192 FIRMA BURGI AND ELECTED REEVES
probability elsewhere. The erratic appearance of the clause
ceases to be a difficulty if the circumstances, in which these
charters were granted, are understood. Charters varied widely
in the number of liberties they included. It was not every
borough that could afford to pay sums up to 2OO or 300 marks
for a full enumeration of their franchises, and it is perhaps
significant that under Richard and John the charters which
grant fee farm, but not election of reeves, are comparatively
short, containing, with two exceptions, not more than six
clauses and in four cases only the fee farm grant itself,1 while
those which include election comprise from thirteen to twenty
clauses. In view of the close connexion between the two
privileges shown by the Dublin and Nottingham grants, may
we not feel pretty sure that where money was scarce the
burgesses were content to rest the right of election upon the
grant of fee farm ?
The general extension of election of reeves under the
fee farm system sufficiently explains the still larger proportion
of grants of the farm without the election clause in the charters
of Henry III and Edward I. Here again, in the election clause
of one charter, that of Bridport (1253), as in that of
Nottingham earlier, the first duty of the bailiffs is emphati-
cally stated to be to account for the farm at the exchequer.2
Indeed, it is hard to see how the burgesses could have been
in any real sense responsible to the Crown for it, unless they
chose the officers who represented them there. In case of
default these, as their agents, were first held responsible,
but failing them, the burgesses were individually liable for
their share of all arrears.
This intimate relation between farming by the burgesses
and election of their reeves or bailiffs seems further confirmed
by events at Liverpool out of which arose the complaint of
the burgesses in 1292 mentioned below in another connexion.
In answer to a writ of Quo Warranto addressed to “ the
bailiffs and community of Liverpool,” they explained that at
present they had no bailiff of their own (de se), EarI Edmund
of Lancaster, their lord since 1266, having put in bailiffs of
his own appointment and prevented them from having a
free borough.3 His action had a further effect which they do
not mention as it was not immediately relevant. With the
1 Worcester, Southampton, Oxford, York.
, B.B.C. ii. 353. 8 See below, p. 196, n. 2.
FIRMA BURGI AND ELECTED REEVES 193
appointment of bailiffs by the earl, the succession of terminable
leases of the farm which they had had since 1229 came to an
end and the whole revenue was collected for the earl’s use,
more than doubling the amount he would have received, had
he renewed the farming lease.1
1Ramsay Muir, Hist, of Liverpool, p. 27. He is mistaken, of course,
in calling the lease a fee farm.