THE GOVERNMENT OF EARLY LONDON

The kynges chambre of custom men this calle.—Lydgate.

The Kings Peace.—When Alfred took over London it must have been in the main a decayed Roman city. In giving the great burh into the hands of the Mercian Ealdorman, Ethered, he was but restoring its capital to Mercia, but he must also, and mainly, have had in view the need for providing means of defence to the frontier fortress of the March country. Even so, alongside of a supreme military rule a more domestic organisation of a customary nature must have been carried on or reintroduced. It is probable that this, following the shire model, was constituted with hundreds or wards; the people met in wardmote and folkmote, and the king was represented by a Sheriff or Portreeve. London, however, was and remained pre-eminently a royal burh, and must have shared in all the characteristics of the burhs, drawing on certain shires for upholding its defences, having a Witan, coining money, having special privileges as to residence, gilds, and markets, and being subject to the King’s Peace. As to the contributions for defence, Dr. Maitland, as we have seen on p. 105, says, “There were shires or districts which from of old owed work of this kind to Londonbury.”[204] Regarding the King’s Peace, it was provided by the laws that every crime committed, in a street which ran right through the city and likewise without the walls for a distance of over a league, was a crime against the king. In London the man who was guilty had to pay the king’s burh-bryce of five pounds. The burh was to be sacred from private quarrels—“the King’s house-peace prevails in the streets.”[205] Some such fact as this is probably the origin of that almost mythical phrase applied to the city by Lydgate and earlier writers—“the king’s chamber of London.” It is to this aspect as the great model burh that the Saxon laws of London printed by Thorpe refer.

There must have been a Burh Witan meeting periodically. A Crediton charter of 1018 was made known to the Witans of Exeter, Barnstaple, Lidford, and Totness, i.e. the Devonshire burhs. The Witan was thus a court of record or witness. Probably the Hustings court is a form of the same assembly.

Portreeves.—Fabyan says that at the coming of William the Conqueror and before, the rulers of the city were named Portgreves. “These of old time, with the laws and customs then used within the city, were registered in a book called Domysday in Saxon tongue then used, but of later days when the said laws and customs altered and changed and for consideration that the said book was of small hand and sore defaced and hard to be read or understood, it was the less set by, so that it was embezzled or lost, so that the remembrance of such rulers as were before the days of Richard the First (i.e. the institution of the mayoralty) were lost and forgotten.”

The office of Portreeve probably goes back nearly to the first settlement of the English. Bishop Stubbs, speaking generally of town organisation, says, “The presiding magistrate was the gerefa.” The king’s wic-gerefa in Lundonwic is mentioned in the Saxon Laws of c. 685 (Thorpe).[206] The charter of the Conqueror ran, “I, King William, greet William the Bishop and Gosfregth the Portreeve,” and two of the Confessor’s charters were addressed to bishop and portreeve. In the Judicia Civitatis LondoniÆ of Athelstane a reference is found to “the bishops and gereves that to London borough belong.” Norton says that these Laws show that in Athelstane’s time the bishops and reeves were the chief magistrates of London, and they likewise presided at county courts with a jurisdiction precisely similar. This conjunction of the spiritual and temporal powers probably explains why it is that St. Paul’s has always been linked in such a special way to the Guildhall. At St. Paul’s was kept the city banner, grants of money from city funds are made for its repair, and the mayor is a trustee of the church. This dual control seems to bear the mark of Alfred’s thought. The Portreeve certainly represented the king, and was responsible for the farm of the city. In the Blickling Homilies Agrippa is called Nero’s Burhgerefa. It would seem as if the bishop represented the collective citizens. Mr. Round has recently shown that the Portreeve disappeared in the Sheriff or Vicecomes of London and Middlesex. The Waltham Chronicle says that the Conqueror placed Geoffrey de Mandeville in the shoes of Esegar the Staller, and Mr. Round conjectures that this Geoffrey is the actual “Gosfregth Portirefan” to whom the Conqueror’s charter was addressed. He also points out how the Sheriff had the custody of the Tower; and in this we may find a further suggestion as to the probability of a connection between the Portsoken of the Cnihten Gild, the Portreeve, and the pre-Conquest citadel. Mr. Round seems not to have known that his suppositions were all taken for granted by Stow, who calls the Portreeve of the Conqueror’s charter Godfrey, and then writes, “In the reign of the said Conqueror, Godfrey de Magnaville was Portgrave (or Sheriff); ... these Portgraves (after the Conquest) are also called Vicecounties or Sheriffs.” Mr. Round shows that the Sheriff, and by inference the Portreeve, represented London and Middlesex taken together. “The city of London was never severed from the rest of the shire. As far back as we can trace them they are one and indivisible.”[207] The author just quoted accounts for this distinction between London and other county towns by the relative importance of London; but I cannot think, as before suggested, that Middlesex was not specially dependant on London, and probably Ethered’s authority as commandant of the great burh extended over Middlesex. The acquisition of the farm of the county by the city may be an echo of this.

