The City of Lincoln Council is the local authority for the district of Lincoln , in the county of Lincolnshire , England. The council consists of 33 councillors, three for each of the 11 wards in the city. It is currently controlled by the Labour Party , led by Naomi Tweddle. The administrative headquarters is at Lincoln City Hall although council meetings are held at the guildhall .
175-568: The city of Lincoln had been an ancient borough and was made a county corporate in 1409 with its own sheriff and court of quarter sessions , making it independent from the Lindsey Quarter Sessions. The borough corporation was reformed in 1836 to become a municipal borough . When elected county councils were established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888 to take over the local government functions of
350-517: A caste system , and land fell out of use in the East just as it had in the West. Yet the East stood its ground in the fifth century, fought back in the sixth, and even recovered some territory in the seventh. The East had only one apparent advantage: geography. It was less vulnerable, strategically, than the West. The narrowest sea crossing to its core territories was protected from the northern barbarians by
525-474: A Fall of empire. Like other Enlightenment thinkers and British citizens of the age steeped in institutional anti-Catholicism , Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious Dark Age. It was not until his own era, the "Age of Reason", with its emphasis on rational thought, it was believed, that human history could resume its progress. He began an ongoing controversy about
700-488: A French bourg was created by the side of an English borough, and the two remained for many generations distinct in their laws and customs: in other cases a French bourg was settled by the side of an English village. A large number of the followers of the Norman lords had been almost certainly town-dwellers in their own country, and lost none of their burghal privileges by the migration. Every castle needed for its maintenance
875-517: A borough passed into the hands of the trustees of the Burgery or Town Trust . The many special authorities created under act of parliament led to much confusion, conflict and overlapping, and increased the need for a general reform. The reform of the boroughs was treated as part of the question of parliamentary reform. In 1832 the exclusive privileges of the corporations in parliamentary elections having been abolished and male occupiers enfranchised,
1050-484: A breakdown in society. For centuries, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism. His predecessors Constantine , Constantius II , and Valens had all been semi-Arians , whereas Theodosius supported Nicene Christianity which eventually became the orthodox version of Christology for most later Christian churches—his Edict of Thessalonica described Arian Christians as "foolish madmen". Therefore, as far as Ambrose and
1225-503: A central Roman rump state ; in 271, Rome abandoned the province of Dacia on the north of the Danube . The Rhine /Danube frontier also came under more effective threats from larger barbarian groupings, which had developed improved agriculture and increased their populations. The average stature of the population in the West suffered a serious decline in the late second century; the population of Northwestern Europe did not recover, though
1400-551: A closed number of families, there were a few exceptions whereby the councils were elected by all the local residents or those born there. The majority were not representative of the inhabitants. The result of the inquiry was the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 , which gave the municipal franchise to the ratepayers, but also allowed the freemen to remain on the Roll. In all the municipal corporations dealt with by
1575-421: A composition for all the various items due from the borough. The burgesses were united in their efforts to keep that composition unchanged in amount, and to secure the provision of the right amount at the right time for fear that it should be increased by way of punishment. The levy of fines on rent arrear, and the distraints for debt due, which were obtained through the borough court, were a matter of interest to
1750-469: A connexion between the military and the police systems in the towns. In charters of the Anglo-Saxon period a haw , or enclosed area within a burh, was often conveyed by charter as if it were an apanage of the lands in the neighbourhood with which it was conveyed; the Norman settlers who succeeded to lands in the county succeeded therewith to houses in the burhs, for a close association existed between
1925-565: A court of aldermen of the king's own choosing. Until James II yielded, there was no common council in London. The novelty of the proceedings of Charles II and James II lay in using the weapon of the quo warranto systematically to ensure a general revocation of charters. The new charters which were then granted required the king's consent for the more important appointments, and gave him power to remove officers without reason given. Under James II in 1687 six commissioners were appointed to "regulate"
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#17327831740892100-541: A demoralized army, began his brief reign (363–364) while trapped in Mesopotamia without supplies. To purchase safe passage home, he had to concede areas of northern Mesopotamia , including the strategically important fortress of Nisibis . This fortress had been Roman since before the Peace of Nisibis in 299. The brothers Valens ( r. 364–378 ) and Valentinian I ( r. 364–375 ) energetically tackled
2275-401: A few of the most highly developed towns, and these were used only in the small assemblies of the governing body, not in the large electoral assemblies of the people. In London in the 13th century there was a regular system for the admission of new members to the borough "franchise", which was at first regarded not as conferring any form of suffrage but as a means to secure a privileged position in
2450-400: A general obligation to build and maintain burhs at the royal command was enforced by Anglo-Saxon law . Offences in disturbance of the peace of the burh were punished by higher fines than breaches of the peace of the hām or ordinary dwelling. However, neither in the early English language nor in the contemporary Latin was there any fixed usage differentiating the various words descriptive of
2625-474: A great increase in the purchasing power of gold, two and a half fold from 274 to the later fourth century. This may be an index of growing economic inequality between a gold-rich elite and a cash-poor peasantry . "Formerly, says Ammianus, Rome was saved by her austerity, by solidarity between rich and poor, by contempt for death; now she is undone by her luxury and greed (Amm. xxxi. 5. 14 and xxii. 4.). Salvianus backs up Ammianus by affirming that greed (avaritia)
2800-424: A group of skilled artisans, and the lords wished to draw to the castle gates all kinds of commodities for the castle's provision. The strength of the garrison made the neighbourhood of the castle a place of danger to men unprotected by legal privilege; and to invite to its neighbourhood desirable settlers, legal privileges similar to those enjoyed in Norman or English boroughs were guaranteed to those who would build on
2975-618: A large regular army with logistics and training. The cursus honorum , a standardized series of military and civil posts organised for ambitious aristocratic men, ensured that powerful noblemen had the opportunity to become familiar with military and civil command and administration. At a lower level within the army, connecting the aristocrats at the top with the private soldiers, a large number of centurions were well-rewarded, literate, and responsible for training, discipline, administration, and leadership in battle. City governments with their own properties and revenues functioned effectively at
3150-489: A large and powerful group as Christians had now become. Julian prepared for civil war against Constantius, who again encouraged the Germans to attack Gaul. However Julian's campaigns had been effective and only one small Alemannic raid, speedily dealt with by Julian, resulted. Constantius died before any serious fighting and Julian was acknowledged as master of the entire Empire. He launched an expensive campaign against
3325-455: A local level; membership of city councils involved lucrative opportunities for independent decision-making, and, despite its obligations, became seen as a privilege. Under a series of emperors who each adopted a mature and capable successor, the Empire did not require civil wars to regulate the imperial succession. Requests could be submitted directly to the better emperors, and the answers had
3500-492: A major centre for Jewish unrest. Nevertheless, it remained a culture based on an early subsistence economy , with only ineffective inklings of a germ theory of disease . Despite its aqueducts , the water supply did not allow good hygiene. Sewage was disposed of on the streets, in open drains, or by scavenging animals. Even in the Roman Climatic Optimum , local harvest failures causing famines were always
3675-545: A major part in the fall of the West". The Roman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Trajan (r. 98–117), who ruled a prosperous state that stretched from Armenia to the Atlantic Ocean . The Empire had large numbers of trained, supplied, and disciplined soldiers, drawn from a growing population. It had a comprehensive civil administration based in thriving cities with effective control over public finances. The literate elite considered theirs to be
