There were a number of independent franchises within York's boundaries.
The most obvious was the archbishop's "shire", within which his officers
had the power of judicial administration over minor offences occurring
on lands owned by the cathedral – a court being held at one of the
Minster gates – and to the revenues therefrom, as well as from husgable
rents and other customary dues owed by tenants of cathedral lands. The
archbishop also had the "third penny" of revenues from a second ward of
the city, which included the tolls collected on the
Foss Bridge. By the mid-twelfth century,
the cathedral had its own fair, which provided competition with the city
markets, if only temporarily.
The castles too were areas within the city yet outside its sway; there
were occasional disputes between city and sheriff regarding legal
jurisdiction, although they were relatively minor. By contrast, a more
important case involving rival jurisdictions took place in 1390-91, when
wealthy citizen Thomas de Howom successfully sued a fishmonger in the city
court for a debt of £8; when the fishmonger delayed in repaying, an
impatient Howom took matters into his own hands, seizing a ship anchored
in the Ouse belonging to the debtor. The fishmonger then appealed to
the court of the admiral of the north who, on the grounds that the ship
was on a tidal water when seized, reversed the city court's decision,
despite the creditor's argument that the ship was moored and that the
case therefore was within the jurisdiction of the city court. The admiralty
court was already unpopular and its decision in the Howom case only gave
more ammunition to its detractors. The king had to intervene to stop the
admiral prosecuting Howom, and the affair led to the introduction in
parliament of statutes that led to restrictions on the authority
of the admiralty court.
Other franchises included St. Mary's Abbey,
St. Leonard's Hospital, and
Holy Trinity Priory. Lay tenants living
on property owned by such institutions were independent of the
jurisdiction of borough authorities, who could not intrude upon the
areas covered by the franchises.
Inevitably there resulted disputes over the precise scope of jurisdiction
of the various ecclesiastical authorities, not least with regard to
whether tenants of the franchises were to be treated as residents or
outsiders in the case of toll-collection or local taxation. The
townspeople felt aggrieved that residents of the franchises could
benefit from the economic and defensive advantages of the city
without contributing to the costs involved in maintaining those
advantages. This resentment led to a series of assaults by some
citizens on the priory, beginning in 1258. St. Mary's was subject
to similar treatment between 1264-68, following a dispute between
the abbey and city over whether abbey tenants should be subject to
tolls; in the course of rioting, some of the abbey tenants were
killed and houses ransacked and burned down. The archbishop intervened
to put the city under an interdict, but it was left to the county
sheriff to mediate a restoration of peace; the abbey then erected
a stone wall around its precinct. It may have been no coincidence
that city authorities were themselves, at this period, engaged in an
active programme of rebuilding the city walls, an assertive expression
of jurisdiction.
By 1275 relations had so deteriorated that the archbishop and the
abbot brought complaints before parliament. A royal commission was
appointed; its investigations upheld the rights of abbey and
cathedral, including the status of the Bootham suburb (beyond the
northwest corner of the city) as a separate and abbey-affiliated
borough in which the city authorities had no jurisdiction. The
citizens were not prepared to let matters rest here. A fresh round
of discords in the early fourteenth century led to an armed band
breaking into the archbishop's property at the
Old Baile – which was also subject
to dispute between the city authorities and the archbishop over
who was responsible for the maintenance and defence of the section
of city wall there. The jurisdiction of the archbishop's courts
over the cathedral franchise was another source of contention at
this time.
During the reign of Edward II, the city authorities tried to assert
jurisdiction in Bootham, by levying taxes and holding assizes of
bread and ale there. Although Edward III reaffirmed the abbey's
liberties, the citizens were not to be discouraged: they blockaded
the Ouse to prevent food supplies getting as far upriver as the
landing used by the abbey, and issued threats against the lives of
abbot and monks, who eventually were forced to flee when there was
an armed siege of the abbey grounds. By a settlement of 1354, most
of Bootham was restored to the jurisdiction of the city, which used
the argument – often convincing to kings – that it had difficulty
paying its fee farm without the revenues that came from Bootham.
Hostility between the city and the abbey continued to express itself
on one issue or another. In 1377 there was a dispute over a
right-of-way from the Ouse to Bootham via a road on the west side
of St. Mary's; the abbey had blocked the road with a ditch, but
was forced to fill it in. In the first half of the fifteenth century,
one bone of contention was freedom of passage along the Ouse. In
the second half we still see violent confrontations between citizens
and residents of the abbey liberty.
A similar type of dispute with St. Leonard's erupted in 1401, when the
brethren had a ditch dug around a piece of land considered by the
citizens as common pasturage, and a gate erected there. The mayor
sent twenty men to pull down the gate and fill in the ditch, which
led the hospital to complain to higher authorities. We do not know
the outcome. It appears, however, that St. Leonard's was resented
as much as St. Mary's, for during the disturbances of 1380, the
hospital had to obtain a special protection.
History of
medieval York
