SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



ports which were devastated by pirates or French inroads or suffered from a 

 great storm, inland towns which had been laid waste by fires, petition for a 

 reduction of the fee-farm."* 



But the chief proof of this civic autonomy is to be found in the posses- 

 sion of a mint, so that the coinage of one town was foreign in another. 

 Dorchester and other ' walled towns ' of the county had a mint ; Wareham 

 and Shaftesbury possessed two mints each,*'' a great source of wealth to the 

 community. 



The inhabitants of the towns were united not only by common responsi- 

 bilities but by common pleasures. The ' Cobb Ale ' of Lyme Regis, dating 

 probably from the destruction of the harbour in 1376, became an annual 

 feast and fancy fair."' Then the custom existed at Shaftesbury of the mayor 

 carrying the ' Bezant ' to Motcombe each year in recognition of its good 

 water supply."* Garland-day was the annual festivity at Abbotsbury ; after 

 a procession through the town the fishermen deposited garlands of flowers on 

 the waves to bring luck to the mackerel fishing."' All these customs belonged 

 individually to the towns, and represented some characteristic of their civic 

 life ; the custom of one town would have been foreign and meaningless in 

 another. The centre of life in each town was the parish church, and in its man- 

 agement, both financial and ecclesiastical, the popular voice made itself heard. 

 The ' commonalty ' of Bridport did not hesitate to criticize the chaplain of 

 St. Andrew's, ' a stranger from Bretagnc who was drunk every day, not fit 

 for divine service,' and ' who sometimes celebrated it twice in the week, 

 sometimes not at all.' "' 



As to the people of the towns, ' the commonalty,' they were a distinct 

 class whose rise made the growth of these independent towns possible. 

 Hitherto the only ' considerable ' men were the owners of land. Trade 

 brought with it another criterion of importance, commercial wealth ; burgage 

 tenure lost its old simplicity and uniformity."' The position of the burgess 

 was one of great importance : he was the pivot upon which the whole 

 machinery of town government turned. He had to contribute towards the 

 maintenance of public buildings, to defend the town from invasions, to give 

 watch and ward, to serve on juries; in return for these obligations he had the 

 privileges of a taxpayer, in those days the exclusive right of trading in the 

 borough. That aliens attempted to get trading privileges without paying for 

 them is only natural ; equally natural is it that the burgesses should have 

 resisted these attempts. In Lyme Regis any stranger who came to reside and 

 trade in the borough without becoming a freeman was obliged to pay 3J. bd. 

 a week to the corporation, which sum was applied to the repairs of the Cobb 

 and the sea-walls."' In Wareham the ' Constitutions of the borough ' 

 declared that any stranger ' using his trade or occupation in the said borough, 

 unless he was born or had served an apprenticeship in the said town,' was to 

 pay 3^. \d. to the use of the mayor for opening ' his windows of his shop.* 

 At the same time there was no attempt made to keep out aliens who had 

 been burgesses in another town and were likely to become freemen again. 



'" Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iii, 7o3, 5I5<J, &c. '" Hutchins, H'tst. of Dorset, i, 79. 



'" Roberts, Sioctal Hist. 335. '" 'Notes and Queries of Somerset and Dorset, iii, 235-6. 



'" Ibid. 231. "• Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, App. 495. 



'" Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset, i, 77 (diff. size of burgages in Wareham). 



'" G. Roberts, Hist, of Lyme Regis, 22. 



243 



