Why did the Barons of Faversham acquire a Magna Carta for the town in 1300?

1 Why did the Barons of Faversham acquire a Magna Carta for the Town in 1300? peter tann Faversham has a collection of royal charters that is probably unsurpassed by any other town in the country.1 Remarkably it is still in the physical possession of the Town Council. Its survival and good condition are testimony to the custodianship of generation after generation of town officers. The date range is 1252-1685. In the main, those dated before Henry VIII’s ‘foundation’ charter of 1546 were granted to the town by virtue of its membership of the Cinque Ports (as a limb of Dover). They are, therefore, primarily of constitutional and jurisdictional interest – locally and regionally. But national historians interested in the development of medieval towns will find the town’s history as reflected by its royal charters instructive: the themes that emerge from their study are those of local identity informed by a strong sense of the town’s own past, of community spirit and action, and of a healthy suspicion about the benefits of external authority. Included in the collection is a Magna Carta granted in 1300, annotated in a contemporary hand ‘for the barons of the port of Faversham’ (Figs 1 and 2).2 How does it fit in – if at all? Is it just a curiosity, or is it of any real historical importance to the town? Why was it granted in 1300, when the world knows that Magna Carta dates from 1215? These questions have so foxed historians of Faversham that they have long since given up the chase, or entirely ignored it. Faversham’s eighteenth-century town historian, Edward Jacob, was silent regarding the existence of Magna Carta.3 So was the town’s nineteenth-century historian, Edward Crow.4 It was not listed among Faversham’s constitutional documents in the local inquiry before the Municipal Corporations Act in 1834.5 Francis F. Giraud, a most erudite and long-serving Town Clerk, read a paper entitled ‘Faversham Town Charters’ at the General Meeting of the Kent Archaeological Society when it convened in Faversham in 1872, under the chairmanship of Faversham’s Lord Harris. Giraud did not even acknowledge the existence of the town’s Magna Carta.6 Miss K.M.E Murray wrote a magisterial history of the constitution of the Cinque Ports in 1935.7 She is particularly important to historians of Faversham because, in the course of her research, she discovered and sorted a vast body of town records, which are now in the Kent History and Library Centre (and which are much underutilized). But in her book and in her brilliant essay on Faversham’s membership of the Cinque Ports,8 she made no reference to the town’s Magna Carta. Faversham’s town charters were catalogued c.1960 by the county archivist, PETER TANN 2 Fig. 1 Faversham’s Magna Carta. WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 3 Fig. 2 Note to the left of the sealing indicating that it was prepared for the Barons of the port of Faversham. notwithstanding that the documents themselves remained in the town. He did not include Magna Carta, presumably because he felt it did not belong to either of the two classifications he used: ‘Cinque Ports’ and ‘Incorporation’. The Faversham Society, founded in 1962, has published well over a hundred ‘Faversham Papers’ on a very wide range of local history topics. Not one of these tackles the subject of the town’s Magna Carta. The author has found only two exceptions to the rule: Patricia Hyde and Duncan Harrington mention Magna Carta, in passing, in their supremely valuable, twopart volume on the early town books of Faversham.9 Justin Croft mentions it in his thesis on the Faversham custumal, which reference we shall consider later.10 In this article, therefore, there is a large gap to fill. The author believes that Faversham’s Magna Carta is very relevant to the jurisdictional history of the town. Armed with their own copy, and in the court of King’s Bench, the townsmen defended what they saw as their prescriptive rights – meaning those not written down – since time immemorial. Were these not the sort of ancient rights and liberties enshrined in Magna Carta? How is Faversham’s Magna Carta connected to that of 1215? A brief summary of the development of Magna Carta and its re-issues will be helpful. The 1215 Magna Carta was forced upon King John under duress, and agreed by him in the hope of avoiding civil war. It contained a ‘security’ clause that effectively passed control to selected barons in case of the king’s failure to remedy identified and reported breaches. It could not and did not last, because John died in October 1216, and was succeeded by his young son Henry III, who (at the instance of the minority council) confirmed Magna Carta by way of reissue at Bristol in November 1216 and again in November 1217, with significant modifications. Chief among these were the deletion of the unworkable security clause and the transfer of selected clauses to a new Forest Charter, to make it less unwieldy. In 1225, then aged eighteen, Henry reissued Magna Carta ‘of his own freewill’. This is the version that is regarded