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#17327831740893850-399: A master-slave relationship. An elaborate court ceremonial developed, and obsequious flattery became the order of the day. Under Diocletian, the flow of direct requests to the emperor rapidly reduced, and soon ceased altogether. No other form of direct access replaced them, and the emperor received only information filtered through his courtiers . However, as Sabine MacCormack described,
4025-409: A possibility. And even in good times, Roman women needed to have, on average, six children each in order to maintain the population . Good nourishment and bodily cleanliness were privileges of the rich, advertised by their firm tread, healthy skin color, and lack of the "dull smell of the underbathed". Infant mortality was very high, and diarrhoeal diseases were a major cause of death. Malaria
4200-464: A process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided among several successor polities . The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces ; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army , the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy ,
4375-477: A reduced tax base. The business of subduing barbarian warbands also demanded substantial gifts of precious metal. At least one extra levy provoked desperation and rioting , in which the emperor's statues were destroyed. Nevertheless, he is represented as financially generous as emperor, though frugal in his personal life. By the end of the 380s, Theodosius and the court were in Mediolanum , and northern Italy
4550-496: A third of the council (one councillor for each ward) elected each time for a four year term of office. Lincolnshire County Council elections are held in the fourth year of the cycle when there are no city council elections. Council meetings are held at the Guildhall on Saltergate; the current building was completed c. 1520 on a site which had been used as a guildhall since 1237, having been created from part of one of
4725-410: A year, these being in all likelihood assemblies at which attendance was compulsory on all tenants of the burghal district, when pleas concerning life and liberty and land were held, and men were compelled to find pledges answerable for their good conduct. At these great meetings the borough reeve ( gerefa ) presided, declaring the law and guiding the judgments given by the suitors of the court. The reeve
4900-507: Is a vice common to nearly all Romans". However, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC) had already dated the start of Rome's moral decline to 154 BCE. Within the late Roman military , many recruits and even officers had barbarian origins. Soldiers are recorded as using possibly-barbarian rituals, such as elevating a claimant on shields. Some scholars have seen this as an indication of weakness. Others disagree, seeing neither barbarian recruits nor new rituals as causing any problem with
5075-469: Is largely concerned with the origin of such towns and how they gained the right of self-government . Ancient boroughs were reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 , which introduced directly elected corporations and allowed the incorporation of new industrial towns. Municipal boroughs ceased to be used for the purposes of local government in 1974, with borough status retained as an honorific title granted to some post-1974 local government districts by
5250-472: Is not ancient, but due to the Norman settlement. The wide districts over which the boroughs had had authority were placed under the control of the Norman castle which was itself built by means of the old English levy of burhwork . The borough court was allowed to continue its work only within its own immediate territory, and, to prevent conflict, the castle was placed outside the borough. Losing their place in
5425-463: The Georges were not made for political reasons. The object of the later Stuarts was to control the corporations already in existence, not to make new ones. Charles II, from the time of his restoration decided to exercise a strict control of the close corporations to secure not only submissive parliaments, but also a pliant executive among the borough justices, and pliant juries, which were impanelled at
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5600-579: The Huns . They were exploited by corrupt officials rather than effectively relieved and resettled, and they took up arms and were joined by more Goths and some Alans and Huns. Valens was in Asia with his main field army preparing for an assault on the Sasanian Empire. Redirection of the army and its logistic support would have required time, and Gratian's armies were distracted by Germanic invasions across
5775-477: The Muslim conquests represented a decisive break with antiquity. The more recent formulation of a historical period characterized as " Late Antiquity " emphasizes the transformations of ancient to medieval worlds within a cultural continuity. In recent decades archaeologically based argument even extends the continuity in material culture and in patterns of settlement as late as the eleventh century. Observing
5950-540: The Parts of Lincolnshire were also amalgamated to create a single Lincolnshire County Council for the first time, with responsibility for county-level services in the city of Lincoln too. City of Lincoln Council provides district-level services. County-level services are provided by Lincolnshire County Council . There are no civil parishes in the city, which is an unparished area . The council has been under Labour majority control since 2011. Political control of
6125-602: The Roman Republic , controlling a smaller area than the western Empire, had been able to reconstitute large regular armies of citizens after greater defeats than Adrianople. That war had ended with the near-extermination of the invading barbarian supergroups, each supposed to have more than 100,000 warriors. ) The final Gothic settlement was acclaimed with relief, even the official panegyrist admitting that these Goths could not be expelled or exterminated, nor reduced to unfree status. Instead they were either recruited into
6300-679: The Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno . While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine , Empire, survived and remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean , although it lessened in strength. Additionally, while
6475-599: The crisis of the third century . Heavy mortality in 165–180 from the Antonine Plague seriously impaired attempts to repel Germanic invaders, but the legions generally held or at least speedily re-instated the borders of the Empire. From 376, massive populations moved into the Empire, driven by the Huns who themselves may have been driven by climate change in the Eurasian steppe . These barbarian invasions led ultimately to barbarian kingdoms over much of
6650-443: The diocese of Macedonia to their control. In 387 Maximus invaded Italy, forcing Valentinian II to flee to the East, where he accepted Nicene Christianity. Maximus boasted to Ambrose of the numbers of barbarians in his forces, and hordes of Goths, Huns, and Alans followed Theodosius. Maximus negotiated with Theodosius for acceptance as Augustus of the West, but Theodosius refused, gathered his armies, and counterattacked, winning
6825-423: The historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse on state failure . In 376, a large migration of Goths and other non- Roman people, fleeing from the Huns , entered the Empire . Roman forces were unable to exterminate, expel or subjugate them (as was their normal practice). In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died. He left a collapsing field army, and
7000-489: The privy council , which directed their choice of members of Parliament and secured supporters of the government policy to fill vacancies on the borough bench. The practice in Tudor and Stuart charters of specifying by name the members of the governing body and holders of special offices opened the way to a "purging" of the hostile spirits when new charters were required. There were also rather vaguely worded clauses authorising
7175-431: The sack of Rome in 410 , and the death of Julius Nepos in 480. When Gibbon published his landmark work, it quickly became the standard. Peter Brown has written that "Gibbon's work formed the peak of a century of scholarship which had been conducted in the belief that the study of the declining Roman Empire was also the study of the origins of modern Europe". Gibbon was the first to attempt an explanation of causes of
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7350-456: The thegns of the shire and the shirestow , an association partly perhaps of duty and also of privilege. The king granted borough haws as places of refuge in Kent, and in London he gave them with commercial privileges to his bishops. What has been called the heterogeneous tenure of the shirestow, one of the most conspicuous characteristics of that particular type of borough, was further increased by
7525-402: The town council may in many cases be ascribed. In the larger towns the division into wards , with a separate police system, can be traced at an early time, appearing as a unit of military organisation, answerable for the defence of a gate of the town. The police system of London is described in detail in a record of 930–940. Here the free people were grouped in associations of ten, each under
