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LIBER BURGUS
transfer of tenements. For our present purpose, however, it
is the formulæ of the royal chancery that we are seeking.
The most instructive of these appears in the very interesting
charters by which the borough of Beverley was founded.
About the year 1125 probably, Thurstan, archbishop of York,
with leave from Henry I, granted to the men there the liber-
ties (later described as free customs) of York with hanshus
or gildhall, farm of the town tolls, free entrances and exits
and exemption from toll throughout Yorkshire.1 The king’s
confirmation took the form of a grant to them of “ liberum bur-
gagium secundum libéras leges et Consuetudines burgensium
de Eboraco,” with their gild, toll, and all their free customs
and liberties as bestowed by Thurstan.2 An interesting varia-
tion of the royal formula appears in the confirmation issued
twenty years later by Archbishop William, where it reads :
“ Iiberale burgagium juxta formam Iiberalis burgagii
Eboraci.” 3 The points of importance for us here are : (ɪ)
That in the twelfth century as in the thirteenth an ordinary
vill could be raised to borough rank by the gift of the liberties,
etc., of some existing borough without an express formula of
creation. (2) That the royal chancery has found a formula
which remedies this omission by the introduction of the ab-
stract notion of liberum burgagium, which is applicable to
all creations but is individualized by reference to the liberties
and customs of a particular town. In Archbishop William’s
charter the abstract idea takes on a concrete shape. The laws
and customs of York are the Iiberale burgagium of that city.
(3) That certain liberties, those of gild merchant and of toll,
are made the subject of specific grant, though enjoyed by the
city which served as model. (4) That a sharp distinction
between liberties and free customs is not preserved, in
Thurstan’s charter at least, and that “ laws ” might be used
to cover both.
In the use made of liberum (Hberale) burgagium in two of
the three Beverley charters, and especially in that of Arch-
bishop William, we have a clear anticipation of the Hber
burgus formula which expressed the same idea in another
form. It is usual to translate burgagium in this sense by
“ burgage tenure," but “ borough tenure ” would be preferable
1 B.B.C. i. p. 23 ; Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, i. 90.
2 Ibid. 92 ; B.B.C. i. 23.
8 Ibid. p. 24 ; Farrer, p. 100. Cf. the “ juxta formam Iegum burgen-
sium de Eboraco ” in Thurstan’s description of the king’s original licence.
liberum Burgagium
215
as avoiding confusion with the derivative use of burgagium
for the individual burghal tenement and leaving room for a
good deal of “ liberty ” or “ law ” or “ custom ” which was
not all tenurial, though the free tenement at a money rent
was the most fundamental element in the borough.1 It was
not merely the individual tenement which was held in free
burgage, but the town as a whole with all its liberties, etc.
An instructive case is that of Drogheda in Meath, which vill
with its newly created burgages and the law of Breteuil was
granted to the burgesses in 1194 by Walter de Lacy in libero
burgagio.2
“ Free burgage,” like the later “ free borough,” was a
“ variable generic conception.” The gild merchant and ex-
emption from toll, however, were not, apparently, regarded
as included in this conception, but as supplementary to it.
This is important in view of some evidence already discussed
that these privileges may not have been included in general
grants of the liberties of a free borough.3
There is ample proof that the formula of “ free burgage,”
though rarer than the later “ free borough,” continued to be
used in the foundation of new boroughs during the reign of
Henry II. Henry himself between 1167 and 1170 made a
grant of liberum burgagium in Hedon (Holderness) to William,
earl of Albemarle, and his heirs, in fee and inheritance, “ so
that his burgesses of Hedon may hold freely and quietly in
free burgage as my burgesses of York and Lincoln best and
most freely and quietly hold those [? their] customs and
liberties.” i Reginald, earl of Cornwall, gave to his burgesses
of Bradninch their burgary and their tenements (p>laceas}
before 1175,5 and somewhat later Abbot Richard granted
Whitby for ever in Hberam burgagiam (sic), and to the burgesses
dwelling there “ liberty of burgage and free laws and free
rights.” β As late as 1194 Roger de Lacy founded a borough
1 The wider meaning is well illustrated in one of the conditions imposed
upon a tenant of Bridlington Priory in Scarborough between 1185 and ɪ 195.
He was not to give, sell or mortgage his toft and land ; et пес per burgagium
de Scardeburg' nec per aliam advocationem se defendet ut minus justici-
abɪlis sit nobis in curia nostra de omni re ad nos pertinente (Farrer, Early
Yorkshire Charters, i. no. 369). As late as the fourteenth century admission
to the franchise of Colchester was " entering the burgage ” {Colchester
Court Rolls, ed. Gurney Benham, i. 41, 65 et passim). In this sense of the
term we find instances of messuages {mansurae), in York itself, about the
middle of the twelfth century, described as held in libero burgagio (Early
Yorkshire Charters, nos. 236, 333, etc.).
2 B.B.C. i. 48. 3 Above, pp. 208 if.
4 B.B.C. i. 38. 6 Ibid. β Ibid. p. 39.