SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



burgesses to send to Parliament, like other boroughs, and to answer before 

 the justices, as they had been used, by twelve burgesses of the vill, without 

 the interposition of foreigners. They asked that twelve burgesses should 

 keep the assize of bread and ale as of old. Then they came to recent 

 troubles ; they required the right of common in the abbot's woods and 

 I fisheries (and for this they appealed to Domesday Book),*" the right to have 

 their hand-mills, with damages for the recent suppressions, and the right to 

 have all executions in the town made by the bailiff of St. Albans instead of 

 the bailiff of the liberty." 



These demands were presented ' at prime ' ; the chapter deliberated, and 

 the abbot gave verbal answer, presumably to a deputation, while the crowd 

 was gathering and waiting outside. The abbey had been in a state of 

 defence since 22 January ; the monks gathered in the church and their men- 

 at-arms stood to their posts. By the sixth hour it was known in the town 

 that the abbot refused to give a written answer. The townsmen made an 

 assault upon the Holywell gate, but were driven off. The town leaders appa- 

 rently restrained their fellows, acting possibly on advice from London, where 

 they must have had agents, as they retained Serjeants of law in these next 

 days. There also came down from London a royal proclamation which had 

 some effect in sending the townsmen home. Meantime at St. Albans six 

 of the ' better ' townsmen went to the abbot to propose a conference ; he 

 agreed that each side should send procurators to a meeting in the cathedral 

 church of St. Paul, in London, on 23 February. The townsmen procurators 

 must have gone to London at once, for by 8 February they had obtained *^ a 

 royal writ commanding the abbot and his bailiffs to abstain from disquieting 

 the burgesses in their liberties, if they were entitled to them.** Another 

 writ was issued to the barons of the Exchequer for a search to be made in 

 Domesday Book.^" 



At the meeting the parties agreed to elect twelve worthy lawyers and 

 knights of the neighbourhood on each side to arbitrate. Quickly chosen, they 

 went to work at once, and their meetings were attended by three nobles, 

 sent by the king to make a report to the Council. On 6 March they held 

 their last meeting in St. Alban's Church. It had been proved that the men of 

 St. Albans were called ' burgenses ' in Domesday." The charter of Henry II 

 was read, and the villeins appealed to the word ' burgus ' applied to their 

 town to be confirmed as burgesses. The arbitrators seem hardly to have 

 hesitated in drawing up their award, and adjourned for a final discussion 

 with the king's Council on 10 March. 



On this same day, at St. Albans, the townsmen gathered again to attack the 

 church, swarming round the abbey, shouting and reviling the monks as 'ribald 

 thieves.' They were easily dispersed by the men-at-arms, but for five nights 

 the abbey was surrounded by bands some eighty strong, and the monks expected 

 the worst, but were determined to defend their church to the last. 



The crisis ended when news came from London. On the 10th the 

 three representatives of the abbot had agreed to the arbitration, which was 

 embodied in an indenture. Twenty-four of the ' most faithful * burgesses, 



*^ Walsingham, op. cit. ii, 157. ^^ Ibid. 157-8. 



48 ' Not sparing expense,' says the chronicler. Walsingham, op. cit. ii, 161. 



« Ibid. i6z. 60 Ibid. " Ibid. 163. 



4 177 23 



