VIII THE POPE AND THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 171 IX THE CORONATION OF RICHARD I 201 X THE STRUGGLE OF JOHN AND LONGCHAMP (1191) 207 XI THE COMMUNE OF LONDON 219 XII THE GREAT INQUEST OF SERVICE (1212) 261 XIII CASTLE-WARD AND CORNAGE 278 XIV BANNOCKBURN 289 XV THE MARSHALSHIP OF ENGLAND 302 Preface The paper which gives its title to this volume of unpublished studies deals with a subject of great interest, the origin of the City Corporation. In my previous work, ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ (1892), and especially in the Appendix it contains on ‘The early administration of London,’ I endeavoured to advance our knowledge of the government and the liberties of the City in the 12th century. In the present volume the paper entitled “London under Stephen” pursues the enquiry further. I have there argued that the “English Cnihtengild” was not the governing body, and have shown that it did not, as is alleged, embrace a religious life by entering Holy Trinity Priory _en masse_. The great office of “Justiciar of London,” created, as I previously held, by the charter of Henry I., is now proved, in this paper, to have been held by successive citizens in the days of Stephen. The communal movement, which, even under Stephen, seems to have influenced the City, attained its triumph under Richard I.; and the most important discovery, perhaps, in these pages is that of the oath sworn to the Commune of London. From it we learn that the governing body consisted at the time of a Mayor and “Échevins,” as in a continental city, and that the older officers, the Aldermen of the Wards, had not been amalgamated, as has been supposed, with the new and foreign system. The latter, I have urged, is now represented by the Mayor and Common Council. That this communal organization was almost certainly derived from Normandy, and probably from Rouen, will, I think, be generally admitted in the light of the evidence here adduced. This conclusion has led me to discuss the date of the “Établissements de Rouen,” a problem that has received much attention from that eminent scholar, M. Giry. I have also dwelt on the financial side of London’s communal revolution, and shown that it involved the sharp reduction of the ‘firma’ paid by the City to the Crown, the amount of which was a grievance with the citizens and a standing subject of dispute.