The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XVII

E have seen in the last chapter that a piece of land called "church rein," meaning church strip, or church portion, formed part of the "town lands" of Handsworth Woodhouse. It is well known that modern scholars, such as Sir Henry Maine, have drawn parallels between the Indian and the English village community. These parallels are very close, and they furnish presumptive evidence of the origin of English "church lands." Mr. Gomme thus details the lands in an Indian village community which were "devoted to special purposes by custom or by grant. The lands held by grant from the village amounted to eleven and five-sixteenths cánis, or fifteen acres, and were in possession of a priest and ten other Brahmins. The lands appropriated by custom amounted to twenty-six and six-sixteenths cánis, or thirty-five acres. They were held as follows:

Now let us compare this Indian village community with the village community, or, as I have called it, the burghal community, of Sheffield. In Sheffield we have, or had,
 * Church lands (lands used in connection with the temple or church)
 * Town lands (lands held "for the benefit of the villagers generally")
 * Lands for the village officers:—
 * The accountant (the town collector or the bailiff)
 * The village watchman (the "waits" or watchmen so often mentioned in the accounts of the "Town Trustees")
 * The village carpenter (not found)
 * The village blacksmith (as appears in Smithfield)

With the exception of the "village carpenter" it will thus be seen that the Indian and the English example are exactly parallel. And even the carpenter is found as a village official in the Boldon Book.

It appears from plans in the Duke of Norfolk's office made in the last century that certain "church lands" in Sheffield are intermixed with the "burgess lands," and I have heard a surveyor remark that in one or two cases which he has come across in practice it was very difficult to draw the exact line of demarcation between the "church lands" and "burgess lands," now known as lands belonging to the "Town Trust." In the same office is a plan, dated 1758, which delineates, amongst other things, a piece of ground at Heeley Town Gate and near Heeley Green called "Semary (alias St. Mary) Walls Ch. Land." Here, as the surveyor correctly explains, Semary stands for St. Mary. And as "walls" means fields, Semary Walls means St. Mary Fields. Now the Patent dated 1554 which incorporated the Capital Burgesses and Commonalty of Sheffield, mentions, amongst other property affected thereby, "two crofts called Malkin Crofts in Heeley." Malkin means "little maid," and, as the Capital Burgesses had no other property in Heeley, it follows that Malkin Crofts and Semary Walls are alternative names of the same closes. The word "malkin" savoured of heathenism, and it was supplanted by the Christian "St. Mary."

In the "church rein" at Handsworth, in the intermixture of "burgess lands" and "church lands" in Sheffield, in the "church land" at Heeley, and in certain "church lands" at Dungworth included amongst the "parish lands" of Bradfield we have presumptive evidence that, in this district, communities of freeholders set apart portions of land for the use of their priests or their churches. The Indian parallel, remote as it seems, holds throughout.

On this presumptive evidence it will be assumed in this chapter that the Free Tenants of Sheffield, otherwise known as the Burgesses, set apart portions of the land which they held in common for the maintenance of their church and their priests, the priest being as much a village servant or official as the bailiff or the miller.

In addition to the lands set apart by the community of freeholders, certain persons, previous to the Reformation, gave land to "the four church-masters of Sheffield and their successors," and also to "the Bailiff (Mayor) of Sheffield and others" for the service of the Blessed Mary, for the priest of St. Catherine to say mass, for obits, or anniversary services, for the buying of crucifixes and other ornaments, and for sustaining the "light or gild" of the Blessed Mary. Inasmuch as a portion of the common lands of the community was already devoted to the church, and remained under the control of the Burgesses, it was probably found convenient that the lands given to the church by private donors should be administered along with the original church lands already under the control of the Burgesses. And indirect proof that the Burgesses managed the whole of the property, including the private gifts, may be found in a deed, already referred to, of the year 1498, which declares that in case the masses thereby provided for should not be said the income of the property bequeathed should be disposed of by the Burgesses in mending bridges, or in deeds of charity. By means of private donations or otherwise that portion of the income of the Burgesses which was devoted to church purposes had, if we may believe the statements of the petition hereafter referred to, increased to such an extent in 1540 that out of a total income of £27 the Burgesses were devoting no less than £17 9s. 4d. "to superstitious uses." Accordingly the Commissioners acting under the Statute of Chantries forfeited this annual income of £17 9s. 4d. arising from property in Sheffield as being money applied to "superstitious uses," and the lands producing that income, as well as certain property in London belonging to the Burgesses, remained in court till 1554. When Queen Mary ascended the throne in 1553 a retrograde movement began, and her advisers were ready and willing to restore to the Burgesses so much of what they had lost as could by any ingenuity be restored. Accordingly the Burgesses, led or instigated by Robert Swift of Broomhall, lost no time in getting up a petition to the Crown asking for the restoration of their sequestrated lands. But there was a difficulty in the way. If these lands had really been given and applied to and for the "superstitious uses" defined in the Statute of Chantries there was no hope of getting them back again except by a repeal of the statute, but if it could be shown that they were given for an entirely different purpose there was a good chance of proving to a not reluctant sovereign that the statute in this case had been wrongly applied. And so Robert Swift of Broomhall and William Taylor, aided no doubt by the ingenuity of churchmen and lawyers, made out the following story. They said:

