Bailiffs to hold a separate Portman- 
mote or Borough Court, for the settlement of disputes among 
the tenants, altogether independent of the Lord's Steward. 
The division of duties between the two Bailiffs now becomes 
decisive one, usually termed the Mayor, becomes the president 
of the Court and the Head of the Corporation, whilst the 
other sinks to the position of a mere subordinate agent. 1 The 
cession to the Borough, by King or Lord, of the View of 
Frankpledge or right to hold a Court Leet, often led to the 

1 Thus, at Sandwich, when the Freemen acquired the privilege of electing 
the Head Bailiff or Mayor, "the King's Bailiff became a mere Custom House 
officer, subordinate to the Chief Magistrate " (Civvque Ports, by Montagu Burrows, 
1888, p. 202). It may be that it was from this point that the office of Mayor 
took its origin. At Liverpool, for instance, "the Mayor . . . began by being 
simply the major ballivus, the chief of the two Bailiffs ; but very soon an 
additional Bailiff was appointed, and the Mayor became a distinct and quite 
superior officer." Here, as elsewhere, we find one of the Bailiffs "called the 
'Mayor's Bailiff ' and . . . nominated by the Mayor after his election, the other 
Bailiff being popularly elected " (History of Municipal Go-vernment in Liverpool, 
by Ramsay Muir, 1906, p. 49). 



THE HEAD OF THE CORPORATION 309 

appointment, by the nascent Corporation, of a Steward of its 
own sometimes called a Eecorder to hold the Borough 
Court of criminal jurisdiction. The Lord's Steward was then 
apt to become a remote personage, only dealt with when some 
application to the Lord had to be made. What is interesting 
throughout this growth of autonomy is the transposition in 
importance of the officers of the Lord and those of the tenants, 
together with the tendency, in both alike, to a fission into 
several offices, each having its own specialised status and 
function. Instead of the Steward of the Manor, whom the 
Lord appointed, we often find, in a Municipal Corporation, 
an honorific personage dignified by the appellation of High 
Steward, and a working lawyer styled Recorder, both alike 
appointed by the Corporation. 1 Instead of the humble Reeve 
of the Manor, we see, in the Municipal Corporation, its real 
Head, whether styled Mayor or " the Bailiffs," and, as mere 
subordinate officers, one or more Bailiffs whose duty it was to 
execute the processes of the Courts over which the Head of 
the Corporation presided. 

(h) The Head of the Corporation 

The most distinctive officer of the Municipal Corporation 
was its Head in the majority of the Boroughs styled the 
Mayor, but sometimes alternatively the Bailiff, or " the 
Bailiffs," the Portreeve, the Alderman, or the Warden 2 who 

1 After the Restoration the appointment of Recorder was frequently made 
subject to the approval of the Crown, or was reserved to the Crown and made 
by a congi d'dlire. These "approbations" are a familiar form of entry in the 
Royal Warrant Books of the eighteenth century (in Public Record Office). 

2 The normal title became that of Mayor ; in the Cities of London and York 
early dignified into Lord Mayor. Kidderminster had a High Bailiff, and more 
than a dozen Boroughs (among them Andover, Bewdley, Blandford, Brecon, 
Chippenham, Daventry, Leominster, Llandovery, Lydd, Pevensey, Romney 
Marsh, and Seaford) were presided over by a Bailiff. Some of the Welsh 
Boroughs (like Beccles, Chard, Langport and Yeovil among the Manorial 
Boroughs of England) called their head Portreeve. At Bury St. Edmunds, 
Grantham, and Wokingham he was styled Alderman ; at Godalming, Louth, and 
Sutton Coldfield, Warden. In more than a score of Boroughs the most con- 
spicuous being Ipswich, with its neighbours Aldeburgh, Dunwich, Eye, and 
Southwold ; also Cardiff, Ludlow, Montgomery, Welshpool, Tewkesbury, Tam- 
worth, Droitwich, Wenlow, Bridgnorth, Lichfield, Scarborough, and East Retford 
the headship of the Corporation was held by a pair of officers, the two 
Bailiffs (at Denbigh and Ruthin the two Aldermen), who were appointed 
simultaneously, and who exercised jointly all its powers and duties. 



310 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

filled a large part in the town life, and on whom great 
power and dignity was heaped. There was, it is true, nothing 
in his title to distinguish him from the heads of many of the 
Manorial Boroughs, which also had their Bailiffs, their 
Portreeves, their Aldermen, and even their Mayors. But the 
head of the Municipal Corporation, whether styled Warden, 
Portreeve, Alderman, Bailiff, or Mayor, had always been 
named as such in the Charter, and specially invested by that 
instrument with large and indefinite powers. He presided at 
all the assemblies of the Corporation, whether meetings of 
Freemen or Burgesses, or sessions of the Council or other select 
body ; l he acted, in the smaller Boroughs, as the Treasurer or 
Eeceiver of the Corporate revenue ; 2 and in most of the im- 
portant municipalities having Chamberlains or Treasurers he 
still retained, with or without the concurrence of these officers, 
large executive powers in the management of the Corporate 
estates between the meetings of the council. 8 He was, during 
his term of office and usually for some time afterwards, a 
Justice of the Peace ; and he was always referred to as 
the " Chief Magistrate." He presided at the Borough Quarter 
Sessions. He held whatever Courts the Corporation main- 
tained, often sitting alone as judge, or jointly with the 
Recorder; or deputing the Recorder or other officer to hold 
the Court on his behalf. He might unite in his person a 
number of offices connected with the various jurisdictions of 
the Corporation. He was usually ex-ojjicio Coroner for the 
Borough, and Clerk of the Market, and sometimes also King's 
Escheator, 4 Keeper of the Borough Gaol, Examiner of "Weights 
and Measures, and Admiral of the Port. But this was not 
all. The Head of the Corporation nearly always enjoyed the 
privilege during his year of office of making one or more 
persons " free of the Corporation." He invariably appointed 
some or all of the minor officials of the Corporation ; and in 
a few cases all the offices, great or small, were in his gift, 

1 Except at Norwich. 2 As at Bodmin and Bossiney. 

3 See the "Rules made to be observed by Mayor," 14th July 1665, in MS. 
Records, Winchester Corporation. 

4 Though the office of Escheator, which had, by 1689, become merely 
nominal, was mostly held by the Mayor or other Head of the Corporation, 
at Grantham, by exception, a separate Escheator was annually appointed 
(First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2242). 



THE HEAD OF THE CORPORATION 311 

with the exception of the half a dozen chief posts specifically 
named in the Charter. 1 In the Municipal Corporation of the 
latter part of the seventeenth century, though possibly not 
quite to the same extent as two centuries previously, it is not 
incorrect to say, that " the Mayor has taken the place of the 
Lord of the town." 2 And sometimes he was a vigilant Lord. 
We are told, for instance, of one Mayor in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, that he " kept a strict eye on inferior 
officers that they did not unmercifully squeeze those whom 
they had in their custody. . . . [He] was a spy upon all base 
practices as amongst attorneys, Serjeants, notaries, tidewaiters, 
wardens, gaolers, tollers, key -masters, chamberlains, and 
collectors. He was a terror to those who corrupted the 
meanest office. . . . [He] took order about the Assize of 
Bread and deserved no less than Minutius, by preventing the 
frauds of forestallers and regraters. No fish or flesh was 
brought to the shambles, but what was wholesome. Provision 
was made for the poor, there was no inequality of rates, the 
parishes were eased of foreigners and vagrants, public build- 
ings kept in good repair, cozenage banished from the 
market, ale-houses limited, hospitals put under the tuition 
of honest, discreet overseers, public charities applied to the 

1 As at Rochester. 

2 History of Municipal Government in Liverpool, by Ramsay Muir, 1906, 
p. 49. "The vast extent of the powers exercised by the Mayor is among the 
most striking features. He is almost omnipotent, and all the other officials of 
the Borough are little more than his servants. He is the administrator of the 
property of the Borough, the president of its Courts, its chief judge, the 
regulator of its trade, the manager of its frequent co-operative trading enter- 
prises " (ibid. p. 50). He was, to use the significant phrase of the Court of 
Plympton Earle, the ' ' Head and Chief Governor of the Town " (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 600). "By our institu- 
tions," said the Town Clerk of Bristol in 1718, "the honour of the city subsists 
in the person of our Mayor, who within the boundaries is superior to and presides 
over our Lord -Lieutenant and every other subject; and also the supreme 
authority which runs through every branch of the government of this City 
subsists in his person" (MS. Records, Bristol Corporation, 26th June 1718). 
At Southampton it was expressly ordained in 1606, that "the Mayor shall be 
the principal officer of the Town, according to the grant, and shall be so reputed 
and taken as he hath been time out of mind ; and he is principally to the 
uttermost of his power to have care, and to travail also, that the statutes, laws 
and ordinances of the Town and Franchise be observed and kept, and he shall 
have the first voice in all elections and other things that concern the town, and 
in case the Burgesses' voices be equal, then to have a second voice " (MS. 
Ordinances, 1606 ; among Records of Southampton Corporation. This is 
differently given in History of Southampton, by J. S. Davies, 1883). 



312 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

uses they were intended for, and the coal trade put into such 
a method with the keelmen and fitters that the public has 
long after found the benefit of that regulation." l Occasionally, 
when a specially zealous fanatic became Mayor, he could 
become, temporarily, an effective censor morum. We cannot 
refrain from reproducing the naive diary of 1703, in which a 
pious Mayor describes the manner in which he reformed the 
morals of his Borough, then a prosperous naval port and 
Admiralty centre, enjoying all the licence of war-time. On 
his election, as he writes, " the Bench were treated at my 
house, with the Commonalty and the Freemen. I ordered 
half a barrel of beer at four several houses. . . . Before I 
was sworn I caused the Queen's Proclamation to be nailed up 
in the Court Hall. Some of the Bench was very inquisitive 
to know what that was so nailed up. I told them it was the 
Queen's Proclamation to suppress vice and immorality, and 
that it was my purpose and resolution to put it into due 
execution. After I was sworn such an oppression and terror 
fell upon my spirits that I feared I should have sunk under 
it. However, I made a sort of speech to the officers of the 
Parish that were there present, and told them it should be my 
endeavour to do my duty in the office I was entrusted with ; 
and I should punish all officers under me who did not do 
theirs. . . . The same terror and amazement followed me 
several days, inasmuch that several persons questioned in 
themselves, as they have since told me, whether I might not 
wholly have gone beside my senses." His first step was to 
cause a proclamation against tippling and trading on Sunday 
to be called by the Common Crier. The following Sunday, 
he tells us, " I took a walk into the street with my staff in 
order to observe how far the Town had complied with my 
order. ... I found the public-houses took no notice . . . 
but kept their doors open as formerly ; upon which I made 
them shut them. ... I also met with several shop-keepers 
who had their doors half open, but I made them shut them. 
... I met with some turbulent spirits who opposed me, and 
told me this was a new thing they did not understand why 
could they not have liberty to do as they pleased in their own 

1 Memoirs of Mr. Ambrose Barnes (Mayor of Newcastle-on-Tyne), Surtees 
Society, 1867, pp. 101-102. 



THE HEAD OF THE CORPORATION 313 

houses ; and truly they would not shut up their doors to stifle 
themselves for want of air for any upstart, although the 
Mayor. I told them ... I was resolved on a reformation in 
Deal. I charged the servants and the seamen, when I met 
them, that they took care they did not swear, get drunk, nor 
be disorderly as they had formerly been, for that this rod in 
my hand should be a severe scourge to all manner of vice, 
profaneness, and immorality. Thus I went through the three 
streets proclaiming my intentions : I did not pass one door 
that was open till, by argument and by threatening, I made 
some of the household shut it. ... Saturday ... I took a 
seaman by the collar amidst all the people in the market- 
place, and caused him to be put in the stocks for profane 
swearing, and gave him a charge to tell his companions of it. 
... I likewise gave notice to the market people that I would 
punish all disorders in all sorts of people, and especially any 
breaches of the peace committed in the market, of which I 
was then Clerk. On the same day, about an hour after, I 
took up a common prostitute, whose conduct was very 
offensive, brought her to the whipping-post being about mid- 
market, where was present some hundreds of people I caused 
her to have twelve lashes ; and at every third lash I parleyed 
with her, and bid her tell all the women of the like calling 
wheresoever she came that the Mayor of Deal would serve 
them as he had served her. . . . After which, I gave her a 
groat, and sent her, by a Constable, out of the Town. On the 
following morning, no less, as I was informed, than five-and- 
twenty such-like characters left the Town . . . uttering the 
most fearful oaths, and vowing vengeance on me for what I 
was doing, and declaring aloud that they would not come 
again to Deal till the present Mayor was dead and damned ; 
and then, whenever it should happen, they would come back. 
... In the afternoon (Sunday) the Jurats and Common Council 
came to my house to go with me to Church, as was the 
custom. . . . As I came by the ' India Arms ' Inn, I saw a 
coach making ready to start for Canterbury. I sent for the 
coachman, and told him, if he was not upon the King's business, 
he should not go till the next morning. He complied with 
my request. . . . When I came to Church I observed the 
clergyman . . . about to commence the service by reading the 



314 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Common Prayers, without his surplice ; upon which I sent 
my Serjeant to him, and gave him my service, desiring him 
to put on the surplice. . . . After prayers, when we came to 
sing psalms, being part of the 75th Psalm, and at particular 
verses, which were very appropriate to certain persons present, 
I stood up, spreading my hands, pointing round the Church to 
some whose ill lives I knew, as well as their conversations, 
which this Psalm most peculiarly hinted at. After church, as 
we came home, I discovered some public-houses open ; I made 
two men pay twelve pence each for being found in one of 
them ; and threatened that, if on another Lord's Day any men 
were found there, I should fix a fine on the house. During 
the following week some of my Brethren on the Bench told 
me they were tired, and said they would not keep my company 
nor support me, if I took such extreme measures. I replied I 
had begun a good work and . . . would not abandon it. ... I 
felt it a duty to be more zealous for that than my own 
worldly affairs, though I hoped I should find time to attend to 
both." He describes how he continued, Sunday after Sunday, 
to perambulate the Town with his Serjeant, shutting up 
public-houses and shops. " But at length," he continues, " I 
found they paid no attention to my orders nor to my threaten- 
ings, so I determined that, wherever I found any person in a 
public-house drinking, or selling of goods in shops, they should 
be fined. On one Sunday, I found six houses that had 
company, and three tradesmen selling goods. The next day I 
caused a warrant to be made out, and made them all pay a 
fine ; which struck a terror over the rest. After this, I could 
walk through the Town on a Sunday and not see a door open, 
either in a public-house or shop. If any company is within, 
'tis very privately done, whereas before they used to keep them 
open." He then relates how he had copies of the Queen's 
Proclamation against vice and immorality hung up in the 
public-houses and barbers' shops ; and how he sent one to the 
schoolmaster, saying, " Which I desire you will affix in some 
convenient place in your school, letting your scholars know 
from me that, if any of your boys for the future shall be 
guilty of blaspheming the name of God, or be seen playing in 
the streets on a Sunday, or disturb the congregation at church, 
or shall be found robbing of orchards, or any other like crime, 



THE HEAD OF THE CORPORATION 315 

I shall cause them to be severely punished which is what is 
needful at this place." We need not be surprised to learn, as 
he adds, that " the strict observation of the Sabbath, the 
putting a stop to the tippling, trading, and profane swearing, 
etc., by the execution of the law, and my earnest zeal in all 
places of public resort, and in all companies wherever I 
came, made many persons I had a regard for slight me. 
Some took the liberty to lampoon me in song and verse, in 
no measured terms ; while others resorted to ridicule and 
banter all which I disregarded, but still kept on following 
the heat whilst it was hot, though it like to have proved very 
fatal to my own health. Upon divers occasions I received 
letters containing verses, reflecting on me harshly, but I did 
what I thought right, and that was my recompense." l 

Between 1689 and 1835 we shall note a relative decline 
in the importance of the Mayoralty ; owing partly to the 
ever-growing activity of the Borough Justices sitting as a 
Bench of Magistrates in Petty and Special Sessions, and 
partly to the ever-increasing minuteness of the Council's 
control of the Corporate property. But the reader of the 
wonderful day-by-day record of the travelling and preaching 
of John Wesley, between 1735 and 1790 will remember how 
frequently he comes in contact with the Mayors of the towns, 
who themselves permit or prohibit his preaching, command 
the local Constables, initiate or suspend proceedings, and 
generally act as local potentates. 

With all this power and pomp of the Head of the .Corpora- 
tion, the question arises to what extent he was provided with 
a salary or allowance for expenses. In some archaic Corpora- 
tions, the Head continued to receive the customary small 
emoluments of the Eeeve of the Manor. He might enjoy 
during his term of office the use of the proceeds of a given 
piece of land, a larger " stint " on the Common, or three turns 
of the Town Fishery. 2 In most Corporations, as in some 

1 "The Sayings and Doings of Thomas Powell, Mayor of Deal in the year 
1703, written by himself" ; in History of Deal, by Stephen Pritchard, 1864, 
pp. 156-163. It should be added that Powell greatly distinguished himself in 
the great storm of 1703, when over 200 shipwrecked men were saved, largely 
by his "humane and spirited exertions" (ibid. p. 172). He was re-elected 
Mayor in 1708 (MS. Records, Deal Corporation). 

