Growth of the towns and cities. following oaths: 'Here, my lord, I become liegeman of yours for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and death, God help me.' The kiss of his lord invested him with the land or fief, to descend to him and his heirs forever." The people living on the manor at the time of the conquest were undisturbed. They became bondsmen of the new nobility, and continued as before to obey their lord and render him service. In every manor was the manor house occupied by the lord or his bailiff. In this building was held the baron's court and the leet court. The church, the house of the priest and other buildings for the servants and retainers of the lord surrounded the manorial mansion. The great mass of the people living on these manors were divided as recorded in the Domesday book, the census taken by the Conqueror, as follows: First, the villeins, who formed 38 per cent of the whole population and who held thirty acres of arable land apiece; second, below the villeins came the cotters or bordars, a distinct class below the former, who probably held from five to ten acres of land and a cottage, and did not even possess a plow, much less a team of oxen apiece, and had to combine among themselves for the purpose of plowing. They formed 32 per cent of the population. Finally came the slaves, who formed only 9 per cent of the population.1 The villeins, cotters and slaves were all bound to the soil and owed allegiance to the lord of the manor. They were incapable of holding property in their own right, could be sold as chattels and transferred with the manor. If they left the manor they could be reclaimed by their lord and compelled to return. The lord had power to cast them in prison, could beat and chastise them as he liked, yet the villeins and cotters, as fixtures upon the lord's estate, were recognized as having certain rights. Each had the right to live upon his particular piece of land, to pasture his cattle upon the common or waste and to take fuel and timber from the woods. Free tenants constituted a separate class having certain rights superior to the villeins. They occupied holdings for which they paid a fixed rent, were not bound to the soil but could transfer their right to the land and go where they pleased; but they were subject, to the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor, and were also obliged to perform military service, which was not required of the villein. The condition of the people is disclosed by the fact that at this time the free tenants constituted only four per cent of the entire population. Many of the boroughs and towns of England had their beginning in a cluster of houses which grew up about the manorial mansion, and finally became trading centres and places in which the nobility congregated and resided. They were all, however, dominated and governed by the feudal system and controlled and managed by lords, barons and kings and 1 Gibbin's Industrial History of England, pp. 12-13. of the subject to the same arbitrary exactions and restrictions, as the rural population. As they grew in importance, becoming centres of trade, the number of free tenants increased, land became divided into smaller parcels and freeholders became more numerous. As in the rural districts, it was the freeholders of the towns and boroughs only, who held the right to participate in their government. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the English nobility was seized with the religious zeal of the age. Kings Effect and barons joined in the great crusades to drive the infidels from the Holy crusades. Land. Armies were equipped for these long and perilous campaigns across the Continent, to fight the battles of the cross. Royal treasuries were exhausted, manors mortgaged, and every exertion was made by the nobility and kings to raise funds to carry on the expensive expeditions. That the Christian religion received a great impetus from these movements there can be no question. These wars were a great civilizing agency. Trade and commerce were expanded by developing in the nobility of the West a taste for Eastern luxuries and forming new modes of living. The people of the West imbibed the learning of the East, and a great intellectual revival followed. The free citizens, the trading classes, improved the opportunity by furnishing means to the crusaders. They obtained charters for their cities and boroughs, and secured municipal rights and privileges, which laid the foundation of their future political and commercial importance. "Portsmouth and Norwich gained their charters by paying part of Richard I.'s ransom (1194). Again Rye and Winchelsea gained theirs, by supplying the same king (1191) with two ships for one of his crusaders." Many other cities and boroughs by advancing money to fit out these expeditions or to pay off the debts of the barons, secured privileges and advantages which contributed largely to their growth and independence. Among these privileges were the right to pay a fixed sum in taxes and to collect it themselves; the right to elect a mayor and to pass ordinances and rules for the regulation of their own affairs. It was through the freedom of the cities, that there arose a body of English freemen, whose political rights were not connected with, or dependent upon, the will of the king or nobility; whose interests ultimately became centred in trade and commerce. Under the great advantage of combination, community of interest, and that contact with their fellows which tends to sharpen and broaden the intellectual faculties, they became progressive, enterprising and ambitious to acquire wealth and engage in trade. It is in the cities and among this industrial class, that we find the first evidences of improvement in the social condition, material welfare and enlargement of the rights, liberties and privileges of the masses. Their growth was slow, the whole country being under the blight of tyranny, excessive poverty, ignorance and degradation, and it was only through centuries of slow development that their conditions were improved. Feudalism held a monopoly of the soil, the first and at that Social conditions.Domestic life. Gradual emancipa tion classes. time the only means of subsistence; and as long as the people were compelled to depend upon their military masters for food and clothing or the means by which they were obtained, they were powerless to throw off the condition of bondage. We have now very briefly touched upon the form of government, system of land tenures, the incipient stage in the growth of cities and boroughs and the enslaved condition of the great body of the people, up to the fourteenth century. It was not until the middle of the latter century that a change of policy was entered upon, under which means of employment were opened up, independent of the landed aristocracy. The rights, privileges and prosperity of the nobility only were deemed worthy of consideration. Kings and nobles were everything; the masses of the people were as nothing. Feudalism was a military despotism. The degraded and barbarous condition of the nobility in the fourteenth century, is described by Professor Cunningham, as follows: The great landowner was frequently on the move from one manor to another, and the practice of making a brief sojourn on each estate continued long after the commutation of food rents for money payments had rendered such a course unnecessary. This may