7700-438: The 12th century, and for a time there is on the whole little evidence of friction between the governors and the governed. Throughout, unpopular changes or neglect in the closest of corporations had a means of official protest, though no means of execution, in the presentments of the leet juries and sessions juries. By means of their "verdicts" they could use threats against the governing body, express their resentment against acts of
7875-405: The 15th century disturbances in the boroughs led to the creation of new constitutions, some of which were the outcome of royal charters, others the result of parliamentary legislation. The development of the law of corporations also at this time compelled the boroughs to seek new charters which should satisfy the now exacting demands of the law. The charters of incorporation were issued at a time when
8050-541: The Anglo-Saxons: It is clear from the Domesday Book that in 1086 a piece of borough property – a messuage , a house, or a group of houses – was often annexed to a manor in the open country. At Leicester , for example, 134 houses were thus attached, singly or in groups, to 27 different manors. So far as can be seen the borough property was treated as a profit-yielding appendage of the manor. It provided
8225-486: The Christian literary tradition that followed him were concerned, Theodosius deserved most of the credit for the final triumph of Christianity. Modern scholars see this as a Christian interpretation of history. Theodosius did not stamp out paganism, which continued into the seventh century. Theodosius had to face a powerful usurper in the West; Magnus Maximus declared himself Emperor in 383, stripped troops from
8400-500: The Commonwealth was afforded by the various acts of parliament, which subjected all holders of municipal office to the test of an oath. Under the Commonwealth there was no improvement in the methods used by the central government to control the boroughs. All opponents of the ruling policy were disfranchised and disqualified from office by act of Parliament in 1652. Cases arising out of the act were to be tried by commissioners, and
8575-740: The Crown . Throughout Britain, the effect of the Germanic invasions which completed the decline of the Roman Empire was to destroy the Roman municipal organisation . After the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the ruins of Roman colonies and camps were used by the early English to form tribal strongholds. Despite their location, burhs on the sites of Roman colonies show no continuity with Roman municipal organisation, and instead resemble
8750-511: The Danes, and it appears that the surrounding districts were charged with their maintenance. It is not until after the Danish invasions that it becomes easier to draw a distinction between the burhs that served as military strongholds for national defence and the royal vills which served no such purpose. Some of the royal vills eventually entered the class of boroughs, but by another route, and for
8925-525: The East, but these failed. In the ensuing bloody civil war Magnentius marched against Constantius with as many troops as he could mobilize, stripping the Rhine frontier of its most effective troops. Magnentius died and so did many of his men. Meanwhile, Constantius sent messages to the German tribes east of the Rhine, inviting them to attack Gaul, which they did. In the next few years a strip some 40 miles wide to
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#17327831740899100-463: The Empire divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Goths and other non-Romans became a force that could challenge either part of the Empire. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never again effectively consolidated. By 476,
9275-515: The London livery companies ), were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character as a town watch, was modernised along the lines of the Peel reforms for constabulary placed under the control of the council. The various privileged areas within the bounds of a borough were with few exceptions made part of the borough. The powers of the council to alienate corporate property were closely restricted. The operations of
9450-431: The London justiciar of earlier days, subject to those considerable modifications which Henry II 's systematisation of the criminal law had introduced. Burgesses who had gone for criminal and civil justice to their own court in disputes between themselves, or between themselves and strangers who were in their town, secured confirmation of this right by charter, not to exclude the justices in eyre, but to exempt themselves from
9625-475: The London plan, of two companies, alderman and council, was widely favoured in the 14th century, perhaps in imitation of the Houses of Lords and Commons . The mayor was sometimes styled the "sovereign" and was given many prerogatives. Great respect was paid to the "ancients", those, namely, who had already held municipal office. Not till the 15th century were orderly arrangements for counting "voices" arrived at in
9800-476: The Londoners to argue that no execution could be taken against the mayor, commonalty and citizens, a "body politic invisible"; that the indictment lay only against every particular member of the governing body; and that the corporation as a corporation was incapable of suffering a forfeiture or of making a surrender. The judges gave a judgment for the king, the charters were forfeited and the government placed with
9975-479: The Mediterranean region". A synthesis by Harper (2017) gave four decisive turns of events in the transformation from the height of the empire to the early Middle Ages: The loss of centralized political control over the West, and the lessened power of the East, are universally agreed, but the theme of decline has been taken to cover a much wider time span than the hundred years from 376. For Cassius Dio ,
10150-468: The Mediterranean regions did. The Empire survived the "Crisis of the Third Century", directing its economy successfully towards defense, but survival came at the price of a more centralized and bureaucratic state . Excessive military expenditure, coupled with civil wars due to unstable succession, caused increased taxes to the detriment of the industry. Under Gallienus (Emperor from 253 to 268)
10325-686: The Rhine. In 378, Valens attacked the invaders with the Eastern field army, now perhaps 20,000 men, probably much fewer than the forces that Julian had led into Mesopotamia a little over a decade before, and possibly only 10% of the soldiers nominally available in the Danube provinces. In the Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), Valens lost much of that army and his own life. All of the Balkan provinces were thus exposed to raiding, without effective response from
10500-468: The Roman position in the East. These campaigns depended on effective imperial coordination and mutual trust—between 379 and 380, Theodosius controlled not only the Eastern empire, but also, by agreement, the diocese of Illyricum . Theodosius was unable to recruit enough Roman troops, relying on barbarian warbands without Roman military discipline or loyalty. (In contrast, during the Cimbrian War ,
10675-664: The Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans. Modern historiography diverges from Gibbon. While most of his ideas are no longer accepted in totality, they have been foundational to later discourse and
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#173278317408910850-591: The Sasanian Persians . He succeeded in marching to the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon , but, at the suggestion of a Persian agent, burned his boats and supplies to show resolve in continuing operations. The Sassanids then burned crops so the Roman army had no food. Finding himself cut off without supplies in enemy territory, Julian began a land retreat, and during the Battle of Samarra , he was mortally wounded. Julian's successor Jovian , acclaimed by
11025-532: The West refused to intervene in Christian controversy. In the East, Valens had to deal with Christians who did not conform to his ideas of orthodoxy, and persecution formed part of his response. He tolerated paganism, even keeping some of Julian's associates in their trusted positions. He confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests, and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples. Valentinian died of an apoplexy while shouting at envoys of Germanic leaders. His successors in
11200-528: The West were children, his sons Gratian ( r. 375–383 ) and Valentinian II ( r. 375–392 ). Gratian, "alien from the art of government both by temperament and by training", removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate House . He also rejected the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus . In 376, the East faced an enormous barbarian influx across the Danube, mostly Goths , who were fleeing from
11375-533: The accession of the emperor Commodus in 180 CE marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron". Since the age of humanism , the process of the Fall has been thought to have begun with Constantine the Great , or with the soldier emperors who seized power through command of the army from 235 through 284, or with Commodus , or even with Augustus . Gibbon was uncertain about when decline began. "In