by jurists as the Magna Carta.11 In the 1216 version, the barons of the Cinque Ports, collectively, were identified as belonging to that group whose liberties and free customs were recognised and thus protected (Fig. 3): The City of London shall have all its ancient liberties, and its free customs, as well PETER TANN 4 Fig. 3 Detail from Faversham’s Magna Carta where the Cinque Ports are mentioned by name, firs t introduced in the 1216 version. [ ] WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 5 by land as by water. Furthermore, we will grant that all other cities and burghs, and towns, and the barons of the Cinque Ports, and all ports, should have all their liberties and free customs.12 The 1225 version was reissued in times of national crisis and financial need: in 1265, at the height of Henry’s struggle against the barons led by Simon de Montfort, and in again in 1297, by his son, Edward I, in order to win the barons’ support for his ambitious assault on France. The 1297 reissue (of the 1225 version) is important because it was the first to be enrolled by the chancery and copied into the earliest Statute Rolls, thus ensuring its historic place in the written law of England. It was customary for a king to confirm the charters of his father and his predecessors. Such confirmations took the form of an inspeximus (we have inspected … in the sense of ‘looked at’, ‘looked into’ and ‘carefully perused’). Thus it was entirely proper that the 1300 Magna Carta confirmed the 1225 charter – the one issued by Henry ‘of his own freewill’. Its opening section ended with the words: ‘We have inspected the charter of the lord Henry, our father, king of England, about the liberties of England in these words …’. The 1225 charter was then copied word for word, including the list of witnesses to that document. Nothing was added or subtracted. Faversham’s 1300 Magna Carta then finishes with a long list of witnesses of its own. The 1300 inspeximus was the last full exemplification of Magna Carta.13 The unquestioned authenticity of Faversham’s copy is reinforced by the notation to the left and right of the sealing and on the dorse. To the left is written, pro baronibus port(us) de Fauresh(a)m ‘for the barons of the port of Faversham’; to the right is written examinat(ur) per mag(ist)r(u)m Edmundum de London ‘examined by master Edmund of London’ (one of the king’s clerks, possibly Edmund Passelewe – see p. 11) (Fig. 4). It consists of 58 lines in all. It is endorsed ( Fig. 5): 4 ❙Magna Carta ❙ Made in the 9 yere of H3 [1225] ❙ & confirmed in the 28 yeer ❙of EI ❙ 28 EI [1300] The issue of Magna Carta in 1300 We do not know how many original engrossments of the 1300 Magna Carta were Fig. 4 Note to the right of the sealing indicating that, befor e despatch, it was examined by Master Edmund of London. PETER TANN 6 Fig. 5 Dorse of Faversham’s Magna Carta. It reads: 4 ❙Magna Carta ❙ Made in the 9 yere of H3 [1225] ❙ & confirmed in the 28 yeer ❙of EI ❙ 28 EI [1300]. WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 7 made, or to whom they were sent, but only five are known to survive. The others are in Westminster Abbey, the London Metropolitan Archives, Durham Cathedral, and in Oriel College, Oxford. A sixth copy is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, but was not issued under the seal of Edward I.14 It appears from the endorsement that Faversham’s Magna Carta was the fourth of the issue, though the other surviving engrossments are not numbered, so we ought not read too much into the numbering. Let us see what light, if any, the others shed on Faversham’s Magna Carta: Westminster Abbey: rather little is known about the provenance of the Westminster Abbey Magna Carta of 1300. All the other major manuscripts in this series of the Abbey’s charters (with one notable exception) have always been at the Abbey, as far as the Keeper of the Muniments is aware. The Magna Carta was certainly at the Abbey in the nineteenth century. It bears no annotations, and the only endorsement is, faintly, ‘Magna Carta R[egis] Edwardi libert[…]’.15 (63 lines in all.) London Metropolitan Archives (LMA): this Magna Carta is endorsed, ‘magna carta r(egis) E(dwardi) fil(ii) reg(is) H(enrici) de libertatibus Angl(ie)’. On the face, to the left of the slit (for the missing tag): ‘magna carta de libertatibus Angl(ie) pro civitate London’. It is recorded by LMA as dated 28 March 1300. The seal and tag are missing. It formed part of the muniments of the Corporation of London, but went missing sometime in the nineteenth century. It was ‘discovered’ in the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, and returned to the Corporation of London in 1958 by the Master of the Rolls. The intent of the words to the left of the slit is the same as in the Faversham document, i.e. to record the name of the party to whom it was sent.16 (70 lines in all.) Durham Cathedral: rather little is known about the provenance of the Durham Cathedral Magna Carta of 1300, other than it was part of the cathedral’s collection at least as early as c.1380, but as the archivist says, ‘we do not have any record