234
THE BOROUGH COMMUNITY
aiderman anticipated the elected mayor or bailiffs, the gild
organization the borough assembly and town council, and the
gild purse the borough treasury (camera ɪ). It is, perhaps,
not wholly fanciful to see in the absence of this early and
stimulating association at Norwich and Colchester the ex-
planation of their being among the latest of the larger English
towns to set up a mayor.
2. The Beginning of Municipal Incorporation
Valuable as the gild merchant was in providing the twelfth-
century borough with an elected head and an organization
more independent of the king or other lord than the portmoot,
this was a passing phase in almost all boroughs, except those
mesne towns whose lords clung to their control of the burgess
court. In many royal boroughs, the needs of the Crown forced
it to grant the comparative freedom of action, hitherto con-
fined to the gild, to the burgesses as members of the community
whose organ was the borough court.2 Their acceptance as
farmers in perpetuity of the royal provostry, the collection
and payment into the exchequer of the king’s revenue from
the borough with the consequent right to elect the reeves
(prepositi) or bailiffs, as they came to be called, not only re-
lieved them of the direct financial control of the sheriff, but
gave them for the first time a basis of real municipal unity
under officers of their own choice. No longer presided over
by royal nominees, the portmoot acquired a new freedom of
action. It is true that the bailiffs had a divided duty to king
and town, but a simultaneous movement of entirely different
origin was correcting this defect. Under the influence of the
foreign “ commune ” the burgesses were organizing themselves
as sworn associations and in the more advanced towns were
symbolizing their new unity of administration by setting up
an entirely new officer, the mayor, with a council of twelve or
twenty-four to act with him on behalf of the community.3
1 It is as gild officers that chamberlains are first heard of at Leicester
(Bateson, op. cit. i. 25).
2 The influence of the gild association on the formation of a corporate
borough community is recognized in a general way by Maitland (Hist, of
Eng. Law, i. 670 f.). He points out that by the system of formal admission
to the franchise and payment of entrance fees, replacing the original
burgage qualification, the borough community was becoming a voluntary
association like the gild. Mr. A. H. Thomas has shown that this stage
was reached at London by 1230 (Plea and Mem. Rolls, ɪɪ. xxx, xlix.)
•Below, pp. 251, 291.
NASCENT INCORPORATION
235
Such councils were established even where no mayor was set
up. This corporate development, which went on rapidly
during the last decade of the twelfth century and the first
two of the thirteenth, was marked by the appearance of muni-
cipal seals. The earliest on record, those of Oxford and York,
occur only three or four years after Henry IΓs denial even of
fee farm grants to his dominical boroughs, had been relaxed to
help to pay for Richard’s crusade. In July, IX91, the citizens
of Oxford and the canons of St. Frideswide’s were parties to
a final concord before the king’s justices at Oxford, by which
the citizens, in return for some market stalls belonging to the
priory, agreed to pay de commune sua to the canons a yearly
rent of 85.1 for that “ island ” of Medley which, as we have
seen, they had granted in 1147 to Osney Abbey at a rent of
half a mark. The formal undertaking entered into by the
Universitas civium was authenticated by their common seal
(sigillo nostro communi).2 About the same time they confirmed
the old grant to Osney at the increased rent of a mark, in
return for their express warrant against all claims, such as
St. Frideswide’s had raised, and this document too was given
under “ Communali sigillo nostro.” 3 Neither deed is dated,
but their contents would naturally suggest dates shortly before
the final concord. There are difficulties, however, in accept-
ing this suggestion. The final concord states quite definitely
that the citizens made their deed under the seal of the aider-
man of their gild,4 and it seems impossible that this could have
been described as a common seal of the citizens. If, however,
the common seal was something new, there is nothing to
account for its first appearing in the summer of Ii9i. It
is rash, perhaps, but tempting, to suggest that the citizens,
who were privileged to enjoy all the customs of London,
seized the occasion of the grant of a commune to their mother
city in October, 1191, to assert legal personality for their own
community by the adoption of a municipal seal, seven or
eight years before they obtained a grant of fee farm.® Such
an important change might very well lead to the substitution
of documents under the new seal for those executed a few
months before under the aiderman’s seal only.
] Cart. St. Fridesw. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 38 ; Cart. Oseney, iv. 63B.
2 Cart. St. Fridesw. i. 36. 3 Cart. Oseney, iv. no. 63.
4 Through whom the rent was to be paid.
s In 1199 (Ballard, B.B.C. i. 225). The fact that the Oxford aidermen
remained the chief officers of the town for some time after n91 (Cart.
Eynsham (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 228) may have some bearing on the disputed
question as to what happened in London in that year (cf. below, p. 267).