11550-610: The act were extended by later legislation, and the diverse amendments and enactments which followed were consolidated in the Municipal Corporations Act 1882 . Attribution: Decline of the Roman Empire The fall of the Western Roman Empire , also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome , was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire ,
11725-489: The act, the town council came to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The Commissions of the Peace were also an instrument of reform. Many Boroughs had borough courts of the previous oligarchies of Mayor and Aldermen, advised by a Recorder , these were abolished with the magistrates being appointed as per in
11900-554: The agricultural economy was generally doing well. On January 18 350, the imperial magister officiorum gave a banquet in Augustodunum while his master, Western Emperor Constans , was away hunting. During the feast Magnus Magnentius , commander of the imperial household troops , appeared in an imperial purple toga and announced himself to be the new Emperor. Constans was soon murdered and Magnentius took over most of his western domains. He made peace overtures to Constantius in
12075-401: The borough court and in the trade of the borough. Admission could be obtained by inheritance, by purchase or gift, in some places by marriage, and in London, at least from 1275, by a municipal register of apprenticeship. The new freeman in return for his privileges was bound to share with the other burgesses all the burdens of taxation, control, &c., which fell upon burgesses. Personal service
12250-458: The boroughs. Henry I about 1131 gave the London citizens the right to choose their own sheriffs and a justiciar answerable for keeping the pleas of the crown. In 1130 the Lincoln citizens paid to hold their city in chief of the king. By the end of the 12th century many towns paid by the hand of their own reeves, and John 's charters began to make rules as to the freedom of choice to be allowed in
12425-606: The burgesses of the court, and first taught the burgesses co-operative action. Money was raised, possibly by order of the borough court, to buy a charter from the king giving the right to choose officers who should answer directly to the exchequer and not through the sheriff of the county. The sheriff was in many cases also the constable of the castle, set by the Normans to overawe the English boroughs; his powers were great and dangerous enough to make him an officer specially obnoxious to
12600-411: The city to his will, Charles II issued a quo warranto against the mayor and commonalty to charge the citizens with illegal encroachments beyond their chartered rights. The way this was analogous to well-precedented Crown rights to regulate the actions of organised groups of men such as rebels, made it easy for the crown judges to find legally flawed actions of the boroughs, and also made it possible for
12775-582: The climate worsened further in the Late Antique Little Ice Age that may have directly contributed to the variety of factors that brought Rome down. The Roman Empire was built on the fringes of the tropics . Its roads and its pirate-free seas, which produced an abundance of trade, also unknowingly created an interconnected disease ecology that unleashed the evolution and spread of pathogens. Pandemics contributed to massive demographic changes, economic crises , and food shortages in
12950-425: The commissions of the major-generals gave them opportunity to control the borough policy. Few Commonwealth charters have been preserved, although several were issued in response to the requests of the corporations. In some cases the charters used words which appeared to point to an opportunity for popular elections in boroughs, where a usage of election to the corporation by the town council had been established. In 1598
13125-412: The competence of the emperors , the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic disease drove many of these immediate factors. The reasons for the collapse are major subjects of
13300-483: The constitution of the corporation was not close by charter, the franchise tended to become restricted to an ever-dwindling electorate, as the old methods for the extension of the municipal franchise by other means than inheritance died out of use. At Ipswich in 1833 the "freemen" numbered only one fifty-fifth of the population. If the electorate was increased, it was done so by the wholesale admission to borough freedom (burgess status) to voters willing to vote as directed by
13475-545: The corporation at parliamentary elections. The corporation of Louth before the 1830s reforms for example was the governing body of its grammar school which was the major endowed landowner in the town. Growth of boroughs' corruption continued unchecked (but sometimes a little side-stepped see below) until the era of the Reform Bill. Several boroughs had by that time become insolvent, and some had recourse to their member of parliament to eke out their revenues. In Buckingham
13650-435: The corporations and remove from them all persons who were opposed to the abolition of the penal laws against Catholics. The new appointments were made under a writ which ran, "We will and require you to elect" (a named person). When James II sought to withdraw from his disastrous policy, he issued a proclamation restoring to the boroughs their ancient charters. The governing charter thenceforth in many boroughs, though not in all,
13825-535: The council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows: The role of Mayor of Lincoln is now largely ceremonial. Political leadership is instead provided by the leader of the council . The leaders since 1974 have been: Following the 2024 election , the composition of the council was: The next election is due in 2026. Since the last boundary changes in 2016 the council has comprised 33 councillors representing 11 wards , with each ward electing three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, with
14000-426: The council which benefited the governing body rather than the town, and call in the aid of the justices of the assizes (judges, in the seasons of sittings outside of London, "assizes") where the members of the governing body were suspected of fraud. Elizabeth repeatedly declared her dislike of incorporations "because of the abuses committed by their head rulers," but in her reign they were fairly easily controlled by
14175-403: The counties – many indeed were supposedly ' county boroughs '. This reform was as crucial as that of the constitution of the council itself. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. Exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, or to specialist guilds and companies (similar to those of
14350-528: The court culture that developed with Diocletian was still subject to pressure from below. Imperial proclamations were used to stress the traditional limitations of the imperial office, while imperial ceremonies "left room for consensus and popular participation". Official cruelty , supporting extortion and corruption , may also have become more commonplace; one example being Constantine 's law that slaves who betrayed their mistress's confidential remarks should have molten lead poured down their throats. While
14525-536: The demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians had caused the Western Roman Empire to end, and he refused to equate the end of the Western Roman Empire with the end of the office of emperor in Italy. He pointed out the essential continuity of the economy of the Roman Mediterranean even after the barbarian invasions, and suggested that only
14700-455: The dismissal of officers for misconduct, although as a rule the appointments were for life. When under the Stuarts and under the Commonwealth political and religious feeling ran high in the boroughs, use was made of these clauses both by the majority on the council and by the central government to mould the character of the council by a drastic "purging". Another means of control first used under
14875-481: The effectiveness or loyalty of the army, at least while that army was effectively led, disciplined, trained, paid, and supplied by officers who identified as Roman. A. H. M. Jones has pointed out that the earlier scholarly views are Western. Most of the weaknesses discussed by scholars were "common to both halves of the empire", with Christianity even more prevalent in the East than the West. Religious disputes were bitter, bureaucracy corrupt and extortionate, it had
15050-509: The end of the century London had definitely established two councils, that of the mayor and aldermen, representing the old borough court, and a common council, representing the voice of the commonalty, as expressed through the city wards. The choice of councillors in the wards rested probably with the aldermen and the ward jury summoned by them to make the presentments. In some cases juries were summoned not to represent different areas but different classes; thus at Lincoln there were in 1272 juries of
15225-533: The end of the fourth century, Christianity had become the religion of any ambitious civil official. The wealth of the Christian Church increased dramatically in the fifth century. Immense resources, both public and private, were used for building churches, storage barns for the grain used for charity, new hospitals for the poor, and in support of those in religious life without other income. Bishops in wealthy cities were thus able to offer patronage in
