This short explanatory Chapter of the Domesday Record may appear somewhat prolix, but is essential to the integrity of our work, which proposes to illustrate all that is either interesting or useful to be known, as well regarding its antient as modern History.

70

CHAPTER V.

MUNICIPAL HISTORY TO A. D. 1213.

OW various have been

the names by which the town of Godmanchester has been called! Durolipons by the Romans— Gormoncastria by the Danes-and since then, amongst others, Gumicester, Gumicestria,

Guthmuncester, Gurmuncester, Gormoncester, &c.; and it would be difficult to ascertain when that of Godmanchester was first applied to it. Changes in orthography and pronunciation are continually taking place, and the Norman Conquest was a great epoch for such changes; the c was then softened down into ch, as in bec, bech; ic, ich; cild, child; cester, chester; but all corporation records still continue to be headed Gumecester alias Godmanchester.

a Watson.

That Godmanchester was, at a very early era, not only a regularly organized but well populated town, may be stated on good authorities. Leland describes it to have been a town of great note, "as appears from the foundations and coins that are found there ;" and adds, that large bones have been here exhumed beyond the stature of men,' in the times in which he lived: that "it was divided merely by the river Ouze from Huntingdon, from whence it is conjectured that Huntingdon was formerly a part of Godmanchester." Henry of Huntingdon calls it "a not unpleasant town, and formerly a noble city," which is an important admission by that learned Monk, for when (and long before) he wrote, Huntingdon was the capital of the province, and had its own honour, with manors dependent upon it. The survey of Domesday gives

b "Gumicester, vulgo Godmanchester. Gumecester olim opp. magni nominis, ut apparet, ex fundamentis et numismatibus erutis. Eruuntur etiam et ossa, sed majora quam habeant hujus ætatis homines. Usa tantum dividit hoc opp. ab Huntingduno. Unde conjectura est Huntingdunum antiquitus partem fuisse Gumicestriæ."-Lelandi Coll.

c Emi ibidem à quodam sacrificulo numismata, inter quæ unum erat C. Antii prælonga cesarie qualem Romani habebant ante notos tonsores.-Lelandi Coll. pars. 3. page 13.

d Henry of Huntingdon was a monkish historian, (patronized by the Bishops of Lincoln,) and Archdeacon of Huntingdon. He flourished in the 12th century, and wrote a Chronicle of England down to the year 1154. His words are—

"Nobilis quondam urbis, nunc verò villæ non inamabilis."

but little information as to the state of the town, compared with modern times; nor do we find much of interest on record, regarding its Municipal History, prior to the reign of King John.

As antient demesne it was part of the hereditary possessions of the crown, and consequently held in tenancy of it; but in the reign of that monarch, not only the Great Charter of Liberty called Magna Charta, but many important concessions, were obtained from the crown by the people, and amongst others that of fixing a permanent rent for the King's tenants, who were thus admitted to denizenship, and which, instead of being levied as formerly by the King's officers in products of husbandry, or by an arbitrary money tax, was to be collected amongst the tenants themselves, and paid at stated periods. In order to simplify this interesting subject, we must here consider the origin of fee-farm rents, and the tenure and customs of Antient Demesne.

"Antient Demesne consists of those lands or manors which, though now perhaps granted out to private subjects, were actually in the hands of the crown in the time of Edward the Confessor or William the Conqueror, and so appear to have been by the great survey of the Exchequer called Domesday Book. The tenants of these lands of the crown were not all of the same order or degree. Some

e Blackstone's Com. by Archbold, b. 2, c. 6.

of them, as Britton testifies, continued for a long time pure and absolute villeins, dependent on the will of the Lord; and those who have succeeded them in their tenures now differ from common copyholders in only a few points. Others were in a great measure enfranchised by royal favour: being only bound in respect of their lands to perform some of the better sort of villein services, but those determinate and certain; as, to plough the King's land for so many days, to supply his court with such a quantity of provisions, or other stated services all of which are now changed into pecuniary rents and in consideration thereof, they had many immunities and privileges granted to them; as, to try the right of their property in a peculiar court of their own, called a Court of Antient Demesne, by a peculiar process denominated A Writ of Right Close; not to pay tolls or taxes; not to contribute to the expenses of knights of the shire; not to be put on juries; and the like.

"Tenants in antient demesne, though their tenure be absolutely copyhold, yet have an interest equivalent to a freehold; for notwithstanding their services were of a base and villenous original, yet the tenants were esteemed in all other respects to be highly privileged villeins; and especially that their services were fixed and determinate, and that they could not be compelled (like pure villeins) to relinquish these tenements at the Lord's will, or to hold them against their own: et ideo,' says Brac