A HISTORY OF DORSET 



list of further geographical details. To this he returned that a perambulation 

 of the bounds and chase of Cranborne, in the reign of King John, had deter- 

 mined the rights of the earls of Gloucester. Further encroachments were 

 alleged against him in the hundred of Combsditch ; but it was admitted that 

 he had assize of bread and ale, and wreck of the sea, in the manors of 

 Weymouth, Portland, Wyke, and Elwell.^ 



Such checks upon the power of the great territorialists, though in them- 

 selves negative, were assisted by the parallel movement of increased privileges 

 of town-dwelling communities. The fact that such definition of status and juris- 

 diction occurred somewhat late in Dorset does not imply that the powers 

 now formally legalized had not hitherto been exercised. It would seem that 

 the number of royal boroughs in the county had tended to make for peace 

 between the burgesses and their overlord. In no case is there sign of 

 previous strained feeling between the community as such and the overlord who 

 grants the charter. The charters were therefore not extorted perforce, but 

 were the result of handsome pecuniary compensation. Henry III gave 

 charters to Bridport and Shaftesbury in 1252,* by which the former was in- 

 corporated, while Shaftesbury (whose mayor witnesses a charter in 1352)' 

 obtained freedom that its burgesses should not be impleaded outside the 

 borough during the visits of the justices in eyre, and that they should elect 

 from among themselves two coroners to determine the pleas of the crown in 

 the said vill. Weymouth, granted by Henry I to the monks of St. Swithun, 

 Winchester,* and exchanged by them with Gilbert of Clare for other lands,' 

 passed by the marriage of Gilbert's granddaughter Elizabeth to Lionel duke 

 of Clarence (son of Edward III), who then obtained for the town certain 

 liberties. Sherborne was never a borough, but belonged to the bishop of 

 Salisbury.' Melcombe, Bere Regis, Lyme, and Newton received charters 

 from Edward I,^ by which the former obtained the usual freedom from extra- 

 burghal impleading, and that the burgesses should have their town at an 

 annual fixed fee-farm rent in perpetuity. Bere and Lyme became free boroughs. 

 The men of Wareham for many years had paid 100 marks to have their town 

 at fee-farm rent.* It received a charter from William Longespee,^ as did also 

 Poole, probably about 1248.'° Corfe Castle and Blandford were boroughs by 

 prescription, but were not formally incorporated till 1576 and 1606 respec- 

 tively.'^ Dorchester, which had hitherto paid ^^20 by tale or f^iT. blanch for 

 the fee-farm rent of the town,'^ an arrangement on a somewhat uncertain foot- 

 ing,'' obtained the perpetuation of this scale in 1337/* having only obtained 

 from Edward I that they might ' make at their own expense a prison to 

 detain there the persons indicted for trespass and felony.' " 



' Plac. Abbrev. (Rec. Com.), 183, Rot. 5 d. 



' Madox, Hist. Exch. 250, 290 ; Browne-Willis, Hot. Pari, ii, 460-1 ; Mayo, Municip. Rec. of the 

 Borough of Shaftesbury, 3. ' M.iyo, Municip. Rec. of the Borough of Shaftesbury, 3. 



' H. J. Moule, Calendar of Weymouth Charters, 3. 



' Hutchins, Dors, ii, 428. ' Ibid, iv, 208. 



' Browne-Willis, A'o/. Pari, ii, 446 ; Pat. 19 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 22 d.; Chart. R. 13 Edw. I, No. 136. 



' Pipe R. I 2 John, la. ' d. ; rep. I 3 John [nova oblata). 



' Hutchins, Dors, i, 82. " Sydenham, Hist. Poole, 154, 78. 



" Hutchins, op. cit. i, 471-2 ; Browne- Willis, Not. Pari. (ed. 1716), ii, 391. 

 " Dorchester Corp. MSS. A. 30 ; Madox, Hist. Exch. 195. 

 " Bro%vne-Willis, Not. Pari, ii, 418. 



" Dorch. Corp. MSS. loc. cit. ; Chart. R. 11 Edw. Ill, m. 3, No. 26 

 "- Dorch. Corp. MSS. loc. cit. 



138 