15400-459: The end of the fourth century. Constantine settled Franks on the lower left bank of the Rhine . Their communities required a line of fortifications to keep them in check, indicating that Rome had lost almost all local control. Under Constantius, bandits came to dominate areas such as Isauria , which were well within the empire. The tribes of Germania also became more populous and more threatening. In Gaul , which did not really recover from
15575-532: The entire Imperial era was one of steady decay of institutions founded in republican times. Theodor Mommsen excluded the imperial period from his Nobel Prize-winning History of Rome (1854–1856). As one convenient marker for the end, 476 has been used since Gibbon, but other key dates for the fall of the Roman Empire in the West include the Crisis of the Third Century, the Crossing of the Rhine in 406 (or 405),
15750-507: The estates of persons condemned for treason and other capital crimes . This practice reduced future, though not immediate, income; those close to the emperor also gained a strong incentive to encourage his suspicion of conspiracies . The new supreme rulers disposed of the legal fiction of the early Empire (seeing the emperor as but the first among equals ); emperors from Aurelian (r. 270–275) onwards openly styled themselves as dominus et deus , "lord and god", titles appropriate for
15925-425: The first emperor to increase the arrogance of the military, raising their rank and power to excess, severely punishing the minor crimes of the common soldiers, while sparing those of higher rank who felt able to commit shameful and monstrous crimes. Despite a possible decrease in the Empire's ability to assemble and supply large armies, Rome maintained an aggressive and potent stance against perceived threats almost to
16100-555: The first paragraph of his text, Gibbon wrote that he intended to trace the decline from the golden age of the Antonines"; later text has it beginning about A.D. 180 with the death of Marcus Aurelius; while in chapter 7, he pushes the start of the decline to about 52 B.C., the time of Julius Caesar and Pompey and Cicero. Gibbon placed the western empire's end with the removal of the man Gibbon referred to as "the helpless Augustulus" in 476. Arnold J. Toynbee and James Burke argue that
16275-489: The fleets, and numbers may have increased later. With the limited communications of the time, both the European and the Eastern frontiers needed the attention of their own supreme commanders . Diocletian tried to solve this problem by re-establishing an adoptive succession with a senior ( Augustus ) and junior ( Caesar ) emperor in each half of the Empire, but this system of tetrarchy broke down within one generation and
16450-476: The force of law, putting the imperial power directly in touch with even humble subjects. The cults of polytheist religion were hugely varied, but none claimed that theirs was the only truth. Their followers displayed mutual tolerance , producing a polyphonous religious harmony. Religious strife was rare after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136, after which the devastated Judaea ceased to be
16625-526: The former territory of the Western Empire. But the final blow came only with the Late Antique Little Ice Age and its aftermath, when Rome was already politically fragmented and materially depleted. Aurelian reunited the empire in 274, and from 284 Diocletian and his successors reorganized it with more emphasis on the military. John the Lydian , writing over two centuries later, reported that Diocletian's army at one point totaled 389,704 men, plus 45,562 in
16800-506: The fortifications and the sea and land forces of Constantinople , while the European frontier from the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Danube is some 2000 kilometres great-circle distance and could be crossed with much less difficulty. "The devastations of the barbarians impoverished and depopulated the [Western] frontier provinces, and their unceasing pressure imposed on the empire a burden of defense which overstrained its administrative machinery and its economic resources. ... [playing]
16975-409: The freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and
17150-480: The gates in the city wall. The council's main offices are at City Hall on Beaumont Fee, which was built in 1973 and formally opened on 16 March 1974. Ancient borough An ancient borough was a historic unit of lower-tier local government in England and Wales . The ancient boroughs covered only important towns and were established by charters granted at different times by the monarchy . Their history
17325-461: The gilds which were excluded therefrom. Many municipal revolutions took place, and a large number of constitutional experiments were tried all over the country from the 13th century onward. Schemes which directed a gradual co-optation, two to choose four, these six to choose more, and so in widening circles from a centre of officialdom, found much favour throughout the Middle Ages. A plan, like
17500-403: The hereditary principle re-established itself with generally unfortunate results. Thereafter civil war became again the main method of establishing new imperial regimes . Although Constantine the Great (in office 306 to 337) again re-united the Empire, towards the end of the fourth century the need for division was generally accepted. From then on, the Empire existed in constant tension between
17675-411: The hundred court of the district. Boroughs of this type with a uniform tenure were created not only on the king's estates but also on those of his tenants-in-chief, and in 1086 they were probably already numerous. As noted by Stenton, the practice evident in the Norman period whereby lords living in country manors owned houses in the nearest borough was a continuation of a custom developed earlier by
17850-405: The idea that the corporation was answerable to the inhabitants of the borough if the corporate property was squandered, became more and more manifest as the history of the past slipped into oblivion. The corporators came to regard themselves as members of a club, legally warranted in dividing the lands and goods of the same among themselves whensoever such a division should seem profitable. Even where
18025-444: The imperial forces, or settled in the devastated provinces along the south bank of the Danube, where the regular garrisons were never fully re-established. In some later accounts, and widely in recent work, this is regarded as a treaty settlement, the first time that barbarians were given a home within the Empire, in which they retained their political and military cohesion. No formal treaty is recorded, nor details of whatever agreement
18200-423: The imperial system. In this way many groups provided unfree workers ( coloni ) for Roman landowners, and recruits ( laeti ) for the Roman army . Sometimes their leaders became officers. Normally the Romans managed the process carefully, with sufficient military force on hand to ensure compliance. Cultural assimilation followed over the next generation or two. The Empire suffered multiple serious crises during
18375-585: The invasions of the third century, there was widespread insecurity and economic decline in the 300s, perhaps worst in Armorica . By 350, after decades of pirate attacks, virtually all villas in Armorica were deserted. Local use of money ceased around 360. Repeated attempts to economize on military expenditure included billeting troops in cities, where they could less easily be kept under military discipline and could more easily extort from civilians. Except in
18550-437: The judges gave an opinion that the town councils could make by-laws determining the government of the towns regardless of the terms of the charter. In the 18th century the judges decided to the contrary. But even where a usage of popular election was established, there were means of controlling the result of a parliamentary election. The close corporations, though their right to choose a member of Parliament might be doubtful, had
18725-408: The jurisdictional centre of a hundred , there was sometimes created a borough. The lines of division before Domesday Book are obscure, but it is probable that in some cases, by a royal grant of jurisdiction, the inhabitants of a populous royal vill, where a hundred court for the district was already held, were authorised to establish a permanent court, for the settlement of their disputes, distinct from
18900-404: The king and the municipality; in London, for instance, the king obtained all escheats, while the borough court secured the right of wardship of burgess orphans. From Norman times the yearly profit of the royal boroughs was as a rule included in the general "farm" rendered for the county by the sheriff; sometimes it was rendered by a royal farmer apart from the county-farm. The king generally accepted
19075-418: The king's government was looking more and more to the borough authorities as part of its executive and judicial staff, and thus the government was closely interested in the manner of their selection. The new charters were drafted in such a way as to narrow the popular control. The boroughs were placed under the control of a corporation headed by a mayor, and in most cases leading to no concept of popular control,
