I contend that these two passages ought to be read together. No one appears to have observed the fact that the sequel to the above Lincoln entry is to be found in the Pipe-Roll of 1157 (3 Hen. II.). We there find £140 deducted from the ferm of the shire in consideration of the severance of the city from the _corpus comitatus_ ("Et in Civitate Lincol[nie] CXL libræ blancæ"). But we further find the citizens of Lincoln, in accounting for their _firma_ to the Crown direct, accounting not for £140, but for £180. It must, consequently, have been worth their while to offer the Crown a sum equivalent to about a year's rental for the privilege of paying it £180 direct rather than £140 through the sheriff.[1047] Such figures are eloquent as to the extortions from which they had suffered. The citizens of London, as I have said, set to work a different way. They simply sought to lease the shrievalty of the shire themselves. I can, on careful consideration, offer no other suggestion than that the hundred marcs for which they account in the Roll of 1130, represent the payment by which they secured a lease of the shrievalty for the year 1129-1130, the shrievalty being held in that year by the "quatuor vicecomites" of the Roll. I gather from the Roll that Fulcred fitz Walter had been sheriff for 1128-29, and his payment "de gersoma" is, I take it, represented in the case of the following year (1129-30) by these hundred marks, the "quatuor vicecomites" themselves having paid nothing "de gersoma." On this view, the citizens must have leased the shrievalty themselves and then put in four of their fellows, as representing them, to hold it. But, obviously, such a post was not one to be coveted. To exact sufficient from their fellow-citizens wherewith to meet the claims of the Crown would be a task neither popular nor pleasant. Indeed, the fact of the citizens installing four "vicecomites" may imply that they could not find any one man who would consent to fill a post as thankless as that of the hapless _decurio_ in the provinces of the Roman Empire, or of the chamberlain, in a later age, in the country towns of England. Hence it may be that we find it thus placed in commission. Hence, also, the eagerness of these _vicecomites_ to be quit of office, as shown by their payment, for that privilege, of two marcs of gold apiece.[1048] It may, however, be frankly confessed that the nature of this payment is not so clear as could be wished. Judging from the very ancient practice with regard to municipal offices, one would have thought that such payments would probably have been made to their fellow-citizens who had thrust on them the office rather than to the Crown. Moreover, if their year of office was over, and the city's lease at an end, one would have thought they would be freed from office in the ordinary course of things. The only explanation, perhaps, that suggests itself is that they purchased from the Crown an exemption from serving