Note 327 — Chapter V

In 1397 the burgesses of Preston paid sums varying from 3s. to 40s. (Preston Guild Rolls, xvi.-xix.) In Exeter an artificer had to pay 20s., a merchant whatever the Mayor chose to ask (Freeman’s Exeter, 142). In Canterbury freemen were admitted in the fourteenth century for 10s.; in 1480 the sum had risen to 40s. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 144). See also Hereford (Journal Arch. Ass., xxvii.). In the sixteenth century the jury of the Mickle Tourn of Nottingham presented a request that every foreigner should henceforth pay £10. (Nott. Rec. iv. 170-1. Wells, Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106.) In Dover the payment was “put into the common horn” by the new freeman (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 306).