1. That they and others were seised of certain lands in Sheffield worth £27 per year, and of lands in Old Change, London, which had long ago been given by divers persons for the repair of bridges and roads in Sheffield, for the repair of the church, and for the relief of the poor.

2. That the rents of the said lands were so applied until the year 1539 when the alms of the people by which three priests had been supported fell off and ceased to be given.

3. That in consequence of this discontinuance of popular alms or gifts the burgesses and inhabitants of the town took it upon themselves in the year 1540 to apply £17 9s. 4d. of the total rents (£27) of the Burgery in supporting three priests, and in maintaining an obit and a lamp.

4. That under the above-mentioned circumstances the rent of £17 9s. 4d. became forfeited to the Crown under the Statute of Chantries.

Upon this fictitious claim the Crown was asked to restore the forfeited lands. The request was granted, and Letters Patent followed whereby a body called the Twelve Capital Burgesses and Commonalty of Sheffield was incorporated and the forfeited lands restored to them. The facts show that the Letters Patent were obtained by misrepresentation. To give a single instance in proof of this statement the property in Old Change, London, was not given for the repair of the church, or for mending roads and bridges, or for the relief of the poor. As the deed of grant, dated 1501, shows, it was given for buying a cross and other ornaments, and to the intent that the donor and her relations "might be the better remembered and prayed for in the said church." And there are various other grants of land, all of which are included in the vesting clauses of the Letters Patent, which show clearly that such land was given for the "superstitious uses" contemplated by the Statute of Chantries, and rightly forfeited by that statute. Again the Letters Patent say that in the year 1539 the Burgesses were obliged to devote £17 9s. 4d., or nearly two-thirds of their whole income, to church purposes because the alms of the people which supported the priests had entirely fallen off and been discontinued. But the petition which led to the granting of the Patent says nothing about this discontinuance of alms. It gives an entirely different reason, namely, the great increase of the population of Sheffield. Again, the petition states that the affairs of the Burgesses and their income of £27 were managed by the church-greaves, or churchwardens; the Letters Patent say nothing about this, but on the contrary declare that "the Burgesses and inhabitants" had been seised of the sequestrated lands from time immemorial. Before the Letters Patent could be granted some sort of a case had to be made out, and some sort of evidence, as lawyers say, "put in." The truth is that long before the Reformation, and long before the forfeiture caused by the Statute of Chantries, the Burgery had been possessed of estates held by them as a civic corporation, and applied both to municipal and ecclesiastical purposes. Some of these estates had descended to the Burgery from immemorial antiquity as portions of the common lands of a village community; the rest had been derived from the donations of various benefactors. Before the forfeiture of two-thirds of their income by the Statute of Chantries the Burgesses were possessed not only of the lands of which we find them possessed in 1566, but of the estates which in 1554 were transferred to the Capital Burgery. That civic corporations in ancient times held lands to be applied to ecclesiastical uses is well known.

As the Letters Patent of 1554 diverted an income of £17 9s. 4d. out of a total income of £27 arising from lands in Sheffield to the use of the Capital Burgesses it follows that an income of £9 10s. 8d. remained unforfeited by the Commissioners under the Statute of Chantries, and available for municipal purposes only.

