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8
PART I.
Local Government in Westminster in PreReformation
Times.
According to Maitland,* the village or town of Westminster
"was until the Reformation, Anno 1539, under the arbitrary
government of the Abbot and Monks of the Abbey, as it
was afterwards under that of the Bishop and the Dean and
Chapter." Leaving the accuracy of the concluding part of
this description to be examined in the next division of this
sketch, it will soon be seen that the first part fails to
convey an adequate idea either of the laws affecting local
government as it then existed, or the machinery by which
such laws were administered. As early as the twelfth
century, the opulence, power and influence of the Abbot
and Monks, and the attractions of the Abbey, together with
the establishment of the Dean and Canons of the Chapel of
St. Stephen, no doubt led to the gathering of an important
residential population in the immediate neighbourhood—
citizens, who were described by Fitzstepheu in 1174, as
"themselves everywhere known and respected above all
others for their civil demeanour, their good apparel,
their table, and their discourse." The residence of the
Kings and Princes of the Plantagenet line (circa 1216)
from time to time, the assembling of Parliament, and
the establishment of the Law Courts at Westminster, while
they induced the courtiers and nobility to take up their
abode in the vicinity, explain, also, the granting of Charters
by successive kings and the passing of Statutes for the
special advantage of Westminster. Furthermore, the
growth of the town received a powerful impulse from the
establishment by Statute of 27 Edward III. (1354) of the
* Maitland, Vol. ii. p. 1348.