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LIBER BURGUS
to be sufficiently confirmed. It does not profess to be a general
definition of the term. Ballard’s interpretation, on the other
hand, which does make that profession, overstresses the
jurisdictional aspect of the humbler borough, though admitting
that its court was inferior to the hundredal court of the greater
towns, and ignores some of the higher non-tenurial liberties of
the latter.
There is one class of mesne boroughs which we have
reserved for separate consideration. It comprises those that
were cither founded by royal licence and Seignorial charter or
by royal charter to the lord, which apparently dispensed with
the necessity of a charter from him. In some instances of
the former kind, e.g. Ormskirk and Kirkham, there are in-
dications that the licence must have specified the particular
privileges to be conferred.1 Among those contained in the
Kirkham charter (1296) are two which are specially referred
to the conception of the free borough : “ prison, pillory,
ducking stool and Otherjudicial instruments pertaining to a free
borough by which malefactors and transgressors against the
liberties of the said borough may be kept in custody and
punished,” 2 and “ assize of bread and ale as pertains to a free
borough.” 3
More commonly in both kinds of royal charter brevity was
secured by coupling the grant of (free) borough with a general
grant of liberties in the formula now familiar to us in connexion
with greater boroughs : “ liberties and free customs pertaining
to a (free) borough.” The case of Abbots Bromley shows that
this was a licence to copy the institutions of some neighbouring
borough.4 Unfortunately, we do not know under what con-
ditions, not expressed in the licence, such permission was given.
It is improbable, of course, that the grantee was empowered to
invest his borough with all the liberties enjoyed by a highly
privileged royal borough that were relevant to its mesne status.
Even in the case of royal boroughs, we have seen the vague
general formula elucidated either by specification of the higher
franchises as at Hull or by mention of the borough to be copied
as at Caerwys. Possibly, the feudal lord who got a licence for
a borough in this form had to submit his choice for approval
This hypothesis would hardly be so necessary if the formula
1 B.B.C. ii. 5, 283. Cf. the procedure in John’s reign, above, pp. 197 ff.
2 Ibid. p. 170.
3Ibid. p. 223. The burgesses of Agardsley (above p. 201) had this
liberty, but the lord of the borough reserved one-third of the amercements
(E.H.R. xvi. 335). 4 See above, p. 200.
CONTENT OF THE PRIVILEGE
209
when unqualified gave no title to certain important franchises.
For this there is some evidence. That markets and fairs were
excluded may be asserted with a certain measure of confidence.
It will be remembered that in two of John’s charters, a market
and fairs were granted separately from the liberties pertaining
to a free borough. Now, this distinction recurs in the charter
of Richard, king of the Romans, to Camelford, confirmed by
Henry III in 1260,1 and in that of Edward I to the abbot of
Holme Cultram for Skynburgh (130i).2 Moreover, Henry Ill’s
licence to the abbot of Burton for a borough at Abbots Bromley
(1222) grants a fair (there was doubtless a market already)
separately from the liberties.3 The lucrative right of author-
izing markets and fairs, which in England were not confined
to boroughs as they were in Scotland, was a jealously guarded
prerogative of the Crown and the possessors of palatine powers.
In many cases the founder of a borough had a market or fair
or both, by their grant, in his manor long before he thought of
making a borough there. Where this was not the case, a bare
general grant of borough liberties would not, it appears, include
this franchise. But, when once granted, it could be described
as one of the liberties pertaining to a free borough in the
particular case. Thus the borough of (High) Wycombe was
granted in fee farm to the burgesses by its lord in 1226, “ with
rents, markets and fairs and all other things pertaining to a
free borough,” 4 and at Hull in 1299 the market and fairs,
though granted separately in the charter, are included, as we
have seen, in another document among liberties pertaining to
a free borough.
Another privilege which can hardly have been conveyed
by a general formula, but must surely have required a specific
grant, is that most valuable one of exemption from tolls
throughout the kingdom and the other dominions of the king.
It is inconceivable that a petty borough such as Abbots
Bromley should have been able to acquire this great liberty
by verba generalia.5
The wording of some charters seems almost to suggest
that a general grant of liberties did not entitle the grantee to
ɪ B.B.C. ii. 4. 2 Ibid. pp. 28, 247, 249.
3 Ibid. p. 45. 1 Ibid. p. 303.
5We may quote here, though no royal licence for it is on record,
Baldwin de Redvers' charter to Yarmouth (I.W.) between 1240 and 1262 :
de omnibus Iibertatibus, etc. quas liber burgus habere debet, necnon de
Iibertate et quietancia de teolonio,” etc. (ibid. ii. 22). The exemption was
only for his own lands.
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