on the contrary, who can acquire nothing but | bailiffs of the landlord than farmers, properly nis maintenance, consults his own ease, by so called, were probably of the same kind. making the land produce as little as possible To this species of tenantry succeeded, though over and above that maintenance. It is pro- by very slow degrees, farmers, properly so cal!bable that it was partly upon account of this ed, who cultivated the land with their own advantage, and partly upon account of the en-stock, paying a rent certain to the landlord. croachments which the sovereigns, alway jea- When such farmers have a lease for a term of lous of the great lords, gradually encouraged years, they may sometimes find it for their intheir villains to make upon their authority, terest to lay out part of their capital in the furand which seem, at least, to have been such as ther improvement of the farm; because they rendered this species of servitude altogether may sometimes expect to recover it, with a inconvenient, that tenure in villanage gradu- large profit, before the expiration of the lease. ally wore out through the greater part of Eu- The possession, even of such farmers, howrope. The time and manner, however, in ever, was long extremely precarious, and still which so important a revolution was brought is so in many parts of Europe. They could, about, is one of the most obscure points in before the expiration of their term, be legally modern history. The church of Rome claims ousted of their leases by a new purchaser; great merit in it; and it is certain, that so ear-in England, even, by the fictitious action of ly as the twelfth century, Alexander III. pub- a common recovery. If they were turned out lished a bull for the general emancipation of illegally by the violence of their master, the slaves. It seems, however, to have been ra- action by which they obtained redress was exther a pious exhortation, than a law to which tremely imperfect. It did not always reinexact obedience was required from the faith-state them in the possession of the land, but ful. Slavery continued to take place almost gave them damages, which never amounted to universally for several centuries afterwards, a real loss. Even in England, the country. till it was gradually abolished by the joint ope- perhaps of Europe, where the yeomanry has ration of the two interests above mentioned; always been most respected, it was not till athat of the proprietor on the one hand, and bout the 14th of Henry VII. that the action that of the sovereign on the other. A villain,' of ejectment was invented, by which the tenant enfranchised, and at the same time allowed to recovers, not damages only, but possession, continue in possession of the land, having no stock of his own, could cultivate it only by means of what the landlord advanced to him, and must therefore have been what the French call a metayer.

and in which his claim is not necessarily concluded by the uncertain decision of a single assize. This action has been found so effectual a remedy, that, in the modern practice, when the landlord has occasion to sue for the pos

It could never, however, be the interest session of the land, he seldom makes use of even of this last species of cultivators, to lay the actions which properly belong to him as a out, in the further improvement of the land, landlord, the writ of right or the writ of enany part of the little stock which they might try, but sues in the name of his tenant, by the save from their own share of the produce; be- writ of ejectment. In England, therefore cause the landlord, who laid out nothing, was the security of the tenant is equal to that of to get one half of whatever it produced. The the proprietor. In England, besides, a lease tithe, which is but a tenth of the produce, is for life of forty shillings a-year value is a freefound to be a very great hindrance to improve-hold, and entitles the lessee to a vote for a ment. A tax, therefore, which amounted to member of parliament; and as a great part of one half, must have been an effectual bar to it. the yeomanry have freeholds of this kind, the It might be the interest of a metayer to make whole order becomes respectable to their landthe land produce as much as could be brought lords, on account of the political consideration out of it by means of the stock furnished by which this gives them. There is, I believe, the proprietor; but it could never be his inte- nowhere in Europe, except in England, any rest to mix any part of his own with it. In instance of the tenant building upon the land France, where five parts out of six of the of which he had no lease, and trusting that the whole kingdom are said to be still occupied by honour of his landlord would take no advan this species of cultivators, the proprietors com- tage of so important an improvement. Those plain, that their metayers take every opportu-laws and customs, so favourable to the yeonity of employing their master's cattle rather manry, have perhaps contributed more to the in carriage than in cultivation; because, in the present grandeur of England, than all their one case, they get the whole profits to them- boasted regulations of commerce taken togeselves, in the other they share them with their ther. landlord. This species of tenants still sub- The law which secures the longest leases a sists in some parts of Scotland. They are gainst successors of every kind, is, so far as I called steel-bow tenants. Those ancient Eng-know, peculiar to Great Britain. It was inlish tenants, who are said by Chief-Baron Gil- troduced into Scotland so early as 1449, by a bert and Dr Blackstone to have been rather law of James II. Its beneficial influence,