of the receipt of the document here, but then that is very rare for any such document’.17 (79 lines in all.) Oriel College, Oxford: it is a reasonable supposition that this engrossment was issued to the university church of St Mary at Oxford (Fig. 6). At its foundation in 1324, Oriel College became lay rector of St Mary’s church and received Magna Carta, into its own muniments, where it remains. An early fourteenth-century endorsement reads ‘De libertatibus ecclesie anglicane’, which indicates the importance attached to Magna Carta by the university as a guarantee of the freedom of the church. Since all university masters and students were at this time clerics, this should be understood as meaning ‘the liberties of the university’. The college and university would have taken comfort in the charter’s promise of institutional independence.18 (68 lines in all.) We discern from this comparative analysis that Faversham is the only owner of a 1300 Magna Carta that can be sure of its provenance. It follows that the Faversham Magna Carta is the only one that remains in the possession of the party to whom it PETER TANN 8 Fig. 6 Obverse (A) and reverse (B) images of the seal attached to the Magna Carta of 1300 owned by Oriel College, Oxford, shown here in detail be cause of its superior condition to that of Faversham’s example. (Courtesy of the Archivist, Oriel College, Oxford.) A B WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 9 was first sent. It is interesting not least because it is the only survival specifically associated with a place and not an institution. But nothing emerges from this analysis that reveals why Faversham obtained it. Who governed Faversham in 1300? We have seen that Faversham’s Magna Carta was issued to the barons of the port of Faversham. These men represented the town’s domestic government. They acted corporately. Their very request implies a group of literate, self-confident people who were aware of the town’s past, and who were not afraid to have recourse to the law and to legal processes in pursuit of their agenda. We might deduce the key points of that agenda from what we know of the history of the development of the town’s government. In outline, the town, manor and hundred of Faversham had comprised a royal estate since before the Conquest.19 The magnificent Anglo-Saxon hoard discovered in the King’s Field indicates continuity of occupation in early post-Roman times, suggesting, in turn, that Faversham was of some importance.20 In 812 Cenwulf referred to Faversham as ‘my little town’ in a property transfer. Athelstan convened his great council (witenagemot) here in 930. Government within the town was the responsibility of the bailiff, the king’s representative. Faversham passed out of direct royal possession during the reign King Stephen (1135-54).21 Having first given it to William of Ypres as a reward for his services in the civil war, Stephen recovered it in order to grant it to the church in 1148 for the foundation of Faversham Abbey, intended to be the mausoleum abbey of the house of Blois forever. We know, however, that the best hopes of Stephen and his queen Matilda were thwarted even before the abbey was completed; it became effectively redundant when Henry II, the first Plantagenet, succeeded to the throne in 1154. Nonetheless, the coming of the abbey must have been transformational; the town’s population grew as a result.22 The abbot inherited the usual rich array of feudal powers.23 Murray tells us that in Faversham ‘in the mid-thirteenth century jurisdiction of all kinds was in the abbot’s hands’.24 Local historians have consistently taken the view that the relationship between the townsmen and their overlord was adversarial from the outset, a situation aggravated perhaps by the abbot’s structurally weak financial position. There is, however, very little evidence that reveals the nature of their relationship during the first h undred years or so. Murray expressed the widely accepted view that ‘it was to enlist support in the struggle against their monastic overlord, that some genius among the townsmen [of Faversham] suggested application to the Cinque Ports for membership’.25 Such membership was recorded in Henry III’s grant to Faversham of its first town charter in 1252. It marked the formal accession of the town to the rank of incorporated member of the Cinque Ports, as a limb of Dover. So how did its new chartered status change Faversham’s domestic government? Many important insights are contained in the record of a case in the court of King’s Bench brought by Faversham against the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1302.26 It is from the long transcript that we learn so much about the early history of Faversham. For example, the warden stated that the 1252 charter introduced the offices of mayor and jurats to the town. The change from ‘alderman’ brought PETER TANN 10 Faversham into line with other Cinque Port towns, and was probably not significant in the short term, except insofar as it represented public acknowledgement of the town’s new status. The mayor explained to the court how the legal