Читать книгу The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich - Thomas of Monmouth - Страница 9

The firm and persistent stand made by the Sheriff in the protection of the Jews when accused of the crucifixion of the boy William may be perhaps sufficiently explained by the fact that the Jews were the "King's Chattels," for damage to whom the Sheriff might be called to account. A consideration, however, of the political state of the city at that time, so far as we are able to trace it, will afford a further explanation of this feature of the narrative.

In the time of Edward the Confessor the "villa" of Norwich as described in Domesday Survey comprehended a circuit round the Castle Hill beginning with Berstreet southwards, sweeping round by the east, north and north-west to the street called Pottergate, comprising the districts then probably, as afterwards, known by the names of Conesford, Westwyk and Coslanye. The western side, afterwards called Mancroft, was not yet occupied.

The whole "villa" was not entirely homogeneous as to jurisdiction, but the exceptions were comparatively small. Fifty burgesses, resident between Tombland and the river, belonged to Stigand, bishop of Thetford; 32 belonged to Earl Harold, somewhere near the Castle, but no less than 1238 occupying the rest of the "villa" are described as being "in burgo" and under the normal jurisdiction of the King and Earl, the former taking two-thirds of the profits and the latter one-third. The meeting place of the men of this flourishing " burgh," when they gathered together for their borough-mote, there is good reason to think was on Tombland, and almost certainly the common market must have been there also.

Soon after the Norman Conquest, great troubles fell upon the burgh owing to the rebellion of Earl Ralph, so that at the time of the Survey in 1086, only 665 out of 1238 burgesses could be accounted for. The political importance of the Saxon "burgess" was further weakened by another result of the Conquest. Before his rebellion Ear) Ralph, by arrangement with the King, had granted lands in his demesne, to the west of the Castle, to be formed into a New Burgh between himself and the King. The burgesses who occupied it were Frenchmen, who, at the time of the Survey already numbered 123, including some "milites." This statement, made in formal terms in the Survey, can imply nothing less than the formation of a new, and under the circumstances, a rival municipal organization, a new French burgh M distinguished from the English burgh, as was the case at Nottingham and doubtless in other places. Moreover in this new district was established a new market, which either by authority or by natural development soon superseded the older one.

Such was the state of affairs at the commencement of the 12th century. By the early part of the 13th the two rival burghs had become fused together into four municipal divisions under one government, the " new burgh " under the name of Mancroft taking the second place in precedence. This fusion may have been effected by the time of King Richard's charter of self-government in 1194, but perhaps not completely till the appointment of four bailiffs in place of a borough-reeve in 1223.

The question is, How far had this fusion proceeded at the time of our narrative! There is little evidence to show. One statement certainly seems to imply that the two separate organizations were still in existence. In 1140, King Stephen granted to his son William the "town and borough of Norwich in which there were 1238 burgesses that hold of the king in burgage tenure," and also the "castle and burgh thereof in which there were 123 burgesses that held of the king in burgage tenure," Ac. Now these numbers are exactly the same as the numbers given in the Survey of 1086. We must therefore suppose either that the royal clerks copied the old description without verification, or, as more likely, that William could claim the burgage rents of those particular burgesses but not of any others. Still, the term

"burgh of the castle" instead of "new burgh" may be held to imply that the French burgh was still a separate organization and—an important addition—in close connection with the castle, the residence of a Norman Earl or a Norman Sheriff.

Further than this, the town had not yet the right of self-governmen. Its borough reeve was still appointed by the king and subordinate to the sheriff. Here cornea in another consideration. Each of the two burghs must at first have had its own reeve, and there is a curious piece of evidence suggesting that this continued even into the 13th century. Blomefield, under the reign of Henry III, gives the names of four Provosts (or Reeves) for the years 1216tol219. As a matter of fact these four names are taken from the " Old Free Book " of the City of Norwich where they are said to be without date and are coupled together in pairs. In each case one name has a decidedly French tinge.

