202
LIBER BURGUS
“ liberties and free customs,” where no borough was pre-
scribed as a model, is somewhat mitigated in this period.
Grantees are no longer referred to the privileges of “ any free
borough ” or those of “ a free borough,” and only in a single
case (Windsor) to those ” used by the burgesses of our other
boroughs in our realm.” 1 The formula now in general use
is that employed in John’s Bridgewater charter: “ Iibertates
et Iiberae Consuetudines ad (Iiberum) burgum pertinentes
(spectantes).” 2 Sometimes a mesne lord would bestow the
liberties, etc., “ quas debet (decet) liber burgus (burgenses)
habere,” 3 and this might be qualified by an “ et quas mihi
licet conferre,” i such lords having no power to give certain
privileges for which they had not a royal grant. The Abbots
Bromley charter shows that one way at least, perhaps the
usual way, of using a grant expressed in these terms was to
copy the liberties and customs of a neighbouring borough.
It is by examination of cases in which this formula is
employed or implied that the validity of Gross’s “ variable
generic conception ” must be tested. The crucial instances
are found in the case of three royal foundations towards the
close of the century. They have their difficulties, it will be
seen, but cumulatively they seem to establish the main point
on which Gross insists.
When Edward I, in 1284, wished to found a borough at
Lyme (Regis) in Dorset, which should have a gild merchant
along with the liberties of Melcombe in the same county,
which did not include the gild, he used the free borough and
free burgess clauses followed by these words :
“ Ita quod Gildam habeant Mercatoriam cum omnibus ad
hujusmodi Gildam spectantibus in burgo predicto et alias
Libertates et libéras Consuetudines per totam Angliam et
Potestatem nostram quas Burgensibus de Melecumbe . . .
nuper concessimus.”s
Although the liberties of a free borough are not directly
mentioned, the wording of the charter certainly seems to imply
that a gild merchant and the liberties of Melcombe were not
a mere addition to, but part and parcel of the free borough
then created.
More decisive, though not without its difficulties, is the
ɪ B.B.C. ii. 24. 2 Above, p. 199.
iB.B.C. ii. 16 (Carlow), 22 (Yarmouth (I.W.)).
4 At Carlow. Cf. the Burton charter above, p. 200.
6 Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 14 n. Melcombe had received in 1280 the
liberties of London as contained in the charter of 1268 (B.B.C. ii. 24).
CHARTERS OF HENRY III AND EDWARD I 203
charter which Edward gave to the new borough of Caerwys in
Flintshire in 1290.1 In its brevity and the disposition of its
parts, it closely resembles that of Lyrrte, falling into three
divisions : (ɪ) free borough and free burgess clauses ; (2)
grant of a gild merchant (but introduced by “ et quod ”) ; (3)
grant of the liberties of a specified borough (two, Conway and
Rhuddlan are mentioned but their charters (1284) were iden-
tical). Here, as in the case of Lyme, much parchment and
labour were saved by a general reference to the privileges of
boroughs which had recently received comprehensive charters.
But it is the differences rather than the likenesses of the
Lyme and Caerwys charters which concern us here. In the
latter the liberties granted are definitely described as “ liberties
and free customs pertaining to a free borough such as {quales),
namely, our free burgesses of Conway and Rhuddlan have
in their boroughs.” 2 Thus the many privileges granted in
identical charters in 1284 to these and five other new castle
boroughs in North Wales, including gild merchant, general
exemption from tolls, a free borough prison, and a number of
liberties which had only been given to boroughs in com-
paratively recent times, are clearly labelled as privileges
belonging to a free borough. There was nothing novel, as
we have seen, in giving a new borough the liberties of an older
one by the grant of the privileges pertaining to a free borough,
but in the case of Bridgewater and Abbots Bromley the choice
of the model was left to the grantee, here it is practically
prescribed, and we are thus enabled to identify a definite set
of fairly advanced liberties as comprised in the conception of
free borough.
The separate grant of gild merchant to Caerwys despite
its inclusion among the liberties of Conway and Rhuddlan is
hard to understand, and runs directly counter to the inference
one seemed entitled to draw from the Lyme charter. But
the difficult question of the relation of gild to borough must
be reserved for the moment.
Further light is thrown upon the conception of free borough
by the documents relating to Edward I’s foundation of the
borough of Hull (Kingston-On-Hull), and this was the case on
1 Gross, op. cit. ii. 356. Newborough in Anglesey received a charter
ɪn almost exactly the same form in 1303 (Lewis, Medieeval Boroughs of
Snowdonia, p. 283). Rhuddlan only is set as its model.
2The addition of "or our other burgesses in Wales (have) " clearly
involved no real alternative. For the general affiliation of Welsh boroughs
to Hereford, see Lewis, op. cit. p. 17 and Gross, op. cit. ii. 257.