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Bailiffs and burgesses of the royal borough of Dorchester. Commons in parliament....

Catalogue reference: SC 8/25/1242

What’s it about?

This record is about the Bailiffs and burgesses of the royal borough of Dorchester. Commons in parliament.... dating from [1431] in the series Special Collections: Ancient Petitions. It is held at The National Archives, Kew.

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Full description and record details

Reference
SC 8/25/1242
Date
[1431]
Description
Petitioners
Bailiffs and burgesses of the royal borough of Dorchester.
Addressees
Commons in parliament.
Nature of request
The bailiffs and burgesses state that they had the borough with all its liberties and free customs by grant of Edward III paying a fee farm of £20 at the Exchequer. As part of the fee farm the bailiffs and burgesses used to have the weighage of all manner of things requiring weighing, bought or sold by their balance according to the standard of the Exchequer in all fairs and markets held in the town, and within 12 leagues of the town. Now they have been ousted from their weighage by a statute made in the last parliament held at Westminster. They request that the matter be considered for they are disinherited and are ruined as regards their fee farm if they cannot have a remedy in the case, and request that a special commission be granted to enquire of the matter and its findings returned into Chancery. And if it be found for the bailiffs and burgesses that they be restored to their inheritance of the weighage according to the form that they had before the statute
Nature of endorsement
[On face] It is accorded that by force of the statute made in the last parliament concerning weights according to the standard of the Exchequer to be had in each city, borough or town within the realm it was not meant to be to the disturbance of the burgesses rights for the use of their weigher for 12 leagues around the borough using all the time the weights specified in the statute, and that no right of weighing accrued to anyone by force of the statute in disturbance of the right of the burgesses of the borough of Dorchester.[On dorse: none].
Places mentioned
Dorchester, Dorset
Westminster.
People mentioned
Edward III, King of England.
Note
Dated to 1431 by the heading in Rot. Parl. IV, p.367 where it is noted that the petition comes from the parliament held at Westminster on Friday next before the feast of St Hillary, 9 Hen. VI (January 1431).
Held by
The National Archives, Kew
Former department reference
Parliamentary Petition 2915
Legal status
Public Record(s)
Language
French
Closure status
Open Document, Open Description
Publication note(s)
Rotuli Parliamentorum; ut et Petitiones, et Placita in Parliamento, vol. IV, Hen V and Hen VI, (Record Commission, 1783), p.380a-b (no.xiii) (transcription of petition on parliament roll)
Record URL
https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C9061416/

Series information

SC 8

Special Collections: Ancient Petitions

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Bailiffs and burgesses of the royal borough of Dorchester. Commons in parliament....

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