Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1877. Excerpt: ... 15 NOTES RELATING TO THE ABBEY PAEISH CHURCH ESTATE, SHREWSBURY, Compiled From Ancient Deeds And Documents Preserved In The Parish Chest. By Rev. WILLIAM ALLPORT LEIGHTON, RA, F.L.S., F.B.S., Ed. The proximity of two great political bodies almost necessarily involves antagonism. Such were the Municipality of the ancient Town of Shrewsbury, and the rich Benedictine Monastery, founded by Earl Roger de Montgomery, in the Eastern Foregate or suburb of that town; and such the state of continual rivalry and strife in which these two bodies subsisted. By their locality without the walls, the inhabitants of the Eastern or Monks' Foriate1 (in modern times called the Abbey Foregate) were excluded from being Burgesses of the town of Shrewsbury, or of participating in the rights and privileges of members or combrethren of the various trading companies or guilds existing within its walls. Apparently, in some measure to compensate for these disadvantages, the Abbots of the Monastery, Seignorial Lords of the Manor of the Abbey Foregate, at a very early period in the 12th or 13th century, appear to have embodied their tenants, dependents, and inhabitants of their Manor into a Municipality or Corporate body. How this was effected, 1 Owen and Blakeway (Hist. Shrewsbury, 2. 16) derive "Foriate" from Saxon gale, synonymous with game in German, and gat Dutch-- all primarily signifying a way or street--hence Abbey Foregate is the street or way before the Abbey. whether by Royal Charter, or by an act of self-exerted authority as Baronial Abbots, we have no historical particulars.1 Indeed, the very existence of the Municipality only comes to our knowledge incidentally, by the occurrence of its Officers as attesting witnesses to ancient deeds, or as parties themselves to such documents. Their jurisdiction m...