driven to the bold hypothesis that Hastings, which ought to have figured at the head of the county survey (as did Dover in Kent), was one of the important towns wholly omitted in Domesday." The fact that its ship-service, when first mentioned, was as large as that of Dover is a further proof of its importance.

The geographical position of Hastings also severs its case, as widely as do its privileges, from those of the Kentish ports. It is therefore difficult to resist the impression that the distinction in John's charter had a real origin and meaning. The "Barons" of Hastings were, I believe, the men of the King's town (not, as alleged, the Abbot's) and so far from the Abbot's men being admitted to share their distinction, we find the latter, at Rye and Winchelsea, styled in John's charter "homines," not even "homines nostri."

The accepted view as to Rye and Winchelsea is thus set forth by Professor Burrows:

The Confessor had evidently intended to make the little group of Sussex towns, the "New Burgh," Winchelsea, and Rye, a strong link of communication between England and Normandy; but Godwin and Harold had contrived to prevent the two latter from becoming the property of the Abbey of Fécamp, to which Edward granted them in the early part of his reign; and this formed one of the Norman grievances. William promised to restore them to the Abbey, and when he had conquered England he kept his word. .

is strengthened by the fact that in Domesday its rents are 63s. "in Hastings," and 158s. in the "novus burgus," while at the Dissolution they were only 35. 4d. in Hastings. In that case we must after all look for the "novus burgus" of Domesday at Winchelsea or Rye.

Nor is the history of Hastings harbour at all as clear as could be wished. "The ancient Harbour once occupied," no doubt, Priory Valley" (Cinque Ports, p. 9); but I can find no trace of a haven “formed by the Bourne between the East and West Hills," which replaced it on its sitting-up. On the contrary, the old map of Hastings in 1746 (Sussex Arch. Coll, vol. xii.) shows us the "haven" (with ships) in the Priory Valley to the west of the Castle Hill. Was not this a later harbour (1637), and the real original one out to the south?

"Chichester, Lewes, and Pevensey are all duly entered, under the names of their respective lords.

Rye and Winchelsea

569 Of the grant of Winchelsea and Rye to the same Abbey as part of the lands of Steyning we have distinct evidence in the charter of resumption issued by Henry III. in 1247 (p. 27; cf. supra. p. 319). Although this view has always been held by local historians and antiquaries, it seems to me obvious that there must be error somewhere. Rye and Winchelsea belonged geographically to the Abbey's lordship of Brede in the extreme west of the county; its lordship of Steyning was in East Sussex. On examining for myself the charter of resumption and comparing it with the Abbey's claims as to Brede at the quo warranto inquiry, I discovered the solution of the mystery. Rye and Winchelsea were not, as alleged, appurtenant to Steyning, but belonged to the Manor of Brede. The Abbey, however, claimed on behalf of its Manor of Brede (including Rye and Winchelsea) all the franchises granted to Steyning, contending that they were meant to extend to all its lands in Sussex. This claim was urged and recognised in the case of the charter of resumption (1246), the source of the whole misapprehension.

But to return to the "Barons," Professor Burrows, discussing the title, writes thus:12

It is admitted that the title was at first only held by the Portsmen in common with the citizens of several other places, as that of a responsible man in a privileged community, of a "baro" or "vir" of some dignity; but, of course, not in the least in the sense of a "baron" such as the word came to mean in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

I do not know which were these "several other places"; but I think the word "baron" can be shown to have here had a definite connotation. The exemption from "wardship and marriage," for instance, granted by Edward I. (1278), implies that these "barons" were subject to the burdens of tenants-in-chief, while their extraordinary appeal, after the battle of St. Mahé (1293), to “the judg

13 The Cinque Ports, pp. 77-79.

not, so far By such a

ment of their peers, earls, and barons" 18 has as I know, received the attention it deserves. phrase the Cinque Port "barons" virtually claimed the privilege of peers of the realm.

But one must not wander too far along these tempting paths. When tradition is replaced, as it may be in part, by evidence, we shall have, not improbably, to unlearn much that now passes current as genuine Cinque Ports history. On the other hand, there may be in store for us glimpses of much that is interesting and new.14

Apart, however, from problems as yet difficult and obscure, we shall be standing on sure ground in asserting that the charter of Edward I. is the first that was granted to the Ports collectively, and that the rights and liberties it confirmed were those which had been granted to the separate ports by Henry II. and John, and which it then made uniform and applicable to the whole confederation. As at London," we have always to remember that com

18 The Cinque Ports, p. 123. Compare the banishment of the Despencers (1321) by the "piers de la terre, countes et barouns."

14 The courts of the Cinque Ports, for instance, greatly need investigation. One can only throw out as a mere conjecture the suggestion that if the Court of Guestling derived its name, as Professor Burrows admits is probable, from Guestling (the caput of a Hundred), midway between Hastings and Winchelsea, it may have been originally a Sussex Court for the Hastings group, while the Court of Broadhill-afterwards "Broderield" and "Brotherhood" (The Cinque Ports, p. 178)—may have been the Kentish one. The admitted corruption in the traditional derivation of both names, together with the court's change of locale, shows how much obscurity surrounds their true origin. Few, I think, would accept Professor Burrows' view that, because the Brodhull, when we first have record of it, was held "near the village of Dymchurch" (p. 46), it was named from "the 'broad hill' of Dymchurch, which may well have been some portion of the wall which extended for three miles along the beach" (p. 47). As the Guestling was not a court of "Guests," so "the broad hill," from which the meeting derived its name, must have been originally somewhere else than down "on Dymchurch beach" (p. 75), between Romney Marsh and the sea.

15 See my paper on the origin of "The Mayoralty of London," in Archæological Journal (1894).

Factors in the Cinque Ports Polity

571

munal institutions might develop locally before their existence is proved by the crown's formal recognition. Delay in that recognition is not proof of their non-existence. What complicates so greatly the study of the Cinque Ports polity is the difficulty of disentangling its three component elements: the old English institutions common to other towns; the special relation to the crown in connexion with their ship-service; and the foreign or communal factor on which I have myself insisted. No impartial student, I believe, will deny that I have fairly established the existence of this third element. Its relative importance and its sphere of action must remain, of course, as yet matter of conjecture.

ADDENDA

pp. 7, 125. In case I should not have made sufficiently clear my views as to the filiation of the Domesday MSS., it may be well to explain that what I deny on p. 8 is that the Inq. Com. Cant. and the Inq. El. can both have been copied from a third document intermediate between them and the original returns. But, as I state on pp. 7, 146, it cannot be proved that the Inq. Com. Cant. was itself transcribed direct from the original returns, as it might, possibly, be only a copy of an earlier transcript of these

returns.

p. 21. A remarkable instance of the occasional untrustworthiness of the figures given in these texts is afforded by the Manors of Stretham and Wilburton, co. Camb., which were farmed together. The correct figures for their

ploughteams were these:

The footnotes show the errors.

Thus the A text, which is the best known, gives two

figures out of three wrongly for Wilburton, and Mr. Pell,

1

1A, B, and C give this figure as 3 (p. 170). Their own title requires 4.

2A, B, and C give this figure as 3 (p. 170), but elsewhere (wrongly) as 4 (p. 117).

8

A gives this figure as 6 (p. 117), but B and C, rightly, as 7