process in the town worked under the pre-Conquest bailiff. More importantly, the mayor explained that the whole town consisted of thirty-two ‘hagae’ or houses, and that these were taxed scot and lot with the men of Dover for ship service in the twelfth century. Indeed, the warden acknowledged that Faversham had enjoyed a contractual relationship with Dover that pre-dated the foundation of Faversham Abbey.27 (It is self-evident that the leading men of the town in 1252 already enjoyed the power to contract corporately with Dover and the Cinque Ports.) In return, Faversham benefited from a range of privileges of the sort associated with the Cinque Ports. It is entirely unrealistic to think that when Stephen granted the manor of Faversham to the abbot in 1148, in the midst of a civil war, he was unaware of Faversham’s strategic importance, and of its relationship with Dover. It follows that the abbot would also have been aware of it.28 In other words, the grant of the town’s charter in 1252 was not the desperate or dramatic event that Murray et al. have suggested. Rather, it formalised and strengthened an existing relationship, characterised by continuity and cohesiveness among the townsmen. The abbot’s sensitivity to any attempted expansion or extension of the rights claimed by the townsmen was heightened, of course. For example, in 1261 he won back the right to the liberty of infangthef, which had been granted to the townsmen in 1252.29 But the defence of this case, heard before the king, demonstrates that the townsmen had grown accustomed to act corporately. A further example, of a quite different nature, was the issuance in 1295 of a bond by the ‘mayor and commonalty’ that was secured by ‘the lands, tenements and all the goods and chattels of our commonalty’, and sealed with a corporate seal that that was probably made in the twelfth century.30 In summary, the leading local men in Faversham claimed to have become accustomed to the exercise of local authority under the king’s bailiff since before the Conquest. Before the foundation of the abbey in 1148, they had contracted a relationship with Dover based on ship-service – with all that that implied in terms of taxation and the establishment of rights and privileges within their franchise – by which we mean the physical boundaries of their authority and autonomy. After 1148, it appears that domestic government in Faversham consisted of some kind of condominium between the townsmen and their new feudal overlord, the abbot – who was aware of the role of Dover from the beginning. Although we can list the offices and functions nominally held by the abbot, we know very little about the working relationship between town and abbot before the middle of the thirteenth century. By joining the Cinque Ports formally in 1252, however, the men of Faversham clearly raised the stakes. Thereafter, their relationship with the abbot was marked by episodic displays of friction, though both sides were keen not to be seen to trespass upon or disturb the rights of the other.31 It would be misleading to suggest that the focus of the townsmen’s efforts to defend and secure their local autonomy was aimed solely against the abbot, and that the warden was simply a willing instrument of their designs. This was not the case, as we shall see. The townsmen fought the battle on all fronts at every opportunity, including alleged usurpation of their rights by the crown. For example, there survives a writ dated October 1293 addressed by the king to John of Berwick WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 11 and his fellow justices of the Eyre,32 wherein the king directed that the barons of Faversham be permitted to enjoy all the liberties which they claimed under various charters, including the freedom (exemption) of attendance at Eyres.33 There is some irony here. Berwick’s main interest was in the investigation of the part played by gavelkind in the customs of Kent.34 The discussion in the Kent VCH concluded that ‘Kentish Gavelkind was no mere custom of equal inheritance of sons in real property. It was a complicated system of law, built upon elements originating evidently from different cultural traditions’.35 It might have been appropriate for the mayor of Faversham to express to the justices his views about the value of custom and tradition in any system of law. The whole question of urban franchise was in a state of flux in the period around the turn of the century (c.1300), and this was a particularly active time in the relationship between Faversham and the warden.36 Governance within and amongst the Cinque Ports towns was not yet standardized or codified – giving room for the survival of much local practice. This is why towns at around this time set out to prepare a record of their own rules and practices in the form of custumals, as Croft suggests (fn.10). In 1301, Faversham granted lawyer Edmund Passelewe (Passleigh or Passeley) an annual pension of £2 for his ‘counsel, aid and service’. As ‘a steward of the archbishop of Canterbury’s liberty [1301], he was a man worth knowing’.37 It is unlikely, however, that Passelewe was