238 THE BOROUGH COMMUNITY
foreign “ commune ” either directly or through London. At
Exeter and Winchester civic heads with the foreign title of
mayor appear before the limited grant of their farms. Even
at Ipswich, which did not set up a mayor, the oaths of loyalty
to the estate and honour of the town which were required from
councillors and burgesses reveal the influence of the communal
ideal. It is, perhaps, significant that, until the new organi-
zation was complete and provided with a common seal, the
Ipswich assembly is only referred to in the record as “ to ta
villata,” and it first appears as “ Communitas ” when gathered
together to approve the constitutional ordinances made by
the council, in whose election they had had only an indirect
voice.1 Apparently the community thus established is some-
thing different from that which the “ villata,” like other
urban and rural communities, had formed in the twelfth
century. Such a conclusion seems confirmed by the later
history of the term. In 1302 royal justices decided that the
burgesses of Bury St. Edmunds “ having no union of a com-
munity (unionem Communitatis) are not capable of freedom or
lordship like a community, since they have no captain of their
own number, but only the abbot, their lord.” 2 After a
further rising in 1327, when they wrote to the mayor, alder-
men, and community of London for advice and support,3 as
one community to another, they were forced to disclaim for
themselves and their heirs any right to a communitas.i The
judges of 1302 laid stress upon their lack of an elected head of
their own, and though the first formal grant of incorporation,
that of Coventry in 1345, puts greater emphasis on the “ unio
Communitatis,” “ quod ipsi et eorum heredes et successores
Communitatem inter se habeant,” it immediately adds :
“ et Maiorem et Ballivos idoneos de seipsis eligere possint
annuatim.” 5
The phrases employed to describe the use of the Ipswich
seal, “ pro omnibus et singulis burgensibus ” and “ pro
communi honore et Utilitate ville seu burgensium ville,” still
betray some juridical uncertainty, but leave no doubt that
essentially a corporate body is in existence.
With this still imperfect expression of corporateness the
inscriptions on early borough seals are in accord. These
1 Cf. Gross, op. cit. ii. rι6-ι8, with pp. 119-21.
2 Gross, op. cit. i. 94, ii. 35 ; Trenholme, op. cit. p. 25.
2 Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls of London, ed. Thomas, i. 35.
* Memorials of St. Edmunds Abbey (Rolls Ser.), iii. 41-6 ; Trenholme,
op. cit. p. 40. 5 Gross, op. cit. i. 93.
NASCENT INCORPORATION
239
instruments usually describe themselves as being the seal or
common seal of the citizens or burgesses or barons of the
particular city or borough.1 With the very doubtful exception
of Barnstaple 2 and the more probable one of Leicester,3 the
legend, “ seal of the community of X,” is not known to have
been used in the early part of the thirteenth century, and
never became common.
The continued distinction of the prepositura, or department
of the king’s farm from the communal finances, is marked by
the separate seal of the bailiffs (or of the provostry) i even
where, in the absence of a mayor, they were the chief elective
officers of the community.5 An early and interesting case of
this latter usage occurs at Northampton. In October, 1199,
the liberties of that borough were granted to Lancaster by
King John, and not long after, in response to an inquiry from
Lancaster as to what these liberties were, the bailiffs of North-
ampton sent a letter, still preserved by the northern borough,
congratulating them on their new liberties, enclosing a copy
of their own new charter (17th April, 1200),6 and authenticating
their message, they state, with “ the common seal of the
provostry {prepositorie)." The seal, which survives, has the
legend : + sigill. prepositor. de norhamton.’
Incorporation in the full sense in which it was elaborated
by the royal chancery from 1440 8 onwards was certainly not
in the minds of the kings who first recognized, expressly or
tacitly, the new status of their demesne boroughs. They
1 " Common seal of all the citizens of Oxford ” (Salter, Early Oxford
Charters, no. 91 и.), " Seal of the citizens of Winchester,” “ Seal of the
barons of London,” etc.
2 Above, p. 236. Round describes it as " the seal of the commonalty
of B,” but the British Museum Catalogue attributes to the thirteenth
century a seal with the legend : sig. commvne bvrgi Barnstapolae.
3 The spelling Leyrcestria on the earliest extant impression (four-
teenth century) was going out of use in the early years of the thirteenth
century (Bateson, Records of Leicester, ɪ. xliii. 7; ɪɪ. 57). Unless there
was a later change, the Ipswich seal of 1200 was also of this type.
4 See that of Conway in the British Museum Catalogue.
5 For an example of the use of a reeve's private seal to authenticate a
document before 1181, see Salter, op. at. no. 88. Theravensealof Colchester
with the legend : sigill. cvstod. port, colecestr. (Benham, Oath Book
of Colchester, p. 226), locally described as “ the seal of the Portreeve used
. . . before 1189,” is more likely that of an officer similar to the warden of
the CinQue Ports.
6 Confirming inter alia Richard I’s grant of fee farm.
’ Brownbill and Nuttall, Calendar of the Charters, etc., of the Corporation
of Lancaster (1929), p. 4. It is singular that no notice was taken of the
limitation of John’s Lancaster grant to the liberties of Northampton “ as
they stood at the death of Henry II.”
8 The date of the incorporation of Hull (Cal. Chart. Rolls, vi. 8 ff.).