Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George IIIReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George III
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Towns, as distinct from villages, had permanent markets. As towns
grew, they paid a fee to obtain a charter for self-government from
the king giving the town judicial and commercial freedom. They
were literate enough to do accounts. So they did their own
valuation of the sum due to the crown so as not to pay the sheriff
any more than that. These various rights were typically expanded
in future times, and the towns received authority to collect the
sum due to the crown rather than the sheriff. This they did by
obtaining a charter renting the town to the burghers at a fee farm
rent equal to the sum thus deducted from the amount due from the
county. Such a town was called a "borough" and its citizens or
landholding freemen "burgesses". To be free of something meant to
have exclusive rights and privileges with respect to it. Selling
wholesale could take place only in a borough. Burgesses were free
to marry. They were not subject to defense except of the borough.
They were exempt from attendance at county and hundred courts. The
king assessed a tallage [ad hoc tax] usually at ten per cent of
property or income. In the boroughs, merchant and manufacturing
guilds controlled prices and assured quality. The head officer of
the guild usually controlled the borough, which excluded rival
merchant guilds. A man might belong to more than one guild, e.g.
one for his trade and another for religion.
Craft guilds grew up in the towns, such as the tanners at Oxford,
which later merged with the shoemakers into a cordwainers' guild.
There were weavers' guilds in several towns, including London,
which were given royal sanction and protection for annual payments
(twelve pounds of silver for London. They paid an annual tribute
and were given a monopoly of weaving cloth within a radius of
several miles. Guild rules covered attendance of the members at
church services, the promotion of pilgrimages, celebration of
masses for the dead, common meals, relief of poor brethren and
sisters, the hours of labor, the process of manufacture, the wages
of workmen, and technical education. Henry standardized the yard
as the length of his own arm.
Trades and crafts, each of which had to be licensed, grouped
together by specialty in the town. Cloth-makers, dyers, tanners,
and fullers were near an accessible supply of running water, upon
which their trade depended. Streets were often named by the trade
located there, such as Butcher Row, Pot Row, Cordwainer Row,
Ironmonger Row, Wheeler Row, and Fish Row. Hirers of labor and
sellers of wheat, hay, livestock, dairy products, apples and wine,
meat, poultry, fish and pies, timber and cloth all had a distinct
location. Some young men were apprenticed to craftsmen to assist
them and learn their craft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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