8o
THE BURGESSES AND THEIR TENURE
If the inclusion of Aluric’s little rural holding in the terra
vaυassorum is to be taken as indicating his status, the case is
of special interest as evidence that the English burgess was
not always a simple freeman. For in a legal collection not of
later date than 1135 the vavasseur is identified with the
“ average ” or “ lesser ” thegn of Anglo-Saxon times,1 while
Professor Stenton sees in the Vauassores “ the predecessors of
the milites on whom the administration of royal justice had
come to depend before the end of that (the twelfth) century.” 2
This little piece of evidence fits in neatly with that which
comes from Hereford where the burgesses who had horses
in King Edward’s day were subject to the lesser thegn,s
heriot of horse and arms.3 We are not entitled to infer, how-
ever, that this type of burgess was more than exceptional.
London indeed had its burhthegns,i and Liebermann at least
took the thegns of the Cambridge thegn gild to have been
burgesses 5 and not, as Maitland suggested, merely members
of a Cambridgeshire club.6 The Norman sheriff Picot exacted
thegnly heriots, including horse and arms, from the Cambridge
lawmen, but his English predecessor had taken only 2θs. in
money from each.7 Even this was much higher than the
average country socager’s heriot of a year’s rent, but there is
still some doubt whether the lawmen were ever reckoned as
burgesses. Those of Stamford are said to have shared the
use of the borough fields with the burgesses.8 In any case,
though highly privileged, they were not of thegnly rank, for
their wergild was apparently that of the ordinary freeman.®
Another privileged body in that borough whose inclusion
among the burgesses remains doubtful, despite Professor
Stenton’s acceptance, was that of the sokemen who had
seventy-seven messuages in full ownership (in dominio') free
from all royal custom save the amends of their forfeitures,
heriot, and toll. These largely exempt tenements are clearly
contrasted with the hundred and forty-seven of the preceding
clause, which corresponds to the normal enumeration of royal
1II Cnut, 71, 2 ; Liebermann, Ges. i. 358, ii. 501 ; Chadwick, A.-S.
Institutions, p. 82 n. , English Feudalism, 1066-1166, p. 22.
3 D.B. i. 179a, 1. The three marks "relief" of the Derbyshire or
Nottinghamshire thegn with six or less manors, ,' whether he dwells within
or without borough ” (D.B. i. 280b, ι) is a different matter.
, Liebermann, Gest ii. 571, § 9a ; W. Page, London, pp. 219 f. ; below,
p. 257. 6 Liebermann, loo. cit. ∙ D.B. and B., p. 191.
’ D.B. i. 189a, i. 3 Ibid. f. 336b, 2. See below, p. 87.
β So Liebermann (Ges. ii. 565, § 4α, 732, § 6β) ; but may it not have
been that of their men ?
SOCIAL STATUS OF BURGESSES
8t
burgesses or houses in other boroughs, for these are expressly
stated to have rendered all customs. The importance of the
distinction will appear in the next section.
The mention at Nottingham of domus equitum contrasted
with domus mercatorum 1 has been thought to reveal the pres-
ence among the burgesses there of members of that class
of semi-military retainers of Anglo-Saxon nobles who were
known as cnihts. The Cnihtengilds of London, Winchester, and
Canterbury, the last of which appears as early as the ninth
century sufficiently attest the importance of the part they
played in burghal history,2 but the Nottingham identification
is almost certainly mistaken. The équités only occur on the
lands of the Norman barons, there is no mention of pre-
Conquest antecessores, and there seems every probability that
they were not Englishmen at all but the milites or armed
French retainers of the barons.3
It will be noticed that the difficult passages we have been
discussing all refer to boroughs which, save Hereford, had been
settled or strongly influenced by Danes, and that burgesses of
thegnly rank are only discerned with certainty at Hereford
and perhaps, in one case, at Ipswich. Nor do we find them in
the other western boroughs, for the heriot of IO5., which was
exacted from the horseless burgess of Hereford, was universal
at Shrewsbury and Chester. Its more advanced position
against the Welsh may perhaps account for the special armed
class of burgesses at Hereford.
Wergilds afford a simpler indication of social standing
in Anglo-Saxon times than heriots do, but unfortunately
Domesday throws no direct light upon burgess wergilds,
unless indeed the Stamford lawmen were burgesses and this,
as we have seen, is doubtful. Still, as they were apparently
not thegns, we may safely infer that the less privileged bur-
gesses were not. The first clear mention of a burgess wergild
ɪs that of the Londoners in Henry Γs charter to the city.
This sum of ɪoo Norman shillings was somewhat higher
than the wergild of the ordinary West Saxon or Mercian
freeman (ceorl) before the Conquest,* but far below that of
D.B. i. 280a, i. 2 See below, pp. 120-22.
For the use of eques for miles in the Norman period see Stenton,
BngUsh Feudalism, p. 155, and Ballard, An Eleventh Century Inquisition
0J St Augustine’s, Canterbury, Introd., p. xviii (Brit. Acad. Records, vol. iv.).
The 200 shillings of the English ceorl’s wergild were only of 5d. in
essex and 4<Z. i∏ Mercia, and the sum was therefore equivalent to /4 3.5. 4d.
ɪɪɑ £3 6∙s. 8d. Norman respectively.