2 The Mayor of Fordwich in Kent had the right of fishing in the Corpora- 
tion's river "until he takes a tnmt," and then "two nights together" in 



316 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Manorial Boroughs, the Mayor took for himself, if not the 
whole of particular tolls or dues, at any rate a part of these 
exactions it might be a hundred oysters out of every barrel, 
the second-best fish out of every boat, a bushel of coals from 
every load. In many Corporations he received the profits of 
the Fair, 1 or the fees of the Borough Court, or shared with 
the Bailiffs the profits of executions. In the larger Munici- 
palities these perquisites had been wholly or partially 
commuted for fixed allowances and were often supplemented 
by definite stipends, which in one or two instances came to 
exceed a thousand a year. But it may safely be assumed 
that even the largest of these allowances never did more than 
cover the out-of-pocket expenses of the holder of the office, 
and seldom sufficed to meet the innumerable charges in the 
way of fees, the salaries of an enlarged household, the liveries 
or uniforms of " the Mayor's servants," the maintenance of a 
State coach, and the incessant eatings and drinkings of Juries 
and committees, the banquets to the Assize Judges, the 
convivialities of the " Mayor's Counsellors " and the " Mayor's 
Brethren" not to mention the hospitality to visitors of the 
Borough which custom required. The Headship of the 
Corporation, whatever its nominal emoluments, was, in fact, 
in 1689 as in 1835, always an honorary office of considerable 
personal labour, rewarded only by the prestige, power, and 
social consideration universally conceded to the Chief 
Magistrate of the Borough. 

So important a part in the working constitution of the 
Municipal Corporation was played by its Head, that we must 
necessarily relegate the method of his appointment to our 
analysis of Municipal Constitutions. But whether he was 

addition, whereas other Jurats and Freemen only had a night each " in course 
as they severally dwell according to the course of the sun, from the house of the 
Mayor for the time being." Moreover, the Mayor had the refusal of all fish 
caught for sale, until 1721, when it was agreed that he should " have one night 
before the outmen, in consideration of the Freemen having liberty to sell their 
fish or turns to whom they please " (" Book of Decrees," 1671 ; in " Fordwich 
Municipal Records," by Rev. C. E. Woodruff, in Archceologia Cantiana, 
vol. xviii., 1889, p. 96 ; Privy Council Register, 10th July 1685 ; History of 
the Tovm and Port of Fordwich, by the same, 1895, pp. 205-206). The 
excellence of the Fordwich trout and their great commercial value were com- 
mended by Isaac Walton (The Complete, Anc/ler, edition of 1823, pp. 68-69). 

1 As at Wai-eliam (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. ii. p. 1360). 



THE HEAD OF THE CORPORA TION 317 

simply "presented" at the Court of the Lord of the Manor, 
by the Homage or other Jury ; whether he was selected by a 
Court of Aldermen or by a Common Council from among 
their own members ; or whether he was elected by all the 
Burgesses or Freemen of the Corporation, or even by the 
householders of the Borough, it is, we think, significant of his 
ancestry that his appointment nearly always took place some- 
where near Michaelmas in each year, after the arable crops 
had been got in, and the commonfields had been thrown 
open again to the Town Herd, exactly at the season when 
the Lord's Courts and Manorial Boroughs were appointing 
their Eeeves or other officers. And however little was the 
participation of the mere inhabitants of the Borough in the 
selection of a new Head of the Municipal Corporation, it was 
perhaps a reminiscence of popular satisfaction at emancipation 
from the control of the Lord of the Manor if not a reminis- 
cence of the Anglo-Saxon theory that the King's Peace died 
with the monarch and had to be set up afresh by his successor 
that the whole of the inhabitants shared, on " Charter Day, 
in a sort of Carnival of pleasurable disorder. In one Borough 
it was customary that " on the election of a Bailiff, the 
inhabitants assemble in the principal streets to throw cabbage- 
stalks at each other. The Town-house bell gives signal for 
the affray. This is called the lawless hour. This done (for 
it lasts an hour), the Bailiff-elect and Corporation in their 
robes, preceded by drums and fifes (for they have no Waits), 
visit the old and new Bailiff, Constables, etc., attended by the 
mob. In the meantime, the most respectable families in the 
neighbourhood are invited to meet and fling apples at them 
on their entrance. I have known forty pots of apples 
expended at one house." 1 In many other Boroughs public 
festivities on the annual appointment of the Mayor were 
maintained in full force. The accounts of the expenses, with 
their items for " the tenders [attendants] on the newly elected 
Jurat or Mayor ; the band, consisting on the first occasion of 
four fiddles and two drummers ; the women at sixpence a 
head strewing herbs in the path of the newly elected ; the 
ribbon for cockades ; the ' colourmen ' [men bearing flags] ; the 
Freemen paid for their votes even when absent from home ; 

1 At Kidderminster. See Gc'/tileman's Magazine, 1790, vol. be. p. 1191. 



3i8 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

and the winding up with a grand smash of broken windows, 
glasses, pots, and punch ladles, form altogether a vivid 
Hogarthian picture of the proceedings." 1 

(i) The Bailiffs 

There is perhaps no more interesting proof of the 
haphazard development of the Municipal Corporation than 
the wide range in dignity and status of the personages who, 
in one or other Boroughs, were styled Bailiffs. 2 As we have 
already seen, in forty Municipal Corporations, the Bailiffs 
usually a pair were actually the Heads of their several 
Corporations, with all the powers of Mayor. In about a 
hundred Municipal Corporations, on the other hand, the 
officers termed Bailiffs were so insignificant that they appeared 
only as part of the subordinate staff of half-obsolete Courts, 
mentioned, if at all, among such petty officers as Constables, 
Poundkeepers, Cryers, and Serjeants. In about thirty 
Municipal Corporations, however, the Bailiffs occupied an 
intermediate position. Whilst not the Heads of their 
Corporations, their offices, as we shall presently describe, 
were named in the Charters, and clothed with independent 
jurisdictions. But whether the Bailiffs were the Heads of 
their several Corporations, petty officers of the Borough 
Courts, or dignified functionaries of independent status, they 
always retained traces of an apparent descent from the Eeeve 
or Bailiff of the Lord's Court. As Head of the Municipal 
Corporation, the Bailiff was, as we have seen, nothing but a 
glorified Reeve. As a petty officer of the Borough Court, the 
Bailiff retained the function of his Manorial ancestor in 
collecting fines and making distraints. And when the Bailiff 
takes rank below the Mayor among the Chief Officers of the 
Municipal Corporation, he resembles, as we shall see, the Bailiff 
of a Franchise or Liberty, who, on behalf of his Lord, excludes 
the Sheriff or his officers from executing processes within the 
exempted area. 

1 " Extracts from the Account Book of Captain John Harvey, R.N., Mayor 
of Sandwich, 1774-1775," by Thomas Dorman ; in Archccologia CatUiana, 
vol. xx., 1893, p. 222. 

2 Possibly the wide use of the term Bailiff may be due to the loose 
terminology of early documents, especially translations. The word " Bailivus " 
was nearly as general as ' ' minister. " 



THE BAILIFFS 319 

In nearly all the Boroughs in which the Bailiffs were 
Chief Officers of the Corporation subordinate to the Mayor, 
there were two Bailiffs, often distinguished from each other, 
as the High Bailiff and the Low Bailiff, 1 the Senior Bailiff 
and the Junior Bailiff, 2 Bailiff of the Brethren and Bailiff 
of the Commons, 8 the Land Bailiff and the "Water 
Bailiff, 4 or historically most significant the King's 
Bailiff and the Town's^ Bailiff. 5 In fewer than a dozen 
Boroughs do we find any exception to this duality of 
the Bailiff; six Corporations had only a single Bailiff as 
a Chief Officer, 6 subordinate to the Mayor, whilst two rejoiced 
in four. 7 

The functions of the Bailiffs, in all these Corporations in 
which they were Chief Officers subordinate to the Mayor, 
had, by 1689, come to differ widely from town to town. We 
see them most frequently having some responsibility for the 
selection or summoning of Juries, and for the execution of 
the processes of one or other of the Borough Courts. They 
are often responsible for accounting for fines ; for the 
collection of rents and fees ; and sometimes for performing 
all the duties of Treasurer and Accountant. 8 We see them 
sometimes discharging the offices of Coroner, Keeper of the 
Borough Gaol, Clerk of the Market, and even those of Billet- 
master - and Poundkeeper. But they were often, by Charter 
or by usage, clothed also with judicial powers; they were 
frequently included among the Justices of the Peace; they 
sat as Judges in the Court of Pleas or other Borough 
Court ; they held the Court of Pie Powder. They often 
held the Corporation's Manor Courts, and exercised the powers 
of the Lord of the Manor. They sometimes acted, either 
alone or jointly with the Mayor, as Eeturning Officers for the 

1 Winchester. 2 Southampton. 

3 Lancaster. * Queenborough. 

6 Dartmouth. 

8 Lydd, Axbridge, Chichester, Plyrnpton Earle, Salisbury, Sandwich. 

7 Exeter and Berwick-on-Tweed. At Cambridge also there were four, but 
they had by 1689 shrunk into Petty Officers. 

8 At Exeter we are told, in 1584, " the Receiver is always one of the four 
Bailiffs, and hath the like and the same charge as every one of them hath ; but 
the office of Receiver is particular to himself, and none is chosen thereunto 
except he be of the number of the Common Council or Four-and-Twenty " (The 
Antique Description and Account of the City of Exeter, by John Vowell, 1765, 
p. 165). 



320 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

.Borough. 1 They reached, perhaps, their highest status and 
greatest dignity in those Boroughs in which they fulfilled the 
duties of Sheriffs in the return of writs and the execution of pro- 
cesses ; sometimes to the exclusion, either wholly or partially, 
of the Sheriff of the County at large. 2 In one Corporation at 
least though the Borough was not a County in itself the 
two Bailiffs were actually called Sheriffs of the Borough, and 
acted separately as such. 3 

By 1689 the Bailiff or Bailiffs who were Chief Officers 
had come to be chosen by the Corporation, and nearly always 
by its Governing Council or Close Body. What is interesting 
is to notice the traces of a former duality in the method of 
their appointment. Occasionally the Head of the Corporation 
nominated or appointed one of the pair and the Council the 
other. Sometimes the two Bailiffs were chosen by different 
parts of the Corporation, perhaps by the Court of Aldermen 
and the Common Council respectively ; sometimes even out of 
different sections of the Freemen. It is impossible to refrain 
from the suggestion that, in this duality in the method of 
appointment, as in the duality in the familiar titles, there is 
a trace of the right of appointment of the two Bailiffs having 
been conceded at different dates, at successive stages of 
autonomy ; the Town's Bailiff coming very early to represent 
the tenants, whilst the King's Bailiff remained much longer 
the nominee of the Lord, only passing later into the power 
of the Corporation. 4 

1 We may note as exceptional that at Cambridge the four Bailiffs had 
formerly presided individually (like the Aldermen of London, Canterbury, 
and other places) over the Wards into which the Borough was divided, in which 
they had to keep the peace (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. iv. p. 2188). 

2 As at Northampton, Great Grimsby, Oxford, Bath, Bridgwater, Sandwich, 
Winchester, etc. At Great Grimsby the two Bailiffs were judges of the "Foreign 
Court of Pleas," joint Lords of the Manor along with the Mayor, joint Presidents 
with the Mayor and the High Steward at the Court Leet, and a necessary part 
of every Court of Mayor and Burgesses (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2252). 

3 Bath (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1115) ; so perhaps also at Winchester (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 902). 

4 At Dartmouth the Bailiff usually served for two years, the King's Bailiff 
of one year becoming the Town's Bailiff of the next (ibid. vol. i. p. 478). At 
Wenlock, ex-Bailiffs were styled Bailiffs' Peers (ibid. vol. iii. p. 2076). 



THE HIGH STEWARD AND THE RECORDER 321 

(/) The High Steward and the Recorder 

The tendency to fission, or to a duplication of offices, is 
seen also in the case of the Steward. In the Manorial 
Boroughs, as we have seen, it was usual for the Lord of the 
Manor to continue to hold a Court, at which his Steward 
presided. Such an arrangement occasionally continued, even 
after a fully developed Municipal Corporation had come into 
being. 1 Even when the Lord had ceased to take the profits of 
the Court, he might exceptionally retain the appointment of 
the Steward or Capital Seneschal, or, as he tended to be 
called, the High Steward. 2 More usually, however, we find 
the Corporation, by 1689, controlling all the Courts held 
within the Borough, and appointing, to preside at one or 
other of them, its own Steward or Chief Steward. 3 This 
officer or dignitary had evidently, at the outset, been 
supposed to be a lawyer, and was sometimes required by 
Charter to be a " discreet man learned in the law." 4 He was 
assumed to preside at the various Courts of the Borough, and 
was frequently, ex officio, one of its Justices of the Peace. 
His appointment might rest with the Crown, or with the 
Governing Council or Close Body of the Corporation, some- 
times subject to the approval of the Crown. But the office of 
Steward was, in nearly all cases, destined to undergo a change. 
In a few towns, the Steward became a mere subordinate officer 
of the Corporation, holding the Courts on its behalf as for an 
individual Lord. 5 In a few others he continued to be one of 
the Chief Officers of the Corporation, acting as one of its 
Justices and holding its Courts. 6 In a few more, his office 
became a mere sinecure, executed by a " sufficient deputy," 
who might be styled simply Deputy-Steward or Sub-Seneschal, 7 

1 As at Morpeth, Salisbury, Ripon, etc. (see pp. 339, 500). 

2 As at Havering-atte-Bower (First Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1835, vol. v. p. 2878) ; Oswestry (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2825). At Gravesend 
the office of Capital Seneschal or High Steward was hereditary in the family 
of the Earl of Darnley (History of Gravesend, by R. P. Cruden, 1843, p. 307). 

3 As at Hereford (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. i. p. 255). 

4 As at Oswestry (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2825). 

8 As at Berwick-on-Tweed (ibid. vol. iii. pp. 1438, 1442). 
As at Basingstoke (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1101) ; Congleton (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2651). 
7 As at Gravesend (History of Gravesend, by R. P. Crudeii, 1843, pp. 307, 
308 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. v. p. 2865). 
VOL. II. PT. I Y 



322 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

but whom we also find dignified by a title destined to become 
itself of importance, that of Recorder. 1 In one or two cases, 
at least, the Steward was considered to be himself the 
Recorder these two names denoting, in fact, one and the 
same functionary. 2 In the vast majority of cases, however, we 
find the office split definitely into two. There is on the one 
hand, the Steward, Chief Steward, Capital Seneschal, High 
Steward, or Lord High Steward, 3 an officer of great dignity 
and some influence, but with practically no duties or emolu- 
ments ; usually a gentleman of high position, perhaps the 
owner or the patron of the Borough ; required, indeed, by the 
Charters of many towns to be an "eminent," an "illustrious," 
or a " distinguished " man ; 4 occasionally at least a Knight, 
if not a peer of the realm. 5 This office, which we may 
suspect to have become differentiated with the object of 
obtaining an influential protector at Court, became exclusively 
honorary, though some of the archaic remuneration a pipe 
of wine every third year, 6 or eighteen sugar loaves annually 7 

1 As frequently among the Boroughs of Wales. At Gravesend the High 
Steward nominated two barristers to the Governing Council of the Corporation, 
for one of them to be chosen as Recorder (First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. v. p. 2865). At Castle Rising the Recorder was 
appointed by the Lord of the Manor (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2211) ; so also at Clun 
(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2642) ; as frequently in Manorial Boroughs. The term 
Recorder is of high antiquity ; such an officer is noticed at Bristol in the 
fourteenth century (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1158), and at Southampton in the fifteenth 
(Speed MSS., Southampton Corporation, p. 72 ; History of Southampton, by J. S. 
Davies, 1883, p. 185), where the form of oath taken by him in 1461 is given, 
showing that he was already both a judicial and an advisory officer. The rise 
of the Recorder to be a Chief Officer is, in a sense, analogous to the similar 
development of the Gustos Rotulorum among the County Justices (see The Parish 
and the County, pp. 285-286). 

2 Andover (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. 
ii. p. 1084) ; Maidenhead (ibid. vol. v. p. 2911) ; Southwold (ibid. vol. iv. 
p. 2516) ; Folkestone (ibid. vol. ii. p. 982). At Chipping Wycombe, on the 
other hand, the Recorder was required by the Charter to execute the office 
of Steward (ibid. vol. i. p. 42). Thus at Dover, when the office was held by 
so distinguished a person as the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Hardwicke, it 
was still described on his death in 1764 as that of " Steward of the Corporation, 
and Assistant to the Mayor and Jurats at their Courts of Sessions and Trials " 
(MS. Records, Dover Corporation, 26th March 1764). 

3 As at Gloucester (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 59) ; Lynn (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2397). 

4 As at Newbury (ibid. vol. i. p. 90) ; Hertford (ibid. vol. v. p. 2886)'; 
Hereford (ibid. vol. i. p. 255) ; Maidenhead (ibid. vol. v. p. 2910) ; Wokingham 
(ibid. vol. v. p. 2939) ; Windsor (ibid. vol. v. p. 2933). 

6 As at Stratford-upon-Avon (ibid. vol. i. p. 119) ; Henley (ibid. vol. i. p. 
72) ; Banbury (ibid. vol. i. p. 9). 6 At Bristol (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1165). 

7 At Kingston-on-Thames (ibid. vol. v. p. 2896). 



THE HIGH STEWARD AND THE RECORDER 323 

would occasionally be continued. On the other hand, we have 
the Eecorder (occasionally still styled also Deputy Steward), an 
" honest and discreet man, learned in the laws of England and 
of the degree of the utter barristers," l whose duty it was to 
preside at one or other of the Borough Courts, occasionally to 
hold the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge in place of the 
Steward, 2 to administer the oath of office to the Mayor, to be 
present as a Justice at the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions 
when important criminal cases had to be tried, to sit with the 
Mayor as legal Assessor, and to advise the Corporation on any 
legal or constitutional point of difficulty. He might receive a 
nominal stipend, or a fee for each attendance, 8 or more rarely 
a substantial salary. On the other hand, there was a tendency 
as with the High Steward to make the office one of 
honour and dignity only, to be filled by a nobleman or 
gentleman of position, the work being performed either by 
deputy, or relegated to some other officer of the Corporation. 4 
In the majority of Boroughs, however, the Eecorder remained 
the principal legal adviser and the leading judicial functionary 
of the Corporation. In one great Borough, in the eighteenth 
century, the Eecorder, we are told, " was frequently a member of 
one of the great families of the district. . . . He took the 
leading part in the Mayor's Court, supplying, doubtless, the legal 
knowledge which the Mayor could not be expected to possess. 
But he was not, like the modern Eecorder, a bird of passage, 
coming only for the Sessions of his Court. He cast in his lot 
with the Borough, and his legal knowledge and skill in inter- 
preting charters were often useful. He sometimes goes up to 
London on legal business." 5 

1 As at Aldeburgh (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. iv. p. 2092). 

2 As at St. Albans (ibid. vol. v. p. 2921) ; Truro (ibid. vol. i. p. 656) ; 
Bury St. Edmunds (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2174). 

