the King had granted him the right of cutting cloth in
the same way as other freemen, and, by virtue of the charter, he
maintained that he had been seised from time whereof, &c. The bailiffs
repudiated this claim. We do not learn what the judgment was in this
case, but the phrase "other freemen" is suspicious. It suggests that the
charter had been granted in ignorance of the custom of this particular
town, not out of disrespect for it, since the tendency of all the
evidence is to show that local autonomy and local privileges in such
matters were treated with infinite care. It almost appears as if Adam
had taken advantage of an ambiguity. As regards ordinary civil rights
Adam was doubtless a freeman--otherwise he could not have brought this
action--but he was not a freeman in the sense that he paid scot and lot
in the town of Gloucester.

Such persons were often styled "foreigners," and therefore the plaintiff
in this case would have occupied precisely the same position as
"foreign" merchants who transgressed the customs of London. One of these
was that they were not to attend any market or fair at a greater
distance than three miles from the City, nor had Justices or Sheriff
power to give them leave to do so. If a Sheriff caught any "foreign"
merchant beyond those bounds, he was supposed to bring him back, and
the money found on his person having been confiscated was shared between
the Sheriff and the citizens. If, however, the citizens were alone
responsible for the capture, the whole of the money went to them. Other
rules were that merchants repairing to London for the sale of linen,
cloth and wool might do business only on three days of the week
(Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays). They were then, if anything
remained to be sold, to pack up their goods and wait till the following
week; and in no case were they to sell _ad detail_ (retail).

A custom which we meet with at Dover and Reading, and was probably
adopted by other towns, is one described in sundry ordinances _de
stachia_, the latter being barbarous Latin for "stake." This was a
device for recovering possession of a tenement after a specified time,
when the tenant had fallen into arrears of rent, and consisted in the
landlord erecting a stake in front of the house as a notification of his
claim.

CROWN AND TOWN

Despite identity of usage at Dover and Reading on the subject of the
stake, it would be pardonable to conclude that in those times of
difficul