to some extent account for the curious lack of comfort, to which rich men of Norman and Angevin times submitted. They and their retinues would be sheltered in a large hall, with one private chamber-the solar-at the end. There was little or no furniture, as the rough tables on trestles and benches brought out for meals were cleared away, when the company settled themselves to sleep on the straw with which the unboarded floor was littered. A lack of knives and forks, of glass and china, rendered inevitable habits of drinking and eating which are inconsistent with our notions of refinement; while the debris of the banquet was discussed by the dogs on the floor, and was finally removed when a great occasion required that the hall should be strewed with fresh straw. When the food which could be conveniently stored in one centre, began to give out, the cavalcade would move on to another estate, each of which was separately managed, and each of which would afford subsistence for a longer or shorter period of residence.1 It may be suggested that there could not have been much left on the manor for the villeins and cotters after these hungry lords and their dogs had left. Common people must have lived in a condition of most revolting misery and degradation. Between the nobility and king stood the free tenants. They could hold property, engage in business, sit on jury, sue for their rights and, of the lower after the "Magna Charta," (1215) could not be arrested, imprisoned or deprived of their property, excepting by due process of law. It was by the increase of this class that civil and religious liberty was secured and that body of English freemen arose which ultimately controlled the destinies, morals, civilization and commercial policy of the people. It is only necessary here to suggest some of the first stages in the gradual emancipation of the masses, from the tyrannical domination of kings and nobles. As the common law of England developed, and customs 1 Outline of English Industrial History, p. 31. and statutes for the establishment of individual rights and for the promotion of justice were more and more recognized and humanely interpreted by the courts, a change from the hard conditions of feudalism toward representative government, began to be effected. The beginning, however, of the increase of the power of the people, through the action of parliament is traceable to an improvement in their material welfare which grew with, and accompanied the rise and development of the commercial and trading classes. As new means of employment were opened, as industries became established, business increased, the incomes of the people were enlarged, they became less dependent on the ruling classes, and the growth of free government was made possible. The independence thus brought about enabled the commercial classes to obtain recognition, and to demand and enforce rights and privileges which they were powerless to insist upon under former conditions. Without specific parliamentary enactments it became the practice of the courts to recognize certain customs and usages as conferring upon bondsmen the rights of freemen, and as being evidence of freemanship. 1. An illegitimate born in villeinage, having no inheritable blood, could not inherit the conditions of the villeinage. 2. A villein remaining unclaimed for a year and a day, in any privileged town, was freed from his villeinage. 3. The lord might at any time enfranchise his villein. 4. There were many acts of the lord from which the law itself would infer enfranchisement, whether designed or not. These embraced all of those acts by which the lord treated a villein as a freeman, such as (1) vesting in him ownership of land; (2) accepting from him the feudal solemnity of homage; (3) by entering into an obligation under seal with him; (4) by pleading with him in an ordinary action.1 Although disturbed by foreign wars and internal strifes, constantly drained by excessive taxation, with kingcraft absolute, and many other causes operating to hinder the growth of industrial life, there came a revolt, first from the merchants of London and next from those who desired to set up industries against that free trade policy which favored strangers to the exclusion of Englishmen. This revolt was born of the spirit of protection, enterprise and progress. As it was fostered and given a chance to develop, improvement came to the masses. It was this spirit which laid the foundation for that industrial activity, which culminated not only in the commercial greatness of England, but which wrested the power of government from kings and barons, and transferred it to English freemen. It was this spirit which animated the Anglo-Saxon people in their struggle for civil and religious liberty. It is this spirit which has been the mainspring of civilization and progress wherever independence and national greatness have been secured. 1 Dean's British Constitution, pp. 20-21. English industry in the fourteenth century. The surrender of the home market to CHAPTER II. TRADE AND COMMERCE MONOPOLIZED BY FOREIGNERS. At the close of the fourteenth century England was purely an agricultural country. Mr. Gibbins, in speaking of their manufacturing industries at the time of Edward III., says: There was a considerable manufacturing industry chiefly of coarse cloth, an industry very widely spread and carried on in people's own cottages under the domestic system. The chief kinds of cloth made were hempen, linen and woolen coverings, such as would be used for sacks, dairy cloths, wool packs, sails of windmills and similar purposes. 1 The principal source of English wealth and revenue at this time was wool. In the middle of the fourteenth century the annual value of the export of wool was 180,683 pounds sterling. The taxes of Edward III. paid in wool were calculated not in money but in wool sacks. In one year parliament granted him 20,000 sacks, in another 30,000 sacks and in 1339 the barons granted him the tenth sheep's fleece and lamb. Early in the fifteenth century 30,000 pounds sterling out of 40,000 pounds sterling, revenue from customs and taxes, came from wool alone. ? The commercial policy of England was conducted wholly upon free trade lines. Not only was the greatest liberality extended to foreigners in trade, but they were encouraged to bring their wares into the country foreigners. for sale. Royal charters were granted to them, under which they enjoyed the privilege of establishing headquarters in London, and there monopolizing the trade and business of the country. The merchants of the Hanseatic League, the Italians and the Flemish, held privileges that were not enjoyed by Englishmen. Under these special charters they were permitted to bring their goods into the country, duty free, and to monopolize, not only the wholesale but the retail trade. Soon after the Norman Conquest, a few mechanics and artisans came from the Continent, but it was a long time before an artisan class arose. Immediately following the Norman Conquest, a number of Flemish weavers who had been deprived of their homes by an inundation, and had immigrated to England, sought the patronage of Queen Matilda, who was a Flemish woman. It does not appear, however, that any important results followed their settlement. The building of castles, monasteries and cathedrals, which followed the Norman Conquest, invited masons and 1 Industrial History of England, p. 51. Id., p. 50. |