3 At Dorchester this fee was "two moidores," computed to be 2 : 14s. 
(ibid. vol. ii. p. 1275). At Bristol it was as much as a hundred guineas a 
time, with a hogshead of port or sherry annually (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1165). At 
Southampton there had usually been New Year's gifts of sugar, spices, wine or 
olives, but in 1688 a yearly fee of five pounds was fixed (Speed MSS. p. 72; 
MS. Records of Southampton Corporation ; see also History of Southampton, by J. 
S. Davies, 1883, pp. 184-185). 

4 As at Penzance. 

6 Jlistory of Municipal Governmeiit in Liverpool, by Ramsay Muir, 1906, p. 83. 



324 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 



(k) The Chamberlain and the Town Cleric 

We may pass lightly over the officers whom the Municipal 
Corporations gradually accumulated to perform the usual 
administrative work. It is interesting that the oldest of 
them, and in 1689 in one or two cases still the most 
prominent, was not, as we might nowadays expect, the Town 
Clerk, but the Chamberlain, Cofferer, 1 Receiver, 2 Chamber- 
reeve, 3 or Treasurer. In the most rudimentary Municipal 
Corporation, as in the simpler Manorial Boroughs, it was upon 
the Head of the Corporation that all the administrative work 
fell, just as it did upon the Eeeve of the Manor. When the 
little community began to possess a Corporate fund, the Head 
of the Corporation, whether styled Eeeve, Portreeve or 
Boroughreeve, Alderman, Bailiff, Warden or Mayor, himself 
often kept the cash. 4 Equally significant of the transition 
from the Manor is the fact that in some Municipal Corpora- 
tions the Chamberlains, or Treasurers of the Corporation, were 
actually appointed by the Lord's Steward or other officer. 5 
The next step, we infer, was for the Head of the Corporation 
to devolve the duties upon an officer or officers appointed by 
himself, a position in which half a dozen Municipal Corpora- 
tions in 1689 still found themselves. 6 Finally, we have the 
arrangement at which the great majority of Municipal Cor- 
porations had, by 1689, arrived, by which the officers fulfilling 
the duties of Treasurer were appointed by the Corporation 
itself, nearly always by the Governing Council, but occasionally 
by presentment of a Jury at one or other of the Borough 

1 So styled at Bridport. 

2 So styled at Bury St. Edmunds, Dartmouth, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 
Saltash, Truro, and Warwick. 3 So styled at Haverfordwest. 

4 This was the case at Altrincham, Arundel, Beccles, Berkeley, Chard, 
Dunmow, Durham, Godalming, Lymington, and Yeovil, among Manorial 
Boroughs. And at Bodmin, Liskeard, Penzance, Plympton Earle, Poole, 
Sutton Coldfield, and Morpeth, among Municipal Corporations ; whilst it was 
equally characteristic of several Welsh Boroughs, such as Denbigh, Llandovery, 
and Llantrissant. At Alnwick there were four Chamberlains, who were (under 
the Lord's Bailiff) jointly Heads of this Manorial Borough. 

6 This was the case at Cardiff (First Report of Municipal Corporation Com- 
mission, 1835, vol. i. p. 189), and Swansea (ibid. vol. i. p. 391), as well as at 
Alnwick (vol. iii. pp. 1413, 1415). 

6 For instance, Barnstaple (ibid. vol. i. p. 430) ; Carlisle (ibid. vol. iii. p, 
1471) ; Chester (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2621) ; Lincoln (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2347) ; Maid- 
stone (ibid. vol. ii. p. 757) ; Wells (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1370). 



THE CHAMBERLAIN AND THE TOWN CLERK 325 

Courts ; l or by popular election by the suffrages of the whole 
body of Freemen. 2 

As its administrative work increased, we see the Municipal 
Corporation, like the Manorial Borough, creating an office 
unknown to the Manor, 3 that of the Common Clerk, 4 or Town 
Clerk. We infer that the office, like that of the Kecorder, 
had gradually become differentiated from that of the Steward. 
In a few cases, even in 1689, we find it still combined with 
the Stewardship, 5 or the Eecordership ; 6 whilst in others it 
was combined with the post of Deputy Steward. 7 In some 

1 As at Grimsby (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. 
iv. p. 2250), Laugharne (ibid. vol. i. p. 288), and Aberystwyth (ibid. vol. i. p. 171). 

2 As at Berwick-on-Tweed (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1438) ; Cambridge (ibid. vol. 
iv. p. 2186) ; Carmarthen (ibid. vol. i. p. 206) ; Hastings (ibid. vol. ii. p. 998) ; 
Ipswich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2295) ; Pevensey (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1017) ; Plymouth 
(ibid. vol. i. p. 582) ; Rornney Marsh (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1027) ; Rye (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 1032) ; Sandwich (ibid. vol. it. p. 1044) ; Southwold (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2517). 
In the City of London the election was by the superior grade of Freemen (the 
Liverymen). The Chamberlains of the City of London and Bristol were legally 
"corporations sole," and thus enjoyed the privilege of perpetual succession. 
They also exercised quasi-judicial functions in respect of apprentices, having 
power to adjudicate on complaints, cancel or vary indentures, compel masters to 
pay damages and even to imprison recalcitrant apprentices. 

3 At the highly developed Lord's Court of Epworth (Lincolnshire) there was, 
however, a Clerk of the Court. 

4 So styled at Carlisle (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1469) ; Grantham (ibid. vol. iv. 
p. 2242) ; Hereford (ibid. vol. i. p. 256) ; Liverpool (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2699) ; 
Tenterden (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1064); Tewkesbury (ibid. vol. i. p. 125); and 
Yarmouth, Isle of Wight (ibid. vol. ii. p. 916). For a good description of his 
office, see Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, by A. S. Green, 1894, vol. ii. pp. 
257-264. 

6 As at Bradiug, Isle of Wight (First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. ii. p. 680) ; Liskeard (ibid. vol. i. p. 526) ; Devizes 
(ibid. vol. ii. p. 1265) ; Eye (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2229) ; Newtown, Isle of Wight 
(ibid. vol. ii. p. 794) ; Lampeter (ibid. vol. i. p. 283) ; Usk (ibid. vol. i. 
p. 416); Wiston (ibid. vol. i. p. 423); "Westbury (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1378); 
Stockton (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1729) ; or, as at Ncath, with the post of Constable 
of the Castle (ibid. vol. i. p. 334) ; or, as at Penzance, with that of Seneschal 
(ibid. vol. i. p. 572). 

6 As at Clun (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2642} ; Flint (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2681) ; 
Garstang (ibid. vol. iii. pp. 1520, 1521) ; Kenfig (ibid. vol. i. p. 269) ; 
Montgomery (Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838) ; Swansea 
(First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 390) ; 
Wootton Bassett (ibid. vol. i. p. 147). At Southampton, as an eighteenth- 
century antiquary tells us, " there is little said of the Town Clerk in the ancient 
books of the Town, but in one of them, A.D. 1570, he is called Clerk of the 
Records of the Town, which seems to be expressive of his office, the Recorder 
being Keeper of the Records " (Speed MSS., Corporation of Southampton, p. 73 ; 
see also History of Southampton, by J. S. Davies, 1883, p. 186). 

7 As at Beccles (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. p. 2136) ; Sutton Coldfield (ibid. vol. iii. p. 2033) ; Newport, Shrop- 
shire (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1962) ; Windsor (ibid. vol. v. p. 2933) ; Andover (ibid. 



326 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

cases the Town Clerk was appointed by the Lord of the 
Manor, 1 and in various others by the Steward, 2 or by the 
Recorder, 8 whom he often served as Deputy Recorder. In 
half a dozen cases the appointment was vested by Charter in 
the Crown, usually on petition from the Governing Council of 
the Corporation. 4 In the great majority of Municipal Cor- 
porations, however, the Town Clerk had, by 1689, acquired 
a leading place among the Chief Officers of the Corporation, 
though possibly he was not yet, as the Town Clerk of 
Launceston declared a century later, " to the Mayor of a 
Corporation what the Lord Chancellor is to the King, the 
chief adviser." 5 He was, by specific direction in the 
Charters, appointed by the Corporation itself; usually by the 
Governing Council, 6 but in a few cases by presentment of a 

vol. ii. p. 1082) ; Blandford (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1134) ; East Retford (ibid. 
vol. iii. p. 1862). 

1 As at Cardiff (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. i. p. 189) ; Cowbridge (ibid. vol. i. p. 221) ; Llandovery (ibid. vol. i. 
p. 302) ; Llantrissant (ibid. vol. i. p. 314) ; Oswestry (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2826) ; 
and Welshpool (Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, p. 141). 

2 As at Andover (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. ii. p. 1134) ; Buckingham (ibid. vol. i. p. 28) ; East Retford (ibid. vol. iii. 
p. 1862). 

3 As at Bradninch (ibid. vol. i. p. 458) ; Derby, subject to approval by the 
King (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1850) ; Helston (ibid. vol. i. p. 512) ; Launceston (ibid. 
vol. i. p. 518) ; East Looe (ibid. vol. i. p. 634) ; Penryn (ibid. vol. i. p. 563) ; 
Thetford (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2541) ; and Warwick (ibid. vol. iii. p. 2059). 

4 As at Falmouth (ibid. vol. i. p. 502) ; Kingston-upon-Hull (ibid. vol. iii. 
p. 1549) ; Leeds (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1618) ; Newport, Isle of Wight (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 776) ; Wigan (Report on Certain Boroughs, by T. J. Hogg, 1838, p. 155). 
The appointment, or approval of appointment, was given by the Privy Council 
and latterly by the Home Office ; and the student will find numerous instances 
recorded in the MS. Register of the Privy Council, 1660-1832 ; and in the 
Home Office Domestic State Papers and Entry Book, 1700-1832, in Public 
Record Office ; for one such case concerning Sudbury, see Calendar of Home 
Office Papers, 1770-1772 (1881), pp. 243, 344-345. 

6 Town Clerk of Lauuceston to Town Clerk of Plymouth, 15th October 
1804, in MS. Records, Plymouth Corporation. The Town Clerk of the fifteenth 
century had been, in many Boroughs, " a Municipal Chancellor in Avhom was 
embodied a continuous tradition of administration and a fixed jurisprudence " 
(Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, by A. S. Green, 1894, vol. ii. pp. 260-261). 

6 We give one such minute of appointment as typical. " This day J. K. of 
the Town and County of Southampton was, by the majority of votes, whereof 
Mr. Mayor and the Recorder were two, elected Town Clerk for the said Town 
of Southampton, he proposing to execute the office gratis, enjoying the usual 
perquisites ; to gather the Town rents, dues and fines without any certain 
reward, which is to be left to the discretion of the Corporation when he shall 
account with them ; to make up the Town accounts and account with them as 
often as they shall be pleased to require ; and to go abroad upon the Corpora- 
tion's business without any reward, the Corporation allowing him reasonable 



THE CHAMBERLAIN AND THE TOWN CLERK 327 

Jury ; l in a few other cases by the Head of the Corporation, 2 
and sometimes by popular election of the whole body of Free- 
men. 3 We see the Town Clerk becoming the principal officer of 
the Corporation, and combining in his person many different 
offices. In one Borough or another we find him acting as 
Clerk of the Peace, Prothonotary, Clerk of Indictments, Clerk 
to the Magistrates, Eegistrar and Clerk of all the Borough 
Courts ; he would sometimes be Coroner, Under Sheriff, 
Deputy Kecorder, Corporation Solicitor, Keeper of the Kecords, 
Steward of the Corporation Manors, and Billetmaster. He 
might preside at the Court Leet, Court Baron, Borough Court 
or Court of Pleas, or sit as assessor in the Mayor's Court. 
Almost invariably he acted as solicitor and legal agent to the 
Corporation, and, in conjunction with the Eecorder, as its 
legal adviser. He was often one of the Corporate Justices of 
the Peace ; but, unlike the Eecorder and the Chamberlain, not 
usually a member of the Governing Council, to which he acted 
as Clerk. 4 

charges and expenses " (MS. Records, Southampton Corporation, 30th September 
1708). 

1 As at Aberystwyth (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 171) ; Bossiney (ibid. vol. i. p. 453) ; Laugharne (ibid. vol. i. 
p. 288) ; St. Clears (ibid. vol. i. p. 377) ; and Havering-atte-Bower (ibid. vol. v. 
p. 2878). 

2 As at Appleby (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1426) ; Huntingdon (ibid. vol. iv. p. 
2287) ; Ilchester (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1290) ; Kilgerran (ibid. vol. i. p. 279) ; and 
Seaford (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1059). 

3 As at Bedford (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2107) ; Berwick- on -Tweed (ibid. vol. iii. 
p. 1438) ; Bridgnorth (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1781) ; Cambridge (ibid. vol. iv. p. 
2187) ; Carmarthen (ibid. vol. i. p. 206) ; Hastings (ibid. vol. ii. p. 998) ; 
Ipswich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2295) ; Macclesfield (Report on Certain Boroughs, by 
T. J. Hogg, 1838, p. 58) ; Pevensey (First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. ii. p. 1017) ; Plymouth (ibid. vol. i. p. 581) ; Romney 
Marsh (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1027) ; Sandwich (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1045) ; and Wenlock 
(ibid. vol. iii. p. 2077) ; also, subject to the approval of the Crown, at Grimsby 
(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2250) ; and Poole (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1322). 

4 He was, however, a member of the Council at Canterbury (ibid. vol. ii. p. 
691) ; Chichester (ibid. vol. ii. p. 720) ; Faversham (ibid. vol. ii. p. 964). At 
Dover he might or might not be chosen a member of the Common Council fey 
the Mayor and Jurats (MS. Records, Dover Corporation, 19th January 1688 ; 
First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. p. 943). At 
Southampton, on a new appointment being made in 1774, it was resolved "that 
he shall not have any deliberative voice in the Common Council, nor enter into 
any public debate, unless his opinion be asked, or he shall find the Body going 
into error in point of law or in prejudice of their own privileges " (MS. Records, 
Corporation of Southampton, 5th March 1774). 



328 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

(I) The County Officers of the Municipal Corporation 

It was, as we have said, an object of the Municipal 
Corporation to free itself from external control, and particu- 
larly to exclude the officers of the County and their underlings. 
To obtain this privilege, Corporation after Corporation not 
only made large payments to the King, but also undertook 
to perform, within the boundaries of its Borough, all the 
various duties of the County officers, notably those of the 
Coroner, the Sheriff, and the Justices of the Peace, and, in 
a single quite exceptional case, 1 also the Lieutenancy. In 
the majority of cases these duties, with the corresponding 
powers and authorities, devolved upon the existing Corporate 
officers. The Head of the Corporation, whether Portreeve, 
Warden, Alderman, Bailiff or Mayor, was always, ex 
officio, a Justice of the Peace for the Borough, and often 
also Coroner; if the Corporation enjoyed the privilege of 
sending members to Parliament, it was its Head, not the 
County Sheriff, who acted as Returning Officer ; 2 in the smaller 
Boroughs he often himself fulfilled such of the duties of 
Sheriff and High Constable s as the Corporation had become 
responsible for. But this work naturally usually devolved 
upon other Corporate officers. The Bailiffs usually saw to the 
return of writs, the impanelling of Juries, and sometimes also 
the custody of the gaol ; in some Municipal Corporations, 
indeed, claiming to be fully equivalent to the Sheriffs of 

1 The City of London. Haverfordwest, Berwick -on-Tweed, and the Liberty of 
the Cinque Ports had separate Lieutenants appointed by the Crown. 

2 In the nineteen Cities or Boroughs which were Counties in themselves, 
the Sheriff or Sheriffs of the Municipal Corporations were the Returning Officers ; 
at Berwick-on-Tweed, which was, between 1689 and 1835, in virtually the same 
position, it was the Mayor and Bailiffs jointly (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iii. p. 1440) ; this was the case also at 
Newcastle-under-Lyme (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1952) ; Bedford (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2106) ; 
Preston (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1689). In other Boroughs it was the Head of the 
Corporation, who was accordingly declared incapable of being himself elected 
as a Member of Parliament, or of returning himself as a member for the Borough 
(House of Commons Journals, 2nd June 1685). 

3 The exact position in the County organisation of those Boroughs which 
were not Counties in themselves seems to have varied from County to County, 
and from function to function. For most purposes, in most Counties, the 
Borough seems to have been treated as a separate Hundred ; and in these 
cases the Municipal Corporation, by its Head or some other of its Chief Officers, 
performed the duties of High Constable. 



COUNTY OFFICERS OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 329 

Counties. 1 Occasionally we find the Bailiff's discharging also 
the duties of the Coroner. 2 In some other Boroughs the 
duties of Coroner devolved upon the Town Clerk, 3 or upon 
one or more of the Aldermen. 4 

The majority of Municipal Corporations, however, ap- 
pointed a separate Officer as Coroner, usually under the 
specific authority of a Charter; the appointment being 
frequently conferred habitually for a year upon the person 
who had served as Head of the Corporation during the pre- 
ceding year, 5 or else made, either annually or for life, by the 
Governing Council ; in a few cases by the Head of the Corpora- 
tion, 6 or by election by the whole body of Freemen, 7 or (in one 
case) by the Freeholders of the city. 8 In a few Corporations 
the same officer was appointed to discharge within the 
Borough both the duties of Coroner and, to some extent, 
those of Sheriff. 9 

1 Notably at Bath (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. ii. p. 1115); Grimsby (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2252); Liverpool (ibid. 
vol. iv. p. 2698) ; Northampton (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1967) ; Oxford (ibid. vol. i. 
p. 101). There was, even in the eighteenth century, great difficulty in restrain- 
ing the officers of the County Sheriff (who were eager for fees) from making 
executions and arrests in the Boroughs that were exempt from his jurisdiction. 
The Corporation of Northampton had, for instance, to complain in 1722, and 
again in 1728, of such action ; and on 10th May 1722 formally ordered that 
any case should be promptly made the occasion for an action in defence of the 
franchise of the Borough (Records of the Borough of Northampton, vol. ii., by 
J. C. Cox, 1898, pp. 54-55). 

