h and Deal, and Walmer, Ramsgate,
Reculver, Stonor (Estanor), Sarre (or Serre) and Brightlingsea (in
Essex). To Rye was attached the corporate member of Tenterden, and to a
Hythe the non-corporate member of West Hythe. The jurisdiction thus
extends along the coast from Seaford in Sussex to Birchington near
Margate in Kent; and it also includes a number of inland districts, at a
considerable distance from the ports with which they are connected. The
non-incorporated members are within the municipal jurisdiction of the
ports to which they are attached; but the corporate members are as free
within their own liberties as the individual ports themselves.

The incorporation of the Cinque Ports had its origin in the necessity
for some means of defence along the southern seaboard of England, and in
the lack of any regular navy. Up to the reign of Henry VII. they had to
furnish the crown with nearly all the ships and men that were needful
for the state; and for a long time after they were required to give
large assistance to the permanent fleet. The oldest charter now on
record is one belonging to the 6th year of Edward I.; and it refers to
previous documents of the time of Edward the Confessor and William the
Conqueror. In return for their services the ports enjoyed extensive
privileges. From the Conquest or even earlier they had, besides various
lesser rights--(1) exemption from tax and tallage; (2) soc and sac, or
full cognizance of all criminal and civil cases within their liberties;
(3) tol and team, or the right of receiving toll and the right of
compelling the person in whose hands stolen property was found to name
the person from whom he received it; (4) blodwit and fledwit, or the
right to punish shedders of blood and those who were seized in an
attempt to escape from justice; (5) pillory and tumbrel; (6)
infangentheof and outfangentheof, or power to imprison and execute
felons; (7) mundbryce (the breaking into or violation of a man's _mund_
or property in order to erect banks or dikes as a defence against the
sea); (8) waives and strays, or the right to appropriate lost property
or cattle not claimed within a year and a day; (9) the right to seize
all flotsam, jetsam, or ligan, or, in other words, whatever of value was
cast ashore by the sea; (10) the privilege of being a gild with power to
impose taxes for the common weal; and (11) the right of assembling in
portmote or parliament at Shepway or Shepway Cross, a few mil