It appears from the accounts of the Common Burgery that in 1566 the total yearly rent received from a considerable number of tenants amounted to £7 11s. 4d. The difference of £1 19s. 4d. may, perhaps, be accounted for by a fall in rents. After the year 1554, when the Patent was granted, the Burgesses were no longer one body or Burgery performing the work of a municipal corporation, but were divided into two sections, which may be here described as the Capital Burgesses and the Common Burgesses. The Capital Burgesses soon began to regard themselves as an ecclesiastical corporation. They forgot for the most part their civic duties, and the fact that they formed an integral part of an ancient municipal corporation.

It has been usual of late years to speak of the Twelve Capital Burgesses created and incorporated by the Letters Patent as the "Church Burgesses," as though they were an ecclesiastical corporation. But this is not the fact. So far is this from being the case that, on the contrary, the Letters Patent show that the Capital Burgesses are not an ecclesiastical corporation. They and the Commonalty are a "body corporate and politic," or in other words a civic or secular corporation. They are not, and never legally were, the "Church Burgesses." By the use of the word "politic" the draftsman or conveyancer intended to create, and did create, a civic corporation. Moreover, the seal of the Capital Burgesses and Commonalty bore the legend "Sigillum villa[e] de Sheflfelde anno 1554." It was the seal of the borough of Sheffield, not the seal of the Capital Burgesses. And there is evidence that the same seal was used by the Common Burgery, for on Gosling's Plan of Sheffield, 1736, of which a facsimile is given below, it is engraved as the "Town Arms" with the words "Free Tenants Sheffield." These Letters Patent incorporated not only the Twelve Capital Burgesses, but the communitas or Commonalty, meaning the Common Burgesses. The Twelve Capital Burgesses are in effect a self-elective Court of Aldermen of the old borough. What the Aldermen of the new municipal corporation are to the Councillors that the Capital Burgesses were to the Common Burgesses. In addition to restoring the forfeited lands and incorporating the Common Burgesses the Letters Patent of 1554 created and incorporated a civic court of aldermen or head burgesses known as Capital Burgesses, who held office for life and were self-elective. The duties of the Capital Burgesses, as defined by the Letters Patent and as shown by their old accounts, are identical with the duties of the Common Burgesses, with two exceptions; it was the duty of the Capital Burgesses to provide in the first instance a sufficient stipend for three priests or assistant ministers of the Parish Church, and to repair the church. When they had done that they were to spend the rest of their income in repairing bridges and roads, in relieving the poor, or in doing those very services which were performed by the Common Burgery. When we consider the practical identity, as exhibited by their old accounts, of the public services done by the Capital Burgesses and those performed by the Common Burgesses; when we find the old freehold estates of the Capital Burgesses closely intermixed with those of the Common Burgesses; when we see the Capital Burgesses and Commonalty (Common Burgesses) described in the deed which incorporated them as a "body politic," and as identifying themselves on their common seal with the borough of Sheffield; when we see that the Capital Burgesses and the Common Burgesses used the same seal; and when we know that it was the custom of village communities to set apart portions of land for their priests as well as for other village servants, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the Capital Burgesses and the Common Burgesses of Sheffield once formed together a guild or civic authority divided into two sections, just as modern corporations are divided into Aldermen and Common Councillors. Though they were divided by an accident of law, and though, after the division, they kept separate accounts, yet the Capital Burgesses and the Common Burgesses formed, as it were, an upper and lower chamber, each body performing, or having power to perform, the same or similar functions, and the two chambers forming together one body corporate or municipal authority.