2 As at Liverpool (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. p. 2698). 

3 As at Banbury (ibid. vol. i. p. 10) ; Canterbury (ibid. vol. ii. p. 691) ; 
Derby (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1850) ; Harwich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2264) ; Lichfield 
(ibid. vol. iii. p. 1927) ; Maldon (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2438) ; Newark (ibid. vol. iii. 
p. 1937) ; Plympton Earle (ibid. vol. i. p. 600). 

4 As at Barnstaple (ibid. vol. i. p. 429) ; Denbigh (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2662) ; 
Kendal (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1591). At Romney Marsh the duties of Coroner were 
performed by the four elected Justices (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1027). 

5 As at Bridgnorth (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1781) ; Bury St. Edmunds (ibid. vol. 
iv. p. 2173); Daventry (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1843); Eye (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2229); 
Godmanchester (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2235) ; Grantham (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2242) ; 
Grimsby (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2250) ; Guildford (ibid. vol. v. p. 2872) ; Hedon 
(ibid. vol. iii. p. 1538) ; Kingston-on-Hull (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1549) ; Oswestry 
(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2826) ; Scarborough (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1714) ; Thetford (ibid. 
vol. iv. p. 2542). 

6 As at Appleby (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1426). 

7 As at Berwick-oii-Tweed (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1438) ; Cardigan (ibid. vol. i. 
]). 198) ; Ipswich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2295) ; Monmouth (ibid. vol. i. p. 323) ; 
Poole (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1322) ; Rochester (ibid. vol. ii. p. 847) ; Sotithwold 
(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2516). 

8 York (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1741). 

9 As at Ludlow (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2789) ; Lynn (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2398). 



330 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Only those Municipal Corporations which had been 
specifically granted by Royal Charter the privileges of their 
Boroughs or Cities being " Counties of themselves," could 
appoint Sheriffs of their own, though in three or four other 
towns, as we have mentioned, the Corporations enjoyed 
virtually equivalent immunities. The nineteen " Counties 
Corporate," l as they were called the " citees, viles ou burghs 
queux sonnt countees encorporates de eux memes " of the 
Parliamentary scribe of 143 9 2 were completely exempted 
from all jurisdictions of the County and its officers, with 
the exception of the Lieutenancy. The Municipal Corpora- 
tion was therefore responsible to the Crown for the fulfilment, 
within the City or Borough, of all the obligations of a County 
at large, except only those relating to the militia, for which 
it was responsible to the Lord- Lieutenant. Thus, the Sheriffs 
of these Corporations had practically the same powers and 
duties as those of ordinary Counties. They were, however, 
never appointed by the Crown, but by the Municipal Corpora- 
tion itself, usually by its Governing Council; but in a few 
cases, under more or less restriction of choice, by the whole 
body of Freemen. 3 It should, however, be noted that it was 
the Municipal Corporation itself, not its Sheriff or Sheriffs, 
which had undertaken the responsibilities of a County, and 
it was to the Head of the Corporation, not to the Sheriff or 
Sheriffs, that the Crown looked for their fulfilment. The 
Corporation Sheriffs, though irremovable by the Crown, were 
accordingly not equal in status or dignity to those of the 
Counties : they were, in fact, only subordinates to the Mayor 
to use the quaint words of the old chronicler Stow, " the 
Mayor's eyes, seeing and supporting part of the care, which 
the person of the Mayor alone is not sufficient to bear." * 

1 They were Bristol, Carmarthen, Chester, Coventry, Gloucester, Lincoln, 
London, Norwich, Nottingham, and York, having each two Sheriffs ; and 
Canterbury, Exeter, Haverfordwest, Kingston-on-Hull, Lichfield, Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, Poole, Southampton, and Worcester, having each one Sheriff. The origin 
and significance of this divergence of practice is quite unknown to us. 

2 Rot. Parl. v. 28a (18 Henry VI.). 

3 As at Carmarthen (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. i. p. 205) ; Haverfordwest (ibid. vol. i. p. 235) ; Kingston-on-Hull (ibid. 
vol. iii. p. 1549); Norwich -(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2460). In the City of London 
the election was by the superior grade of Freemen (the Livery). 

4 Survey of London, by John Stow, book v. chap. v. p. 89 of Strype's 
edition of 1720. 



COUNTY OFFICERS OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 331 

By 1689 they had come to have very varied functions in 
the different towns, but they were rapidly becoming merely 
ceremonial officers. In many Corporations they had to 
accompany the Mayor on all pageants and ceremonies, in- 
cluding his formal attendances at church a duty occasionally 
refused by Nonconformists. 1 In the greatest of all the 
Corporations, as we shall subsequently describe, 2 the two 
Sheriffs moved in great pomp and had extensive and almost 
incessant duties, but these were chiefly formal and ceremonial. 
In other Boroughs the Sheriffs were supposed to preside, 
sometimes at the ancient Borough Court, sometimes at a 
Sheriffs' Monthly Court, at which minor litigation was dealt 
with. They had the superintendence of the gaol and the 
Bridewell, together with the appointment to various lucrative 
offices, such as those of Under Sheriff, Gaoler, Bridewell 
Keeper, Sheriff's Yeomen, Sheriff's Beadles, etc. In one or 
two Corporations they were furnished, for their attendance 
on the Mayor and the Assize Judges, with gorgeous State 
carriages. They provided sumptuous banquets at the Assizes, 
and they had occasionally to present the Corporation, or the 
Mayor for the time being, with a costly piece of plate. 3 In 
other Boroughs that were Counties Corporate the office of 
Sheriff served principally as an opportunity for the Corporation 
to confer temporary dignity, and often some perquisites, on one 
of its number. 

The newer dignity of the Gustos Eotulorum and Lord- 
Lieutenant was, as we have already mentioned, only exception- 
ally found connected with a town. Why the small Welsh 
Borough of Haverfordwest should, for several centuries, have 
enjoyed a Lord-Lieutenant to itself appointed, however, by 
the Crown we are unable to explain. 4 The exceptional posi- 
tion of Berwick, where the Governor was Lieutenant, and of the 

1 In 1660 information was given to the Privy Council "that George Steward, 
Esq. , lately chosen Sheriff for the City of Norwich, since his oath taken, refused 
to accompany . . . the Mayor of the said City, according to custom, to the 
Cathedral Church " ; whereupon he was summoned to appear, and made to 
promise due attendance in future (MS. Acts of Privy Council, 10th and 26th 
October 1660). 

2 See post, " The City of London," Chapter X. 

3 Notably in the City of London and Bristol. 

4 This unique status of Haverfordwest may possibly be connected in some 
way with the existence of a County Palatine of Pembrokeshire down to the 
sixteenth century ; see The Pariah and the County, p. 313. 



332 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

City of London, is more easily understood. There is no 
evidence that the premier Municipality had ever formed 
part of the County organisation of Middlesex ; and it may 
well have been considered too important an aggregation of 
population and wealth to be entrusted to any individual 
subject. The custom grew up of entrusting the duties of 
the Lieutenancy to a Commission appointed by the. King, of 
whom the leading member was the Lord Mayor for the time 
being. In the Liberty of the Cinque Ports, comprising 
fifteen Municipal Corporations, all the duties of a Custos 
Kotulorum and Lord-Lieutenant were, as we shall subsequently 
describe, performed by the Lord Warden. 

By 1689, however, as we have elsewhere described, the 
real Eulers of the County were not the Sheriff and Coroner, 
nor even the Custos Rotulorum and Lord-Lieutenant, but the 
Justices of the Peace in their General Sessions assembled. It 
was, as we have said, the distinctive mark of a Municipal 
Corporation that it created its own Justices of the Peace, who 
exercised within the boundaries of the Borough all the 
powers elsewhere conferred by the King's Commission. These 
Magisterial powers were nearly always combined with some 
high Municipal office. The Head of the Corporation, whether 
Portreeve, Bailiff, Alderman, Warden or Mayor, was invari- 
ably a Justice of the Peace ex officio. So, too, was the 
Kecorder, wherever such an officer was appointed ; less 
frequently also the Coroner, the Bailiffs, the Deputy Eecorder 
and the Town Clerk. The Head of the Corporation for the 
preceding year was sometimes a magistrate for twelve months 
after quitting office, and was often specifically termed " the 
Justice." Occasionally the Bishop, or sometimes the Dean 
and a Prebendary or two, would be included among the 
Corporate Justices. Sometimes the Sheriffs were ex officio 
Justices : in the larger Boroughs one or more of the Aldermen 
or Jurats, sometimes those who had " passed the Chair," x 
and sometimes all of them. 2 Only rarely do we find the 

1 As at Chester (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. iv. pp. 2620, 2622); Berwick - on - Tweed (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1436); 
Canterbury (ibid. vol. ii. p. 695) ; Lincoln (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2346) ; King's 
Lynn (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2391) ; Norwich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2464) ; Liverpool (ibid. 
vol. iv. p. 2700) ; Boston (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2153). 

2 As at Bristol (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1165) ; Dover (ibid. vol. ii. p. 946); Faversham 



MAYOR'S BRETHREN AND MAYORS COUNSELLORS 333 

Corporation appointing persons specifically to be Justices of the 
Peace ; though in some Boroughs two, three, or four would be 
selected from among the Aldermen, or from such of them as 
had served as Head of the Corporation. In one Borough the 
whole body of Freemen elected annually four of the Jurats 
to serve as Justices. 1 

(ra) The Mayor's Brethren and the Mayor's Counsellors 

Closely associated with the Mayor, as Head of the Corpora- 
tion and. chief of its executive, were the Aldermen, the 
"Mayor's Peers" or "Mayor's Brethren," whom we find 
nearly everywhere serving him both as executive assistants, 
undertaking individually particular functions or supervising 
particular districts of the Borough, and also as a sort of 
consultative council. 2 In the Cinque Ports, at any rate, 
there are signs that their appointment had been, in earlier 
times, actually made by the Head of the Corporation. 3 Some- 

(ibid. vol. ii. p. 966) ; Folkestone (ibid. vol. ii. p. 981) ; Gloucester, where the 
Bishop, the Dean, and two Prebendaries were also Justices (ibid. vol. i. p. 63) ; 
Hythe (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1008) ; Kingston-on-Hull (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1552) ; Rye 
(ibid. vol. ii. p. 1034) ; Sandwich (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1048) ; Seaford (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 1059) ; Stamford (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2530) ; Winchelsea (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1074) ; 
Leeds (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1621) ; Beverley (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1458) ; Grantham 
(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2242) ; Hastings (ibid. vol. ii. p. 998) ; Lydd (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 1013) ; and the City of London after the Charter of 1741, infra, Chap. X. 

1 Romney Marsh (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. ii. p. 1027). 

a In many Corporations, principally but not exclusively in the South-western 
counties such as Abingdon, Aldeburgh, Bewdley, Bodmin, Blandford, Brecon, 
Bridgwater, Buckingham, Devizes, Dunwich, Eye, Glastonbury, Grantham, 
Haverfordwest, Lancaster, Leominster, Liskeard, East and West Looe, Lost- 
withiel, Marlborough, Marazion, Monmouth, Newcastle- under -Lyme, New 
Radnor, Okehampton, Penryn, Plympton Earle, St. Ives, Shaftesbury, Sutton 
Coldfield, Thetford, Tiverton, Tregony, Truro, Wareham, Westbury the place 
of Aldermen is taken by "Capital Burgesses," or "Principal Burgesses," or 
"Capital Councillors," or "Common Burgesses." At Andover we have the 
"Approved Men"; at Bradninch, Dartmouth, Totnes and Wells, the 
'Masters"; and at Ipswich and Orwell, the "Portmen." In nearly all the 
Kent and Sussex Boroughs, especially those which formed part of the Liberty 
of the Cinque Ports Deal, Dover, Faversham, Folkestone, Fordwich, Hastings, 
Hythe, Lydd, Pevensey, Rye, Sandwich, Seaford, Tenterden, and Winchelsea, 
and also Gravesend and Romney Marsh the title is "Jurat" ; probably derived 
from the Norman towns. The title of Alderman is most usually found with 
that of Mayor ; but in various Corporations, such as Bridgnorth, East Retford, 
and Kidderminster, Aldermen were presided over by a Bailiff : in that of Sutton 
Coldfield, by a Warden ; and in that of Neath, by a Portreeve. Capital Burgesses 
and Jurats are found indifferently with Mayors or Bailiffs as Heads. 

3 They were, in fact, his lieutenants or assistants (see, for instance, Sandwich, 
Cinque Ports, by M. Burrows, 1888, p. 201). 



334 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

times each Alderman, or each pair of Aldermen, was placed in 
charge of, or at the head of, a particular Ward of the Borough, 
for which he undertook a special responsibility. In one 
ancient Municipality, for instance, the Alderman was charged 
individually to inquire " whether there be any nuisance or 
purprestures in the City, as by setting of pales, walls, stalls, 
bulks, porches, windows, and such like, whereby any incroach- 
ing is used ; or any timber, stones, dunghills, or heaps of 
dirt, or any other thing be cast and laid in the streets to the 
letting or hindering of any way, or to the annoyance of any 
person. Also whether any do keep slaughtering within the 
City, or do keep and feed any hogs, ducks, or any other filthy 
beast. Also whether the streets be kept clean and swept 
twice in the week at least. Also whether any house be 
ruinous and stand dangerously, and whether any chimney, 
oven or furnace, or backs or hearths for fire, do stand danger- 
ously and in peril of fire, and the same not presented by 
the scavenger. Also whether there be crooks, ladders, and 
buckets in readiness to serve, if need should be, in peril of 
fire ; and whether every man have in readiness a vessel of 
water at his door when any house is adventured with fire, 
and not advertised by the scavengers." 1 Gradually, however, 
the Ward duties, and indeed most of the executive functions 
of individual Aldermen, sank into the background, in com- 
parison with their collective responsibility as a Court or 
Council. In some Boroughs they remained indefinite in 
number, existing merely by custom, being frequently those 
who had served as Mayor, 2 and partaking of the Mayor's 
dignity. In one Borough, for instance, we read, " their 
number varied widely, but there seems to have been a theory 

1 MS. Records, Exeter Corporation ; The Antique Description and Account 
of . . . Exeter, by John Vowell, 1765, p. 172 (first printed 1584). At Bristol, 
we find the Mayor and Aldermen allotting the several Wards among themselves. 
and ordering ' ' that the several Wards written after the names of the Mayor 
and Aldermen be under the care and inspection of each Justice of the Peace 
respectively " (MS. Minutes, Bristol Corporation, 30th September 1706). 

2 So in the Municipal Corporations of Bedford, Chichester, Guildford, 
Liverpool, Northampton, Poole, Southampton, Welshpool, and Weymouth. 
as well as in such Manorial Boroughs as Altrincham, Keiifig, Newport in 
Pembrokeshire, Stockport, and Stockton. In some other Corporations, such as 
Chester, Coventry, Derby, Hedon, and Hereford, the Aldermen were a definite 
number, serving for life, vacancies being filled from among those who had served 
as Head of the Corporation. This was the case also in such Manorial Boroughs 
as Dursley, Llantrissant, Loughor, Wick war, and Wotton-under-Edge. 



MA YORS BRETHREN AND MA YORS COUNSELLORS 33$ 

that they ought to number twelve. . . . They consisted of all 
Mayors who had passed the chair, though, possibly, other 
leading citizens were also admitted among them. They thus 
held their position for life. . . . The front seats in the chapel 
were reserved for them. The Town Waits played before their 
doors. They sat on the Bench with the Mayor in his Court, 
where all the multifarious judicial business was transacted. 
They are repeatedly mentioned as sharing with the Mayor 
responsibility for his acts ; and not rare is the announcement 
of a new edict on some important point, ' Ordered by the 
Mayor and his Brethren with the consent of the Assembly/ " 1 
Only in two exceptional Corporations, to be subsequently 
described 2 the only ones in winch the Aldermen were 
elected by their Wards do we find their positions as Captains 
of the Watch and Heads of their Wards at all comparable in 
dignity and importance with those enjoyed by them as 
Members of the Court of Aldermen. By 1689 they had 
come usually to be specified in the Charter as a permanent 
select body, definite in number and in the method of their 
appointment ; in all cases forming part of the Court of 
Common Council where any such Council existed ; only in 
two or three cases sitting also separately as a Court of 
Aldermen, except for the special purpose of filling vacancies 
in their own body, or among the Common Councilmen, and 
for the execution of their duties as Justices of the Peace. For, 
as we shall presently describe, it was upon some or all of the 
Aldermen, in conjunction- with the Head of the Corporation, 
that were cast the duties of the Borough Magistracy. Even 
if only some of them were, by Charter, Justices of the Peace, 
we see all of them, nearly everywhere, performing collectively 
some of the functions elsewhere exercised only by Justices, 

1 History of Municipal Government in Liverpool, by Ramsay Muir, 1906, 
p. 82 ; see also the same author's History of Liverpool, 1907. 

2 London and, to a lesser degree, Norwich. At Bristol, though vacancies 
among the Aldermen were filled by co-option without reference to the Wards of 
the City, they were all assigned to particular Wards, of which they individually 
took charge, especially as regards the supervision of the public-houses, the 
collection of the Watch Rate, and the issuing and hearing of summonses for 
non-payment of the Poor Rate. The Alderman presided, too, over meetings 
of the Ward as, for instance, those for the election of members of the 
Corporation of the Poor but held no Wardmote or other Court in the Ward. 
See on this point Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, by A. S. Green, 1894, 
vol. ii. p. 279. 



