ord of the fee
where the fair or market was held, by virtue of a grant from the
Crown either ostensible or presumed] and passage [money paid for
crossing a river or for crossing the sea as might be due to the
Crown] and all custom [customary payments] throughout my whole
land of England, Normandy, and Wales, wherever they shall come,
they and their goods. Wherefore I will and strictly command, that
they shall have all their liberties and acquittances and free
customs fully and honorable, as my free and faithful men, and that
they shall be quit of toll and passage and of every other customs:
and I forbid any one to disturb them on this account contrary to
this my charter, on forfeiture of ten pounds [200s.]."

John, when he was an earl and before he became King, granted these
liberties to Bristol about 1188:

1) No burgess may sue or be sued out of Bristol.

2) The burgesses are excused from the murder fine (imposed by the
king or lord from the hundred or town where the murder was
committed when the murderer had not been apprehended).

3) No burgess may wage duel [trial by combat], unless sued for
death of a stranger.

4) No one may take possession of a lodging house by assignment or
by livery of the Marshall of the Earl of Gloucester against the
will of the burgesses (so that the town would not be responsible
for the good behavior of a stranger lodging in the town without
first accepting the possessor of the lodging house).

5) No one shall be condemned in a matter of money, unless
according to the law of the hundred, that is, forfeiture of 40s.

6) The hundred court shall be held only once a week.

7) No one in any plea may argue his cause in miskenning.

8) They may lawfully have their lands and tenures and mortgages
and debts throughout my whole land, [from] whoever owes them
[anything].

9) With regard to debts which have been lent in Bristol, and
mortgages there made, pleas shall be held in the town according to
the custom of the town.

10) If any one in any other place in my land shall take toll of
the men of Bristol, if he does not restore it after he is required
to, the Prepositor of Bristol may take from him a distress at
Bristol, and force him to restore it.

11) No stranger tradesman may buy within the town from a man who
is a stranger, leather, grain, or wool, but only from a burgess.

12) No stranger may have a shop, i