a certain great man called Blecca," who was the reeve of the city of Lincoln.

The primary duty of the reeve, as the king's officer, was to collect his lord's revenue, consisting chiefly of tolls on sales, manumissions, and judicial executions; which tolls, in the "Codex Exoniensis," are described as being paid to the reeve "for the king's hand." His next duty was to watch over the king's interests, and to exercise within the limits of the borough the same authority which the sheriff exercised within the shire. In royal burghs, and in the boroughs belonging to earls palatine, this jurisdiction of the reeve comprehended both civil and criminal cases; but in boroughs belonging to other lords, who had only the cognizance of civil suits in their Leet or Court Baron, then the sheriff, as the king's officer, had jurisdiction in all criminal cases. Royal charters, however, when granted, always gave to a borough complete and exclusive jurisdiction; the burgesses then, by their reeve, had the return of all writs, and were, in the language of those times, "quit of suits of shires and hundreds," and their jurisdiction comprehended sac and soc, that is, jurisdiction over the whole territory of the lord; toll, liberty to buy and sell; them, the forfeiture of stolen goods; infangthef and outfangthef, authority to punish robberies. In his double capacity, therefore, as the lord's magistrate and the guardian of the burgesses, the reeve was bound to preserve the king's peace, and see that watch and ward were duly kept; to prosecute and punish "murder, rapine, and wrong," and to make those who committed such offences responsible to justice for their conduct. All sales were to be transacted in his presence, and not without the walls or bounds of the borough; and no article could be legally disposed of unless it had first been weighed or measured by him, and had been subjected to toll. Hence, he granted a license to trade to

any hawker or pedlar coming within the borough for only a short time, and if such pedlar came for good, and was a freeman, then it was his duty to enrol him as a burgessas one of the permanent free inhabitant householders of the borough. If the new comer was a member of any trading guild, that was reckoned as a proof of his freedom, and the fact was investigated and decided by a jury of six men, who were to come from the stranger's "birth-shire." Any foreign-coming man, who was found wandering about, and did not proclaim his ware by "acclamation," was to be taken as a thief, and either slain or redeemed. If any merchant went forth of the borough to pursue his merchandise, and did not make the reeve "a witness of it," as the old phrase went, or inform his neighbours where he was going and when he should return, or if when he returned he did not tell them the purchases he had made, he was punished by the loss of his property.

For the due performance of these regulations, a certain number of burgesses was to be elected as witnesses of every sale or purchase: thirty-three in the larger boroughs and twelve in the smaller ones, each of whom was to take oath that "neither for money, love, nor fear, nor any other cause, would he say anything but the truth." Not less than two of these "sworn men were to witness every mercantile transaction.

As a necessary consequence of their exemption from the sheriff's interference, and that the borough-reeve might ensure the regular observance of all these laws, every free man in the borough was to take his oath by his pledges, in the Folkmote, Portmote, or Court Leet of the Borough. The Burghwara were summoned to this court by the ringing of the "Mot Bell," and if any burgess refused to go and render suit and service and give his pledges, and absented himself three times, he was fined for contempt. If he

failed to pay the fine, the elders of the borough were to go and seize all that he had, and take it in lieu of his pledge. The burgesses were bound to attend this court, because, in the words of the laws of Edward the Confessor, it was "there, where the people who are under the protection or in the peace of the king ought to come, and by their common council provide for the indemnity of the crown, and for repressing the insolence of wrong-doers to the common good of the kingdom. And that these all ought to come, once in the year, in the Kalends of May, and with their faith and oath unbroken, they should unite themselves together into one body as sworn brethren, to defend the king against strangers and enemies; and that they would be faithful to the king and swear their fidelity to him."

The law of the Free Borough with regard to this pledge, termed in Yorkshire "ten man tale," was this: Every man was to be under the pledge of the decenna or ten men, so that if one incurred forfeiture the other nine should produce him to do right. If they found him, he was forfeited; if he continued at large, then the Head Freeborough (Friborges heofod) was to take two of the most respectable members and the tything-man of each of the three neighbouring decenno or tythings, together with two of his own tything, and these twelve as Compurgators were to clear the tything, if possible, from all participation in the crime and flight of the offender. If they failed in this, then compensation was to be paid out of the goods of the offender, and failing this, from the tything at large. This done, the three tything-men took oath still to bring the offender forth whenever they could, or disclose his retreat when they discovered it.

In the Saxon period the Burghmote was generally held three times a year, and Magna Charta made it incumbent to be held not less than twice in the year. At the Burghmote held in the Kalends of October, the reeve was generally

appointed, and the burgesses also undertook their lot for the year; that is, were elected to fulfil such municipal duties as attached to the offices of constable, overseer, churchwarden, juryman or compurgator, or were drafted into the posse burgi, or borough police force.

The larger boroughs were divided into districts, answering to hundreds in the shire. These districts were variously nained in London, Cambridge, Stamford, and the generality of the towns, they were called "wards;" in York city they were termed "shires;" and in Huntington they went by the name of “ferlings or quarters." Each ward had its own wardmote or leet, under its elected alderman, and was for certain purposes a distinct jurisdiction; although, as has before been stated, there existed certain exclusive sokes in parts of most large boroughs. Where also a baronial castle was situated within the walls or precincts of the borough, its moat and bastions were a bar to the legal jurisdiction of the burgesses, and their wic-reeve had no authority. In turbulent times this was a source of constant provocation to the burgesses; they were never free from the raids of the garrison, who knew that their booty was secure from seizure, and their persons from legal arrest, when once within the confines of the castle.

What qualifications entitled an inhabitant of the borough to the privileges of burgess-ship, is a question which has been repeatedly discussed in parliament, and in the great law courts of the realm, and has been decided in various ways.

Four different theories have been held on this subject.

1. Under Edward I. the right was vested in the inhabitant householders, resident in the borough, paying scot and lot, and probably general taxes. This was laid down by a celebrated decision of a committee of the House of Commons in 1624, and was called the Common Law Right, which

ought always to obtain where prescriptive usage to the contrary cannot be shown.

2. The right sprung from the tenure of certain freehold lands and burgages within the borough, and did not belong to any other tenants.

3. The right was derived from charters of incorporation, and belonged to the community of freemen of the corporate body.

4. Dr. Brady, who wrote his History of Corporations to justify the Stuarts, asserted that the right did not extend to the generality of the freemen, but was limited to the governing part, or municipal magistracy-the mayor and aldermen.

Owing to our extended knowledge of the ancient laws and charters, both of the Saxon and Norman times, the doubts which once existed on this point cannot now be entertained, because they are not justified by any reference to these authorities. Of the above four theories, therefore, the last one is utterly untenable; the third one, though now generally accepted, is not based upon historical accuracy; while the truth lies more fully in the first than in the second.

The first distinguishing characteristic of the borough was its exemption from all interference by the sheriff, for which reason many boroughs are entered in Domesday distinctly by themselves, before the terra regis, and the general return of the county. Those who possessed the privilege of this exclusive jurisdiction were the permanent, free, resident householders of the borough, who paid scot, gable, burgh-boot, and other local rates; bore lot; and who were presented, sworn, and enrolled at their own Leet or Burghmote. Their burgess-ship did not depend on Tenure, as the second theory represents, because many burgesses belonged to other manors, that is, they were the vassals of a lord who was not the owner of the soil of the borough in