Aspects of Kentish Local History

buying and selling And that none upon such his Chaffer Buying and Selling do take part with him without his License Assent and good Will AND that he be not put in any Assizes Juries or Recognizances by reason of his Foreign Tenure against his Will CONSIDERING moreover that by the Charters of divers late Kings of England upon the Grants and Confirmations of all and singular the Liberties and Quittances aforesaid it is granted and forbidden that no man unjustly disturb us or him or any other our Combarons of the Cinque Ports upon the aforesaid Quittances and Liberties or their Market upon forfeiture of ten pounds to the King And that you do unto the said Giles Hilton upon the premises (if he so require, as you would find us ready and favourable unto you and yours in the like or greater Case IN WITNESS whereof we have made unto the said Giles Hilton these our Letters patent Sealed with our Seal of Office of Mayoralty of the said Town of Faversham Dated at Faversham the seventh day of June in the Year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three and in the forty-third year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the third by the Grace of God of the united Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland king Defender of the Faith.
                                                   Pendant Seal (broken)

   It is perhaps not generally realized that as late as 1803 a combaron of the Cinque Ports confederation was still to be found procuring formal evidence of his privileges in this manner. Whether he fully understood the nature of all the privileges here recorded—and indeed whether the clerk who wrote the document understood them—is open to question. An attempt is made to explain the technical words contained in the Mayor's Letters Patent.

   Sock and Sack. Rights of jurisdiction, with the right to retain the profits arising therefrom.

   Theel. The right to take toll, or to be free of toll. The word was sometimes used to mean the right to tallage, or tax, one's villeins.
   Them. Usually taken to mean the right to have one's villeins with their sequela and goods— "all the generations of your Villains, with their Suits and Cattel" as Rastell expresses it (Termes de la Ley). This interpretation was almost universally accepted from the thirteenth century onwards, but Maitland has pointed out that it was a mistaken interpretation, and that the original meaning was the right to enforce a "foreign voucher".¹
   Love-cope-free, alias locofry. Freedom of trade, unhindered by any monopoly, patent or company, or guild of merchants.²
   Cope-free. Presumably introduced here because of its verbal similarity to love-cope-free. Cope was a customary payment due to the King, or to the lord of the soil, out of certain lead-mines in Derbyshire. It seems improbable that the combarons of the Cinque Ports deliberately intended to claim quittance of this custom.
   Witt-free. Freedom from amercement of fine. How far this exemption would in fact extend is doubtful.
Lastage-free. Probably freedom from the obligation imposed by 21 Ric. II, cap. 18 to carry stones as lastage, i.e. ballast or lading, for "the repair of the Beacons, the place called Paradise, and other decayed places
   ¹. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, I, p. 579.
    ²  Arch. Cant. IX (1874), p. lxiv.