the first senior lawyer from whom Faversham took advice regarding the application of local law. The mayor of Faversham invokes Magna Carta in support of his authority There is no written evidence to prove why the mayor and jurats of Faversham went to the expense of obtaining a Magna Carta in 1300, but we can be reasonably sure that it was in support of their claim to important aspects of self -government enjoyed from the crown ‘since time out of mind’. Did they see Magna Carta as defence against the abbot or against the warden, or both? Let us consider the following scenario. The general re-issue of Magna Carta by Edward I in 1297 was a fresh and timely reminder that the king protected the ancient liberties of the barons of the Cinque Ports. The mayor and jurats were counted among those barons. ‘Let us get hold of our own copy – addressed to us as barons, for the avoidance of doubt’. The precedence of prescriptive law, exercised by experienced men acting in accordance with their custom and tradition, must be asserted. Let the king decide, once and for all. Conveniently, an opportunity presented itself to the mayor and jurats of Faversham in 1301. They chose to hear a murder case in their court.38 Surely the supreme test of lawful government in a structured society must be the right to hear a case of ‘life and limb’ and, if convicted, to condemn the guilty person to death and lawfully to execute him. The men of Faversham claimed that by custom and tradition they had enjoyed such rights in their court unbroken since the time of the pre-Conquest bailiff – even if there is no record of them having exercised such right for at least half a century. The mayor was fully aware that to hear a murder case in Faversham would be to show disrespect for the crown and the warden. It would be to disregard the charter PETER TANN 12 of 1278 addressed to the barons of the Cinque Ports collectively, wherein Edward I confirmed a long list of freedoms and immunities, ‘saving always in all things our royal dignity and saving to us and our heirs pleas of the crown of life and limb’. In the case of the Cinque Ports, the crown delegated such powers to the warden, who was empowered by the charter when appropriate, to ‘enter the ports and liberties to carry out full justice in that place’.39 In face of this written prohibition, and the certainty of intervention by the warden, the only possible explanation is that the mayor – doubtless armed with legal opinion – chose this murder case to test the primacy of local justice.40 The warden duly entered the town, uninvited, according to his chartered right and duty. Consequently, the mayor brought a case against the warden for trespass.41 This was the case that was heard in the court of King’s Bench in London in 1302 (see above). It was here that the mayor invoked Magna Carta, as protection of his ancient unwritten rights. He claimed that he and his predecessors had administered the law governing all sorts of outlawry since before the foundation of the abbey and afterwards, without breach of continuity. He did this in the abbot’s court, after the abbot had replaced the bailiff as the king’s representative. The mayor gave the impression that the bailiff had performed a kind of ceremonial role, which role the abbot had likewise adopted. It seems, therefore, that a key element in the hearing of the murder case of 1301 was that neither the abbot nor his representative was present in the court in Faversham – the mayor and jurats acted on their own.42 The warden did not attempt to deny the veracity of the mayor’s narrative of the way justice was administered in the town before 1252. Instead, he made the simple and incontrovertible point that when the town became a full member of the Cinque Ports organisation, custom and tradition gave way to ‘club rules’, which were to apply thereafter. The warden then used a second argument. He cited the case between the townsmen and the abbot brought before the king in 1261, regarding their respective right to the liberties of infangthef and utfangthef.43 The outcome of that case was that the townsmen were forced to concede their ancient liberty of infangthef to the abbot. The warden argued that this verdict demonstrated that an ancient liberty could be given up or taken from them. The mayor and jurats failed to produce more evidence in the trespass case, and failed to attend further scheduled hearings. They were adjudged to have abandoned the case. Judgement went against them. The court decreed that Faversham’s liberty to hear cases of outlawry and life and limb be … totally annulled and that forthwith it be considered worthless and that both the sentence of outlawry as other judicial sentences whatsoever made under the pretext of said liberty in the court at Faversham should be revoked and annulled … Did Faversham act in isolation? Clearly, the mayor and jurats did not enter upon their course of action out of recklessness or ignorance. It may have been hubris. But if they were motivated by a genuine desire to highlight the widening gap between custom and tradition on the one hand, and increasing dependence upon