19250-443: The king's hold upon his toll. Over the burh or port was set a reeve, a royal officer answerable to the king for his dues from the burh, his rents for lands and houses, his customs on commerce, his share of the profits from judicial fines. At least from the 10th century the burh had a moot or court, the relation of which to the other courts is matter of speculation. A law of Edgar , about 960, required that it should meet three times
19425-441: The liberty which some burgesses enjoyed to "commend" themselves to a lord of their own choosing, promising to that lord suit and service and perhaps rent in return for protection. Over these burgesses the lords could claim jurisdictional rights, and these were in some cases increased by royal grants of special rights within certain sokes . The great boroughs were honeycombed with sokes, or areas of seignorial jurisdiction, within which
19600-486: The long-established manner of Roman aristocrats. Ammianus described some who "enriched from the offerings of matrons, ride seated in carriages, wearing clothing chosen with care, and serve banquets so lavish that their entertainments outdo the tables of kings". But the move to Christianity probably had no significant effects on public finances. The large temple complexes, with professional full-time priests, festivals, and large numbers of sacrifices (which became free food for
19775-415: The lord with a lodging when he came to the borough on business and with a place of refuge in time of trouble.... Most of the evidence which illustrates this practice relates to the time after the conquest, but it can be traced far back into the Anglo-Saxon period, and the Anglo-Saxon kings had encouraged it. A borough was usually, though perhaps not invariably, the companion of a Norman castle. In some cases
19950-476: The lord's charter which created a borough and made burgesses out of villeins. However liberal the grant, the lord or his reeve still remained in close personal relation with the burgesses of such places, and this character, together with the uniformity of their tenure, continued to hold them apart from the boroughs of the old English type, where all varieties of personal relationship between the lords and their groups of tenants might subsist. The royal charters granting
20125-480: The loss of political unity and military control is universally acknowledged, the fall of Rome is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as late antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political collapse. Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Decline and Fall has been
20300-593: The magnates. In the levy per communam the assessment was made through the wardmoots (in London) and the burden fell on the poorer class. In Henry II's reign London was taxed by both methods, the barones majores by head, the barones minores through the wardmoot. The pressure of taxation led in the 13th century to a closer definition of the burghal constitutions; the Commons sought to get an audit of accounts, and (in London) not only to hear but to treat of municipal affairs. By
20475-622: The masses), had also been expensive to maintain. They had already been negatively impacted by the empire's financial struggles in the third century. The numbers of clergy , monks , and nuns increased to perhaps half the size of the actual army, and they have been considered as a drain on limited manpower. The numbers and effectiveness of the regular soldiers may have declined during the fourth century. Payrolls were inflated, so that pay could be diverted and exemptions from duty sold. The soldiers' opportunities for personal extortion were multiplied by residence in cities, while their effectiveness
20650-636: The mayor received the whole town revenue without rendering account; sometimes, however, heavy criminal charges fell upon the officers. Before the Reform era dissatisfaction came to occasional fruition in Local Acts (of Parliament) which placed under the authority of special commissioners a variety of administrative details, which if the corporation had not been suspected would certainly not have been assigned to its care. The trust offered another convenient means of escape from difficulty, and in some towns out of
20825-453: The modern synthesis with archaeology, epidemiology, climatic history, genetic science, and many more new sources of history beyond the documentary sources that were all that was available to Gibbon. While Alexander Demandt enumerated 210 different theories on why Rome fell, twenty-first century scholarship classifies the primary possibilities more concisely: A recent summary interprets disease and climate change as important drivers of
21000-458: The mother-church of the state was placed in its chief burh), all looked to the market for their maintenance. The burh was provided by law with a mint and royal moneyers and exchangers, with an authorised scale for weights and measures. Mercantile transactions in the burhs or ports, as they were called when their commercial rather than their military importance was accentuated, were placed by law under special legal privileges in order no doubt to secure
21175-403: The national scheme of defence, the burgess cnihts made commerce their principal object under the encouragement of the old privileges of the walled place. Besides the great co-operative strongholds in which many lords had burgesses, there were small boroughs held by a single lord. In many cases boroughs of this "seignorial" type were created upon the royal estates. Out of the king's vill, as a rule
21350-406: The nature of municipal proceedings at the time of the first purchase of charters. Certain it is that the communities in the 12th century became alive to the possibilities of their new position, that trade received a new impulse, and the vague constitutional powers of the borough court acquired a new need for definition. At first the selection of officers who were to treat with the exchequer and to keep
21525-456: The necessity of pleading in a distant court. The burgess, whether plaintiff or defendant, was a privileged person, and could claim in this respect a "benefit" somewhat similar to the benefit of clergy. In permitting the boroughs to answer through their own officers for his dues, the king handed over to the boroughs the farming of his rents and a large number of rights which would eventually prove to be sources of great profit. No records exist showing
21700-538: The need for two emperors and their mutual mistrust . Until late in the fourth century, the united Empire retained sufficient power to launch powerful attacks against its enemies in Germania and in the Sasanian Empire . Receptio of barbarians became widely practised: imperial authorities admitted potentially hostile groups into the Empire, split them up, and allotted to them lands, status, and duties within
21875-465: The nomination of borough officers and as to the royal power of dismissal. In Richard I 's reign London imitated the French communes in styling the chief officer a mayor; in 1208 Winchester also had a mayor, and the title soon became no rarity. The chartered right to choose two or more citizens to keep the pleas of the crown gave to many boroughs the control of their coroners, who occupied the position of
22050-541: The only worthwhile form of civilization, giving the Empire ideological legitimacy and a cultural unity based on comprehensive familiarity with Greek and Roman literature and rhetoric . The Empire's power allowed it to maintain extreme differences of wealth and status. Its wide-ranging trade networks permitted even modest households to use goods made by professionals far away. The empire had both strength and resilience. Its financial system allowed it to raise significant taxes which, despite endemic corruption, supported
22225-529: The outlying regions of Roman Britain (probably replacing some with federate chieftains and their war-bands) and invaded Gaul. His troops killed Gratian and he was accepted as Augustus in the Gallic provinces, where he was responsible for the first official executions of Christian heretics . To compensate the Western court for the loss of Gaul, Hispania, and Britannia, Theodosius ceded the diocese of Dacia and
22400-497: The parallel revival of urban centres in continental Europe. The resettlement of the Roman Durovernum under the name "burh of the men of Kent," Cant-wara-byrig or Canterbury , illustrates this point. The burh of the men of West Kent was Hrofesceaster (Durobrivae), Rochester , and many other ceasters mark the existence of a Roman camp occupied by an early English burh. The tribal burh was protected by an earthen wall, and
22575-436: The plains, on the rivers, at the centres naturally marked out for trade, seldom where hills or marshes formed a sufficient natural defence. Typically, the fortification of a burh consisted of earth ramparts faced with timber. Palisades were sometimes used. The concept of a network of burhs as a defence in depth is usually attributed to Alfred . The solution that Alfred devised for this apparently intractable predicament
22750-431: The plots which were offered to colonists. A low fixed rental, release from the renders required of villeins, release from the jurisdiction of the castle, and the creation of a separate borough jurisdiction, with or without the right to choose their own officers, rules fixing the maximum of fees and fines, or promising assessment of the fines by the burgesses themselves, the cancelling of all the castellan's rights, especially