however, has been much obstructed by entails; | ly unwilling to grant, themselves, any pecunithe heirs of entail being generally restrained ary aid to their sovereign, easily allowed him from letting leases for any long term of years, to tallage, as they called it, their tenants, and frequently for more than one year. A late had not knowledge enough to foresee how act of parliament has, in this respect, somewhat slackened their fetters, though they are still by much too strait. In Scotland, besides, as no leasehold gives a vote for a member of parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account less respectable to their landlords than in England.

ments.

much this must, in the end, affect their own revenue. The taille, as it still subsists in France, may serve as an example of those ancient tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed profits of the farmer, which they estimate by the stock that he has upon the farm. It is his interest, therefore, to appear to have as litIn other parts of Europe, after it was found tle as possible, and consequently to employ as convenient to secure tenants both against heirs little as possible in its cultivation, and none and purchasers, the term of their security was in its improvement. Should any stock hapstill limited to a very short period; in France, pen to accumulate in the hands of a French for example, to nine years from the com. farmer, the taille is almost equal to a prohimencement of the lease. It has in that coun-bition of its ever being employed upon the try, indeed, been lately extended to twenty- land. This tax, besides, is supposed to disseven, a period still too short to encourage the honour whoever is subject to it, and to degrade tenant to make the most important improve him below, not only the rank of a gentleman, The proprietors of land were ancient- but that of a burgher; and whoever rents the ly the legislators of every part of Europe. lands of another becomes subject to it. No The laws relating to land, therefore, were all gentleman, nor even any burgher, who has calculated for what they supposed the interest stock, will submit to this degradation. This of the proprietor. It was for his interest, they tax, therefore, not only hinders the stock which had imagined, that no lease granted by any of accumulates upon the land from being emhis predecessors should hinder him from en ployed in its improvement, but drives away al! joying, during a long term of years, the full other stock from it. The ancient tenths and value of his land. Avarice and injustice are fifteenths, so usual in England in former always short-sighted, and they did not foresee times, seem, so far as they affected the land, to how much this regulation must obstruct im- have been taxes of the same nature with the provement, and thereby hurt, in the long-run, taille. the real interest of the landlord. Under all these discouragements, little imThe farmers, too, besides paying the rent, provement could be expected from the occuwere anciently, it was supposed, bound to per-piers of land. That order of people, with all form a great number of services to the land- the liberty and security which law can give, lord, which were seldom either specified in must always improve under great disadvanthe lease, or regulated by any precise rule, but tage. The farmer, compared with the proby the use and wont of the manor or barony. prietor, is as a merchant who trades with borThese services, therefore, being almost entire-rowed money, compared with one who trades ly arbitrary, subjected the tenant to many vex- with his own. The stock of both may imations. In Scotland the abolition of all ser- prove; but that of the one, with only equal vices not precisely stipulated in the lease, has, good conduct, must always improve more in the course of a few years, very much alter-slowly than that of the other, on account of ed for the better the condition of the yeomanry of that country.

the large share of the profits which is consumed by the interest of the loan. The lands culThe public services to which the yeomanry tivated by the farmer must, in the same manwere bound, were not less arbitrary than the ner, with only equal good conduct, be improvprivate ones. To make and maintain the ed more slowly than those cultivated by the high roads, a servitude which still subsists, I proprietor, on account of the large share of believe, everywhere, though with different de- the produce which is consumed in the rent, grees of oppression in different countries, was and which, had the farmer been proprietor, he not the only one. When the king's troops, might have employed in the further improvewhen his household, or his officers of any kind, ment of the land. The station of a farmer, passed through any part of the country, the besides, is, from the nature of things, inferior yeomanry were bound to provide them with to that of a proprietor. Through the greater horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price re- part of Europe, the yeomanry are regarded as gulated by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I an inferior rank of people, even to the better believe, the only monarchy in Europe where sort of tradesmen and mechanics, and in all the oppression of purveyance has been entire-parts of Europe to the great merchants and ly abolished. It still subsists in France and master manufacturers. It can seldom happen, Germany. therefore, that a man of any considerable The public taxes, to which they were sub-stock should quit the superior, in order to ject, were as irregular and oppressive as the place himself in an inferior station. Even in services. The ancient lords, though extreme-the present state of Europe, therefore, little