written law on the other, it is a mystery as to why they felt it Faversham’s responsibility to take up this David v. WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 13 Goliath role.44 If it looks as if the whole case was a ‘put up job’, it is difficult at this distance to work out why and by whom. One possibility, of course, is that the warden choreographed the whole event. We might posit that the outcome would strengthen the administration of justice in his courts of Shepway and Dover throughout the confederation, and would kill stone dead any future reliance by the Cinque Ports barons upon the precedence of ancient rights. A second possibility is that Faversham was not acting entirely alone, but led an action that was directly or indirectly supported by other Cinque Port towns. The evidence from Sandwich, for example, is quite strong. Adam Champneys, the town clerk there, produced the town’s custumal around 1300-01. In it, he recorded the claim of Sandwich to enjoy all privileges granted by Magna Carta and the Charters of the Forest (ff 105 r).45 The custumal also recorded the assertion of Sandwich’s right to try pleas of the crown within the town. Unfortunately, we do not know when the mayor of Sandwich first made these claims, but we know that the men of Sandwich fought a pitched battle against the royal justices to stop them entering the town in 1300. The objective of the townsmen was to test the respective powers of the parties in the court of King’s Bench.46 Some weight is given to the suggestion of collusion or co-operation between Faversham and Sandwich by the fact that Faversham granted the lawyer, Robert of Sturry, who acted for Sandwich c.1300, an annuity for his services in 1310.47 The possibility that Faversham was not acting alone is reinforced by a close reading of Samuel Jeake, of Rye, the historian of the Cinque Ports charters.48 Jeake was writing in 1678, and worked backwards from the collective Cinque Port charter of Charles II (1668). In the course of this magnum opus, he translated the charter of Edward IV (5 Edward IV, 1465) – a copy of which is unfortunately not in the Faversham collection – and added his customary analytical commentary. The charter of 1465 was the first Cinque Port charter to refer to Magna Carta by name.49 In his commentary, Jeake noted that Magna Carta was made by Henry III in the regnal year 1225, being the year in which the Cinque Ports were added by their collective name for the first time, as we have seen. For Jeake, 1225 was the relevant date as far as the history of the Cinque Ports was concerned, not 1215. Then, in the same footnote, Jeake tells us that Magna Carta was ‘afterwards confirmed by his son Edward I in the twenty-eighth year of his reign 1299’ (regnal year 1300). By the same logic, Jeake seems to imply that, in the history of the Cinque Ports, there was something about 1300 that outweighed Edward I’s confirmation of Magna Carta 1297. If this interpretation has any weight, then it is unlikely that Jeake was relying on the Faversham document alone; it is more likely that the 1300 exemplification was sent to other Cinque Port towns, and since lost (perhaps after 1678). But maybe Faversham was chosen to act on behalf of the others because of a reputation for fierce independence among Cinque Port towns? A third possibility is that senior lawyers felt that the wording of Magna Carta did lead to confusion in the area of urban liberties, and needed to be clarified. Why else would Faversham be able to recruit senior legal advisers to guide them through the process upon which they embarked? We shall never know, because Magna Carta was not reissued after 1300. Although anachronistic, the charter of 1465 admits to the weakness of the wording of earlier charters generally, including PETER TANN 14 those guaranteed by Magna Carta. Edward IV was keen to remedy the situation out of gratitude for the Cinque Ports’ support of him against Henry VI. Certain ambiguities, obscurities and doubts, and of sinister interpretations of certain words and general terms, in the aforesaid charters, letters and confirmations contained, have been, and yet are hindered, to the depressing and impoverishment of the said barons and good men, also to the hurt, and manifest loss, very likely, of our service of shipping there.50 Whatever the interpretation, the fact remains that Faversham’s leading townsmen committed the town to considerable expense in terms of the cost of acquisition of their Magna Carta, the cost of the King’s Bench court case, and the heavy fine of 500 marks they incurred. For their effort, they gained clarity about the nil value of local custom and tradition in the exercise of the law. But late in 1302, having been disenfranchised for some months, the town was welcomed back into the fold with its new Cinque Ports charter addressed exclusively to the ‘our barons of Faversham’. It is difficult to see this as any form of consolation, as it contains no substantive differences from the general charter of 1278; but the very ‘directness’ of this charter was deemed by an inquisition in 1388 to have marked the end of the