Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/670

 66o A^. M. Trenhobne obtained the right to a community, a common seal, a gild merchant, and an alderman who was henceforth to be elected independently of the abbot. ^ The charter in its entirety is an interesting and valuable record of those rights for which so many English towns under monastic con- trol strove for so long and valiantly in the Middle Ages. In its thirty-five articles we can see the grievances of the burgesses re- dressed as they wished to have them redressed. Besides the great community privileges, already mentioned, the burgesses of Bury St. Edmunds were to control their own taxation, to have the custody of minors and orphans in the town, and the appointment of the gate- keepers. The markets were ahva)'s to be held in the same place as formerly, offensive amercements were to be done away with and freedom of trade was to exist in the town. Various regulations as to the sale and inheritance of land are to be found in this charter, and some of its clauses protected the burgesses from several objec- tionable forms of legal procedure, such as trial by battle, which was always a b'cte noire to the medieval townsmen. Another curious and, in England at least, unique clause was that which provided the burgesses with a sanctuary post, in the market-place of the town, whither all evil-doers could flee for safety and protection. " In this borough charter of Bury St. Edmunds one point comes out clearly, and that is that there was to be a close connection, if not absolute identity, between the community of burgesses and the gild merchant of the town. Further it was provided by this charter that all the franchises and customs enjoyed by the burgesses in the former time were to be continued to them forever. The abbot and convent were obliged in addition to sign a release from all actions and transgressions committed by the townsmen, and to enter into bonds, to the amount of five thousand pounds, to be paid if the charter was not speedily confirmed by the King. Such terms as these seemed preposterous to the abbot, who returned to London, nominally to urge the King to ratify the charter, in reality to lay his wrongs before the newly summoned Parliament.^ The nobles and prelates assembled at Westminster advised the abbot to regard the terms of the charter as invalid and void, and not to have it either enrolled or confirmed.* Several of the townsmen had followed the abbot to London, thinking that he would perfect the ^Memorials, III. App. H. 2 For this charter see App. H. of the Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, Vol. IN., where it is given with a translation from the original Anglo-Norman. ^Memorials, III. 333. The Parliament i Edw. III. was summoned to meet at Westminster, January 7, 1327.
 * Memorials, III. 333.