of fixed amount and easy recovery was by this means secured 

 to the state : the fee-farm being raised in each town by its 

 own municipal authorities, by way of rateable assessment on 

 all the inhabitants. 



To the citizens of York, King John granted, soon after his 

 accession to the throne,' a confirmation and renewal of the 

 mercatorial Guild and other privileges they had enjoyed under 

 his predecessors ; but it was not until the latter part of his 

 reisrn that the citizens obtained from the monarch the more 

 important charter, by which the city itself was granted to them 

 in fee-farm, and they were constituted an independent munici- 

 pality, and empowered to manage their own local affairs and 

 civil interests. 



At first, it may be presumed, every resiant or inhabitant was 

 deemed to be, ipso facto, a citizen, and entitled to participate in 

 the various privileges and immunities of the municipal com- 

 pact : but as these advantages became more apparent, and the 

 knowledge of their value more widely diffused, they would be 

 eagerly sought for by the population of the rural vicinage, 

 as well as of other and more distant places ; and it would 

 become necessary for the civic authorities to adopt some method 

 of registration or inrolment, in order to identify those who were 

 admitted from time to time into the number of citizens, and to 

 acquire the power of subjecting them to such regulation and 

 control, as would be requisite for their mutual benefit. 



At what period a register of citizens or freemen was originally 

 commenced in York, cannot be positively determined. The 

 earliest now in existence, begins with the reign of King 

 Edward I., viz., in the year 1272. This is little more than 

 half a century after the grant of King John's second charter ; 

 and it is not very improbable, that there was no written register 

 anterior to it. The record is simply a list of the names, and 

 trades or occupations, of the persons who were admitted, in 

 each year, to the privileges of citizenship ; one of the most im- 

 portant of which was the right to carry on trade within the 



' King John's first charter is tested at York, 25th March, 1200. The King 

 was in York on that and the three following days. Vide Hardy's Itinerary. 



b2 