336 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

such as licensing ale-honses, making rates, passing accounts, 
and appointing Constables ; and they were evidently often 
considered to be members of the judicial bench. " Magistrates' 
posts," sometimes richly carved and ornamented, used, in the 
larger cities, to be set up outside their doors to indicate their 
residences, a picturesque usage which was in 1689 not yet 
wholly abandoned. 1 Sometimes we find them all entitled, 
whether magistrates or not, to sit as Judges in the Borough 
Court, and to take part in the trial of civil actions. 2 

To this variegated array of independent dignitaries, each with 
his own authority and his own sphere of operations, we might 
add the " Mayor's Counsellors," whom we find, in the majority 
of Municipal Corporations, specialised out of the Burgesses or 
Freemen, and forming, in more or less intimate association 
with the Aldermen and the Chief Officers, a standing 
Assembly or Court of Common Council. These Counsellors, 
usually twelve, four-and-twenty, or eight-and-forty in number, 
had no individual functions or status, and we accordingly 
leave them to be dealt with in our section on the Administra- 
tive Courts of the Corporation. 3 

1 See reference to this custom in The Widow, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 
the paper by J. A. Repton, in Archceologia, vol. .xix., 1821, pp. 383-385 ; the 
Book of Days, by R. Chambers, 1869, vol. i. pp. 161-162 ; Remnants of 
Antiquity in Norwich, 1843 ; Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries, 1897, 
pp. 195-196. A relic of the custom maybe seen in Scotland to this day, in 
the decoration with the town arms of the lamp-post nearest to the house 
of the Provost (e.g. at Linlithgow). 

2 Here Aldermen are to be understood as the senior grade of members of the 
Governing Council of the Corporation. It should, however, be remembered that 
"Alderman" is used in various other senses. In the Municipal Corporations 
of Bury St. Edmunds and Grantham, as in the Manorial Borough of Wokingham, 
the Head was styled Alderman. In those of Barnstaple, Brecon, Bridgwater, 
Denbigh, Macclesfield, New Radnor, Ruthin, and Wootton Bassett, the Alder- 
men were one or two persons elected to be Justices. At Bridgnorth the ex- 
Chamberlain was so designated. At Aberavon the two Aldermen were petty 
officers. The title was formerly used in Sussex Manors for a mere Beadle. At 
Alnwick, Morpeth, and elsewhere the Aldermen were the heads of the Gilds or 
Trade Companies. At Salisbury, Southampton, and Wilton there were so-called 
"Aldermen of the Wards," distinct from the Mayor's Brethren. 

3 It must be remembered that service in all the ancient Corporation Offices, 
from the Headship down to the Beadleship (but not including the Town Clerk- 
ship), was compulsory. Refusal to serve was habitually punished by fine. 
Thus, at Southampton, " the House met, Mr. Recorder present, and fined T. B. 
forty pounds for refusing the office of Bailiff" (MS. Records, Southampton Cor- 
poration, 2nd November 1693). Another Burgess pays three guineas as fine 
for being excused from service as Beadle (ibid. 5th October 1703) ; another, five 
pounds for escaping the office of Constable (ibid. 2nd October 1702) ; another, ten 
pounds to avoid being Water Bailiff, and another, thirty pounds to "be excused 



THE COURTS OF THE CORPORATION 337 

(n) The Courts of the Coloration 

The immigrant from a rural Manor or a Manorial Borough 
would take for granted the existence of Courts, at which his 
obligations as a " resiant " or a Burgess, as a neighbour or a 
"foreigner," would be enforced. In some of the smaller and 
more archaic Municipal Corporations he would find Courts 
bearing exactly the same names, and wielding exactly the 
same powers as those of rural Manors. In a few instances he 
would even find one or other of the Courts in the Borough 
still continuing to be held by the Lord's Steward, in the name 
and for the profit of an individual Lord of the Manor. But if 
our rural immigrant entered the jurisdiction of one of the 
more powerful of the Municipal Corporations, he would be 
surprised at the number and variety of the Courts held by the 
Mayor or one or other of the Chief Officers, at their strange 
titles, at their multifarious officials, and, above all, at the extent 
of the authority that they exercised over his conduct and his 
property. 

What is interesting to the historical student is that, if we 
arrange the couple of hundred Municipal Corporations in a 
series, according to the nature of their Courts", we find the same 
tendency to fission and specialisation that we noticed in the 
case of the Chief Officers of the Corporation. Just as we 
have found in the rural Manor an Undifferentiated Court 
which was not divided into the Court Leet, Court Baron, and 
Customary Court of the contemporary lawyers, so we discover 
in some of the Municipal Corporations an Undifferentiated 
Portmote, Curia Burgi, or Borough Court, which combined 

the several offices of Two Bailiffs and Sheriff" (ibid. 6th October 1696). At 
Exeter, S. M. is fined forty pounds "for refusing the office of a Steward or 
Bailiff of this City being thereunto duly elected " (MS. Records, Exeter Corpora- 
tion, 23rd January 1688). The earlier form of penalty in the Cinque Ports had 
been the peculiar communal house demolition, which these Boroughs had in 
common with those of the North of France (Feudal Englmvl, by J. H. Round, 
1895, pp. 562-571). Moreover, there was often a custom of service in successive 
years of all the Corporate officers in a graded order. A Freeman often served 
successively as Common Councilman, Alderman, Bailiff or Sheriff, and Head. 
It was proposed at Exeter in 1691 " that no person or persons whatsoever which 
have not served the offices of Low Bailiff, High Bailiff, High Constable, and 
Chamberlain of that City, or the major part of those offices," should be eligible 
for nomination as Mayor (MS. Records, Proposal Book, Exeter Corporation, 
23rd February 1691). 

VOL. II. PT. I Z 



338 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

judicial with administrative functions, and dealt with both 
criminal offences and civil suits between parties. This, 
indeed, almost follows from what we have already described. 
A town which became the seat of a Municipal Corporation did 
not thereby cease to be a Manor, or to be included in a 
Manor ; nor did the Manorial Courts thereby cease to be held 
in and for such a town. In many cases the ownership of the 
Manor passed to the Municipal Corporation, which naturally 
continued to hold the accustomed Courts. These made the 
usual presentments, heard suits between parties, and amerced 
offenders exercised, in fact, all the civil and criminal juris- 
diction of the little community and also made the primitive 
sanitary and other regulations for the Borough, administered 
its valuable commons, and appointed nearly all its officers, 
whether Haywards, Scavengers, Beadles, Watchmen, Bellmen, 
Constables, Inspectors of the Commons, Tithingmen, Ale-tasters, 
or Clerks of the Market. 1 Even when the Corporation did 

1 Thus, in the simple case of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, which had been 
incorporated by Charter in 1607, the Municipal Corporation bought the Manor 
in 1667, and continued down to 1846 to hold what was evidently an Undifferen- 
tiated Court, doing everything but decide civil suits, for which a separate Court 
of Record had been established by the Charter (MS. Records, Corporation 
of Chipping Norton ; Notes on the History of Chipping Norton, by A. Ballard, 
1893, pp. 10, 23, 24-28 ; First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 
1835, vol. i. p. 35). As the Jury orders are of great interest, such orders being 
extremely rare in printed form, and as they significantly recall the decisions of 
the Court of Great Tew (see pp. 80-87), we append copious extracts. 

" That the Great Common shall be hained from horses, cows, and all other 
great cattle on the 6th of November next, and shall not be broken with horses, 
cows, or other great cattle until the season will permit, viz. between the 1st and 
1 2th days of May next, and then not before eight o'clock in the morning, and 
to be left to the discretion of the Inspectors, who will give public notice of the 
same. . . . That any persons putting any . . . beasts to dispasture upon . . . 
the said Commons, shall, before they are put on, take them to the Driver's to 
be branded. . . . That every person putting any cow ... on the said 
Commons without previously having sufficient knobs on their horns shall for 
every offence incur a penalty of 2s. 6d. to the Lords. . . . That mares with 
sucking colts shall be put on Southcomb Common only . . . that the Inspectors 
shall let both the Commons to be stocked with sheep ... to depasture thereon 
day and night, and one-third of the monies arising from the same to be ex- 
pended in the improvement of the Common . . . that the Drivers shall 
drive the Commons from the time of breaking to the time of haining at 
least four times, and if they do their duty to the satisfaction of the Inspectors 
they shall receive ten shillings of them next Leet . . . that parishioners 
only be allowed to cut, take and carry away furse or gorse from off South- 
combe or the Poor's Allotment, and that they shall not stock it up with a 
hoe or any other tool,, but shall cut it with a bill or hatchet, and shall carry it 
home on their backs . . . that every person making a dunghill in the public 
streets or lanes within this Borough, and suffering it to remain after three days' 



COURTS OF CIVIL JURISDICTION 339 

not acquire the ownership of the Manor, we see it holding, 
under one title or another, one or more Borough Courts, each 
combining heterogeneous functions. Such a Borough Court 
might frequently unite a minor criminal jurisdiction with the 
appointment of officers, the admission of Freemen, the enrol- 
ment of apprentices, the regulation of the town by By-laws, 
and the management of the Corporate property. It might, on 
the other hand, combine the hearing of civil suits between 
parties and the recovery of petty debts with similar adminis- 
trative duties. But we may notice a tendency to a more 
logical differentiation, until, in the large majority of our couple 
of hundred Municipal Corporations, what we have in 1689 is 
a set of separate Courts for civil and criminal jurisdiction 
respectively, with distinct organs for the administration of the 
Corporate property and the transaction of the other business. 

(0) Courts of Civil Jurisdiction 

A tribunal for the trial of civil actions was nearly always 
a feature of the Municipal Corporation of 1689. In a very 
few instances, indeed, the right to hold such a Court 
analogous to the Court Baron had never been acquired by 
the Corporation itself, and the Court continued to be held by 
the Lord for his own profit. 1 But in the vast majority of 

notice from the Scavenger, the dunghill to become forfeited to him, and that R. B. 
be appointed Scavenger for the next year, who shall have the dirt to his own 
use, and five shillings besides for his trouble . . . that if any person shall call 
out the Jury for the inspection or decision of any matter or dispute or otherwise, 
he shall give notice to the Foreman in writing . . . and that a shilling shall be 
paid to each juryman by the person so calling them out, or by the Constable 
when called out on public business . . . that no house divided into two or 
more tenements since the passing of the Act of Inclosure ... is entitled to 
more than one Common (the then original one), and that no house erected or 
built since that time ... is entitled to common right . . . that R. B. shall 
be Watchman, Beadle, and Bellman . . . and that T. G. be appointed Nightly 

Watch . . . that J. A fury hereby appoint (to be Hayward) " (Laws 

and Orders made by the Jury at a Court Leet and Court Baron and View of 
Frankpledge, holden by the Bailiffs and Burgesses of the Borough of Chipping 
Norton, 1S21). 

1 In the exceptional case of the old ecclesiastical City of Salisbury (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 1343-1344) this 
Court had never been ceded to the Municipal Corporation (except for a brief period 
during the Commonwealth, see The Commonwealth Cliartcr of the City of Salis- 
bury, by Hubert Hall, 1907) ; and continued to be held by the Bishop's 
Steward, and for his profit. At Ripon the Steward of the Archbishop of York 
held the Court (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 






340 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Municipal Corporations this civil jurisdiction had been 
handed over by the Lord, or expressly granted by the King to 
the incorporated body. It is, we think, illustrative of the rise 
of such Boroughs from the Manor that we find this Court, so 
closely resembling the Court Baron, in the hands of Municipal 
Corporations which had not attained to other franchises, and 
where the Lord of the Manor still retained in his own hands 
the View of Frankpledge and some or all of the jurisdiction 
of the Court Leet. But apart from these exceptions, the 
Municipal Corporations however their Civil Courts may 
originally have been obtained had, in one or other of their 
Charters, secured from the King an express grant of the right 
to exercise civil jurisdiction, in a Court that bore different 
names in the various Boroughs. The most frequent name for 
this chartered tribunal was the Court of Record, which we find 
used in a hundred and twenty Boroughs ; or " Three Weeks' 
Court" occasionally "Three Weeken Court" which we 
trace only in half a dozen towns ; l more frequently the 
" Court of Pleas," a term used in a score of places. In ten or 
a dozen cases it was called the Mayor's Court ; 2 in two or 
three, the "Bailiff's Court" 3 or the "Provost's Court"; or 
(in the Counties Corporate) the "Sheriff's Court" or "County 
Court." 4 We find it designated the "Town Court" or the 
" Borough Court," 5 or the " Gildhall Court," 6 or occasionally 

vol. iii. p. 1710). At Oswestry, where a Court of Record was held weekly 
before the Mayor, the Lord of the Manor was entitled to receive one-half of the 
fines arising in Court, and the attorneys who practised in it were appointed by 
the Mayor and Steward jointly. At Buckingham, Shaftesbury, and Wilton, the 
Lord still retained in his own hands the View of Frankpledge and all the 
jurisdiction of the Leet, whilst permitting the Municipal Corporation to hold a 
Civil Court of the nature of a Court Baron. In a few other Corporations, such 
as Wigan, Basingstoke, Havering-atte-Bower, and Ruthin, the Manorial origin 
of this Court is plainly visible in the retention of the title of Court Baron, 
Lordship Court, or "Court of Ancient Demesne"; in the participation, as 
" Suitors" or judges, of the freeholders, or other " tenants" ; or in the limita- 
tion of the jurisdiction to sums under forty shillings. 

1 Such as Buckingham, Macclesfield, Yeovil. 

2 Such as the City of London, Bristol, Coventry, Exeter, Great Grimsby, 
Hereford, Marlborough, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Plymouth. 

3 Such as Ipswich and Chichester. 

4 As at the City of London, Bristol, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Worcester, etc. 

6 As at Winchester, Monmouth, and Great Yarmouth. By the ancient 
customs of the Manor, a "Burgh Court" had to be held weekly at Great Yar- 
mouth and adjourned at the will of the Bailiff (Treatise on Copyholds, by C. 
Watkins, fourth edition, 1825, vol. ii. p. 557). 

6 As at Norwich and King's Lynn. 



CO UR TS OF CI VI L JURISDICTION 34 \ 

even the King's Court. There were even such uncouth titles 
as " Foreign Court " l or " Court of Burgess and Foreign," 2 
" Court of Passage " 3 or " Passage Court," " Pentice Court," 4 
" Tolzey Court," 5 the " Court of our Lord the King called the 
" Portmouth," 6 or, more simply, " Court of Portmote " 7 or 
" Portman's Mote." 8 But whatever might be the local appel- 
lation of this Municipal Court of civil jurisdiction, it had 
always certain invariable features in common with the Court 
Baron of the rural Manor. There was, at least in theory, a 
body of persons who acted as judges, all equally entitled to be 
present and to pronounce the decisions, even if, in practice, 
the actual holding of the Court was deputed to one or two 
Corporation officers, and even if a Jury summoned by the 
Mayor, Bailiff, or Serjeant at Mace could be impanelled to 
pronounce the verdict. These judges comprised usually the 
Mayor or Bailiff or other head of the Corporation, and the 
other principal personages named in the Charter ; the Recorder 
and sometimes the Town Clerk ; sometimes the whole of the 
Aldermen, Jurats, or Capital Burgesses ; sometimes all the 
members of the Close Body. Another point of resemblance to 
the Court Baron was its habit of holding frequent sessions at 
regular short intervals, most frequently from three weeks to 
three weeks, but occasionally monthly, fortnightly, or even 
weekly. 

The jurisdiction of this Municipal tribunal was always 
limited to suits in which the cause of action arose within 
the Borough, and occasionally to suits against Freemen of the 
Borough. In many towns the jurisdiction was limited to 
personal actions, but in many others it included actions 
relative to lands within the Borough, and in many others, 

1 Great Grimsby. 2 Pontefract. 3 Chester and Liverpool. 

4 Chester. 5 Bristol. 

6 New Woodstock. 7 Rochester, Chester, and Faversham. 

8 Ipswich. In some Municipal Corporations we see remnants or traces of 
ancient Hundred Courts, held on behalf of the Corporations, in respect either of 
their own territories, or of estates outside. Thus, in the City of Gloucester, 
between 1657 and 1796 at any rate, there was a "Hundred Court" held 
formally every week before the Mayor and the two Sheriffs. The minute-book 
contains, after 1680, practically nothing but the perpetual repetition of the 
names of the "suitors" of the Court, who included the Earls of Hereford and 
Gloucester, Lord Stafford, the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, and other 
large landowners. As late as 1791 it swore in not only Constables, but also the 
Master and Wardens of the Company of Butchers (supra, p. 51 ; MS. Hundred 
Court Minutc-Book, 1657-1796 ; in Records of Corporation of Gloucester). 



342 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

again, all sorts of actions could be tried. In some towns there 
was a limit to the amount of the debt or damages for which 
an action might be brought. In one or two cases this limit 
is a minimum of forty shillings, possibly with the object of 
protecting from Municipal competition a Lord's Court having 
jurisdiction within the Borough. More frequently there was no 
minimum but a maximum, sometimes of about 10 or 20, but 
ranging from 5 to as much as 200; presumably to protect 
the interests of the King's Courts at Westminster. Occasion- 
ally the grant would be to have cognisance of pleas in all 
personal actions to an unlimited amount, or all pleas, real 
or personal, arising within the Borough, unless either the 
Crown or the Corporation was a party. The Mayor, Bailiff, 
or other head of the Corporation issued the process of the 
Court, which, whether arrest or seizure and sale of goods, 
was executed by the Serjeants at Mace or other officers of 
the Corporation, who could only act within the narrow limits 
of the particular Borough. 