road for the abbot’s claims upon jurisdiction in the town.51 In conclusion, it is difficult to imagine that Faversham acted entirely independently over the acquisition and use of its Magna Carta. But it is equally difficult to imagine that Faversham was at the centre of some sort of conspiracy among all or some of the Cinque Port towns, either to strengthen or weaken the authority of the warden. If the mayor and jurats were working alone, we might consider their actions to have been heroic but doomed. In terms of the development of common law, the direction of travel was only one way – towards common application through learning, writing, recording and the centralisation of administration. But perhaps things were not so obvious at the time. It will be interesting to learn if other towns used Magna Carta to defend their ancient liberties. If not, then Faversham’s efforts should be more widely acknowledged. After this article had been sent to press, a previously unknown Magna Carta of 1300 belonging to Sandwich was discovered at the Kent History and Library Centre (Ed.). endnotes 1 Peter Tann, 2012, The Royal Charters of Faversham, The Faversham Society. This book contains an image of each charter together with a transcription, translation and commentary. 2 T he leading men of Cinque Port towns were given the courtesy title of ‘barons’, and are not to be confused with ‘hereditary’ barons. 3 Edward Jacob, 1774, The History of Town and Port of Faversham, London, reprinted in The History of Faversham, by the Faversham Society, 1974. 4 E dward Crow, Historical Gleanings relative to the Town of Faversham and Parishes adjoining, mss. written 1843-61, transcribed by Peter Tann, History Research, Lyminge, CD-Rom 2009. 5 Report by the Commissioner on Municipal Corporations, London, 1835. 6 F.F. Giraud, 1874, ‘Faversham Meeting – The Town Charters’, Archaeologia Cantiana, ix, lxii-lxx. 7 K.M.E. Murray, 1935, The Constitutional History of the Cinque Ports, Manchester. WHY DID THE BARONS OF FAVERSHAM ACQUIRE A MAGNA CARTA IN 1300? 15 8 K.M.E. Murray, 1936, ‘Faversham and the Cinque Ports’, TRHS, vol. XVIII. 9 Duncan Harrington and Patricia Hyde, 2008, The Early Town Books of Faversham, c.1251 to 1581, History Research, Lyminge, 2008, p. lvii. They opine that Magna Carta was obtained by the townsmen ‘almost certainly in the course of their long battle with the abbot of Faversham’. 10 Justin Croft, 1997, ‘The Custumals of the Cinque Ports c.1290-c.1500’, unpubl. ph.d thesis, UKC. The Sandwich custumal is the earliest surviving custumal of any Cinque Port town. 11 The 1225 Magna Carta, and all subsequent re-issues, including that of 1300, confirm the Forest Charter. 12 The sole exemplification of the 1216 Magna Carta is in Durham Cathedral. The 1215 coverall of ‘et portus’ in clause 13 is expanded to ‘et barones de quinque portubus et omnes portus’. This was explicit recognition of the Cinque Port fleet’s successes at sea in 1216 against the rebellious barons and their French supporters. 13 T he word ‘copy’ is problematic. Historians of Magna Carta prefer to use words such as ‘exemplification’ and ‘engrossment’. 14 This contemporary document is sealed by the abbot of Oseney, who was then abbot John de Bibury (1297-1317). At the dissolution it passed to the Chapter House of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and eventually to the Bodleian in 1860. The shelfmark is: MS. Ch. Oxon. Oseney 143b + 143b* (143b* is the seal, stored separately). The author is grateful to Dr B.C. Barker-Benfield, Senior Assistant Librarian, for this information. 15 T he author is grateful to Matthew Payne, Keeper of the Muniments, for this information. The Westminster Abbey reference is WAM LX. 16 The LMA reference is COL/CH/01/023/Z Magna Carta confirmation 28 Mar 1300. 17 The author is grateful to Dr Michael Stansfield, Special Collections, Durham University Library, who looks after the Durham Cathedral archives. The Durham reference is DCD 2.2.Reg.2. 18 T he author is grateful to Dr Ian Forrest, Fellow in History at Oriel College, for this information. The Oriel College reference is EST D 2 B1/1 [D.R. 16 (C8)]. 19 Alan Everitt, 1986, Continuity and Colonization, the evolution of Kentish Settlement, Leicester University Press, p. 112, fn. 53. 20 The richest Anglo-Saxon cemetery finds in England (before Sutton Hoo), dating from the seventh century, were given to the nation in 1870 by William Gibbs, who bought pieces from men working on the construction of the railway, and digging out the earth for bricks, c.1859. The ancient place name ‘King’s Field’ is itself suggestive. See Archaeologia Cantiana, vi (1866), 45, fn. 2 and v. II p. 222. The finds are now in the British Museum and at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. 21 First to William of Ypres in 1141, but then brought back into the king’s estate as a result of an exchange of other land with William of Ypres. 22 The chronicler William Thorne wrote that when the archbishop visited Faversham in 1202, the number of people had grown to the extent that he could give the benediction only generally, rather than to each individual, as before. See Roger Twysden, Historiae Anglicanae scriptores 10, London, 1652, cols. 1859-60. 