2 34 History of the English Landed Interest. 



pointed out in an earlier chapter, under the system of feudalism 

 as burgage tenants. Little is known for certain about primi- 

 tive urban economy, but it has been thought that a town 

 villeinage existed which performed certain crafts under feudal 

 obligations. Like their rural brethren, they gradually forced 

 their way upwards into complete enfranchisement, and resolved 

 themselves into societies for mutual protection under the 

 familiar terms of Merchant, and Mystery or Craft Grilds. The 

 old seignorial Court Leet of the oppidan lands became thus the 

 Portmanmote, or town assembly, of the newly-formed munici- 

 pality, in which the burgess of the Merchant Gild had a right 

 to sit. Once constituted, these different Gilds were chary of 

 admitting strangers into their select circles, so that the chance 

 villein who succeeded in evading the strict seignorial police 

 restrictions against labour exodus at home, formed the nucleus 

 of that fresh class, the journeyman, who now began to appear 

 amidst the commercial centres of the kingdom.^ 



Besides the fixed day for the weekly market, a date, in many 

 towns at a period of the year most convenient for purchasing 

 winter stores, was set apart for the annual fair. The Flanders 

 trade had its centre at Stourbridge, and that with France was 

 localised at Winchester. Mr. Ashley gives a graphic descrip- 

 tion of this fair, which brings into prominence the complete 

 jurisdiction possessed by landlords over such business resorts. 

 On the morning of August 31st the bishop proclaimed the 

 fair on the hill-top east of Winchester. In the exercise of 

 his seignorial rights he rode through the town on horseback, 

 received its keys at the gates, took possession of the weighing 

 machine in the wool market, put a stop to all intermural com- 

 merce, and then, with the municipal authorities, rode back to 

 his pavilion on the hill, where he appointed a special mayor, 

 bailiff, and coroner to govern the city in his name during fair 

 time. Notwithstanding the erection of a timbered palisade 

 round this ephemeral city of wooden shops, and the most com- 



^ If tlie reader would dive deeper into the subject of early municipal 

 government, he cannot do better than read chap. ii. in Ashley's Econoinic 

 History^ to which the author is indebted for mucli of the short summary 

 contained here. 



