[20] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 137, 145. See Paston, i. 434; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 169; x. 4, 529-30.
[22] For the contrast in this respect between the shire and the borough see Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 356-7.
[23] Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 22-25. See Piers Ploughman, passus i. 139-146; ii. 90-99; ix. 19-76; x. 223-227.
[24] Piers Ploughman, passus xvi. 248-255.
“The Jews that were gentlemen, Jesus they despised, Both his lore and his law, now are they low churls, As wide as the world is woneth (dwelleth) there none But under tribute and tallage as tikes and churls. And those that become Christian by counsel of the Baptist Are franklins and free.... And gentlemen with Jesus.”
(Piers Ploughman, ed. by W. Skeat for Early English Text Society, part iii.; pass. xxii. 34.) I have ventured to give quotations from mediæval writers in modern spelling, as I am here concerned neither with philology nor the history of literature: and there are many to whom the old methods of spelling only serve to obscure the sense.
[30] The former devices for illegal taxation on the King’s part broke down when the commons looked so sharply after these matters that no attempt at unauthorised taxation of merchandise was made after the accession of Richard the Second. Stubbs, ii. 574-578. How completely the relation of King and commons had been reasoned out by the people we see in Langland’s writings.
“Then came there a King, and ‘by his crown,’ said, ‘I am a king with crown the commons to rule, And holy Church and clergy from cursed men to defend. And if me lacketh to live by, the law wills that I take There I may have it hastelokest; (quickest) for I am head of law, And ye be both members, and I above all.’
‘On condition,’ quoth conscience, ‘that thou conne defend And rule thy realm in reason right well, and in truth; Then, that thou have thine asking as the law asketh; _Omnia sunt tua ad defendendum, sed non ad deprehendendum_.’”
(Piers Ploughman, passus xxii. 467-472, 478-481.)
[31] Stubbs, iii. 77; Rogers, Agric. and Prices, iv. viii.
[32] See the description of a session of Parliament in Richard the Redeless, passus iii. A.D. 1399.
[33] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. 376, &c.
[35] Ibid. passus vi. 181. M. Jusserand (Epopée Mystique du Moyen Age, 101-118), justly points out what a typical representative of common opinion Langland was. Compare the popular manifesto of 1450. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 267.) “They say the King should live upon his commons, and that their bodies and goods are his; the contrary is true, for then needed him never to set Parliament and to ask good of them.”