24б
THE BOROUGH COMMUNITY
be expunged.1 Even some of the judges seem to have taken
the same view when they were asked in 1481 to decide whether
a clause of the charter of 1404, in which the re-grant to cives
simply of a former grant had accidentally been left standing,
was of the same effect as the rest of the charter, though two
thought it was.2 On the other hand, the “ commonalty ’’ in
1414 did not acknowledge any such distinction, but claimed
to be “ maior pars civium et Communitatis Norwici,” and
reminded the arbitrator that it was the “ community ” which
received the city revenues, and which had built the Worsted
Seld.3 It is quite evident from the composition of 1415 4
and Henry V’s charter of 1417 6 that cives still had a much
wider signification than the governing class had been en-
deavouring to put upon it, and even in the indenture of 1424
between the mayor, sheriffs, and aidermen the distinction
drawn is not between cives and communitas, but between
mayor, sheriffs, and aidermen and “ residuum nostre com-
munitatis.” 6
The class antagonism which gave a double meaning to
communitas as (ɪ) the whole body of citizens in their corporate
capacity ; (2) that large proportion of them who were allowed
no active part in the work of government, was still stronger on
the other side of the Channel, where the town councils were
more aristocratic than in England, with similar results in
nomenclature. Here again, however, modern writers have
been inclined to exaggerate the range of the narrower use of
communitas. Arthur Giry, for instance, in his admirable
Histoire de la Ville de St. Omer1 while admitting that in the
early years of the thirteenth-century communitas (then just
replacing the older communia) in the formula “ maior, scabini,
et (tota) communitas ” still meant the “ commune,” the
whole sworn body of citizens, maintains that by the end of
the century it had come to mean the unprivileged citizens
as contrasted with the échevinage. The class war was
certainly more bitter than it usually was in English towns
except during the Barons’ Wars, and the people, accepting
and turning to honour a term used in depreciation by their
masters, claimed, as the Londoners did in Simon de Mont-
ɪ Records of Norwich (1906), pp. 81, 85. They complained that the
commonalty had elected mayors " nient faisantz les Citizeins de dite citee
a ceo en ascun manere pryuez,” i.e., not making the gens d’estat privy
to the election. Mr. Hudson mistranslates this sentence.
2 Ibid. I. Ixxvii. 3 Ibid. pp. 67 fi. 4 Ibid. pp. 93 fi.
5 Ibid., p. 36. β Ibid., p. 113. ’ P. 166.
NARROWER USE OF COMMUNITAS
247
fort’s time, to be the community (le commun), to the exclusion
of the échevins. On the other hand, a count of Nevers
could address an order “ au commun de 1г vile de Bruges et
as mai très qui les gouvernent.” 1 But this antagonism was
not always in an acute stage, and in quieter times and in
formal documents there is reason to believe that communitas
in the style “ mayor, échevins, and (whole) community ”
carried its original wider meaning,2 as it appears to have
done in the corresponding formula in England.
It seems possible that the local use of the term in its
narrower sense in English boroughs was to some extent for-
warded by parliamentary precedent. There was an even
more sharply marked practical distinction between the mag-
nates and the “ commonalty ” or “ commons ” (i.e. the repre-
sentatives of the Communitates of the shires and boroughs)
in Parliament than there was between the council and the
“ commonalty ” of a borough, although magnates and com-
mons could together speak in the name of the communitas
Anglie, the whole nation.3 The borough council was, in origin
at least, an emanation of the civic communitas, whereas the
“commons” in Parliament were merely a royal addition to
the baronial council of the king. It is difficult to account
for the use of “ commons ” in towns as a synonym for
“ commonalty,” “ commoners,” communitas in the narrow
sense, except as a case of direct borrowing from parliamentary
usage.
The narrower use of communitas received a great impetus
when in many boroughs, at a comparatively late date, these
“ commoners ” or “ commons ” obtained special representa-
tion in the governing body by the creation of a “ common
council” alongside the original town council, which if it had
ever really represented their wishes, had long ceased to do
this. This share in municipal administration, however,
whether won by their own efforts or, as sometimes happened,
forced upon them to end their tumultuous agitation in the
borough assembly, did not long preserve its popular character.
ɪ Hist, de la Ville de Saint-Omer (1877), p. 163.
8 See for example a petition of the mayor and échevins of St. Omer
'' et pour tote la Communalte de yceli ” to the king of England on behalf
of certain '' bourgois marchans de la dite communalte ” (ibid. p. 440).
8 For a note by M. Petit-Dutaillis on the parliamentary meaning of
“ Commons,” see Studies Supplementary to Stubbs' Constitutional History,
iii. 447.