It will occur to most people that, if these offices were maintained, the reason must have been something more than the mere force of conservatism, great as that has been in the steady evolution of English life; and such was undoubtedly the case in most of, if not all, the cases cited. In other words, the townsmen, individually, as a body, or in the persons of a limited number of elect, continued to enjoy certain rights, and to hold a financial stake, in the soil surrounding that on which their town was planted. The officers were often paid not in cash, but in kind, either a quantity of grain being allotted to them or a piece of land. The latter form of remuneration, which was the more common, is exemplified at Doncaster, where there is a field called the Pinder's Balk, which the pinder cultivated for his own profit. At Malmesbury, it appears, he occupied the position of honour held in other towns by the Mayor, and his salary is represented by a piece of land called the Alderman's Kitchen.
Let us now turn to the communities themselves. At Nottingham resident burgesses have a right, falling to them in order of seniority, to the "burgess part"--i.e., a piece of land, either field or meadow, for which each pays a small ground rent to the Corporation.[14] These "parts" number 254, and they are of varying value, so that, as Mr. Gomme puts it, they constitute "a sort of lottery." At Manchester there are 280 allotments, each about an acre in extent, in which all the commoners have an interest. To forty-eight landholders is assigned an acre each, and twenty-four assistant (?) burgesses have each of them an additional acre. At Berwick-on-Tweed there are two portions of land, of which one is demised, under the name of "treasurer's farms," by the mayor, bailiff, and burgesses to tenants. The other part includes sundry parcels called meadows ranging from 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 acres; and every year at a meeting of the burgesses--the "meadowguild," as it is termed--the lands vacated by the death or departure of those last in occupation go to the oldest burgesses or burgesses' widows eligible by residence, the right of choice depending on seniority.
The land belonging to the Corporation of Langharne is similarly allocated. When an occupier dies, the profits accruing from his share are kept by his representatives, and at the ensuing Michaelmas Court the burgess next in age to the deceased is presented by the jury, and obtains the share previously held by him. Mr. Gomme points out that the reverence for age discoverable in so many of these customs is characteristic of the Teutonic races and of primitive communities in general. An interesting feature of this case is that corn is sown in 330 acres for three years in succession and during the next three years they are grassed out.