22925-418: The political collapse of the empire. There was a Roman climatic optimum from about 200 BCE to 150 CE, when lands around the Mediterranean were generally warm and well-watered. This made agriculture prosperous, army recruitment easy, and the collection of taxes straightforward. From about 150, the climate became on average somewhat worse for most of the inhabited lands around the Mediterranean. After about 450,
23100-411: The political reality of lost control (and the attendant fragmentation of commerce, culture, and language), but also the cultural and archaeological continuities, the process has been described as a complex cultural transformation, rather than a fall. The "perception of Late Antiquity has significantly changed: the period is no longer seen as an era of decline and crisis but as an epoch of metamorphosis in
23275-434: The position of Western Roman Emperor wielded negligible military, political, or financial power, and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman. Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus , and
23450-406: The present the private stronghold and the royal dwelling may be neglected. It was the public stronghold and the administrative centre of a dependent district which was the source of the main features peculiar to the borough. Many causes tended to create peculiar conditions in the boroughs built for national defence. They were placed where artificial defence was most needed, at the junction of roads, in
23625-449: The quarter sessions, Lincoln was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services and so it was made a county borough , independent from the new Lindsey County Council . On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972 , Lincoln was reconstituted to become a non-metropolitan district , altering its powers and responsibilities but keeping the same area and name. The separate county councils which had existed for each of
23800-449: The question of the municipal franchise was next dealt with. In effect this made the borough parliamentary franchise the same as the county franchise. In 1833 a commission inquired into the administration of the municipal corporations, the commissioners found far more corporations than parliamentary Boroughs , many of which had fallen into desuetude or were purely nominal if not moribund. Those that were active were essentially oligarchies of
23975-399: The rare case of a determined and incorruptible general, these troops proved ineffective in action and dangerous to civilians. Frontier troops were often given land rather than pay. As they farmed for themselves, their direct costs diminished, but so did their effectiveness, and their pay gave much less stimulus to the frontier economy. However, except for the provinces along the lower Rhine,
24150-407: The remaining garrisons who were "more easily slaughtered than sheep". Cities were able to hold their own defensive walls against barbarians who had no siege equipment , therefore the cities generally remained intact, although the countryside suffered. Gratian appointed a new Augustus , a proven general from Hispania called Theodosius . During the next four years, he partially re-established
24325-414: The rich, the middling and the poor, chosen presumably by authority from groups divided by means of the tax roll. Elsewhere the several groups of traders and artisans made of their gilds all-powerful agencies for organising joint action among classes of commons united by a trade interest, and the history of the towns becomes the history of the struggle between the gilds which captured control of the council and
24500-405: The right to retain old customs prevented the systematic introduction into the old boroughs of some of the incidents of feudalism. Rights of the king took precedence of those of the lord, and devise with the king's consent was legal. By these means the lords' position was weakened, and other seignorial claims were later evaded or contested. The rights which the lords failed to keep were divided between
24675-459: The right to take a forced levy of food for the castle from all within the area of his jurisdiction, freedom from arbitrary tallage, freedom of movement, the right to alienate property and devise land, these and many other privileges named in the early seignorial charters were what constituted the Norman liber burgus of the seignorial type. Not all these privileges were enjoyed by all boroughs; some very meagre releases of seignorial rights accompanied
24850-410: The role of Christianity, but he gave great weight to other causes of internal decline and to attacks from outside the Empire . The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed
25025-424: The royal charter nor a by-law could curtail the usual franchise. But as each case rested on the national body swayed by the dominant political party, no principle was steadily adhered to in the trial of election petitions. The royal right to create boroughs was freely used by Elizabeth and James I as a means of securing a submissive Parliament. The later Stuarts abandoned this method, and the few new boroughs made by
25200-453: The royal pleas was almost certainly restricted to a few rich persons who could find the necessary securities. Nominated probably in one of the smaller judicial assemblies, the choice was announced at the great Michaelmas assembly of the whole community, and it is not till the next century that we hear of any attempt of the vulgus to make a different selection from that of the magnates. The vulgus were able to take effective action by means of
25375-413: The royal reeve's authority was greatly restricted while that of the lord's reeve took precedence. Even the haws, being "burhs" or strongholds within a stronghold, enjoyed a local "peace" which protected from official intrusion. Besides heterogeneity of tenure and jurisdiction in the borough, there was also heterogeneity of status; there were burh-thegns and cnihts , mercatores, burgesses of various kinds,
25550-428: The scale, complexity, and violence of government were unmatched, the emperors lost control over their whole realm insofar as that control came increasingly to be wielded by anyone who paid for it . Meanwhile, the richest senatorial families, immune from most taxation, engrossed more and more of the available wealth and income while also becoming divorced from any tradition of military excellence. One scholar identifies
25725-401: The selection of the borough officers. In 1660 it was made a rule that all future (town) charters should reserve expressly to the Crown the first nomination (naming) of the aldermen, recorder and town-clerk, and a proviso should be entered placing with the common council the return of the member of parliament. The Corporation Act 1661 gave power to royal commissioners to settle the composition of
25900-408: The senatorial aristocracy ceased joining the ranks of the senior military commanders. Its typical members lacked interest in military service, and showed incompetence at command. Under Constantine, the cities lost their revenue from local taxes, and under Constantius II (r. 337–361) their endowments of property. This worsened the existing difficulty in keeping the city councils up to strength, and
26075-420: The services provided by the cities were scamped or abandoned. Public building projects had declined since the second century. There is no evidence of state participation in, or support for, restoration and maintenance of temples and shrines . Restorations were funded and accomplished privately, which limited what was done. A further financial abuse was Constantius's habit of granting to his immediate entourage
26250-401: The several craft organisations, and first found the necessity to do so when taxation was heavy or when questions of trade legislation were mooted. The taxation of the boroughs in the reign of Henry II was assessed by the king's justices, who fixed the sums due per capita; but if the borough made an offer of a gift, the assessment was made by the burgesses. In the first case the taxation fell on
26425-404: The several forms of human settlement, and the fortified communal refuges cannot accordingly be clearly distinguished from villages or the strongholds of individuals by any purely nomenclative test. At the end of the 9th century and beginning of the 10th century there is evidence of a systematic " timbering " of new burhs, with the object of providing strongholds for the defence of Wessex against
26600-480: The sole right to admit new burgesses, and whether in parliamentary elections to enfranchise non-residents. Where conflicts arose over the choice of a member of Parliament, two competing selections were typically made and the matter came before the House of Commons . The Commons quite often decided in favour of the more popularly elected candidate against the nominee of the town council, on the general principle that neither
26775-572: The successful reconquest from the Vikings by Alfred's descendants Edward and Æthelstan , the latter made a series of reforms in law, the Codes issued at the Council of Grately, which gave additional impetus to the urban development of the burhs which hitherto had been mainly forts. The burhs drew commerce by every channel; the camp and the palace, the administrative centre, the ecclesiastical centre (for
26950-402: The superintendence of a headman. The bishops and reeves who belonged to the "court of London" appear as the directors of the system, and in them we may see the aldermen of the wards of a later time. The use of the word bertha for ward at Canterbury, and the fact that the London wardmoot at a later time was used for the frankpledge system as well as for the organisation of the muster, point to
