Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen ElizabethReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Many new boroughs were founded as grants of market rights by the
King grew in number. These grants implied the advantage of the
King's protection. In fact, a certain flooded town was replaced
with a new town planned with square blocks. It was the charter
which distinguished the borough community from the other
communities existing in the country. It invested each borough
with a distinct character. The privileges which the charter
conferred were different indifferent places. It might give
trading privileges: freedom from toll, a guild merchant, a right
to hold a fair. It might give jurisdictional privileges: a right
to hold court with greater or less franchises. It might given
governmental privileges: freedom from the burden of attending
the hundred and county courts, the return of writs, which meant
the right to exclude the royal officials, the right to take the
profits of the borough, paying for them a fixed sum to the Crown
or other lord of the borough, the right to elect their own
officials rather than them being appointed by the King or a
lord, and the right to provide for the government of the
borough. It might give tenurial privileges: the power to make a
will of lands, or freedom from the right of a lord to control his
tenants' marriages. It might give procedural privileges: trial
by battle is excluded, and trial by compurgation is secured and
regulated. These medieval borough charters are very varied, and
represent all stages of development and all grades of franchise.
Boroughs bought increasing rights and freedoms from their lord,
who was usually the King.
In the larger towns, where cathedrals and public building were
built, there arose a system for teaching these technical skills
and elaborate handicraft, wood, metal, stained glass, and stone
work. Some churches now had stained-glass windows. A boy from
the town would be bound over in apprenticeship to a particular
craftsman, who supplied him with board and clothing. The
craftsman might also employ men for just a day. These journeymen
were not part of the craftsman's household as was the
apprentice. After a few years of an apprenticeship, one became a
journeyman and perfected his knowledge of his craft and its
standards by seeing different methods and results in various
towns. He was admitted as a master of his trade to a guild upon
presenting an article of his work worthy of that guild's
standard of workmanship: his "masterpiece". The tailors' guild
and the skinners' guild are extant now.
When guilds performed morality plays based on Bible stories at
town festivals, there was usually a tie between the Bible story
and the guild's craft. For instance, the story of the loaves and
fishes would be performed by the Bakers' or Fishmongers' Guild.
The theme of the morality play was the fight of the Seven
Cardinal Virtues against the Seven Deadly Sins for the human
soul, a life-long battle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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