Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
The rights and responsibilities of the citizens of Hereford were recorded in the Domesday Book and called customs. The Customs of Hereford were well known in the Middle Ages, and some scholars have compared them to the Customs of the Norman town of Breteuil. In fact when several planned towns in Wales were founded, they applied to have the same customs as those of Hereford and Breteuil. Hugh de Mortimer, for example, granted a charter to the citizens of Burford in Shropshire, stating that they should hold their burgages according to the liberty and customes of the law of Breteuil as that liberty is used in the city of Hereford. (David Walker, "Hereford and the Laws of Breteuil", in Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 1970)
This passage from the Domesday Book describes the privileges of the Normans in Hereford:
"... the English burgesses who live there have their former customs. But the French burgesses have all their forfeitures discharged for 12d, except the three above" (Frank and Caroline Thorn (eds.). Domesday Book 17, Herefordshire, C 14, Phillimore, 1983).
The "three above" refer to breach of the peace, house-breaking and highway robbery. If anyone was caught doing any of these, he paid a fine of 100s to the King, regardless of whether he was French or English. Every right or concession granted by the king had a price attached to it, however small. Here the Norman settlers have to pay 12d for not having to perform the annual duties of the English inhabitants.
The exact legal position of the burgher, the taxes he had to pay and any other kind of service depended on the town he resided in. Conditions varied from one place to the next. As we have seen, the Normans were granted favourable conditions to attract them to Hereford, an often dangerous border town. William Shakespeare, in his play Henry IV Part I, tells of the time Sir Edmund Mortimer, a prominent Marcher Lord, was made prisoner by the Welsh under the leadership of Owain Glyn Dwr:
"But yesternight: when all athwart there came
A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was - that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered ..." (Act I, Scene I, 36-42)
Providing military service was an important responsibility and affected many men in the county. Not only was there the possibility of death or capture (and if you were not rich enough to provide a generous ransom, you were usually slaughtered if captured), but you also had to leave your fields or business without compensation for your time away. Therefore, living in Hereford was often a dangerous business and conditions would have to be favourable for people to want to settle here. New towns therefore often had more attractive regulations for newcomers than did more established places.
Medieval people were very traditional in their approach to life. Change was a gradual process and not considered a merit in itself. The rights and responsibilities of the burghers in Hereford were recorded as custom, something given legitimacy through repetition and the passing of time. It was not until after the Black Death had so drastically reduced the population that lower status people started to question their servile position and the wages paid. (In some parts of the country this led to the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.) On the whole, however, inflation hardly existed during the Middle Ages and apart from illness and bad harvests leading to famine, or war, daily life was stable and people knew what was expected of them.
If we read the Customs of Hereford Town, carefully recorded in the Domesday Book (1086), we can see how the burgesses had more rights than villagers in these early days of town development, and yet also had responsibilities to the King. The services and money owed to the lord are listed. Here are some examples:
"If anyone of them [103 men dwelling inside and outside the wall] wished to leave the city, he could sell his house with the reeve's consent to another man who was willing to perform the service owed from it, and the reeve had the third penny of his sale. But if anyone could not perform the service because of his poverty, he let his house without payment to the reeve who ensured that the house did not remain empty and that the King was not without service."(Domesday Book, C 2)
Unlike a villager, the townspeople were allowed to leave, but the reeve (this is before Hereford had a mayor) had to make sure that military service would be provided by the person buying the property.
Here are other examples of service owed to the King: each dwelling had to pay taxes, provide four days agricultural labour and when the king was hunting in the area one man from each house had to go and help out (stall game in the woodland).
However, not every person living in Hereford was bound by these customs. The tenants of the Bishop, for example, had their own set of rules and regulations. This often led to friction between the free burghers and the tenants of the Bishop.
In 1227 the citizens attempted to make the tenants of the bishop and of the dean and chapter of the cathedral pay their share of the tallage (a tax to the king). When the tenants did not pay up, the burghers forcibly took goods and chattels from them to be held until they did pay. For this the burghers were excommunicated by the bishop and the king had to intervene to secure peace between bishop and citizens. (David Walker, "Hereford and the Laws of Breteuil", in Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 1970)
There were a number of similar disputes during the Middle Ages. In 1121 King Henry I had granted the bishop a fair at Hereford, lasting three days, at the feast of St. Ethelbert on 13th June. This fair was extended, and by the end of the reign of Henry III it lasted nine days. During the fair the Bishop of Hereford had temporary control of the city gates, allowing his officials to collect all the tolls from the produce coming to be sold at the fair. In 1241 the Bishop charged the citizens of Hereford with selling goods in their shops during the nine days of the fair, without paying him dues. The Bishop won his case, and the Hereford merchants had to pay the same toll and dues as the merchants coming from outside of the city for the duration of the fair. (David Walker, "Hereford and the Laws of Breteuil", in Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 1970)
Over the years many fights took place between the Bishop's men from the Bishop's side of the city, called the Port, and the citizens from the mayor's side of the City. Eventually all weapons were barred from the City for the duration of the Fair. All citizens had to leave their arms within their inns or lodgings. St. Ethelbert's fair continues to this day, albeit only for three days in May - it is now called Mayfair. To this day the proclamation informing the citizens and visitors to the fair of the ban on weapons is still read at the opening civic ceremony. (Thanks to Councillor John Newman for this information.)
[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2002]