22Ô
THE BOROUGH COMMUNITY
inherent in a gild, to elect its own officers headed by an aider-
man and to hold meetings over which he presided. As the
membership of the community and of the gild did not greatly
differ, even where it was not identical, and the ruling class was
the same in both, the practical effect of the privilege was to
invest the community with wider powers which it might either
exercise in separate meeting or in portmoot, where the reeve’s
demination was proportionately abated.
Borough evidences are deplorably scanty for the' twelfth
century ; but a few monastic charters throw a little light upon
the way in which the burgesses turned their possession of the
gild privilege to municipal advantage. In 1147 the citizens
of Oxford of the commune of the city and of the gild of mer-
chants (de communi civitatis et de gilda mercatorum), by common
consent in portmanmot, made a grant to the canons of Osney
of their “ island ” of Medley, in perpetual alms, subject to an
annual rent of half a mark to be paid where the citizens should
direct. The grant concludes : “ et hanc eandem fecimus in
capitulo coram canonicis eiusdem loci et in presentia Willelmi
de Cheneto, aldermanni nostri, et per eum, et postea cum
ipso supra altare cum textu obtulimus.”1 Thewords “per
eum ” seem to refer to a grant of the island in his own name
by Chesney, calling himself aiderman of the gild of merchants
of Oxford, made in the chapterhouse on that occasion “ prout
Concessum a civibus fuerat in portmanmot.” 2 Chesney’s
statement that the citizens had enfeoffed him with Medley,
and his direction that the rent should be set off against the
tithes due to the canons from his mills near Oxford castle
may look like the buying out of an existing interest, but it is
more likely that he was formally enfeoffed to act for the citizens,
and that the words “ de qua eos (i.e. the canons) omni anno
acquietabo,” which precede the mention of the exchange for
tithes, mean that he would pay the half mark to the citizens.
It was as their gift, not Chesney’s, that the grant was confirmed
by the bishop of Lincoln and Henry IL3 The complicated
1 Cart. Oseney (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), iv, no. 62 ; English Register of Osney
Abbey (E.E.T.S., Orig. Ser. 133), i. 69. I had to thank the Rev. H. E.
Salter for copies of this and other then unprinted charters in the Osney
cartularies.
2 Cart. Oseney1 iv. 62A, from B.M. Cott. MS. Vitell. E. XV, B. 89. This
is the earlier of the two Latin cartularies, begun, Mr. Salter believes, in
1198. The Christ Church cartulary was made in 1284. Itdoesnotcontain
Chesney’s charter, which was doubtless omitted as being no longer of
importance as a title-deed.
3 Early Oxford Charters, ed. Salter, no. 79 ; English Register of Osney
Abbey, i. 71. See Addenda, above.
COMMUNITY AND GILD MERCHANT
227
procedure followed in this transaction brings out very clearly
the lack of legal corporateness in the borough community at
this date and the value of the municipal officer whom it owed
to its possession of gild powers. It will be observed that the
citizens, though their double capacity as members of the
commune and of the gild is clearly defined, speak of this officer
simply as “ our aiderman ” and with his help transact town
business which has nothing to do with trade. They act, in
fact, as one body with two aspects, not as two which were
merely in large part composed of the same persons. If
Oxford had ever had a separate gild organization, it had gone
far towards its amalgamation with that of the community
by 1147. Chesney was not, indeed, quite a normal aiderman,1
but there is ample evidence that the aiderman (or aidermen,
for there were often two) was the chief officer of the town
during the next half century.2
With the Oxford procedure in the land grant of 1147 we
may compare a grant of land for an aqueduct to the priory of
St. Nicholas, Exeter, by “ omnes cives Exonie, ” of nearly
contemporary date, which ends with an intimation that seisin
was delivered “ manu nostra ” by Theobald fitz Reiner, “ ut
dapifer noster,” who may be the predecessor of the seneschals
of the “ gilda mercanda ” of the city, who make one or two
appearances towards the close of the century.3 It is noticeable
that the reeves of Oxford are not named as taking any part in
the gift to Osney, unless they were among the witnesses omitted
in the cartulary. They may even have been opposed to it.
When Henry II, nine years later, rewarded the services of the
burgesses of Wallingford in the recovery of his hereditary
right in England with a charter of unusual length,4 and as the
first of their privileges confirmed their gild merchant, “ cum
omnibus Consuetudinibus et Iegibus suis,” he forbade his
reeve there, or any of his justices, to meddle with the gild
ɪ He was not a merchant, but Stephen’s redoubtable commandant in
Oxford, the " praeses Oxenefordensis ” of the Gesta Stephani (Rolls Ser.
ɪii. ɪɪʒ), and a considerable Iandownerin the neighbourhood, whose brother
Robert soon after became bishop of Lincoln. No such magnate is known
to have held civic office in Oxford during the rest of the Middle Ages.
The gift of the citizens to Osney Abbey may not have been so voluntary
as it is represented in the documents.
2 Early Oxford Charters, nos. 86-90, and below, p. 231.
s Cart. S. Nich. Exon., fo. 136 (old 66d-67) ; Exeter Mise. Books 55,
fo. 80 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll. iv. 16. I owe these references to Miss
Ruth Easterling. It is significant that the reeve of Exeter is only mentioned
in the dating clause of the grant to the priory.
4 Gross, op. cit. ii. 244-5.