пб
THE BOROUGH COMMUNITY
carefully distinguished in Domesday from 231 acres of arable
inland and 100 acres of meadow in Lincoln which also belonged
to the king and earl, but in a more fundamental sense. If
the suggestion made above be correct, the burgesses were the
actual holders of the 12j carucates and upon them as a com-
munity would fall the regulation of its common cultivation.
The only difference between them and the burgesses of Exeter
and Stamford would be that they had still to render custom
either to king and earl or to their grantees.
It is in favour of the view here advanced that from the
arable and meadow land which belonged to Huntingdon there
was a census divided between king and earl.1 Here, however,
a further piece of information is given. The burgesses took
it on lease from (per) the officers of the king and earl. In
this case Purgenses must probably mean certain burgesses, the
limited extent of the arable, apparently 280 acres, not pro-
viding sufficient land for more than a minority of the popula-
tion of a town which in 1066 seems to have contained nearly
400 houses.
The most urban stage reached by any burgess community
in its relation to the agricultural appurtenances of the borough,
so far as our sporadic information goes, was that of the bur-
gesses of Exeter, who were not merely excused payment of
the land custom to the king, but authorized to collect it for
their own communal use. They had at their disposal an in-
come independent of the sums they had to render to the lady
of the borough.2 The definite statement that the custom
went to the city discourages any suggestion that they divided
it between themselves as the burgesses of Colchcster did a
more occasional windfall.3
It was not, however, in the agricultural “ shell ” of the
borough, an urbanized survival of a rural past, that the bur-
gesses were getting the training in communal action which
was most valuable for their municipal future.4 Much more
important in this respect was their growing market. The
market was the centre of their interests and in the develop-
ɪ D B. 1. 203a, 2
2 The germ of the later distinction in all royal boroughs between the
income of the town treasury (camera) and that of the king’s reeve’s office
(pi eposιtιιra). See below, pp 125, 225 ∙ See below, p. 129
4 The leasing of the town arable to a few burgesses in certain boroughs
is evidence of the comparative unimportance of the agricultural appur-
tenance of the urban tenement, not of an urban land-owning aristocracy
(see above, p. 69).
TRADING
117
ment and enforcement of rules and regulations for traders
they were learning to act together as a really urban community.
The port had gone far towards obliterating the underlying
villa. Its royal governor was not a tun- but a portgerefap
2. The BurcxESSES as Trading Community
Apart from its record of the profits of tolls and markets
Dornesday Book, as concerned only with revenue, throws
little direct light upon pre-Conquest trade, and this has led to
over-emphasis on the agricultural aspect of the Anglo-Saxon
borough. How misleading its silence is may be realized from
the fact that the only borough to which it gives the name of
port is Hereford, which Dr. Stephenson singles out as the least
truly urban of all the larger boroughs. Yet port in “ portway ”
is fairly common in Anglo-Saxon charters and the former in
place-names.
The unusual fullness with which the customs of Chester
are recorded in Domesday provides some details as to its
external trade, its chief import being marten skins,2 which, we
learn from other sources, came from Ireland.3 The Gloucester
render of iron as part of its farm 4 records an industry that is
still kept in memory in the city arms. The ancient salt in-
dustry of Droitwich is noticed.6 Other forms of trade may
be inferred from the Domesday statistics. The number of
burgesses at Dunwich, Maldon, and Yarmouth® bespeaks im-
portant fisheries, as do the ships of the Kentish ports men-
tioned as doing naval service, in return for financial con-
cessions. The burgesses of Dover, perhaps of all the Cinque
Ports, enjoyed exemption from toll throughout England,7 and
it seems unlikely that London at least did not possess this
privilege. The large populations of the greater boroughs in
the eastern counties can only be explained by considerable
trade, which may have been wholly local or in part a share in
that commerce with the Continent which is attested from the
beginning of the eleventh century. It is known, from a
1 Had its walls been the only distinctive feature of the Anglo-Saxon
borough, as Professor Stephenson suggests, why was he not called burh-
Rereja >
1DB 1 262b, I. Part of the farm was paid in these skins (ibid col 2).
3 Round, Eeudal England, p. 467.
iD B 1 162a, ɪ iIbid f 172a, 2
β Ibid ɪɪ. 312b, 48a, 118a. ’ See below, p. 127.