27125-477: The theme around which much of the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." From at least the time of Henri Pirenne (1862–1935), scholars have described a continuity of Roman culture and political legitimacy long after 476. Pirenne postponed
27300-472: The third century. The rising Sassanid Empire inflicted three crushing defeats on Roman field armies and remained a potent threat for centuries. Other disasters included repeated civil wars , barbarian invasions, and more mass-mortality in the Plague of Cyprian (from 250 onwards). For a short period, the Empire split into a Gallic Empire in the West (260–274), a Palmyrene Empire in the East (260–273), and
27475-409: The threats of barbarian attacks on all the Western frontiers. They also tried to alleviate the burdens of taxation, which had risen continuously over the previous forty years; Valens in the East reduced the tax demand by half in his fourth year. Both of them were Christians, and re-confiscated the temple lands which Julian had restored. But they were generally tolerant of other beliefs. Valentinian in
27650-431: The three groups representing perhaps military, commercial and agricultural elements. The burh generally shows signs of having been originally a village settlement, surrounded by open fields, of which the borough boundary before 1835 will suggest the outline. This area was as a rule eventually the area of borough jurisdiction. There is some evidence pointing to the fact that the restriction of the borough authority to this area
27825-489: The town councils, and to remove all who refused the sacraments of the Church of England or were suspected of disaffection, even though they offered to take the necessary oaths. Even so, the difficulty of securing submissive juries was again so great in 1682 that a general attack on the borough franchises was begun by the crown. A London jury having returned a verdict hostile to the crown and taxation, after various attempts to bend
28000-438: The trust was developed a system of municipal administration where there was no recognised corporation. Thus at Peterborough the feoffees who had succeeded to the control of certain ancient charities constituted a form of town council with very restricted powers. In the 17th century Sheffield was brought under the act "to redress the misemployment of lands given to charitable uses", and the municipal administration of what had been
28175-404: The unfinished cases and minor causes. There was no compulsion on those not specially summoned to attend these extra meetings. At these subordinate jurisdictional assemblies, held in public, and acting by the same authority as the annual gathering of all the burh-wara, other business concerning borough administration was decided, at least in later days, and it is to these assemblies that the origin of
28350-494: The west of the Rhine was occupied by the Germans, and a further 120 miles into Gaul the surviving population and garrisons had fled. Julian ( r. 360–363 ) won victories against Germans who had invaded Gaul. He launched a drive against official corruption, which allowed the tax demands in Gaul to be reduced to one-third of their previous amount, while all government requirements were still met. In civil legislation, Julian
28525-403: The whole system of appointment to the corporation being one of co-option by existing members. Absence of popular protest to this may in part be due to old popular control being more nominal than real, and the new charters gave as a rule two councils of considerable size. These councils bore a heavy burden of taxation in meeting royal loans and benevolences, paying per capita, like the magnates of
28700-503: Was actually made. When the Goths are next mentioned in Roman records, they have different leaders and are soldiers of a sort. In 391, Alaric , a Gothic leader, rebelled against Roman control. Goths attacked the emperor himself, but within a year Alaric was accepted as a leader of Theodosius's Gothic troops and this rebellion was over. Theodosius's financial position must have been difficult, since he had to pay for expensive campaigning from
28875-608: Was endemic in many areas, notably in the city of Rome itself, possibly encouraged by the enthusiasm of rich Romans for water features in their gardens. In 313, Constantine the Great declared official toleration of Christianity . This was followed over the ensuing decades by the search for a definition of Christian orthodoxy all could agree upon. Creeds were developed, but Christianity has never agreed upon an official version of its Bible or its doctrine; instead it has had many different manuscript traditions. Christianity's disputes may have effected decline. Official and private action
29050-534: Was experiencing a period of prosperity for the great landowners who took advantage of the court's need for food, "turning agrarian produce into gold", while repressing and misusing the poor who grew it and brought it in. Paulinus the Deacon , notary of Ambrose the bishop of Milan , described these men as creating a court where "everything was up for sale". Ambrose himself preached a series of sermons aimed at his wealthy constituents, asserting that avarice leads to
29225-462: Was feared, but sometimes because of the riotous proceedings which ensued. These led to government interference, which no party in the borough desired. The possibility of a forfeiture of their enfranchised position made the burgesses on the whole fairly submissive. In the 13th century London repeatedly was "taken into the king's hand," subjected to heavy fines and put under the constable of the Tower. In
29400-529: Was more than twenty or so miles – a day's march – from one of them. This network is described in a manuscript document which has survived in later iterations, named by scholars the Burghal Hidage , which lists thirty three burhs in Wessex and English Mercia. Most of these survived into the post Norman Conquest era and are the core of later Parliamentary Boroughs and municipal corporations. Following
29575-538: Was not always necessary, and in some towns there were many non- resident burgesses. When in later times admission to this freedom came to be used as means to secure the parliamentary franchise, the freedom of the borough was freely sold and given. The elections in which the commons of the boroughs first took interest were those of the borough magistrates. Where the commons succeeded for a time in asserting their right to take part in borough elections they were rarely able to keep it, not in all cases perhaps because their power
29750-525: Was notable for his pro-pagan policies. Julian lifted the ban on sacrifices , restored and reopened temples, and dismantled the privileged tax status and revenue concessions of the Christians. He gave generous tax remissions to the cities which he favored, and disfavor to those who remained Christian. Julian ordered toleration of varieties of Christianity banned as heretical by Constantius; possibly, he would not have been able to persecute effectively such
29925-509: Was nothing short of a revolution and that revolution began now in the 880s. If the Vikings could attack anywhere at any time, then the West Saxons had to be able to defend everywhere all the time. To make this possible Alfred ordered the construction of a network of defended centres across his kingdom, some built on refortified Roman and Iron Age sites, some built completely from scratch. These burhs were to be distributed so that no West Saxon
30100-522: Was reduced by concentration on extortion instead of military exercises . However, extortion , gross corruption , and occasional ineffectiveness were not new to the Roman army. There is no consensus whether its effectiveness significantly declined before 376. Ammianus Marcellinus , himself a professional soldier, repeats longstanding observations about the superiority of contemporary Roman armies being due to training and discipline, not to individual size or strength. He also accuses Valentinian I of being
30275-552: Was supported by a group of assistants, called in Devon the witan , in the boroughs of the Danelaw by a group of (generally twelve) "lawmen", in other towns probably by a group of aldermen, senior burgesses, with military and police authority, whose office was in some cases hereditary. These persons assisted the reeve at the great meetings of the full court, and sat with him as judges at the subordinate meetings which were held to settle
30450-419: Was taken against heterodox Christians (heretics) from the fourth century up to the modern era. Limited action against pagans , who were mostly ignored, was based on the contempt that accompanied Christianity's sense of triumph after Constantine. Christianity opposed sacrifice and magic, and Christian emperors made laws that favored Christianity. Constantine's successors generally continued this approach, and by
30625-420: Was the charter which had established a close corporation, and from this time on to 1835 the boroughs made no progress in constitutional growth. The following places had borough charters in the period 1307–1660, or are known to have had borough status then or before through other sources: The tendency for the close corporation to treat the members of the governing body as the only corporators, and to repudiate
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