That the Common Burgesses regarded themselves in the sixteenth century as equipollent with the Capital Burgesses may be seen from the fact that in 1572 and subsequently they were engaged in a law suit at York. Unless they sued or were sued as a body corporate it would have been necessary to join all the freeholders of Sheffield as plaintiffs or defendants in the suit. We may perhaps infer from the Furnival Charter itself that the Burgery or Corporation of Sheffield existed and possessed a corporate seal in 1297. That deed is expressed to be a chirograph, or a deed executed along with a counterpart, the lord retaining one part and the Free Tenants the other part. The deed is indented and scribbled on near the place where the indented line is cut, so that, the counterpart having been treated in the same manner, the two parts of the chirograph would tally in case they had to be produced in a court of law. The testimonium clause of the deed reads "In witness whereof the seals of the parties are to this present writing, made in the form of a chirograph, alternately affixed." That part of the chirograph which was executed by the lord remained, and still remains, in the proper custody of the Free Tenants or the Burgery, and bears the lord's seal. The other part, which was executed by the Free Tenants, was kept by the lord, and may still exist amongst the Duke of Norfolk's archives. The Free Tenants, who covenanted by the deed to pay a yearly sum of money, must either therefore have executed it by means of a corporate seal, or every Free Tenant or Burgess in the borough must have affixed his own seal. It is hardly likely that all the Free Tenants of Sheffield affixed their seals to a document which measures nine-and-a-half inches in breadth, and moreover, if that had been the case, their names would have appeared at the beginning of the deed as parties thereto. The fact that the names of the Free Tenants do not appear in the deed seems to me to be evidence that they executed it as a corporation by means of a common seal.

The seals used by the Twelve Capital Burgesses and Commonalty and also an old seal occasionally used by the "Town Trustees" are here represented in their actual size. Both the seals are of silver. That which belongs to the Capital Burgesses bears the date 1554, and was probably cut in that year. Attached to the back is a small folding handle of silver perforated by a rude Gothic design. The seal of the "Town Trustees" is of somewhat rude workmanship, and is probably not later in date than the year 1700. It is attached to a large handle of turned ivory, which is a good deal worn. I am told that deeds are never executed by means of this seal, but that it is used in granting licenses to assign leases, and on some other formal occasions. Notwithstanding some slight difference between these two seals, and also between them and that engraved on Gosling's plan, they are substantially identical. The one is, as we have seen, inscribed in Latin as "the seal of the town of Sheffield;" the other as the seal of the "Free Tenants" or Burgesses. The other points of difference are that the seal of the Capital Burgesses contains fifteen arrows, whilst that of the "Town Trustees" has only eight, these arrows being surmounted by a cherub. In the sketch on Gosling's plan the cherub is absent.

The seal of 1554 may have been copied from an older seal of the same or similar design. The arrows are fastened together in the centre by means of a band so as to resemble a sheaf. Here we may see one of those punning rebuses, so common in former times, on the word Sheffield. An allusion may also be intended to the craft of the arrowsmith, and the fifteen arrows may remind us of the "fifteen head burgesses" of some old corporations, or even of the "fourteen justices and one bailiff, mayor, or staff-holder" of some old German courts. Accordingly the number of arrows on the older seal is not necessarily arbitrary.

That the Free Tenants mentioned in the Furnival Charter of 1297 are identical with the Burgesses of 1566 may be shown by the fact that the "burgesses" of Sheffield are mentioned in a deed of the year 1498, and by the fact that a deed dated 1417 mentions the "tenements held in burgage in Sheffield," this being little more than a century later than the Furnival Charter. Proof of this identity is also found in the fact that the Furnival Charter has long been, and still is, as lawyers say, "in the right custody," and by the care which the Burgesses took of that document. Further proof may be found in the mention of the Bailiff of Sheffield in 1434, and in the mention of that officer in the Furnival Charter itself. And then we have the strongest negative evidence in the fact that we find the Burgesses performing the usual work of a corporation in 1566, for it cannot be supposed that they started into being in that year. Indeed the accounts themselves show that they were acting as a municipal authority before that year, for they had already built the public shambles, and were receiving rent for that building. It has been shown in this and the preceding chapter that the borough of Sheffield has possessed a guild of burgesses having and exercising the usual powers of a corporation or municipal authority since the year 1297, and we know not for how long before that time. It has also been shown that this body which before the year 1554 acted as the municipal authority with the tacit or implied consent of the Crown was actually incorporated in that year. The knowledge of these facts gives a new complexion to the history of Sheffield. The town no longer appears as a mere village under the domination of a feudal lord, but as an organized borough or community of burgesses or freemen whose guild had been established, and was doing the work of a municipal corporation, not later than the thirteenth century.