Note 252 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 438. The Hythe barge brought back three lasts of herrings which were sold for £12. In 1409 Romney Jurats got 6s. increase upon white salt bought for the community. (Ibid. v. 537.) If a corporation was in need of money it could always fall back on loans from rich townsmen, who were willing to lend even on long credit. In 1455 or 1456 one Canterbury merchant lent £13 6s. 8d., which was needed for a gift to the queen, then travelling on pilgrimage, and he was only repaid in 1464. Three leading men, who advanced large sums to do honour to Edward the Fourth on his first coming to the city in 1460, waited four or five years for their money. (Ibid. ix. 139-140.) In Lynn the loans to the corporation were on a very great scale according to the ideas of the time, and the municipal debt, entirely raised on the spot, was as permanent and as progressive as that of a modern town.