356 EARLY MUNICIPAL HISTORY IN ENGLAND
Government demands upon the purses and services of the
nation, this distinction was emphasized and a new and
narrower use of “ borough ” began to appear in official
documents. It was only the larger boroughs as a rule which
already in the late twelfth century sent a full delegation of
twelve to meet the justices on circuit, and when, in 1252,
boroughs were ordered to set a night watch of twelve men
from Ascension Day to Michaelmas for the arrest of sus-
picious characters, and other vills one of four or six according
to their size,1 it is probable that the mass of small boroughs
fell into the latter class.
This suggested interpretation of the order of 1252 is borne
out by the regulation of the same date that the musters of
the local force afterwards known as the militia should be
held in boroughs by the mayor or the bailiffs, if there was
no mayor, and in other vills by new officers called constables.2
Constables are henceforth a feature common to the rural
township and the manorial borough.3 It seems significant
that the carrying out of these measures was entrusted to
commissioners who met the reeve and four men from each
vill and twelve burgesses from each borough.4
Thus, for practical reasons, official nomenclature drew a
line between boroughs and non-boroughs on a basis of popu-
lation and administrative equipment. This narrower sense
of “ borough ” was evidently in the mind of Edward I when
in his early experiments in parliamentary representation he
twice ordered the sheriffs to send up representatives of boroughs
and villae mercatoriae.6 The accepted translation of villa
Wiercatoria by “ market town,” which might mean the ordinary
manor with a market but without burgage tenure, has con-
cealed the fact that, though some of these were apparently
included under this head, undoubted boroughs in the wider
sense were also comprised. Indeed the sheriffs in 1275 drew
the borough line so high as to exclude even Shaftesbury,
which had appeared in Domesday Book as a borough. This
is only comprehensible when it is realized that villa Wiercatoria
really meant “ merchant town,” β as lex Wiereatoria meant
“ merchant law ” and gilda Wiercatoria “ merchant gild.” It
ɪ Stubbs, Select Charters, ed. Davis, p. 363.
2 Ibid. Cf. an earlier arrangement in 1205 (above, p. 253).
’ In the larger towns they appear only as ward officers.
4 Stubbs, op. cit., 4th ed., p. 374. s In 1275 and 1283.
, It was sometimes written villa mercat<>rι<m.
EARLY MUNICIPAL HISTORY IN ENGLAND 357
implied a town with the larger trade transacted in fairs of
general resort rather than in the weekly market frequented
chiefly by local buyers and sellers. “ Fair law ” was almost
a synonym for the “ law merchant.” 1
Unfortunately for clearness, Edward dropped this dis-
tinction between borough and merchant-town after 1283.
From that date the parliamentary writs to the sheriffs men-
tioned boroughs only. This did not, however, bring about a
reduction in the number of representatives. On the contrary,
there was a large increase in the parliament of 1295 which
continued on the whole for some time. In view of the new
principle of taxing boroughs at a higher rate than the counties,
it was not the interest of the Crown to limit their numbers,
and this at least was well understood by the sheriffs, upon whom
it fell to decide which towns in their counties were boroughs.
But they were sadly confused by the king’s wide use of
“ borough ” in the writs, and the Pipe Rolls show that they
described certain parliamentary boroughs as villae mercatorum.
Indeed, the sheriff of Cornwall, in 1295, had so lost his bearings
as to enter four undoubted boroughs as merchant-towns.2
There was some excuse, therefore, for those contradictory
accounts in their returns of the number of boroughs in their
shires which have rather shocked modern historians. In the
evident hope of clearing up the confusion, the Government in
1316 called on the sheriffs to make a special return of all
boroughs and vills in their bailliwicks, but the result can have
given little satisfaction, for uniformity is certainly not the
strong point of the reports which are known to us as the
Nomina Villarum.3 There was a tendency, it is true, in a
number of counties, to revert to the stricter interpretation of
ɪ Fleta explained lex mercatoria as ius nundinarum.
1 Part. Writs, i. 35. Xn his valuable article on “ Taxation Boroughs
and Parliamentary Boroughs, 1294-1336 ” (Hist. Essays in honour of
James Tait (1933), pp. 417 ff.), Professor J. F. Willard has shown from the
Enrolled Accounts of Taxes that the lack of uniformity went even further.
The lists of boroughs chosen by the sheriffs for representation were far from
exactly coinciding with those selected by the chief taxers for taxation at
the higher, borough, rate. In their zeal for the royal revenue the taxers
were considerably more liberal in their estimate of what was a borough.
It is more surprising to find that they omitted at least 12 per cent, of
the parliamentary boroughs, including Beverley and Maldon. Professor
Willard considers that the taxers were guided in making their selection by
the economic activities, population and local reputation of towns. A
town so selected became, for the time being at least, a borough, even though
it had not hitherto been accounted as such.
3 Printed, so far as they survive, in Feudal Aids (P.R.0.).
BB