There is associated evidence for murage, dated 1337, concerning Burgesses of Dorchester.
Wording
Petitioners: Burgesses of Dorchester
Addressees: King and council
Places mentioned: Dorchester, {Dorset}
Nature of request: The burgesses of Dorchester make ten requests:
1) They have held their town without a charter for an annual sum, and now ask for a charter to hold the town at fee farm, paying the same farm, and with fairs, markets, franchises, free customs and all other things pertaining to the town.
2) They ask that they might be able to choose bailiffs from amongst themselves under the charter, as they have previously done without the charter.
3) They ask that those pleading before the bailiffs in pleas of contract or trespass within the franchise, might not be obstructed by the custom called miskenning.
4) They request return of writs and summons in all matters concerning the town.
5) They ask that they might be quit of toll, murage, pavage, lastage, quayage, pesage, tronage, cornage, geld and tallage, except when the king taxes his ancient demesnes.
6) They ask that it might be established by the charter that justices of assizes and other inquests to be held in the county should sit at Dorchester and not elsewhere.
7) They ask that pleas concerning lands or tenements in the town, or trespasses or contracts arising in the town, should not be heard elsewhere.
8) They ask that no outsider should be redeemed by a burgess and no burgess redeemed by an outsider, before justices of assize, or appointed to hold inquests in the town, or of gaol delivery, concerning lands or tenements in the town, or trespasses or contracts arising within the town.
9) They ask that no burgess should be summoned or empanelled by reason of a tenement outside the town while he is living in the town.
10) They ask that a burgess should be convicted concerning a contract or trespass arising within the town only by another burgess and not by an outsider.
Endorsement: {None}
Granted by Edward III.
Primary Sources
National Archive SC 8/43/2122 Former Reference - Parliamentary Petition 2619
Comments
This has been dated on the guard to c.1324 with reference to SC 8/44/2187, an earlier petition on the matter; but the entry in the CChR (when Dorchester was granted its fee farm) suggests c.1337 as the actual date - which is confirmed by C 143/241/18, dated 11 Edward III (25 January 1337-24 January 1338). (National Archive note)
Record created by Philip Davis. This record created 25/02/2009. Last updated on 18/01/2013. First published online 9/01/2013.