The tendency to fission and specialisation in the Courts 
of civil jurisdiction is seen in the larger or more privileged 
Municipalities, where the Corporation held several Courts, 
dealing with different classes of actions. Thus, some Municipal 
Corporations had, besides a Petty Debt Court, a " Court of 
Equity " for cases involving real estate ; l a " Bailiff's Court " 
or other tribunal at which minors could execute valid con- 
veyances ; and even a separate Court, sometimes called 
Portmanmote or " Court of Hustings," at which fines and 
recoveries could be levied, wills proved, and conveyances of 
real estate executed by married women. In other cases we 
find Courts for actions against Freemen distinct from the 
Courts for actions against non - Freemen ; 2 or Courts for the 
recovery of petty debts distinct from those in which more 
important actions could be tried. 3 In some towns, indeed, the 
Corporation held several distinct Courts of civil jurisdiction, 
under different officers, without, apparently, any differences in 
scope or function, and acting merely as rivals for the litigation 
of the Burgesses. 4 But whatever may have been the origin 

1 As at Norwich. 

2 As at Newcastle-on-Tyne and Great Grimsby. 

3 As at Rye and Bury St. Edmunds. 

4 Thus, the Municipal Corporation of Ipswich had three distinct civil Courts : 



COURTS OF CIVIL JURISDICTION 343 

or function of these Municipal Courts of civil jurisdiction ; 
whatever, in particular Boroughs, were their numbers, titles, 
and scope, we see them nearly everywhere losing their business 
in the course of the eighteenth century, the decay often 
becoming rapidly marked in the last quarter of that century. 
The causes of this decay seem to have been partly the some- 
what uncertain quality of the presiding judges, and occasionally, 
it was said, the suspicion caused by their belonging all to the 
same political party; but much more the defects in the 
organisation of the Court itself. It could not summon 
witnesses who were outside the limits of the Borough, and 
could only enforce its judgment by arrest or execution within 
the same narrow limits. Its scale of charges was always 
sufficiently heavy to discourage suitors, whilst the fees which 
it allowed to attorneys were far below those which they 
obtained in the superior Courts, so that in town after town 
we find them ceasing to attend at the Courts. Sometimes the 
procedure was antiquated and pedantic, involving great delays, 
as in one case, where the Court was held only once a month, and 
three " Court Days " had to intervene between every stage of 
the pleadings. 1 For all these reasons the King's Courts at 
Westminster were always very ready to grant writs of prohi- 
bition or allow cases to be removed by writ of certiorari or 
otherwise, so that the jurisdiction of the local tribunal lost 
its certainty and whatever celerity and cheapness it may have 
possessed. 2 Finally, the establishment, under Local Acts, of 
Courts of Request or Courts of Conscience provided in most 
places alternative tribunals for the recovery of petty debts, 
which offered superior advantages in the way of prompt 
hearing, simple procedure, and low fees. 

its Court of Pleas, having jurisdiction in all pleas, real and personal, where 
the cause of action arose within the Borough ; its Court of Requests under Local 
Act ; and its Petty Court of the Bailiffs, at which minors over fourteen could 
execute valid conveyances of real estate. At Chester, too, the Corporation held 
three civil Courts : the Portmote Court, before the Mayor and Recorder ; the 
Pentice Court, before the Sheriff ; and the Passage Court, which was in the nature 
of an adjourned sessions of the Pentice Court. The Corporation of Bristol had 
its ancient "Mayor's Court," as well as the better-known " Tolzey Court" held 
by the Sheriffs, the two tribunals having at one time maintained an active rivalry, 
in which the Mayor's Court succumbed, and became entirely disused (infra, 
Chap. VIII.). Wakall. 

2 "The Courts of Westminster," as Counsel advised the Corporation of Deal 
in 1730. "keeping inferior jurisdictions very strict, especially if of new 



344 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

(p) The Court Leet 

In the great majority of Municipal Corporations of 
1689, the tribunal most in use (otherwise than for civil 
actions) was the ancient Court Leet. In about a dozen 
Boroughs the right to hold this Court had never been acquired 
by the Corporation, and the Court was either held by the 
Lord's Steward or by a Municipal officer on behalf and for 
the profit of the Lord of the Manor. In nearly all the 
Municipalities, however, the Corporation had acquired the 
right to hold its own Court Leet, in a few cases by specific 
grant from the King, embodied in a Charter. 1 But it is 
interesting to notice how much more rarely this grant of 
a Court of petty police appears in the Charters obtained by 
the Municipal Corporations, in spite of the fact that it was 
nominally the Court of the King, to be holden only by his 
authority, than the Court of Civil Jurisdiction which (as 
Court Baron) the lawyers regarded only as a private tribunal, 
incident to every Manor. In the vast majority of Municipal 
Corporations the jurisdiction of the Leet had not been 
differentiated into a distinct tribunal separately granted 
or assigned, and had remained a mere incident to the owner- 
ship of the Manor. When the Corporation acquired the 
Manor, or took it on lease from the Lord, 2 the Court Leet and 
View of Frankpledge continued to be held by the Steward, for 
the new Lord of the Manor as for the old one. 8 We need not 

creation" (MS. Records (Book of Counsel's Opinions, 1716-1776), Deal 
Corporation). 

1 At Beaumaris in Anglesey, for instance, we find the Charter giving 
"within the said Borough and the Liberties and precincts of the same, View of 
Frankpledge of all Burgesses, inhabitants and resiants twice by the year . . . 
and all that ever appertaineth to a View of Frankpledge together with summons, 
attachments, arrestments, issues, amerciaments, fines, ransoms, profits, com- 
modities and other things whatsoever that might and ought to appertain to us, 
our heirs and successors in any wise." So in the Charters of Bewdley, Bodmin, 
Boston, Carlisle, Evesham, King's Lynn, Kendal, Liskeard, "West Looe, Rich- 
mond (Yorks), St. Albans, Sutton Coldfield, Tainworth, Tenterden, Torrington, 
Truro, Worcester, etc. 

2 At Hertford, where the Corporation had been granted by Charter the right 
to hold certain Courts, the Earl of Salisbury received a subsequent grant of the 
Manor. He thereupon leased to the Corporation for twenty-one years, periodi- 
cally renewed, the Court of the View of Frankpledge, with certain bridge tolls 
(History of Hertfordshire, by N. Salmon, 1728, p. 38). 

3 One of the best instances of such a Municipal Court of the Manor was that 
of the Corporation of Nottingham, held by its Town Clerk as Steward. This 



THE COURT LEET 345 

repeat the description that we have already given of the Lord's 
Court. What is interesting is that, under the Municipal 
Corporations this Manorial tribunal often continued in the 
archaic form which we have termed the Undifferentiated Court, 
combining the exercise, in the name of the King, of minor 
criminal jurisdiction, with the making of Bylaws, the manage- 
ment of commons and wastes, the appointment of officers, and 
the admission of new tenants, freeholders or Burgesses. 
What distinguished the Undifferentiated Court of a Municipal 
Corporation from that of a rural Manor was the almost 
invariable abstraction of the petty debt business, for which, 
as we have mentioned, a separate Court had been set up by 
Charter. 

But although the Court Leet was, in 1689, a feature of 
almost every Municipal Corporation, and although this Court 
when held by and for the Corporation did not appreciably 
differ in constitution or procedure from that which we find 
in the rural Manor or the Manorial Borough, we notice at 
once an all-round shrinkage in its functions, reducing it, in 
nearly all Boroughs, to a minor part of the machinery of the 
Corporation. In the rural Manor we ' see the Court Leet 
appointing, or the Jury presenting for appointment, all the 
officers of the Manor. At Birmingham and Manchester 
we see the Jury even choosing the head or heads of the town, 
in the High and Low Bailiffs or the Boroughreeve and 

six-monthly "Court Leet and Court Baron of the Mayor and Burgesses . . . 
with respect to the Manor of Nottingham," under the name of the " Mickletorn 
Jury," perambulated the Borough, regulated the common lands, decided which 
rights of way should be abandoned and which obstacles should be removed, 
suppressed all sorts of nuisances, prevented encroachments, and imposed fines 
right and left on erring citizens, from the Mayor down to the humblest servant 
"not demeaning himself properly." The MS. presentments of this "Magnus 
Turnus," "Mickle Turn" or "Great Court Leet," extending intermittently 
from 1512 to 1857, are of great interest, and might well be published by the 
Corporation in full ; meanwhile the Calendar of the Archives of the Borough of 
NottingJiam, by Stuart A. Moore, 1876-1877, gives a good description of them. 
The Court Leet Records of Southampton are now being published under the 
editorship of Professor Hearnshaw. The Corporation of Oxford held two such 
Courts "the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge of the Four Aldermen, held for 
the four Wards of the said City," and " the Court Leet or View of Frankpledge 
and Court Baron " of the Corporation as Lord of the Hundred of Northgate. 
Both were tribunals of the usual Manorial type, appointing officers, presenting 
nuisances, amercing offenders, and lining absentee jurymen (MS. Records, Cor- 
poration of Oxford, Court Leet of the Four Aldermen, 1746-1839, and Court 
Leet of Northgate Hundred, 1746-1839). 



346 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Constables. In one or two archaic Municipal Corporations 
we see the whole constitution still revolving round the 
Court Leet, the Jury presenting the Mayor as well as all 
the petty officers, and admitting the new Burgesses. 1 By 
1689 this function of the Court Leet had, we suspect, in the 
majority of the Municipal Corporations, passed away, either 
entirely or except as regards the host of petty functionaries 
under titles such as Borsholders, Tithingmen, Thirdboroughs, 
Constables, Hay wards, Common-drivers or Ale -tasters. In 
most cases, the annual choice of Mayor or Bailiffs, and the 
appointment of all the important officers, had been transferred 
to the Burgesses or to the Close Body acting in their name. 
In other cases, this transfer took place in the course of the 
eighteenth century, whilst the appointment of the Constables 
was increasingly taken over by the Borough Quarter Sessions. 
But traces of the old function of the Court Leet survived in the 
formal presentment by the Jury of the persons otherwise 
chosen to fill the various offices ; or, still more frequently, 
in the ceremony of the Mayor, Bailiffs, Constables and other 
officers being formally sworn in at the " Law Day " in 
the Autumn. 2 

1 In the Corporation of Brading, Isle of Wight, for instance, all the officers, 
from the Senior and Junior Bailiffs who were the Heads of the Corporation down 
to the Hayward, were chosen at the Court Leet, by actual presentment of the 
Jury ; though we are told that, in 1833, the choice was really that of the 
retiring officers at a private meeting (First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 679-680).. So at Bossiney in Cornwall, where, 
except the Recorder, all the officers from the Mayor down to the Ale-taster were 
presented -by the " Grand Jury " at the annual Court Leet (ibid. vol. i. p. 453). 
So at Plymptou Earle in Devonshire, and Welshpool in Shropshire, the Head of 
the Municipal Corporation and a whole array of officers were appointed by the 
Court Leet. In the Corporation of Dorchester, down to 1756 at any rate, it was 
the Michaelmas "Court Leet and View of Frankpledge " that chose the Mayor 
as well as the Constables, Serjeants at Mace, Beadle, Assizers of Bread and Beer, 
Viewers of Flesh and Hides, Hayward and other officers (MS. Records, Corpora- 
tion of Dorchester, 1727-1756). By 1833 this choice of the Mayor had passed 
to a meeting of the Close Body, significantly held on the same date as that on 
which the Court Leet had met for this purpose (First Report of Municipal Cor- 
poration Commission, 1835, vol. ii. p. 1274). In the Corporation of Great 
Grimsby in Lincolnshire, where the Court Leet was held annually, the Jury 
continued, right down to 1835, to appoint six Auditors of the Chamberlains' 
accounts, two of them being Aldermen, two Common Councilmeu, and two 
simple Freemen ; but all of them, in practice, being members of the Leet Jury 
(ibid. vol. iv. p. 2251). 

2 Thus, in the ancient Corporation of Plympton Earle in Devonshire, the 
Mayor, immediately after his election, annually held the " Fulfill -Court " or 
"Customary Court," with a Jury of "suitors," or Freemen of the Borough. 



THE COURT LEET 347 

Another change that had usually taken place by 1689 
in the Court Leet of the Municipal Corporation, was the 
dwindling away of its functions of managing the common 
affairs of the inhabitants and of making By-laws for the good 
government of the Borough. This function had, in the course 
of the seventeenth century, been undertaken by the Adminis- 
trative Courts or Councils which we shall presently describe. 
In the records of one Municipal Corporation we see a period 
of alternative or concurrent action by the Court Leet and 
Common Council, leading to the final supersession of the 
former by the latter authority. "The practice," reports an 
investigator of these records in 1833, "from the year 1661, 
the date of the earliest book that I saw, down to 1728, 
seems not to have been uniform. In the earlier part of this 
period almost the whole affairs of the Corporation seem to 
have been transacted at the Court Leet. This Court is held 
before the Mayor. At a Court Leet, held the 21st October 
1661, Freemen were created; orders were made respecting 
dredging and fishing ; a Deputy Mayor and a Justice of the 
Peace were elected ; and victuallers were licensed. . . . These 
instances do not recur, but the election of Chamberlain by this 
Court took place many years later. Admissions to the Freedom, 
and regulations relating to the oyster and other fisheries, at 
the Court Leet . . . repeatedly occur down to the year 1728. 
During this period, however, the Mayor, Jurats, and Bailiffs 
were concurrently exercising the same functions. In some 
cases the order is stated to be made by the Court Leet on the 
presentment of the facts by the Jury." During these years, 
in fact, the management of the affairs of this Corporation was 
sometimes in the hands of the Court Leet, sometimes in those 
of the Mayor, Jurats, and Bailiffs, and sometimes, as in 1716 

This Jury formally presented the Mayor to be " Head and Chief Governor of the 
Borough," certain other Freemen to be Ale-tasters, Pig-drivers, and Scavengers. 
The Court, by its president the Mayor, appointed four Constables. Those free- 
holders who owed "suit and service" to the Court prosaically confined in 
practice to those whose chief-rents were in arrear were summoned to attend, 
the absentees being presented by the Jury, and amerced threepence each (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 600). So, too, 
Lincoln held annually its " View of Frankpledge with the great Court Leet and 
Court Baron of the Mayor, Sheriffs, Citizens, and Commonalty of the City of Lincoln, 
together with the Sheriff's Turn of the same City," at which the Mayor and 
Coroners were sworn, and Chief Constables, Searchers and Sealers of Leather, and 
other officers were appointed (MS. Records, Corporation of Lincoln, 1689, etc.). 



348 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

and 1717, in those of "the Court of Burghmote," at which all 
the Burgesses may have had the right to be present. Eventu- 
ally, the Close Body of the Mayor, Jurats, and Bailiffs got the 
whole business ; the Court of Burghmote was not summoned ; 
and though the Court Leet continued to be held, its proceed- 
ings gradually became only formal. 1 In a flourishing Midland 
city the Court Leet of the Corporation had been particularly 
active throughout the sixteenth and for the first half of the 
seventeenth century in making By-laws, passing resolutions for 
the guidance of the Corporate Magistrates, making regulations 
as- to carrying on trade and orders to be obeyed by the various 
Companies, and performing other acts of a legislative character, 
as well as participating in the administration of the market and 
the commons. We see all this activity beginning, under the 
Commonwealth, to dwindle, and rapidly sinking during the 
next half -century to merely sporadic interventions. After 
the Revolution the general orders and all other action of 
legislative character practically disappear, a few items at 
long intervals alone reminding us of the once incessant activity. 
After 1733 the orders altogether cease. 2 Sooner or later the 
same fate seems to have overtaken the Courts Leet of nearly 
all the other Municipal Corporations. Losing both the 
power of appointing officers and the power of making 
By-laws the two functions which gave an authoritative posi- 
tion to the Courts of Bamburgh, Alnwick, Manchester, and 
Ashton-under-Lyne the Court Leet of the Municipal Corpora- 
tion sank, for the most part, in the course of the eighteenth 
century, either into a mere half-yearly formality, or into a 

1 The case is that of Queenborough (Kent) ; see First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 829, 835. So in the Municipal Cor- 
poration of Huntingdon, where the enjoyment of the common pastures by the 
Burgesses constituted a privilege of some value, the ' ' regulations respecting the 
time of stocking the commons, and the number of cattle, etc. , to be put upon them, 
were made by the Leet Jury, and presented to the Mayor for his approval." 
After 1825, however, the Corporation ceased to hold the Court Leet, owing to 
the occurrence of disputes ; and the Common Council, a Close Body, appointed 
a committee of its members and a "Foreman of the Commons " for the entire 
management of the property (ibid. vol. iv. pp. 2288, 2289). 

2 Infra, Chap. VIII. ; MS. Records, Court Leet, Coventry, 1588-1733. The 
nuisances at the Court Leet, once punished by amercement at the same Court, 
were presently made the subjects of formal prosecution before the Borough 
Justices. Thus, at Southampton in 1704, it was "this day ordered that the 
Town Clerk do prosecute all nuisances presented by the Court Leet Jury " 
(MS. Records, Southampton Corporation, 8th October 1704). 



THE BOROUGH COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS 349 

tribunal of petty police for the suppression of the minor urban 
nuisances. 



