90 THE BURGESSES AND THEIR TENURE
that the burgesses, with few exceptions, were free to commend
themselves to other lords but did not thereby transfer the
king’s customs to them.1
The customs lay upon the tenement or the house on it
rather than on the burgess. These could be used interchange-
ably as in the extraordinary expression “140 burgesses less
half a house ” at Huntingdon.2 Norman magnates and
religious houses appear in the list of king’s burgesses at
Colchester.3 The burgess of Hereford who fell into poverty
had to resign his house to the reeve, so that the king should
not lose the service,4 and this, though with perhaps less
formality, happened elsewhere in hundreds of cases after the
Conquest.
The rent—landgable or gable—of the house or tenement,
was obviously the most fundamental of the “ customs ”
rendered by the burgess, and in the Domesday description
of Cambridge it is contrasted with the others grouped under
the latter name.5 As these rents were fixed and had been
often usurped by the Norman barons, they are much more
frequently mentioned separately than such variable customs
as toll and judicial perquisites which are frequently concealed
in the amounts of general or special farms.
There are cases of uniformity of rent either for the whole
borough or for a particular class of tenement, as in later
burgage tenure. Where, very exceptionally, Domesday states
the amount of the gable per tenement, it is either a single
figure, as at Malmesbury, where it was 10d.,β and apparently
at Lincoln, where it was ich,’ or two figures, as at Hereford,
where masures within the walls paid 7∣d. and those without
3⅜d., or three, as at Southampton, where they were 6d., 8d.
and I2d. Where we have only the total amount of the gable
and the number of houses no more than an average is possible.
At Huntingdon some details point to a rate of 10rf.,8 as at
Malmesbury, but the totals do not confirm the suggestion,
while at Eχeter there are no separate totals, but frequent
references to “ king’s custom ” paid or withheld, which in
1 See below, pp. 89, 92. 2 D.B. i. 203a, ι.
3 Ibid. ii. 104 fi. 4 Ibid. i. 179a, ι.
6 Ibid. 189a. i. De Consuetudinibus hujus vilɪae vii lib. et de Landgable
vii lib. et ii orae et duo denarii. ∙ Ibid. i. 64b, ι.
’ Ibid. f. 336a, i : de una quaque [mansione] unuɪn denarium idest
Landgable. This was taken by a privileged thegn, but τd. was the general
rate during the Middle Ages (Hemmeon, Burgage Tenure, p. 69).
8 D.B. i. 203a, i. For wider variety in older towns, of. p. 97.
THE “CUSTOM OF BURGESSES” 91
every case but one was 8d.1 The rate, uniform or average,
varies from the Lincoln id. up to what is almost exactly
ι6<7. the ounce of the small mark, at Canterbury.2 It was
15√. at Bath,3 and within a farthing of that at Gloucester.4
An average of about 9∣√. is observable at Wallingford,5 and
(in 1086) in the Wiltshire boroughs of Calne 6 and Tilshead.7
The Lincoln rate continued to be the same throughout the
medieval period, and the total of the Cambridge hawgable
in 1485 was within a few shillings of that of the landgable in
Iθ86.β That splitting of tenements and even of houses,
which made such rents generally lower in the later period,
had already begun. At Huntingdon there were no less than
139⅛ burgesses, i.e., houses, on 80 haws or tenements.9
So far the evidence of Domesday and of the later Winchester
survey seems to confirm the broad distinction drawn by the
Chester judgement between land in the borough rendering
custom to king and earl, the tenants of which alone were
burgesses, and land which belonged to external manors and
was known as thegnland. The two surveys make it clear that
burgess houses normally rendered all customs and that there
were, even in xo66, other houses, varying in number in dif-
ferent boroughs, which were wholly or partially exempt.
The Norman compilers of Domesday, in accordance with their
feudal ideas, endeavoured to arrange the facts under two
categories (ɪ) royal demesne (dominium or terra régis, (2)
baronial land (terra baronum).la But the loose Anglo-Saxon
system did not lend itself well to logical classification, the
compilers found themselves with many exceptions and cross-
divisions on their hands and their attempt to deal with these
is often far from clear. It was quite logical, indeed, to collect
under the second head the numerous cases of houses once
liable to all customs which the Norman barons had entered
upon with or without the king’s license and were withholding
the customs. The burgesses of Hertford complained that
1 D.B. i. 102a, I (Drogo of bp. of Coutances), 103b, 2 (abbot of Tavis-
tock), 104a, 2 (Battie Abbey), 108b, ɪ (Judhel), ɪɪoa, 2 (Wm. Chievre),
ɪɪɜb, I (Rich, (fitz Turold)), 115b, 2 (Tetbald), 116a, 2 (Alured (Brito)),
117a> i (Osbern (de Salceid)), 117a, 2 (Godebold).
2 Inq. St. August., p. 7. 3 D.B. i. 87a, 2. Cf. p. in, n. I.
4 Ellis, Introd. to Domesday, ii. 446. 5 D.B. i. 56a, ι.
β Ibid. f. 64b, 2. ’ Ibid. f. 65a, i.
8 W. M. Palmer, Cambridge Borough Docs. I. lix.
β D.B. loc. cit.
10E.g. at Warwick: "the king has ɪɪʒ houses in demesne and the
king’s barons have 112 ” (D.B. i. 238a, ι).