liable to counteraction by the aspiration of the wealthier
boroughs to still higher liberties. Free burgage then, with its
later equivalent free borough, was a variable conception. The
more concrete term is accurately glossed by anticipation in
GlanvilFs villa priυilegiata, a town that has privileges, liberties,
and such privileges varied more or less from borough to
borough.

IX

THE BOROUGH COMMUNITY FROM THE TWELFTH
CENTURY ¹

In Latin documents of the twelfth century in England the
terms commune, commune, communia or, as yet more rarely,
Communitas in ordinary usage were still so far from implying
incorporation in the later legal sense as to be applied indif-
ferently to any permanent association of men, however
loosely organized. Hence the “ comune Iudeorum ” of the
Pipe Rolls (1177) and the “ communa Iiberorum hominum ”
of the Assize of Arms (1181). The rural vill was just as much
a commune as the vill which was also a borough. Abroad,
however, the word had acquired a specialized meaning, that
of sworn urban association. It was this independent commune
that Henry II and Richard I, according to Richard of Devizes,
did not want to see in England.² It made but a passing appear-
ance at London during the anarchy of Stephen’s reign and
was stifled at birth by Henry at Gloucester and York,³ nor
did it get a real footing until Count John allowed it at London
while his brother was absent on crusade.⁴

From John’s reign the sworn commune was tacitly re-
cognized in a form suited to English conditions, but neither
he nor any of his successors before Edward III ever formally
authorized a commune or communitas.ⁱ Charters were granted
to the burgesses and their heirs or the like, not to the commune
or community. Even in less formal documents these terms
were rarely used in the thirteenth century. It is significant
that, familiar as the English chancery was with the address

¹ Reprinted with alterations from E.H.R. xlv. (1930), 529-51.

² Stubbs, Select Charters, ed. Davis, p. 245.

³ See above, p. 162.

¹ See above, p. 182, and below, p. 251.

⁶ For the creation of a Communitas at Coventry in 1345, see Gross,
Gild Merchant, i. 93 n. The burgesses of Hedon in Holderness obtained
a similar grant in 1348 (C.Ch.R. v. 87 fi.).

221

<<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   >>

More intriguing information