Urban customary compilations, invariably known by such descriptive titles as the White Book, Red Book or Great Book, are well known to those interested in medieval English urban history. Indeed, these customs were central to the development of civic identity, shaping conceptions around political identity and the common good. However, as Esther Liberman Cuenca notes, although these documents are regularly drawn upon by medieval historians, there has not been a concerted effort to understand their composition and lineage since the formative work of Mary Bateson at the opening of the twentieth century. Bateson herself was less interested in the legal discourses and context that shaped the creation of custumals. Cuenca thus draws upon an extensive collation of customary laws in order to understand how they were compiled, revised and disseminated, as well as their impact upon urban residents, both elite and non-elite, enfranchised and unenfranchised.
Urban customary law emanated from a variety of sources – charters, regulations, ordinances, case precedents, oaths – and was legitimized through precedent, history and royal confirmation. As Cuenca highlights, interest in urban customary law burgeoned at the same time as urban communities were revitalized across the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and as bureaucracies developed to govern towns. The earliest English urban charters appeared in the eleventh century, and many more in the twelfth, and Cuenca has also identified some 163 surviving custumals from 77 towns, ranging into the sixteenth century. Charters are examined as foundational for urban custom, bestowing royal authority and enshrining privileges. Two-thirds of the examined sample of 100 towns received confirmation, or inspeximus, charters, which both reinforced the original charter and often added new provisions. From these core urban privileges, links were drawn by officials to civic regulations and ordinances, but also to privileges claimed as from ‘time immemorial’; together, these were framed as customary.
At the heart of Cuenca’s study is the mutable nature of urban custom, drawing upon various sources for its legitimacy, reassertion and amendment. In this process, the town clerks and scribes receive due attention, including the extent to which they influenced the customs or even borrowed from other towns. Cuenca argues that these were not simply scribes and compilers, but professional custodians of institutional memory who exerted significant influence through codification and counsel. Men such as Michael Aunger, John Carpenter, William Dunthorn, Robert Ricart and Richard Percyvale created and preserved the custumals of English towns in order to promote good governance. When they failed in this duty, such as when John Blake absconded in 1272 with Ipswich’s custumal, this constituted a stark reminder to the townsmen that these clerks were the conduits of urban custom, law, knowledge and memory. They were generally trusted to dispense advice and act as loyal bearers of council secrets, and later oaths embedded such expectations. Chapter 6 looks in depth at the oaths sworn by civic officials as a ceremonial means to underpin their obligations and accountability. Some 378 civic oaths are examined: they reflected moral and political anxieties within public urban discourse, but also the associated need to uphold and preserve customs.
It is in the language of the preambles that we see how custom was considered legitimate, as ‘ordained and agreed’ or ‘accustomed’. The role of historical and public memory is articulated through concepts which Cuenca terms ‘customary time’, which encompasses the period between when a custom supposedly originated in the past, its ongoing usage and when it became law through the written recording of such historical precedent. Such rhetoric was commonly employed, seeking to endow custumals with legal justifications that also stemmed from royal charters and the example of other prestigious towns.
Ultimately, urban customs were embedded in the interests and self-identity of the elite and often highlighted their focus on mercantile, artisanal and economic endeavour, as well as matters of justice and preserving the common good. These documents were thus embedded in urban identity and hierarchy, as well as, Cuenca argues, the emergence of a shared class consciousness among the burgesses. This was primarily about an elite conception of urban governance. The unenfranchised, townswomen and the marginal were affected by the making of law – usually in relation to practical matters of trading organization, sanitation, safety and public spaces. However, although ostensibly for the benefit of all, even these prosaic issues were invariably shaped to preserve the boundaries of the political order and thus the status quo.
What emerges from this study is a recognition that the lineage of charters and custumals really mattered, as officials sought to preserve and reinforce customs that shaped late medieval urban lives. Cuenca’s study is wide-ranging in its ambition and scope, providing an excellent insight into the need to understand the reason behind the creation and retention of these valuable urban sources.