(q) The Borough Court of Quarter Sessions 

When the statute of Edward the Sixth directed all 
indictments found at the Turn or Leet to be transferred for 
trial to the General Sessions of the Peace, it became an object 
with the Municipal Corporations to secure or maintain their 
immunity from the jurisdiction of the Justices of the Peace 
of the County ; and we find as a " usual clause in Queen 
Elizabeth's Charters . . . that which makes the Mayor and 
some of the Aldermen Justices of the Peace, and gives the 
Borough the power of holding Sessions of the Peace." 1 
Wherever the Municipal Corporation had obtained the 
privilege of holding this " Court of Quarter Sessions," we 
see the new tribunal gradually absorbing, in addition to the 
ordinary criminal jurisdiction over thefts and assaults, much 
of the peculiar business of the Court Leet, such as the 
appointment of Constables, the ordering of the Watch, the 
prohibition of taking " inmates " or lodgers, the suppression of 
unlicensed ale-houses and of " bawdy houses," and even the 
punishment of nuisance-mongers. It was largely in con- 
sequence of this rivalry that the Courts Leet held by the 
Municipal Corporations gradually lost, as we have seen, the 
last remnant of their criminal jurisdiction, or became re- 
stricted to petty police offences. 2 This supersession of the 
Manorial Courts of the Borough by the Borough Justices of 
the Peace resembled, in its gradual but constant progress, the 
corresponding supersession of the Manorial Courts of West- 

1 A Sketch of the History of Boroughs aiid of the Corporate Right of Election, 
etc., by H. A. Merewether, 1822, p. 22. We know of no study of Borough Courts 
of Quarter Sessions, for which the materials exist in the considerable but mis- 
cellaneous collections of Sessions Rolls or Papers and Books of Orders or Minutes 
among the MS. archives of the various Corporations. We have found those of 
Bristol, Coventry, Southampton, and Winchester the most useful. The printed 
Records of the County Borough of Cardiff, by J. H. Matthews, 1898, etc., 
include (vol. ii.) material of this kind. 

2 The Corporation of Saltash in Cornwall held a "Water Court" which 
recalls to us the "Water Leet" held in the Manorial Borough of Beccles for 
the cognisance of offences committed on the water within the Liberties of the 
Borough. Some time before 1833 it had become disused, its functions being 
discharged by the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 607)- 



350 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORA TION 

minster, the Tower Hamlets, and Southwark, by the County 
Justices of Middlesex and Surrey in the seventeenth century, 
and did not differ from that taking place towards the close of 
the eighteenth century throughout the rural districts. 1 What, 
however, is peculiar to the process in the Boroughs is the 
curious intermingling of the structures of the two Courts 
almost stimulating an evolutionary process that we see 
taking place. We are, in fact, inclined to think that if the 
proceedings of Courts Leet and General Sessions of the Peace 
in the various Municipal Corporations during the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries could be explored in detail, it 
would be discovered that there was no fixed line of demarca- 
tion, either in function or in structure, between the " View of 
Frankpledge and Court Leet" of the Borough, held by the 
Mayor or other Corporate officer on behalf of the Corporation 
as owner of the Manor, and the " General Sessions of the 
Peace" held under Charter by the Corporate Magistrates. 2 
The Head of the Corporation, whether Mayor or Bailiff, or a 
pair of Bailiffs, who frequently presided at all the Courts of 
the Borough, whatever they were called, and who was often 
accompanied on the Bench by his " brethren," the Aldermen, 
Jurats, or Capital Burgesses, 8 sometimes regarded himself as 
holding the Court of the Manor, sometimes the ancient 
Portmanmote or Court of the Borough, and yet did not 
resist the gradual description of his colleagues and himself as 
" their Worships," as if they were sitting as Magistrates, and 
was never indisposed to supplement his Manorial or Borough 
Court powers by those which he could exercise as a Justice 

1 See the preceding volume on the Parish and the County ; also Chap. IV. 
of the present volume, " The City and Borough of Westminster." 

2 At Cardiff, as already mentioned (p. 256), the actual identity of the two Courts 
was asserted in 1824 by the Town Clerk. "The Quarter Sessions," he said, 
"considering the matters presented by the Jury, will, I have no doubt, upon 
proper inquiry and accurate search, be found to be also the Court Leet ; and 
the ancient title of the Court will, I imagine, be found to have been 'Sessio 
Pacis et Curia Domini Regis ' " ; to which the modern archivist appends the 
note, "This surmise is undoubtedly correct" (Records of the County Borvugh 
of Cardiff, by J. H. Matthews, vol. ii., 1900, p. 130). 

3 At the Court of Quarter Sessions held by the little Corporation of Bideford 
in Devonshire, all the members of the Close Body, comprising eighteen Alder- 
men and Capital Burgesses, were summoned to attend, and usually sat on the 
Magistrates' Bench, though only the Mayor, Recorder, and one Alderman were 
Justices of the Peace (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. i. pp. 437, 438). 



THE BOROUGH COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS 351 

of the Peace. In one important Municipal Corporation, for 
instance, the ancient " Portmoot Court " of the Borough and 
the "Mayor's Court," which corresponded to that formerly 
held by the private Lord of the Manor, seem actually to have 
both become merged in the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions, 
which long preserved some remnant of the names of these 
two Courts as part of its own title. " The Quarter Sessions," 
said the Town Clerk in 1833, "are still sometimes called the 
Portmoot." Within his memory the Jury of this Borough 
Court of Quarter Sessions had appointed some of the lesser 
officers of the Borough, though this power had latterly been 
taken over by the Town Council. The " Borough Court/' 
" Mayor's Court," or " Court of Passage " gradually confined 
itself, under the last name, to civil suits. But in 1797, at 
any rate, it was, under the title of the " Mayor's Court," as 
we learn from a contemporary writer, enforcing local ordinances 
by criminal process, permitting "no infringements of the 
By-laws to pass with impunity ; neither wealth, distinction, 
nor power is any barrier to those amercements to which their 
irregularities may make them liable ; obstructions in the 
streets, wharves, and other improprieties by the most eminent 
man in the town, are on representation immediately punished 
by fine in common with the most ordinary porter or car- 
man." l This jurisdiction is presently found exercised by the 
Borough Justices in Petty and Quarter Sessions. It seems 
that the sessions of this old Municipal Court, whatever was 
its title, were held for civil suits, by the Mayor, Eecorder, and 
Bailiff immediately after those of the Mayor, Eecorder, and 
Aldermen as Justices of the Peace, trying only criminal cases. 
For both sessions the Bailiffs summoned the Juries of Freemen 
only, as in the old Portmoot. It is impossible to avoid the 
inference that, in this particular Corporation at least, the 
various jurisdictions had, in the course of the eighteenth 
century, been, half unconsciously, merged and redistributed. 
" I conclude," says the latest historian, " that Sessions and 
Court of Passage taken together are to be regarded as the 
continuation of the old Portmoot about which we have heard 
so much." 2 In several of the ancient Municipal Corporations 

1 General Description of the History, etc., of Liverpool, 1797, pp. 275-276. 

2 History of Municipal Government in Liverpool to 1835, by Ramsay Muir, 



352 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

forming part of the Liberty of the Cinque Ports, we see a 
similar transition from the early Hundred Court, held by 
the Head of the Corporation with " sectatores " or suitors, in 
the presence of all the Freemen, into the Borough Court of 
Quarter Sessions held by the Mayor and the Jurats, as 
magistrates, but with summons to all the Freemen to attend. 
In one after another of the Cinque Ports we may watch this 
silent transition leaving its mark on the records, the proceedings 
of what continued uninterruptedly one and the same tribunal 
gradually beginning to add to the title of Hundred Court the 
words " sive sessio pacis " ; then calling it " Hundred Sessions " ; 
and, finally, dropping altogether the earlier designation in 
favour of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace. 1 "We have 
traces of exactly the same transition from a Hundred Court 
into a Court of Quarter Sessions in other Boroughs. 2 In other 
Municipal Corporations we see a similar confusion, leading to 
an extraordinary intermingling of powers between the Borough 
Court Leet and the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions. In 
one Midland City, for instance, whilst the Court Leet at its 
spring and autumn meetings was passing orders mandatory 
on the City magistrates with regard to matters of petty 
police, the Grand Jury of the Borough Court of Quarter 
Sessions was " presenting " to these same dignitaries sitting as 
Justices of the Peace, not merely highways out of repair and 
nuisances annoying to the neighbours, but also such typically 
Manorial defaults as the damaging of the commons by cutting 
turf and removing gravel, and the failure of particular tenants 
of the Manor to scour their ditches or keep their causeways in 
repair. 8 In other Boroughs it is quite impossible to dis- 

1906, p. 143 ; Report of the Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry into the existing 
State of the Corporation of Liverpool, 1833, p. 57 ; First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2713. The history of the Liverpool 
Courts is obscure. The forthcoming volume of documents relating to The Court of 
Passage, which Professor Ramsay Muir is to edit, will probably clear up the matter. 

1 MS. Records, Pevensey Corporation, especially " Pevensey Hundred Court 
Book," 1699-1778, when the transition is well marked, both in the character 
of the business and in the terminology ; "Report on New Romney Records," by 
E. Salisbury, in Archceologia Cantiana, vol. xvii., 1887, pp. 27, 30 ; Collections 
for a History of Sandwich, by W. Boys, 1792, p. 784 ; History of Kent, by 
E. Hasted, vol. x., 1800, p. 163 ; History of Dover, by Rev. J. Lyon, vol. i. 
1813, pp. 227-228, 245 ; History of Eye, by W. Holloway, 1847, pp. 185, 187. 

2 Sec, for instance, the "Law Hundred Courts" of Colchester (History of 
Essex, by P. Morant, 1768, vol. i. p. 3, ?(.). 

3 See the MS. Presentments by Grand Jury ' ' at the General Sessions of the 



THE BOROUGH COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS 353 

tiuguish, either in form or in substance, the presentments of 
nuisances which the Grand Jury made to the Justices in 
Quarter Sessions from those which the Jury often called 
the Grand Jury of the Borough Court Leet were simul- 
taneously addressing to " their Worships," the Mayor and 
other Magistrates who held that ancient Manorial Court. 1 
Occasionally we see the transition from the Court Leet to 
Quarter Sessions arrested by the embodiment of an inter- 
mediate form in the written constitution a Corporation being 
specifically granted by Charter the right to hold a criminal 
Court under the name of " the View of Frankpledge and 
General Sessions of the Peace." 2 In such cases the Corpora- 
Peace," 1629-1742, and MS. Records of Court Leet 1588-1733, both among 
the records of the Corporation of Coventry. So in the Corporation of Newbury 
in Berkshire we see the Court Leet, in the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, passing orders to the Tithingmen to search their tithings for "strangers," 
and enacting prohibitions of the reception of ' ' stranger inmates without security 
to the Chui'chwardens and Overseers," under penalty of five shillings for each 
offence. In 1677 four persons were fined five shillings each for this new crime. 
In the very same year the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions enacts a similar 
ordinance, but with the penalty increased to 20s. The same concurrent exercise, 
both of legislative and judicial functions, by the Court Leet and the Court of 
Quarter Sessions occurred with regard to paving (MS. Records, Corporation of 
Newbury, 1660-1700; also History of Newbury, by W. Money, 1887, pp. 292- 
295). 

1 See, for instance, the MS. Sessions Rolls and Papers, 1592-1833, in 
records of Corporation of Southampton. The following are typical presentments 
of the Grand Jury at the Quarter Sessions : ' ' We present the Cowherd for not 
performing his duty in riding the Common twice a day and not keeping a dog 
to drive out the cattle of foreigners. We present the Brickburner for not 
keeping his fences in repair. . . . We present [that] the pavement and the 
nastiuess which is at New Corner are a great and common nuisance to the whole 
town and neighbourhood" (MS. Sessions Rolls, Southampton, July 1704). 

2 Charter to New Woodstock in 1665 ; see MS. Records, Corporation of 
Woodstock, 1665-1746. We owe this reference, and much other information, 
to Mr. Adolphus Ballard, Town Clerk of Woodstock. It is not easy to classify 
the Woodstock Court precisely. It was known locally, not as Quarter Sessions, 
but as the Court Leet ; it appointed the Constables and the Tithingmen, the 
Ale-tasters and the Clerk of the Market ; and the Jury made elaborate present- 
ments of the Court Leet type, naming not only the offence committed, but also 
the penalty incurred, and sometimes making this dependent on the nuisance 
not being abated within a specified date. To take only one year, those for 
October 1673 included the following : "We present ... for not cleansing his 
brook ... to cleanse the same under pain of five shillings. We present . . . 
for his muckhill before his door, etc. . . . We present Widow ... for enter- 
taining her daughter for the space of one month contrary to the statute. . . . 
We present ... for not coming to church the last Sunday one shilling. . . . 
We present ... for a disturber of the peace one shilling. . . . We present 
. . . for keeping an unlawful meeting in his house under pretence of religious 
worship " (MS. Records, Corporation of Woodstock). On the other hand, it was 
held not by the Steward of the Manor, nor by any officer on behalf of the 

VOL. II. PT. I. 2 A 



354 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

tion often continued to hold a criminal Court of a mixed 
nature, partly Court Leet, partly Sessions of the Peace, down 
to about the middle of the eighteenth century, after which the 
Court Leet features gradually drop out. Tn other Boroughs 
the transformation and merging of the Borough Court or 
Court Leet into the Court of Quarter Sessions seems to have 
taken place by the transitional form of adjournments, the 
October or November Sessions of the Peace being that at 
which the ancient business of the Court Leet was performed, 
and being therefore long distinguished from the adjourned 
Sessions on other dates by the title of " Law Day." 1 Finally, 

owner of the Manor, but by the Mayor, Deputy Recorder, and two Aldermen, 
sitting as Justices of the Peace ; it was held at frequent intervals during the 
year, and it tried offenders upon indictments, though only for misdemeanours. 
Thus, in 1729, men were "indicted " before it for following the trade of a tailor 
in the Borough without being free ; and fined in small sums. In 1737 a man 
was indicted for assault. In graver cases, it directed an indictment to be 
prepared, and committed prisoners to the County Gaol for trial at the County 
Quarter Sessions or the Assizes. But it could itself sentence not only to a 
money penalty, but also to imprisonment, the stocks, whipping, or a ducking ; 
and much of its work took the form of mandatory general orders by the Court 
without any presentment by the Jury. Yet with the legal title and some of 
the attributes of a Court of Quarter Sessions, its jurisdiction was limited to 
misdemeanours, and in practice to little more than an enforcement of the 
Borough By-laws and Leet presentments, all grave crime being dealt with by 
the County Justices. We may cite here also the Corporation of Stratford-on- 
Avon, where the Borough Justices had a so-called "Court of Quarter Sessions," 
which, in 1833 at any rate, was held only once a year, and then only for Court 
Leet purposes. A Jury was sworn to make presentments upon which judicial 
action was taken, and though the officers of the Borough were appointed by the 
Close Body, they were sworn in at this annual Court (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 120). So, too, at Chipping Norton 
in Oxfordshire, where the criminal jurisdiction of the Borough Justices ts a 
Court of Quarter Sessions was in 1833 not exercised, the Court which we have 
already mentioned came latterly to be held formally four times a year three 
times without business, but in October conjointly with the active and all- 
embracing "Court Leet and Court Baron and View of Frankpledge," held by 
the Corporation, as Lord of the Manor, that we have already described. 
Throughout the eighteenth century the two Courts were apparently thus 
virtually merged, and right down to 1846 the jurymen were always "charged" 
as being, simultaneously, (i.) the "Grand Jury" for "the General Quarter 
Sessions of the Peace for this Borough, which is lodged in the Bailiffs as Justices 
of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer by special grant by Charter" ; (ii.) the Jury of 
the Court Leet ; and (iii.) the Homage at the Court Baron (see the charge in 
Notes on the History of Chipping Norton, by A. Ballard, 1893, Appendix B). 

1 Thus, at Winchester, the ancient "Boroughmote Court" or "Lawday" 
had its jurisdiction enlarged by an Elizabethan Charter, and passed insensibly into 
the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions. We see the Mayor, Aldermen, and 
Recorder assuming exclusive jurisdiction over all criminal oftenc.es (except 
murder and treason) committed within the City ; sitting with the usual para- 
phernalia of Grand Jury and Traverse Juries ; and sentencing prisoners to be 



THE BOROUGH COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS 355 

we may note a trace of the same evolution in the character 
and titles of the Juries that were summoned to the Court. 
The Jury of the Court Leet not infrequently appeared as two 
Juries, which were actually called in some cases the Grand 
Jury or Grand Inquest, which made presentments, and the 
" Party Jury " or " Petty Jury," which tried actions ; and 
these seem insensibly to have passed into the Grand and 
Petty Juries of the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions. 1 

whipped, imprisoned, and transported. Yet, during the earlier years, we see 
this same tribunal then still usually termed the Boroughmote Court or 
"Lawday" (e.g. 22nd May 1691, in MS. Proposal Books) at its September 
and December sessions in each year doing a considerable amount of non-criminal 
business which had evidently continued on from the earlier Court, such as 
receiving the report of the Mayor and his brethren upon the Municipal accounts ; 
ordering the levy of a Scavenger's Rate and appointing two persons to collect it ; 
making all the usual presentments of a Court Leet ; declaring the ancient 
customs of the City ; and accepting fines in lieu of service as Constable (MS. 
Proposal Book and Minutes of Quarter Sessions, in records of Corporation of 
Winchester). We may trace the similar merging of the Court Leet in the little 
Corporation of Totnes. When, in 1596, the Mayor, Recorder, and ex-Mayor 
were made Justices of the Pjeace, they exercised in their quarterly sessions the 
usual jurisdiction of Quarter Sessions, with Juries summoned by the Town 
Clerk and Serjeants at Mace, though, in 1833, remitting grave cases to the 
Assizes. But these same Justices held also two "adjourned sessions" in 
November of each year. At the first of these, which was also called a Court 
Leet, similar Juries, also summoned by the Town Clerk and Serjeants at Mace, 
made a formal presentment of the Mayor, who had really been chosen by the 
Close Body of "the Masters and Counsellors" of the Borough ; and they also 
presented persons for appointment by the Mayor and other magistrates, as 
Constables, Serjeants at Mace, Clerk of the Market, and Wardens of certain 
wells, conduits, etc. At the second "adjourned sessions" of the Justices, also 
called a Court Leet, all these officers were formally sworn in (First Report of 
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 642). 

