SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



waters and free hunting and fowling in certain lands ; they should have 

 I hand-mills at their will ; the bailiff of the liberty was to have no powers in 



; the town ; the monks should be made to surrender all the bonds made by 



? townsmen in and after 1332, all charters prejudicial to the townsmen, and 



/ other documents so numerous that Walsingham calls them ' all the muni- 



ments, to put it briefly.' 



At this meeting leaders of different opinions began to stand forward. 

 One invited Wat Tyler to come to St. Albans and to burn the abbey and 

 kill the monks if they refused the demands. One, perhaps William 

 Grindecobbe, who had something of the mind of a statesman, advised the 

 villeins to obtain a royal writ ordering the restoration of the burghal 

 privileges of the time of King Henry."' Grindecobbe is mentioned by 

 name at this point as accusing the monks to Wat Tyler of oppressing the 

 commune of the town and keeping back the wages of poor men and 

 servants. Tyler, it was reported, promised to come to St. Albans. Appa- 

 rently Grindecobbe prevailed. Walsingham says that he obtained the writ. 

 Like others, he probably went to the places in London where the king's 

 thirty secretaries™ were drawing up the Letters Patent at the villeins' dicta- 

 tion. The St. Albans writ was evidently inspired by one of the townsmen. 

 It ordered the abbot to give the burgesses the charters of King Henry as to 

 common pasture and common fishery and other commodities. Grindecobbe 

 probably began the business and left it to be finished ^^ by Richard de 

 Wallingford, for Grindecobbe, with W. Cadington, a baker, reappeared in 

 St. Albans that evening. 



All that day, from matins to nones, the great household at the abbey 

 had waited for any news. The prior and one or two others fled. The 

 townspeople prepared now to act for themselves ; they came to the abbot no 

 longer. John Eccleshall, the ' first rebel,' made proclamation to the men 

 of St. Albans, who now took their old title of burgesses, to rise, and thereupon 

 they summoned the vills around to send their representatives, who were to 

 bring gentlemen with them if they could.'^* Inflammatory speeches and 

 threats were made. John Wayt declared ' they would never have their 

 liberties until they had pulled down all the manors round the abbey and half 

 the abbey'; another, Gilbert Tayleour, said that if any man were killed 

 through this rebellion the abbot's manors should be burnt and the abbey 

 pulled down.'*"^ 



On the following day representatives of the neighbouring vills were 

 coming in.''* Men were there from Cashio,'* Rickmansworth, Tring, Abbot's 

 Walden, Redbourn," Norton, Northaw and South Mimms, Abbot's Langley, 

 Sandridge, Tyttenhanger, Codicote, Shephall, Westwick, Newnham ''" and 

 Berkhampstead." The men of Redbourn ' dragged along with them ' three 

 gentlemen called William Grescy, William Erie and Thomas Norton." 



*' Walsingham, Hist. jing!. i, 467-8. ™ Froissart, op. cit. 123. 



^^ cf. the king's words at Mile End as reported by Froissart, loc. cit. : ' Now therefore return to your 

 homes . . . leaving two or three men from each village to whom I will order letters to be given, sealed 

 with my seal, which they shall carry back with every demand you have made fully granted.' 



'2 Walsingham, Hist. Angl. i, 471. The chronicler uses the word ' procura tores,' with which he must 

 have been familiar in connexion with Parliament. 



72a Coram Rege R. 482, m. 27 ; 485, m. 33. '^ Walsingham, Hist. Angl. i, 471. 



7* Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum, iii, 325. '" Ibid. 326-8. 



78 Ibid. 330. " Ibid. 287. '8 Ibid. 328-30. 



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