174
FIRMA BURGI AND COMMUNE
of £55 blanch per annum, an increment of £5 on the figure
previously paid by the sheriff, as shown by the allowance made
in the county farm.1 Whether the concord arranged in the
same year between the burgesses and Ailwin the Mercer, of
whom we shall hear more, for which they had to pay 90 marks
and he 10, had any connexion with this change is not stated,2
but it may be noted that no fine for the privilege, othe- than
the increment on the farm, appears on the roll. Osmund
continued to account down to 1176 when the farm reverted
to the sheriff,3 who, however, accounted separately from 1178
for the £5 de cremento burgi de Gloecr' dum fuit in manu
burgensium.4
It seems possible that the first steps towards the acquisition
of their farms taken by the burgesses of Shrewsbury and
Bridgenorth were connected with the Inquest of Sheriffs in
1170. Geoffrey de Vere, the sheriff of Shropshire, died before
the Michaelmas audit and the two towns seem to have judged
the occasion suitable for securing financial independence of
the sheriff. The burgesses of Shrewsbury paid £12 to have
their town at farm, “ ut dicunt,” whatever that may mean.
Those of Bridgenorth paid £13 6s. 8d. for the same privilege
and also undertook, through Hugh de Beauchamp, perhaps
one of the commissioners who conducted the inquiry, to pay
2⅜ marks a year “ beyond (praeter) the farm of the town
which is in the farm of the county,” which was £5? Although
the payment and the promise are separately entered, one would
naturally connect them and suppose that the burgesses were
to pay directly the whole farm so augmented. Instead of
which, for six years (1171-6) they paid the increment to the
exchequer but continued to render their old farm to the
sheriff. It looks like a piece of sharp practice, perhaps
engineered between the new sheriff, Guy Lestrange, and the
exchequer. Shrewsbury, too, got nothing for her £12, though
she escaped an increment. At last, in 1175, it was agreed
ɪ P.R. Ii Hen. II, pp. 12, 14.
2 For a conjecture that it was an agreement between the town and the
merchant gild, see below, p. 177. 3 P.R. 23 Hen. II, p. 42.
4 Ibid. 24 Hen. II, p. 56. Dr. Stephenson suggests that this remark
is a slip, on the ground that so long a tenure of office by a single reeve would
indicate that he was not elected (Borough and Town, p. 167, n. 5). It
was certainly very unusual, but does not justify the rejection of so definite
a statement. It will be noted that Dr. Stephenson here assumes that if
the burgesses had really farmed the town, there would have been an elected
reeve. This is contrary to his general thesis. See appendix II to this
article. iP.R. 16 Hen. II, p. 133.
REVOCABLE GRANTS OF FIRMA BURGI 175
that both towns should pay their own farms, but Shrewsbury
was to give IOO marks and four hunting dogs IJugatores) for
the privilege, and Bridgenorth 30 marks and two dogs.
Shrewsbury was also to render two dogs a year as an incre-
ment on the old farm of £20 by tale paid to the sheriff.1 From
the next year, therefore, the burgesses accounted separately
at the exchequer at this rate, those of Bridgenorth for£6135.4d.
including the increment paid since 1170, and the sheriff was
excused the amount of the old farm in each case.2
The last towns in this reign to obtain the right to farm
themselves were Northampton and Cambridge who secured
it in the same year, 1184-85. Cambridge had always been
farmed by the sheriff of the county, but Northampton, as
we have seen, was taken out of the farm of Northamptonshire
and mediatized as early as the reign of Rufus. In the hands
of the Crown in 1130, it had been restored by Stephen with
the earldom to Simon de Senlis II.3 Henry II resumed it
and it was farmed apart from the county, though from 1170
the sheriff was the farmer.
The Pipe Roll of 1185 records a payment of 200 marks
of silver by the burgesses of Northampton to have their town
in capite of the king and of 300 marks of silver and one mark
of gold by those of Cambridge to have their town at farm and
be free from the interference of the sheriff therein.4 That
these expressions were equivalent is shown by the king’s
charter granting Cambridge to the burgesses to be held of
him at farm in capite.5 But the two newly privileged boroughs
did not fare equally well. The Northampton burgesses had
no difficulty in meeting their farm, which, having stood at
£100 by tale since 1130 at least, was now raised to £120, and
they paid off their fine in two years. Cambridge was a much
poorer town and its fine was excessive, even allowing for the
fact that nothing was added to the old farm of £60 blanch
paid to the sheriffs. The burgesses still owed £70 of it at the
end of the reign and had paid no farm at all. Richard I
wound up the account at some sacrifice and took the town
1 P.R. 21 Hen. Il, p. 38. When in the next reign the whole farm was
expressed in money, the dogs were reckoned at 5 marks apiece.
2 Ibid. 22 Hen. XI, p. 55.
3 He addressed as earl a charter in favour of the priory of St. Andrew
to Richard Grimbaud and G. de Blossevile and all his ministers of
Northampton (Cott. MS. E. xvii. f. 5b). I owe this reference to Professor
Stenton.
1 P.R. 31 Hen. II, pp. 46, 60. For a farm in capite from a sheriff see
P.R. 6 Ric. I, p. I2o.
s Stubbs, Select Charters, ed. Davis, p. 196.