1 In the transitional stage we see the same persons made use of as the Juries 
of both Courts. At Andover in Hampshire, where the Court Leet, being held 
separately for the " In-Hundred " and "Out-Hundred" respectively, retained 
some little differentiation from the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions, " the Grand 
Jury of the In-Hundred is detained to act as the Grand Jury of the Court of 
Quarter Sessions" (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, 
vol. ii. p. 1086). The MS. Records of the Corporation of Dorchester, in 
like manner, give the names of the men, chosen from the three parishes of the 
Borough, who served as " the Court Leet Jury, held Monday, 30th September 
1776," with the following note : " The above to be the Grand Jury for the same 
Leet, and the General or Quarter Sessions to be held at the Assize or Shire 
Hall," on the subsequent Monday (MS. Bundle, 30th September 1776, records 
of Corporation of Dorchester). At Portsmouth, Southwold, and Newport (Isle 
of Wight) the case was reversed, the Petty Jury of the Quarter Sessions being 
utilised as the Jury of the Court Leet (First Report of Municipal Corporation 
Commission, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 781, 782, 812 ; vol. iv. p. 2518). At Faversham, 
when the Court Leet was held simultaneously with the Court of Quarter Sessions, 
one Jury served both as Grand Jury of the Sessions and Jury of the Leet ; in the 
latter capacity making presentments of nuisances, upon which the Justices took 
action ; and losing even this last Manorial function on the establishment of a 



3$6 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

Other combinations of Leet structure with that of Quarter 
Sessions are to be traced in other Municipal Corporations. 
There may be found a Jury selected by the Town Clerk from 
those inhabitants who did not use weights and measures for 
purposes of trade, annually sworn and charged, not at a Court 
Leet, but by the Borough Justices of the Peace at a sessions 
specially held for the purpose. Such a Jury would perambulate 
the Borough, testing all weights and measures, and seizing 
those found defective. The offenders would then formally be 
" presented " by this Jury to the Borough Justices, who then 
and there convicted them of the misdemeanour, and sentenced 
them to money fines. 1 

The Borough Quarter Sessions, however it. may have 
come into existence, differed in various respects from the 
corresponding General Sessions of the Peace of the Justices 
of the County, which we have elsewhere so fully described. 
We note at once the contrast in the membership of the 
Court. In the County, as we have seen, the Justices of the 
Peace, all of whom were summoned to, and were at least 
potential attenders at, Quarter Sessions, numbered from several 
scores up to several hundreds of country gentlemen and 
beneficed clergymen scattered all over the County. In the 
Municipal Corporation there were, as a rule, only half a dozen 
Justices of the Peace, all of whom held specific offices in the 
Borough the Mayor, the Eecorder or High Steward, the 
ex-Mayor or "Justice," occasionally the Common Clerk or 
Town Clerk, or the Coroner, and sometimes one or more of 
the Aldermen, Jurats, or Capital Burgesses. The Bench at 
the Borough Court of Quarter Sessions came thus to be 
usually occupied by the same three or four persons, and the 
fact that among them was, in the more important Boroughs, 
the salaried Recorder nearly always a trained professional 
lawyer necessarily made this tribunal much more like a 
modern Court of Justice than the amateur, shifting Bench at 
the Quarter Sessions of the County. The invariable participa- 
tion of the Eecorder, or his Deputy, when felonies were tried, 

statutory body of Street Commissioners in 1789 (ibid. vol. ii. pp. 970-971). At 
Bodmin " the Courts of Sessions of the Peace are held ... at the same time 
as the Court Leet. . . . The Grand Jury of the Court Leet act also as Grand 
Jury of the Sessions" (ibid. vol. i. p. 445). 
1 Hereford (ibid. vol. i. p. 260). 



THE BOROUGH COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS 357 

and the fact that he virtually laid down the law and prescribed 
the limits of the sentence, made the attainments and character 
of the Justices of comparatively little importance, so far as 
the graver criminal business was concerned. 

But the Borough Justices did not confine their General 
Sessions of the Peace to the well-known quarterly meetings. 
We find them, in town after town, sitting monthly, or even 
weekly, in adjourned " sessions," which had, in strict law, all 
the immense powers of Quarter Sessions. We have described 
how the County Justices in 1689 drew no sharp line of 
demarcation between the cases dealt with by the " Double 
Justice " in Petty Sessions, and those which they would hear 
at the Quarterly General Sessions of the Peace, at which any 
two magistrates made a quorum. In various Municipal 
Corporations we see a similar confusion between Quarter and 
Petty Sessions, carried to a greater height and continuing 
for a longer period. At the " adjourned Sessions " held every 
month, every fortnight, or every week sometimes in the 
Mayor's Parlour, sometimes at the " Tolzey " or Borough Court 
House we find the Constables, occasionally " the Constables' 
Jury," l whatever this was, or even what was called a 
" Grand Jury " or a " Grand Inquest," 2 making " presentments " 
of nuisances of every kind, such as insanitary practices, selling 
ale without a licence, " harbouring inmates," permitting 
mastiff dogs to go unmuzzled, allowing chimneys to be in a 
dangerous state, being a popish recusant, carrying on trade 
without being free of the city, having cows feeding on the 
common not being " neached " ; and every species of neglect 
of duty by Beadles, Constables, Surveyors, and even the 
Bailiffs, Sheriffs, and the Mayor himself. We have been quite 
unable to distinguish which of these presentments, all made 
to the General Sessions of the Peace, were of what we may 
term the Court Leet character, the Quarter Sessions character, 
and the Petty Sessions character respectively. In many 
cases the offences presented were, as we have already pointed 
out, of distinctly Manorial type, and we think we see traces 
of the Jury itself naming the customary fine. 3 In other cases, 

1 At Coveiitry ; see our preceding volume, Tlie Parish and the County, pp. 
464-465. 2 At Bristol and Winchester. 

3 See, for instance, MS. Session Rolls, Corporation of Southampton, 1682 
(presentment of persons failing to repair pavements). 



358 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

the offences thus laid before the Court were evidently 
summarily disposed of by the infliction of a small money 
penalty, or a whipping. In others, again, especially some of 
those declared to be made by the Grand Jury, it may well 
be that indictments had to be framed, an opportunity for 
traverse given, true bills found, and Traverse Juries 
summoned. At the same meetings we find these Justices 
doing what was distinctly the work of the Single or Double 
Justice, such a's ordering payments in relief of the poor, 
swearing-in Constables, hearing cases of recalcitrant apprentices 
and sentencing them to be whipped. We do not feel sure 
that at these intermediate Sessions which the Eecorder did 
not attend there were "true bills" found or felonies tried. 
But the Justices would hear Poor Rate appeals, order (in 
Boroughs which were Counties Corporate) payments out of 
the " county stock " for the conveyance of vagrants ; pass orders 
relating to the administration of the prisons; approve the 
rules of friendly societies ; grant debtors their discharge under 
the Insolvent Debtors Acts ; direct payments for the convey- 
ance of " His Majesty's baggage," and perform various other 
functions of the Court of Quarter Sessions on its civil side. 
These Borough Justices, in fact, seem to have made even more 
orders of a legislative character than those of the County. 
In every respect they combined the functions of the Court of 
Quarter Sessions, not only, as we have seen, with many of 
those of the Court Leet or Borough Court, but also with those 
elsewhere exercised by the Single or the Double Justice 
technically " out of Sessions." 

(r) Courts of Specialised Jurisdiction 

Besides the Courts of Civil Jurisdiction and the Court 
Leet or Borough Court of Quarter Sessions, many Municipal 
Corporations had other Courts having particular reference to 
one or other of the special jurisdictions that we have described : 
a Court of Pie Powder or a Court of the Clerk of the 
Market, for dealing summarily with all cases among the 
frequenters of the Market or Fair ; a Court of Orphans, for 
administering the estates of minors; 1 a Court of Conservancy, 

1 The principal Court of Orphans was that of the City of London. But the 
Southampton Corporation had also, by Charter of 1610, the right "to hold a 



COURTS OF SPECIALISED JURISDICTION 359 

for enforcing customs and obligations relating to the river ; a 
Court of Admiralty, for adjusting all matters connected with 
the harbour, the shipping, the fishing, and the adjoining shores 
of the sea. 1 It is significant that all these archaic Courts, 
held by the Head of the Corporation or on his behalf, were 
or had been of mixed character, dealing indifferently with 
civil actions brought by one person against another ; criminal 
offences against the law or the local By-laws, 2 presented by 
officers or Juries ; the enactment of new By-laws, or the issue 
of orders to officers ; the perambulation of boundaries, and the 
maintenance of such things as sea-marks, sluices, embankments, 

Court of Orphans . . . with authority over their persons and goods," which 
was not disused until the middle of the eighteenth century {History of South- 
ampton, by J. S. Davies, 1883, p. 239 ; 'see Bwough Customs, by M. Bateson, 
1904-6). 

1 There were Courts of Admiralty at Boston (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. iv. p. 2155) ; Bristol (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 1177) ; Carmarthen (ibid. vol. i. p. 212) ; the Liberty of the Cinque Ports 
(ibid. vol. ii. p. 927) ; Dunwich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2223) ; Haverfordwest (ibid. 
vol. i. p. 239) ; Harwich (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2267) ; Ipswich (ibid. vol. iv. 
p. 2317) ; Kingston-on-Hull (ibid. vol. iii. p. 1549) ; Lynn (ibid. vol. iv. 
p. 2403) ; Maldon (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2447) ; Newport, Isle of Wight (ibid. vol. ii. 
p. 783); Poole (ibid. vol. ii. p. 1323); Rochester (ibid. vol. ii. p. 857); 
Southampton (ibid. vol. ii. p. 884) ; Southwold (ibid. vol. iv. p. 2518). The 
Court was held by the Mayor as " Admiral of the Port," sometimes assisted by 
other officers, such as the Ex-Mayor, the Recorder, and the Town Clerk, and 
occasionally (as at Rochester) also by Freemen nominated by the Mayor to sit 
with him as Judges of the Court. That for the Liberty of the Cinque Ports 
was held in the name of the Lord Warden by a Judge appointed by him. There 
was either one Jury for all purposes ; or (as at Boston) two for the two several 
divisions of the port ; or (as at Ipswicli) a series of Juries for the various sessions 
of the Court, whether for perambulations, the trial of causes, or the presentment of 
offenders ; usually chosen from among those Freemen of the Borough who were con- 
nected with the sea : at Maldon, always fishermen ; at Rochester, oyster dredgers ; 
at Poole, old shipmasters and pilots. The jurisdiction often extended far beyond 
the limits of the Borough : at Boston, for instance, it comprised not only the 
Borough and its port, but also the parts of the Wash known as "the Deeps," 
and all the streams and watercourses of " the washes" in and near the " Parts 
of Holland," or that portion of Lincolnshire named in the Charter. It was the 
claim of the Court of Admiralty of the Corporation of Dunwich to exercise 
jurisdiction over the Port of Southwold that led to the incorporation of the 
latter Borough, and the grant to it of its own Court of Admiralty. See on the 
whole subject of Admiralty jurisdiction, Select Picas in the Court of Admiralty, 
by R. G. Marsden (Selden Society, 2 vols., 1894-1897), and BurreWs Reports of 
Cases determined by the Court of Admiralty, by the same, 1885. 

2 The powers of the Court of Admiralty of the Corporation of Bristol 
extended to all "thefts, frays, piracies, etc., upon the sea, or else river, creek, 
or haven within the compass and circuit of the jurisdiction . . . and of obstruc- 
tions on the river ... of fraud of the King's custom, . . . false weights and 
measures, wreck, royal fish, etc. ; and also of the number of ships within the 
haven and jurisdiction, and the owners of them " (First Report of Municipal 
Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 1177-1178) 



360 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 






etc. ; and even, in ancient times, the management of property. 
But the administrative and legislative functions of these 
Courts had, by 1689, already passed almost entirely to the 
Governing Council or other organ of the Corporation, or were 
during the eighteenth century transferred to some statutory 
body for the management of the river, harbour, or market ; 
leaving to the ancient Courts usually little more than a petty 
police jurisdiction. As parts of the Constitution of the 
Municipal Corporation they had, by 1835, become almost 
nominal. 1 

(s) The Administrative Courts of the Municipal Corporation 

So far we have dealt with a series of Courts that were, in 
the main, judicial tribunals, largely if not entirely occupied 
with the settlement of disputes between individuals, the 
determination of the obligations of the various inhabitants 
towards the King, the Lord of the Manor, and the rest of the 
community, and, above all, with the keeping of the King's 
Peace within their jurisdictions. We pass now to the Courts 
that are in the present day usually termed Councils or 
Assemblies, which had been evolved for the specific purpose of 
administering the common affairs of the community. These 
Administrative Courts, like so much else of the constitutional 
structure of the Municipal Corporations, were not peculiar to 

1 At Ipswich the two Bailiffs, as jointly "Admirals of the Port," appointed 
a Steward of the Court in 1811, for the express purpose of formulating the 
presentments to be made by the Jury. At Harwich, right down to 1791, the 
Court received a report from the Water Bailiff, and made the " Assize of Fish." 
At Rochester, where the oyster fishing belonged to the Corporation, and was a 
profitable enterprise of some magnitude, its regulation and management was 
entirely in the hands of the local Court of Admiralty. The Jury of "free 
dredgers," annually selected by the Mayor, formally presented the rules for the 
government of the dredgers, which were confirmed and promulgated by the 
Mayor in the name of the Court. The Jury presented also every year a person 
to act as Chamberlain or Treasurer of the fishery. This Court of Admiralty 
acted also as a Court of Conservancy for the River Medway, the Mayor presid- 
ing at Courts held when required, at which Juries selected from those "free 
dredgers," who were Freemen of the Borough, made regulations and presented 
offenders in all matters relating to the "floating fish within the liberties." 
Sometimes, where no Court had been held for many years, the Mayor continued 
to act as arbitrator. In the little Corporation of Newport, Isle of Wight, 
"parties complain to the Mayor respecting matters. belonging to this part of 
his jurisdiction ; he determines them orally, and the parties submit " (First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. ii. p. 783). 



ADMINISTRATIVE COURTS 361 

them. It is true that iii the Manor and the Hundred all the 
administrative decisions were made at the same Un differentiated 
Court, which did the civil and criminal business, by the same 
Juries and officers, under the more or less authoritative control 
of the Lord's Steward. But already in some of these Lord's 
Courts we catch glimpses of occasional meetings of another 
body sometimes, as we have mentioned, of " the Freeholders " 1 ; 
sometimes of " twelve discreet and able persons " 2 acting 
between the six-monthly sessions of the Court; helping the 
Steward and the Bailiff to frame the regulations, or carrying 
out the presentments of the Jury as to the management of 
the commonfields, the stinting of the pasture, and the 
assessment of rates for the repair of the well or the mending 
of the roads. In the lower members of our series of Manorial 
Boroughs, some of them scarcely to be distinguished from the 
Lord's Court, we see the occasional meetings of the Free- 
holders replaced by a standing body a " Fellowship," a 
"Society," a "Company," 3 a "Twelve," a "Thirteen," a 
" Sixteen," or most commonly a " Four-and-Twenty," closely 
connected with the Jury of the Lord's Court. We need not 
speculate as to the origin of such a body. In one case, at 
least, we may see it actually arising from a presentment of 
the Jury of the Court : " that it was necessary that a Council 
of Twelve, being Aldermen and sufficient Burgesses of the 
said Town, should be added to the Mayor for the time being, 
to advise him for the good of the Corporation," 4 In one 
archaic Municipal Corporation, as we have already mentioned, 
we have a meeting of all the Freeholders or Burgesses resolving 
that twenty-four of their number should henceforth "be 
instead of the whole commonalty, and no other of the 
commonalty to intermeddle under pain of five pounds," 5 
exactly as in the analogous instance of the Select Vestry of 

1 As at Bamburgh (supra, p. 94). 

2 At East Stonehouse, which never developed beyond being a mere Manor, 
we hear of the regulations of the Lord being made ' ' with the consent and frank 
agreement of twelve discreet and able persons of and within the said town and 
liberties" (see Deed of 1594, quoted in History of Devonshire, by R. N. Worth, 
1895, p. 228). 

3 As at Braintree (supra, p. 172); Lewes (supra, pp. 171-172); Brighton 
(supra, p. 173 .). 

4 Presentment of the Jury at the Court Leet of Cardigan, 1653 ; in First 
Report of Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835, vol. i. p. 197. 

6 MS. Records, Corporation of Roinncy Marsh, 1604. 



362 THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION 

the Parish we have cases in which the Close Body was 
created by resolution of the inhabitants in Vestry assembled. 1 
On the other hand, we have traces of the Council having 
originated from above, not from below. The Head of the 
Corporation may have a group of persons to assist him in his 
work, and these " Mayor's Peers " or " Mayor's Brethren " 
form his first standing Council In Corporation after 
Corporation we see this little group calling to their aid 
selected Members of the Commonalty, as the " Mayor's 
Counsellors," the Common Councilinen becoming thus an 
adjunct to the Aldermen. 2 As we proceed along the ascending 
series we see this standing body, whether formed from above 
or from below, gradually shaking itself free from the Lord's 
Court, 3 acquiring funds of its own, possibly even the right 
to hold a separate Court, and presently becoming, instead of 
the creature of the Lord's Court, the master of that tribunal 
and of the officers there appointed. We suggest that the 
popular idea that the Municipal Corporation arose out of the 
Gild may be so far justified that in many cases it was the 
Gild, with its common stock, and even its Corporate trading 
ventures, that was the origin, if not of the Common Council 
itself, of some of the characteristic features of the Common 
Council as we see it in 1689; such as the abandonment of 
judicial forms and processes, the exclusion of the public, the 

1 The Parish and the County, pp. 184-188. 

-' At Folkestone, where the administration had been shared between the 
Mayor and Jurats and the General Assembly of Freemen, we see the former, in 
1582, electing and choosing, "by the consent of the whole Commons, twenty- 
five Commoners, in the name of the whole Commonalty, to be a Town Council, 
to make and agree unto all such necessary laws as shall be thought good by the 
Mayor and Jurats" (Account of Folkestone, by S. J. Mackie, 1883, pp. 314-315). 
The same thing happened at Rye in 1574 (History