ι8o
FIRMA BURGI AND COMMUNE
coincident with the withdrawal of the same privilege from
those of Lincoln, who, with one short interval, had probably
enjoyed it since the later years of Henry Γs reign. The city
was handed over to a royal official, Hugh Bardolf, for the rest
of the year and the first half of the next, after which it was
farmed by the sheriff. There are indications that this was
a punishment for some action of the citizens. The keepers of
escheats in Lincolnshire account in this year for a small sum
“ de terra ciυium Lincol' de misericordia sua dum fuit in manu
Regis." 1 This is perhaps to be connected with the amerce-
ment of some ninety-five men of Lincoln, in sums ranging from
half a mark to forty marks, for an assault on the Jews, which
appears on the rolls of 1191 and 1192.2
Longchamp’s rivalry with Bishop Hugh of Durham and
(in 1191) with the king’s brother John would be likely to make
him conciliate the city of London, and there seems evidence
that he did. At Michaelmas 1189 Richard had transferred
the city from the sheriff to three keepers.8 Mr. Page suggests
that this was done with the object of extracting more money
from the city, and finds confirmation in the sub-farming of
the tron and the customs of the markets, etc., and in the ex-
action of very large sums from the Jews.4 But to suppose
that Richard and Longchamp expected to get more than the
amount of the farm, £520 l‰. blanch, from the keepers is to
believe them guilty of an incredible miscalculation. The sums
wrung from the Jews must be left out of account. They were
no concern of the keepers. The sum they actually accounted
for, after the fees of clerks and serjeants were paid, was just
short of £272 blanch, and of this nearly £45 due from the sub-
farmers was not paid until Michaelmas 1191. It is true that
a debt of nearly £200 on the farm of 1188-89 was carried
forward to the next account, but it was not a bad debt and
the actual revenue drawn from London within the financial
year 1188-89 was more than £100 greater than that of 1189-90.
Moreover, the sources from which it was derived were as to
a considerable part fixed and the rest could be estimated within
not very wide limits. Nor can the Crown officials have been
unaware of the even lower receipts obtained from the keepers
1 P.R. 2 Ric. I, p. 7. The citizens recovered the farm at Easter n94
(ibid. 6 Ric. I, p. 103).
* Ibid. 3-4 Ric. I, pp. 15, 242. For some leading citizens among the
ofienders, see The Earliest Lincolnshire Assize Rolls 1202-09 (Line. Rec.
Soc. 22), p. 261.
• Ibid. 2 Ric. I, p. 156. 4 Page, London, p. ιo6.
FEE FARMS AND LONDON COMMUNE 181
of fifteen years before.1 It is likely, indeed, that the motive
for the institution of keepers was now as then the opposite
of that suggested by Mr. Page, a desire to give temporary
relief from an oppressive farm and to conciliate the powerful
city interests. The two sheriffs of 1188-89 had been left with
a debt of nearly £200 apiece, and only one of them had been
able to pay it off at once.2 It is not impossible, indeed, that
the appointment of keepers had been deliberately intended to
pave the way for the much more notable concession which
was made at Michaelmas 1190, when the farm of the city was
restored to the citizens at the traditional rate of £300 fixed
in the charter of Henry I, and with it of course the right to
elect their own sheriffs.8 It may be that keepers had been
set up for twelve months to make sure that the actual receipts
from the various sources of Crown revenue in London did not
exceed £300, and that the concession could be made without
actual loss. If so, Longchamp would be deprived of the sole
credit for this most important step, which otherwise must be
his, though only as an astute move in the contest with his
powerful enemies.
Thus after the lapse of nearly sixty years, the financial
privilege which Henry I had given and his nephew and grandson
had taken away was restored to the Londoners, but there is
no evidence that as yet it was given back in perpetuity.
That would require the assent of the king, and there is nothing
to show that it had been obtained.
By a slip very rare with so accurate a scholar, Dr. Round
has associated this reduction of the farm with Count John’s
grant of the commune on 8th October, 1191. Finding the
citizens accounting for the farm of £300 at the Michaelmas
audit in that year, he jumped to the conclusion that the
two concessions were made simultaneously, forgetting that
the account being rendered for the preceding twelve months,
there must have been that interval between them.4 The
audit was over more than a week before John reached London.
1 See above, p. 167. , P.R. ɪ Ric. I, p. 225.
, Ibid. 2 Ric. I, p. 135: "Cives Lond' Willelmus de Hauerhell et
Johannes Bucuinte pro eis reddunt compotum de ccc li. Ы. hoc anno.”
4 Commune of London, pp. 233-5. He speaks of John’s charter of 1199,
after he became king, as confirming " the reduction (of the farm) which
they had won at the crisis of 1191.” In Ancient Charters, pp. 99-100,
he postdates a document by a year, but this was due to forgetfulness that
under Richard I the Michaelmas audit fell at the beginning of the regnal
year, not at its end.