TOWN LIFE
IN
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
VOL. I
TOWN LIFE
IN
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
BY
MRS. J. R GREEN
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1894
The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
london and bungay.
IN MEMORY OF
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
March, 1894
PREFACE
In the twenty years which have passed since Mr.Green drew his brilliant sketch of the early lifeof English towns, and of their influence on thehistory of English liberty, the study of the subject inthis country has advanced but little; and it is not, Ithink, too much to say that the pages of his Historystill present the most vivid and suggestive picturewhich we possess of the mediæval boroughs—apicture inspired by ardent sympathy and emotion.In this rapid and original survey the true proportionsof civic history in our national life are boldly drawn;and the burghers and shopkeepers of the towns, longneglected and despised, take their place in the distinguishedranks of those by whom our freedom hasbeen won by their sturdy battle against oppression,leading the way in the growth and elevation ofthe English people, and carrying across the ages oftyranny the full tradition of liberty. But the historyof this great civic revolution, which in Mr. Green’sday cannot be said to have existed at all, has since[viii]then remained strangely neglected among us. Whilein foreign countries the study of the origin andgrowth of municipal institutions has been recognizedas of overwhelming importance, and has already employedthe erudition and tried the ingenuity of along succession of scholars, English historians havestood aloof. No English name figures in the contestsof the schools; nor is any English authority called towitness when a learned theory is advanced to solvethe riddle; and if from time to time foreign scholarsattempt to draw English towns within the range oftheir generalizations, the lack of sufficient or trustworthymaterials at their disposal makes the resultvain and unfruitful. No country indeed has been sobackward as our own in municipal history, whetherwe take it from the popular or from the scientificside. The traveller who has asked at the bookshopof a provincial town for a local history or evenfor a local guide is as well able to realize thedistance which parts us from France, Italy, orGermany, as is the student who inquires for a detailedaccount of how civic life or any one of itscharacteristic institutions grew up among us. Acertain number of town histories do indeed exist, butthey by no means always deal necessarily or evenm