It follows from this that when the citizens paid John £2,000 “pro habendo confirmationem Regis de libertatibus suis,” they did not obtain, as I had gathered from his charter, for the first time a reduction of the _firma_ to £300, but a confirmation of the reduction they had won at the crisis of 1191. This, then, up to now has been the sum total of our knowledge: a _commune_ was granted to London in October, 1191; the ferm of the city was, simultaneously, reduced from over £500 to the old £300, as granted by Henry I.; and the Mayor of London first meets us in the spring of 1193. Of the nature of the _commune_ we know nothing; of its very existence after the autumn of 1191, we are in equal ignorance. It is at this point that the document which follows comes to our help with a flood of light, proving, as it does, that London, in 1193, possessed a fully developed _commune_ of the continental pattern. * * * * * “_Sacramentum commune tempore regis Ricardi quando detentus erat Alemaniam_ (_sic_).[489] Quod fidem portabunt domino regi Ricardo de vita sua et de membris et de terreno honore suo contra omnes homines et feminas qui vivere possunt aut mori et quod pacem suam servabunt et adjuvabunt servare, et quod communam tenebunt et obedientes erunt maiori civitatis Lond[onie] et skivin[is][490] ejusdem commune in fide regis et quod sequentur et tenebunt considerationem maioris et skivinorum et aliorum proborum hominum qui cum illis erunt salvo honore dei et sancte ecclesie et fide domini regis Ricardi et salvis per omnia libertatibus civitatis Lond[onie]. Et quod pro mercede nec pro parentela nec pro aliqua re omittent quin jus in omnibus rebus [pro]sequentur et teneant pro posse suo et scientia et quod ipsi communiter in fide domini regis Ricardi sustinebunt bonum et malum et ad vitam et ad mortem. Et si quis presumeret pacem domini regis et regni perturbare ipsi consilio domine[491] et domini Rothomagensis[492] et aliorum justiciarum domini regis juvabunt fideles domini regis et illos qui pacem servare volunt pro posse suo et pro scientia sua salvis semper in omnibus libertatibus Lond[onie].” Before discussing this document one may well compare it with the Freeman’s oath at the present day, as taken by the latest honorary freeman, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum (4th November, 1898):