20
ORIGINS OF THE BOROUGH
the ramparts.1 At some date between 885 and 900 Ethel-
red and Ethelfled, at the instance of Werfrith, bishop of
Worcester, ordered the construction of a burh there for the
protection of “ all the folk.” 2 On the completion of the forti-
fications, Ethelred and his wife, with the approval of Alfred
and of the Mercian witan, for the support of the church and
in return for religious services on their behalf in life and after
death, bestowed upon St. Peter and the bishop one-half of the
revenue accruing to them as lords from the market or from
the streets within and without the burh. This public revenue
is more fully defined later in the charter as comprising Iandfeoh,
perhaps the rent from demesne land later known as Iandgafol
(Iandgabulum), and a tax for the repair of the wall (burhwealles
sceating) together with the issues of justice from theft, fight-
ing, market offences (wohceapung) and all others for which
compensation (bot) was possible, so far as these breaches of
law occurred in market or street. Outside these limits the
bishop was to enjoy all the land and dues which the grantors’
predecessors had given to the see. It would appear from this
and later evidence that the bishop was the chief landowner
in the area enclosed by the wall and had “ sake and soke,”
that is the right to take the profits of justice arising out of
offences upon his land.
The other half of the revenues which were divided was
reserved to the grantors. The market profits did not include
the most valuable tolls, for it is expressly stated that the
shilling on the waggonload and the penny on the horseload
were to go to the king, as they had always done at Saltwich,
i.e., Droitwich. This evidence of.a revenue derived by the
West Saxon kings from tolls on trade in English Mercia is
noteworthy.
It seems, fairly clear from the arrangements described
in this unique charter that the old unfortified Worcester had
been a mere appendage of the cathedral church, whose rights
flowed from grants by Mercian or Hwiccian kings and that
the market-place and the streets which led to it with the
jurisdiction over them, the profits of which were to be shared
with the church, were new, like the tolls reserved to the king,
and constituted the return exacted by the present “ lords of
Mercia ” for the costly work of fortification. A few years
later, in 904, the church added a life-lease of a great tenement
ɪ C.S. 579, ii. 221 f.
, '' Eallum thæm folc(e) to gebeorge.”
THE NEW BURHS
21
(hag a) in the north-western corner of the burh, along with
land at Barbourne outside it on the north.1
The Worcester burh was exceptional in not being founded
on land that was wholly or in large part royal domain. The
bargain effected with Bishop Werfrith and his chapter can
have been rare indeed, if not unique. It is important also
to observe that the duty of repairing the walls was acquitted
by a money payment not by personal service. The grouping
of this payment with revenues otherwise entirely derived from
the burh suggests that it fell upon the inhabitants only. It
is perhaps possible that the reference is only to the urban
portion of a wider tax levied upon the 1200 hides which
are assigned to Worcester in the appendix to the Burghal
Hidage. This seems less likely, however, and if the tax was
purely interna], we must suppose that the military connexion
between the hides and the burh was confined to personal service
when required.
A parallel to the English burhs was found by Keutgen
and Maitland 2 in the purely artificial burgs which Henry the
Fowler a little later was raising in newly conquered lands on
the north-eastern frontier of Germany and peopling from
without, but the likeness is somewhat superficial. England
was a long settled land. The very small burh, designed or
adapted for military defence only and without urban possi-
bilities may have approximated to the German type, but
usually the place selected for walling had already a certain
population and such elaborate arrangements as Henry was
driven to make for the manning and support of the burg from
the country round were not needed. The Worcester case might
suggest a more plausible parallel with the castra of the Low
Countries, fortified feudal and ecclesiastical centres at the foot
of which trading settlements (poorts} grew up and were
ultimately walled.3 But the absence of.feudalism in England
at this date makes the parallel misleading. The cathedral
precincts were probably but slightly fortified and the charter
of Ethelred and Ethelfled hardly suggests that the dependent
population outside before the walling was chiefly occupied
in trade.
ɪ C.S. 6o8, ii. 266. The northern side of the haw was 28 rods long,
the southern 19 and the eastern 24 ; no figure is given for the western,
parallel with the river.
2 E.H.R. xi. (1896) 13 fi. ; D.B. and B., p. 189.
s Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, i. 2, § ɪ. He remarks on the equivalence
of poort with the English port.