L

stock is likely to go from any other profession them with a wall, for the sake of common deto the improvement of land in the way of fence. After the fall of the Roman empire, farming. More does, perhaps, in Great Bri- on the contrary, the proprietors of land seem tain than in any other country, though even generally to have lived in fortified castles on there the great stocks which are in some places their own estates, and in the midst of their employed in farming, have generally been ac- own tenants and dependents. The towns were quired by farming, the trade, perhaps, in which, chiefly inhabited by tradesmen and mechanics, of all others, stock is commonly acquired most who seem, in those days, to have been of serslowly. After small proprietors, however, vile, or very nearly of servile condition. The rich and great farmers are in every country privileges which we find granted by ancient the principal improvers. There are more such, charters to the inhabitants of some of the prinperhaps, in England than in any other Euro- cipal towns in Europe, sufficiently show what pean monarchy. In the republican govern- they were before those grants. The people ments of Holland, and of Berne in Switzerland, to whom it is granted as a privilege, that they the farmers are said to be not inferior to those might give away their own daughters in marof England. riage without the consent of their lord, that upon their death their own children, and not their lord, should succeed to their goods, and that they might dispose of their own effects by will, must, before those grants, have been either altogether, or very nearly, in the same state of villanage with the occupiers of land in the country.

The ancient policy of Europe was, over and above all this, unfavourable to the improvement and cultivation of land, whether carried on by the proprietor or by the farmer; first, by the general prohibition of the exportation of corn, without a special licence, which seems to have been a very universal regulation; and, secondly, by the restraints which were laid up- They seem, indeed, to have been a very on the inland commerce, not only of corn, but poor, mean set of people, who seemed to traof almost every other part of the produce of vel about with their goods from place to place, the farm, by the absurd laws against engross-and from fair to fair, like the hawkers and ers, regraters, and forestallers, and by the pri- pedlars of the present times. In all the difvileges of fairs and markets. It has already been observed in what manner the prohibition of the exportation of corn, together with some encouragement given to the importation of foreign corn, obstructed the cultivation of ancient Italy, naturally the most fertile country m Europe, and at that time the seat of the greatest empire in the world. To what degree such restraints upon the inland commerce of this commodity, joined to the general prohibition of exportation, must have discouraged the cultivation of countries less fertile, and less favourably circumstanced, it is not, perhaps, very easy to imagine.

ferent countries of Europe then, in the same manner as in several of the Tartar governments of Asia at present, taxes used to be levied upon the persons and goods of travellers, when they passed through certain manors, when they went over certain bridges, when they carried about their goods from place to place in a fair, when they erected in it a booth or stall to sell them in. These different taxes were known in England by the names of passage, pontage, lastage, and stallage. Sometimes the king, sometimes a great lord, who had, it seems, upon some occasions, authority to do this, would grant to particular traders, to such particularly as lived in their own demesnes, a general exemption from such taxes. Such traders, though in other respects of servile, or very nearly of servile condition, were upon this account called free traders. They, in return, usually paid to their protector a sort of annual poll-tax. In those days protection was seldom granted without a valuable consideration, and this tax might perhaps be considered as compensation for what their patrons might lose by their exemption from THE inhabitants of cities and towns were, af- other taxes. At first, both those poll-taxes ter the fall of the Roman empire, not more and those exemptions seem to have been altofavoured than those of the country. They gether personal, and to have affected only parconsisted, indeed, of a very different order of ticular individuals, during either their lives, or people from the first inhabitants of the an- the pleasure of their protectors. In the very cient republics of Greece and Italy. These imperfect accounts which have been published last were composed chiefly of the proprietors from Doomsday-book, of several of the towns of lands, among whom the public territory of England, mention is frequently made, somewas originally divided, and who found it con- times of the tax which particular burghers venient to build their houses in the neigh-paid, each of them, either to the king, or to bourhood of one another, and to surround some other great lord, for this sort of protec

CHAP. III.

OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF CITIES AND
TOWNS, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN

EMPIRE.

tion, and sometimes of the general amount | being thus taken away from them, they now only of all those taxes. at least became really free, in our present sense of the word freedom.

But how servile soever may have been originally the condition of the inhabitants of the Nor was this all. They were generally at towns, it appears evidently, that they arrived the same time erected into a commonalty or at liberty and independency much earlier than corporation, with the privilege of having mathe occupiers of land in the country. That gistrates and a town-council of their own, of part of the king's revenue which arose from making bye-laws for their own government, such poll-taxes in any particular town, used of building walls for their own defence, and commonly to be let in farm, during a term of of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort years, for a rent certain, sometimes to the she-of military discipline, by obliging them to riff of the county, and sometimes to other persons. The burghers themselves frequently got credit enough to be admitted to farm the revenues of this sort which arose out of their own town, they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the whole rent. To let a farm in this manner, was quite agreeable to the usual economy of, I believe, the sovereigns of all the different countries of Europe, who used frequently to let whole manors to all the tenants of those manors, they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the whole rent; It might, probably, be necessary to grant to but in return being allowed to collect it in such towns as were admitted to farm their their own way, and to pay it into the king's own revenues, some sort of compulsive jurisexchequer by the hands of their own bailiff, diction to oblige their own citizens to make and being thus altogether freed from the inso-payment. In those disorderly times, it might lence of the king's officers; a circumstance have been extremely inconvenient to have left in those days.regarded as of the greatest im- them to seek this sort of justice from any portance.

watch and ward; that is, as anciently understood, to guard and defend those walls against all attacks and surprises, by night as well as by day. In England they were generally exempted from suit to the hundred and county courts: and all such pleas as should arise among them, the pleas of the crown excepted, were left to the decision of their own magistrates. In other countries, much greater and more extensive jurisdictions were frequently granted to them.*

other tribunal. But it must seem extraordiAt first, the farm of the town was probably nary, that the sovereigns of all the different let to the burghers, in the same manner as it countries of Europe should have exchanged had been to other farmers, for a term of years in this manner for a rent certain, never more only. In process of time, however, it seems to be augmented, that branch of their revenue, to have become the general practice to grant which was, perhaps, of all others, the most it to them in fee, that is for ever, reserving a likely to be improved by the natural course of rent certain, never afterwards to be augment-things, without either expense or attention of ed. The payment having thus become per- their own; and that they should, besides, have petual, the exemptions, in return, for which in this manner voluntarily erected a sort of it was made, naturally became perpetual too. independent republics in the heart of their Those exemptions, therefore, ceased to be per- own dominions. sonal, and could not afterwards be considered as belonging to individuals, as individuals, but as burghers of a particular burgh, which, upon this account, was called a free burgh, for the same reason that they had been called free burghers or free traders.

In order to understand this, it must be remembered, that, in those days, the sovereign of perhaps no country in Europe was able to protect, through the whole extent of his dominions, the weaker part of his subjects from the oppression of the great lords. Those whom Along with this grant, the important privi- the law could not protect, and who were not leges, above mentioned, that they might give strong enough to defend themselves, were obaway their own daughters in marriage, that liged either to have recourse to the protection their children should succeed to them, and of some great lord, and in order to obtain it, that they might dispose of their own effects by to become either his slaves or vassals; or to will, were generally bestowed upon the burgh- enter into a league of mutual defence for the ers of the town to whom it was given. Whe- common protection of one another. The inther such privileges had before been usually granted, along with the freedom of trade, to particular burghers, as individuals, I know not, I reckon it not improbable that they were, though I cannot produce any direct evidence of it. But however this may have been, the principal attributes of villanage and slavery

See Brady's Historical Treatise of Citles and Boroughs, p. 3. &c.

See Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 18: also History of the Exchequer, chap. 10, sect. v, p. 223, fi.st edition.

habitants of cities and burghs, considered as single individuals, had no power to defend themselves; but by entering into a league of mutual defence with their neighbours, they were capable of making no contemptible resistance. The lords despised the burghers, whom they considered not only as a different order, but as a parcel of emancipated slaves,

* See Madox, Firma Burgi. See also Pfeffel in the Remarkable events under Frederick II. and his Succes sors of the House of Suabia.

almost of a different species from themselves. | towns of Germany received the first grants of The wealth of the burghers never failed to their privileges, and that the famous Hanseaprovoke their envy and indignation, and they tic league first became formidable.⚫ plundered them upon every occasion without The militia of the cities seems, in those mercy or remorse. The burghers naturally times, not to have been inferior to that of the hated and feared the lords. The king hated country; and as they could be more readily and feared them too; but though, perhaps, he assembled upon any sudden occasion, they might despise, he had no reason either to hate frequently had the advantage in their disputes or fear the burghers. Mutual interest, there- with the neighbouring lords. In countries fore, disposed them to support the king, and such as Italy or Switzerland, in which, on acthe king to support them against the lords. count either of their distance from the princiThey were the enemies of his enemies, and it pal seat of government, of the natural strength was his interest to render them as secure and of the country itself, or of some other reason, independent of those enemies as he could. the sovereign came to lose the whole of his By granting them magistrates of their own, authority; the cities generally became indethe privilege of making bye-laws for their own pendent republics, and conquered all the nogovernment, that of building walls for their own bility in their neighbourhood; obliging them defence, and that of reducing all their inha- to pull down their castles in the country, and bitants under a sort of military discipline, he to live, like other peaceable inhabitants, in the gave them all the means of security and inde- city. This is the short history of the republic pendency of the barons which it was in his of Berne, as well as of several other cities in power to bestow, Without the establishment Switzerland. If you except Venice, for of of some regular government of this kind, that city the history is somewhat different, it without some authority to compel their inha- is the history of all the considerable Italian bitants to act according to some certain plan republics, of which so great a number arose or system, no voluntary league of mutual de- and perished between the end of the twelfth fence could either have afforded them any per- and the beginning of the sixteenth century. manent security, or have enabled them to give the king any considerable support. By granting them the farm of their own town in fee, he took away from those whom he wished to have for his friends, and, if one may say so, for his allies, all ground of jealousy and suspicion, that he was ever afterwards to oppress them, either by raising the farm-rent of their town, or by granting it to some other farmer.

In countries such as France and England, where the authority of the sovereign, though frequently very low, never was destroyed altogether, the cities had no opportunity of becoming entirely independent. They became, however, so considerable, that the sovereign could impose no tax upon them, besides the stated farm-rent of the town, without their own consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to the general assembly of the states of the kingdom, where they might join with the clergy and the barons in granting, upon urgent occasions, some extraordinary aid to the king. Being generally, too, more favourable to his power, their deputies seem sometimes to have been employed by him as a counterbalance in those assemblies to the authority of the great lords. Hence the origin of the representation of burghs in the states-general of all great monarchies in Europe.

The princes who lived upon the worst terms with their barons, seem accordingly to have been the most liberal in grants of this kind to their burghs. King John of England, for example, appears to have been a most munificent benefactor to his towns. Philip I. of France lost all authority over his barons. To wards the end of his reign, his son Lewis, known afterwards by the name of Lewis the Fat, consulted, according to Father Daniel, with the bishops of the royal demesnes, concerning the most proper means of restraining the violence of the great lords. Their advice Order and good government, and along consisted of two different proposals. One was with them the liberty and security of indivito erect a new order of jurisdiction, by estab-duals, were in this manner established in cities, lishing magistrates and a town-council in every at a time when the occupiers of land in the considerable town of his demesnes. The o- country, were exposed to every sort of viother was to form a new militia, by making the lence. But men in this defenceless state nainhabitants of those towns, under the com- turally content themselves with their necessary mand of their own magistrates, march out up- subsistence; because, to acquire more, might on proper occasions to the assistance of the only tempt the injustice of their oppressors. king. It is from this period, according to On the contrary, when they are secure of enthe French antiquarians, that we are to date joying the fruits of their industry, they natuthe institution of the magistrates and councils rally exert it to better their condition, and to of cities in France. It was during the un- acquire not only the necessaries, but the conprosperous reigns of the princes of the house veniencies and elegancies of life. That inof Suabia, that the greater part of the free dustry, therefore, which aims at something