23 Peter Tann, op. cit. See chapter ‘Jurisdiction in medieval Faversham’, p. 61, and transcript of Henry III’s confirmation charter regarding Faversham Abbey, pp. 49-51. 24 K.M.E. Murray, 1936, ‘The Common-Place Book of Faversham’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xlviii, 93. 25 K.M.E. Murray, 1935, ‘Faversham and the Cinque Ports’, TRHS, vol. XVIII, p. 59. 26 TNA KB 27/168 m 58-59v. The case is printed in Harrington and Hyde, op. cit., appendix V, pp. 626-659. It was transcribed and translated by Dr Bridgett Jones. 27 Peter Tann, op. cit. See chapter ‘Faversham, Dover and the Cinque Ports’, p. 78. 28 In Anglo-Saxon England, land transfers were subject to certain vital reservations. Excepted from them were defensive installations such as forts, roads and bridges. The obligation to maintain these reserved areas, in addition to the provision of fighting men, became known as the trinoda necessitas. If this well-established arrangement survived into mid twelfth-century England, it would follow that the transfer of the manor to the abbot in 1148 would likely exclude Faversham’s preexisting naval/military infrastructure and obligations. PETER TANN 16 29 Peter Tann, op. cit. See 1252 charter pp. 84-87 and 1261 charter pp. 90-91. 30 Ibid., pp. 80, 96-97. 31 Ibid., pp. 72-73. In 1279, the abbot asserted that he had neither appropriated nor encroached upon any privileges granted him. In their turn, the townsmen declared that they never did obstruct the abbot of Faversham, who might in his own court, take and receive the rents and amercements of his own proper tenants, and levy the same by his own bailiffs or officers. 32 Court hearings or examinations by itinerant justices. 33 Felix Hull, 1980, ‘John de Berwyke and the Consuetudines Kancie’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xcvi, 3. 34 CCA-DCc/Register/B f.419, ‘An exposition of customs in the county of Kent’. The text is translated from Norman French in VCH, Kent, vol. iii, 1932, pp. 325-6. 35 VCH Kent, vol. iii, 1932, p. 327. 36 In 1302, the warden imprisoned the abbot at Dover for his failure to recognise some fact of Faversham’s Cinque Port status, to the damage of the king’s crown and dignity. The archbishop excommunicated the warden and his officers. The king ordered its revocation. See Murray, Constitutional History of the Cinque Ports, p. 69. 37 J.R. Maddicott, 1978, Law and Lordship: Royal Justices as Retainers in thirteenth and fourteenth century England (Past and Present Supplement 4, pp. 28-29). Passelewe was king’s serjeant in 1309 and baron of the Exchequer from 1323 to 1327. He was not a justice in the central court, but had influence at the centre of government that was useful to those w ho retained him. 38 T he record of the case refers to ‘their court’, not the ‘abbot’s court’. This is as strong an indication of the townsmen’s progress towards the administration of law in the town as is possible to get. 39 Peter Tann, op. cit., p. 93. 40 The 1301 murder case was the first heard by the mayor since 1252 at the latest, because in the ensuing case neither the mayor nor the warden referred to an earlier case by way of precedent. 41 The warden pointed out that he had entered the town on several occasions since 1252 in order to take gaol delivery, etc. 42 T he abbot also sued the warden in King’s Bench for interference in the same murder case, arguing that it properly belonged to him. The abbot lost his case, thus demonstrating the primacy of the warden in cases of life and limb. 43 utfangthef – a Saxon word – the right of a lord to hang a thief caught by him on another’s land, or the right of the captor to hang him or to ransom him. infangthef – the right of a lord to hang a thief caught on his land. These rights were not specifically granted to the abbot at the time of the foundation. Infangthef was granted to the barons of Faversham in 1252 but lost to the abbot in 1261. Both liberties were granted to the Cinque Ports collectively in 1278. 44 T he abbot followed up with a case against the warden for usurpation of what he still considered his authority in Faversham in cases of outlawry and life and limb. The abbot lost. 45 KHLC, MS Sa/LC 1 (U.387) p. 16, cited in Croft, op. cit. The custumal is known only by a later fourteenth-century text. 46 Justin Croft, 1997, ‘An assault on the Royal Justices at Ash and the making of the Sandwich Custumal’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxvii, 13-32. 47 Justin Croft, ‘Custumals’ (op. cit., see note 10, 73, 77) The Sandwich Custumal included a copied document recording the appointment of lawyer Robert of Sturry for ten years. See fn. 41 (p. 78) for Croft’s reference to Faversham’s appointment of the same man in 1310. 48 Samuel Jeake, 1728, Charters of the Cinque Ports, Two Ancient Towns, and their Members, London. [Published posthumously.] 49 Ibid., p. 51. 50 Ibid., p. 52. 51 Letters patent Henry VI, 1454, includes an inspeximus of the inquisition demanded by Richard II, 1388. See Peter Tann, op. cit., pp. 132-136.