Stow gave a list of the Portreeves from the time of the Conquest. In the additional matter printed by Hearne in his edition of William of Newbury is given, from a register of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, what must be another copy of Stow’s authority for the early sheriffs for which he cited a book “sometime belonging to St. Albans.” Both may come from the old book called “Domysday,” by Fabyan. In the list given by Hearne the names are much less corrupt than in Stow’s list; and as it ends with the year 1222 it must have been an early document. The Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs gives still another list from the first year of Richard onward, and so far as they overlap, the three can be compared.[208]

According to Hearne’s list the principal governor of the citizens of London in the days of the Confessor was Wulfgar, called Portshyreve. In the reign of William Rufus, Geoffrey de Magnaville was vicecomes and R. del Parc prÆpositus. In the time of Henry I. came Hugo de Boch’ [Bochland], v., and Leofstan, p. Albericus de Ver, v., and Robertus de Berquereola, p., followed.

In the reign of Stephen we have the names of Gilbertus Beket, v., and Andreas Buchuint, p. Under Henry II. Petrus filius Walteri was vicecomes, then Johannes filius Nigelli, then Ernulfus Buchel, then Willelmus filius IsabellÆ, the last of whom was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Aldgate.

Richard I. was crowned September 1189. In his days first began to be two vicecomites at the same time, who were usually chosen 21st September. In his first year they were Henricus Cornhill and Ricardus filius Reneri.

The Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs begins with these same two names of what it calls the “first sheriffs of London, in the first year of the reign of King Richard.” It, however, places this in 1188; then follow other pairs of names as in Stow, but all a year earlier, till 1206, when Serlo le Mercer and Henry de Saint Auban are interpolated, probably by mistake, unless they merely occupied the position for the portion of a year.

From the Pipe Rolls and St. Paul’s documents many more facts as to the sheriffs can be gathered, and Mr. Round’s article on the “Early Administration of London,” in his Geoffrey de Mandeville, must be taken as the starting-point for any complete inquiry.

The first Mayor.—The institution of the mayoralty is put in the year 1188 by the Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs. In Hearne’s list, under 1208, is entered Henry son of Alwin son of Leofstan, first of the mayors of London, who were chosen St. Edward’s day (13th October).

Stow agrees with the chronicle, and puts the institution of the mayoralty in the first year of Richard I.; but under 1208 we find an echo of the version as printed by Hearne, for Stow makes King John, in this year, grant the citizens a patent “to chuse to themselves a mayor.” Be the explanation of this what it may, contemporary documents show that Fitzalwin was already known as mayor in 1193; he probably took up the office in 1191.

Stow tells us that the first mayor was Henry Fitzalwin Fitzleofstan of London Stone, and there is ample confirmation that his father was called Alwin. That his grandfather was Leofstan, Stow must have learnt from the list of sheriffs as in the copy printed by Hearne.

There is some confusion between many Leofstans and Alwins, one of whom signs as moneyer the coins of Henry II. about 1160—Alwin on Lund. Mr. Round has shown that in 1165 a Henry Fitzailwin Fitzleofstan with Alan his brother were landholders, apparently in Essex.[209] Stow says that Leofstan was a goldsmith; but here he may be confusing another Leofstan, as this fact does not seem to have been given in the list of sheriffs. Munday contradicted Stow as to Mayor Henry’s grave being at Holy Trinity, and says he was buried at St. Mary Bothaw, and not as “avowed by Mr. Stow.” Stow’s authority, however, must have been this same list of sheriffs, for that notes that “he was buried at the entrance to the chapter of the Church of Holy Trinity, under a marble slab.” Mr. Round has done much to clear up the history of our first mayor in the Dictionary of National Biography, the ArchÆological Journal, and his Commune of London; but every detail is valuable of the head of the City Republic of whom the citizens said, “Come what will, in London we will never have another king except our mayor, Henry Fitailwin of London Stone.”[210] Henry was mayor for nearly twenty years, and was followed in 1212 by Roger Fitz Alan—can he have been Henry’s nephew?

Hustings.—This court is mentioned in the charter of Henry I., and in a passage in the so-called Laws of the Confessor the Hustings Court is said to have been founded of old in imitation of and to continue the royal customs of Great Troy. FitzStephen also repeats the legend that the laws of the city were derived from the Trojans, and the passage from the Laws of the Confessor was copied into the Liber Albus. It was suggested nearly three centuries since by Munday, that “Troy weight” is the ancient standard weight of London, and carries on the legend of Brutus to this day; but this is not borne out by the facts, although it is frequently reasserted, as in Brewer’s Phrase and Fable. Munday says, “The weight used for gold and silver called Troy weight was in the time of the Saxons called ‘the Hustings weight of London,’ and kept there in the Hustings. So an ancient record in the Book of Ramsey (sect. 32, 127): ‘I Æthelgiva Countess, etc., bequeath two silver cups of twelve marks of the Hustings weight of London.’”[211] This is interesting as an early notice of the Hustings Court, which is thought by some to have originated under the Danish rule; but the word “Thing” occurs in one of the earliest English laws. It was a Court of Record; the best account of it is given by Dr. Sharpe in his Calendar of Wills.

The Court of Hustings was not, it appears, necessarily associated with the Guildhall. A Ramsey Charter of 1114-30 speaks of a purchase of a house being completed “in the presence of the whole Court of Hustings of London in the house of Alfwine, son of Leofstan.”[212]