198
LIBER BURGUS
England as a model for his own.1 He chose Oxford, and his
charter is a grant that Lynn should be a free borough with
the liberties of Oxford.2 As authorized by the king’s charter,
he reserved his own rights in the vill of Lynn. The final
step was a second charter from John, in which he repeated,
to the burgesses and their heirs this time, the grant of a free
borough and appended a number of specific franchises, some
of which (including a merchant gild), but not all, are found in
Henry H's charter to Oxford. As Oxford enjoyed the liberties
of London, the fullest record of her privileges would be found
in the charters of London. The Lynn clauses relating to
Crown pleas and to land suits specially prescribe the law
and custom of Oxford, and there is general provision for
reference to the mother town in case of doubt or contention as
to any judgement (de aliquo judicio).
The free borough clause no doubt authorized those funda-
mental changes of personal status and land tenure on which
Maitland and Ballard lay such stress, and here at least
the burgess court which the latter regards as equally funda-
mental, but, if Gross be right, it was meant to authorize a
great deal more. It remained indeterminate until it was
individualized by the grant of the status of an existing free
borough, the choice of which was left to the mesne lord. The
gild merchant and general exemption from toll, which the king
conferred, inter alia, on the new borough as Oxford privileges,
were as much part of the conception of free borough as burgage
tenure and borough court.
Why did John grant the privileges of Oxford in detail
immediately after the bishop, with his licence, had granted
them in general terms ? As the king granted the liberties
of Nottingham to William Briwerr for his new borough at
Chesterfield 3 without a further charter, the reason probably
was that the burgesses of Lynn secured the great advantage
of a direct grant to themselves and their heirs from the ulti-
mate authority and in the fullest terms.
Wells in Somerset belonged, like Lynn, to episcopal lords,
but it had been a borough by their grace forsome time. Bishop
Robert (ɪ 136-66) had granted that it should be a borough
(not called free) for ever. Bishop Reginald had confirmed his
1 Stafiord received the same right of selection in the less ambiguous
form : “ All liberties, etc., which any free borough in England possesses,”
which in the case of Liverpool (1207) was restricted to maritime boroughs.
2 B.B.C. i. 32. s Ibid. p. 33.
JOHN’S CHARTERS
199
charter with slight additions, and a second confirmation was
issued by Reginald’s successor Savaric in or before 1201.
He states that his predecessors had conceded the liberties
and free customs “ of burgesses and boroughs enjoying full
liberties,” and ordains that the whole territory of Wells shall
be a free borough and enjoy these liberties.1 There is nothing
to show that either Reginald or Savaric added anything vital
to Robert’s creation. Savaric’s “ free borough ” seems to
have been Robert’s “ borough ” and no more. No royal
licence for a grant of borough privileges is so far mentioned,
but a charter was obtained from John in X20i which granted
that Wells should be a free borough and the men of the vill
free burgesses, and confirmed its market and fairs, but, save
for a fifth fair, made no express addition to its liberties. The
Quare υolumus clause runs : “ that they and their heirs shall
have all the liberties and free customs of a free borough
(Iiberi burgi) and of free burgesses, and (those) pertaining to
such a market and fairs.” 2 The first part of this clause, like
the second, may only have been a royal confirmation of existing
privileges, but the almost identical formula which closes the
very similar charter to William Briwerr for Bridgewater (1200) :
“ with all other liberties and customs pertaining (per Iinentibus)
to a free borough (ad liberum burgum) and to a market and fair, ”
was used to confer liberties, etc., on a new borough,3 What
liberties, we ask, for we know that there was no fixed set
of privileges which every free borough enjoyed. The sub-
sequent history of the Bridgewater formula “ liberties and
free customs pertaining to a (free) borough,” which came to
be almost regularly associated with grants of (free) borough
in the thirteenth century,4 shows that its effect was to give
the grantee the right of choosing the borough which was to
serve as a model, just as a grant of the liberties of all free
boroughs or of any free borough to Lynn and Stafford re-
spectively had conceded that right.5 Thus Richard or John’s
charter to the abbot of Burton empowering him to make a
borough at Burton-On-Trent with all liberties, etc., pertaining
1B.B.C. i. 2. i Ibid. p. ɜɪ. 8 Ibid. p. 176.
* In the shortened form " liberties pertaining to a free borough ” it
occurs incidentally before the appearance of the liber burgus clause in
a Launceston charter earlier than 1167 {B.B.C. ii. 379-80). But it is not
certain that we have the original text of the charter in its integrity. See
below, p. 213.
δ In the case of Lynn it was definitely royal free boroughs, but as it
was merely “ any free borough " in the Stafford charter, it would be unsafe
to infer that the Bridge water formula imposed any restriction of choice.