The hospitality of the corporations differed from place to place. Sometimes a borough threw its gates wide open and welcomed any new comer who would but choose one of the half-dozen avenues to citizenship that lay before him,—who would buy land, or marry a free woman, or pay the fixed price for his freedom, or serve his apprenticeship to a trade, or accept the franchise as a gift from the community; while a neighbouring town, looking on aliens with jealousy and hesitation, would close its doors and cling to some narrower system of enfranchisement which kept its ranks pure from foreign blood, and its burghers free from anxieties of competition.[321] Each community in fact had full liberty to order its own political experiment. In the matter of choosing their fellow burgesses, of framing their own society and fixing the limits of its growth, the citizens knew no law and recognized no authority beyond their own,[322] and enjoyed herein a measure of independence unknown in continental countries where a powerful feudal system still barred every road to freedom.
When a new comer who desired to be “franchised for a free man, ... and fellow in your rolls”[323] was accepted by the commonalty he was summoned before them in a public court, “having with them the common charter of the city; and then the steward shall take the book, and bid them lay their right hands thereon, commanding all those that are standing by, in the behalf of our Lord the King, to keep silence,” and the oath of obedience to the King and fidelity to the customs of the town was administered,[324]—perhaps, as at Winchester, the “oath to swear men to be free, kneeling on their knees.”[325] The candidate had further to find two or more good men as pledges that he would “observe all the laws;”[326] and to pay the customary fees, which varied with the caution or the poverty of the borough from three shillings to five pounds; while a poor corporation like Wells was content to receive its payments in wine or gloves or wax when money was scarce.[327]
The new burgess was then required to give security to the town for payment of taxes or any other municipal claims by proving that he had either a good yearly revenue or a tenement, or by at once building himself a house.[328] A wooden framework was put together either on some building ground or perhaps in a vacant space in the open street,[329] and was then carried to the new site. The interstices were quickly filled up with plaster, and the little tenement was complete. A couple of rough benches and one or two pots and a few tools served as furniture, and the new burgess entered into possession and began life as a citizen householder. Henceforth he was bound to live within the walls of the borough, for his franchise was forfeited if he forsook the town for a year and a day.[330] Over the house, which was the town’s security for rent and taxes, the municipality kept a watchful eye: if it became ruinous and dangerous to the passer-by it was thrown down at the owner’s cost, or if needful at the cost of the commonalty; if through neglect or poverty it fell into decay the next heir and the commonalty together could compel him to put it in order or give it up.[331] Once or twice a year the burgher had to appear at the Portmote or Borough Court to prove his presence in the town, and to take his necessary part in the duties of the court.[332] An unwavering loyalty and public spirit was demanded of him, and the loss of “frelidge,” as they said in Carlisle, avenged any breach of public duty, such as a refusal to help the Mayor in keeping the peace, clamour and undue disturbance at the election of town officers, revealing the counsels of the Common Assembly, resistance in word or deed to the municipal officers, contempt of the Mayor’s authority, or any offence for which the punishment of the pillory or the tumbrill was adjudged.[333] For such things the burgher was “blotted out of the book of the bailiff”; and the forfeiture of his freedom was declared by open proclamation of the common crier, or by sound of the town bell, or by having his name written up on a Disfranchised Table in the Guild Hall,[334] so that all the town should know his shame. In Preston those who betrayed the municipal confidence or exposed the poverty of the town were not only deprived of the franchise, but their toll was taken every day as of forsworn and unworthy persons who could not be trusted beyond the passing hour.[335]