On the whole, then, it seems reasonable to conclude that in 1149, when this charge was brought, the town was still divided into two distinct and alien organizations, the Norman burgesses in the new burgh, the English in the old.

It was, of course, with the former that the Jews were entirely bound up, at least so far as they lived in the Jewry,—as no doubt they all did, with very few exceptions. A description of the locality will shew that they were as closely as possible connected with the Castle. The Castle Hill was surrounded by a moat which still exists. Beyond the outer bank of the moat, the southern and eastern lands were enclosed by two horseshoe shaped banks, the southern enclosure being called the Castle Fee and the eastern the Castle Meadow. The main entrance to the Castle proper was from the east between these two banks. When, however, the new Norman quarter had sprung up on the west and the new Market was becoming a nucleus of population, another entrance was made from the neighbourhood of the Market into the southern enclosure or Castle Fee. This was by the street called in the 13th century "Vicus de Sellaria or Sadelgate. It was on the south side of the Sadelgate that the 13th century Jewry was situated. Kirkpatrick has suggested that it was removed to that spot in the middle of the 13th century from an earlier site. But he admits that there is no real evidence of the occupation of the earlier site. On the other hand the extreme suitability of the Sadelgate site makes it more than probable that it was so used from the first. The Jews belonged to the king and were under the special protection of his local representative. Where would they be better placed than immediately outside the Castle enclosure and at the very spot where access between the Castle and the Market was established? There also they would be surrounded by the burgesses whose sympathies were on the side of the king and the Castle. In case of a popular tumult, too, a few minutes would place them within the safe protection of the Castle enclosure.

The conducting of the accused Jews from the Jewry to the Bishop's court would not involve the danger of taking them through the streets of the city. Bishop Herbert had obtained the site of the Earl's Palace and pulled it down, so that between the north circuit of the Castle Meadow and the entrance to the monastic precinct from Tombland only a short space of ground had to be covered. No doubt from the first, as at a later time, a postern gate at that point in the enclosing bank of the Castle Meadow gave access to Tombland and the Monastery. Nearly the whole way therefore from the Jewry to the Monastery would be through the safe enclosures of the Castle.

A. Mentioned in a deed of 14 E. I. as "via que ducit ad curiam Comitatus." See Harrod, Castles and Conventt, &c., p. 132.

B. Mentioned in a deed of 80 E. I. as "via qua itur ad Castellum." See Harrod, Castles and Convents, p. 140.

C. Site of Earl's Palace, removed by Bp. Herbert.

D. Here was formerly a footpath (see Harrod, Castles and Convents, p. 140). Somewhere near most have been the communication with the Earl's Palace.

E. Fybridge it mentioned in a grant of c. 1150 (see Kirkpatrick's Streets and Lanes, &c. p. 84).

F. The line F...F marks the line of the bank made by royal license in 1253, afterwards surmounted by a wall. It is said to have greatly enlarged the circuit of the city (Streets and Lanes, p. 111). How it was denned or defended before is unknown.

One more consideration illustrating the political situation in the city at this period may be added. The Castle, which up to the time of the Norman Conquest had been the stronghold of a native lord, such as the Earl of the East Angles, who did not shut himself up in it but lived in his Palace between the Castle Meadow and Tombland, had from the time of the Conquest become an instrument of foreign domination. Even in the Conqueror's time a stone castle of some kind had been built. But according to the best judgment of architectural evidence, it was reserved for Hugh Bigot, just about the time of our narrative, to rear the massive Keep which still forms so splendid a memorial of the past. We may easily imagine the awe with which the English burgesses would mark the uprearing of this mighty engine of tyranny, and how hopeless a contest with its master would seem.

These various considerations may help to explain why the Sheriff should have had no antecedent sympathy with a popular outcry, and why, feeling himself responsible for preventing damage being done to the Jews, he also had it in his power to ensure them an efficient protection such as on similar but later occasions elsewhere they failed to obtain.