ime to turn
back to the humbler annals of the town itself. The first event that
lifts it into historic prominence is its league with London. The
"bargemen" of the borough seem to have already existed before the
Conquest, and to have been closely united from the first with the more
powerful guild, the "boatmen" or "merchants" of the capital. In both
cases it is probable that the bodies bearing this name represented what
in later language was known as the merchant guild of the town; the
original association, that is, of its principal traders for purposes of
mutual protection, of commerce, and of self-government. Royal
recognition enables us to trace the merchant guild of Oxford from the
time of Henry I.; even then indeed lands, islands, pastures already
belonged to it, and amongst them the same "Port-meadow" or "Town-mead"
so familiar to Oxford men pulling lazily on a summer's noon to Godstow,
and which still remains the property of the freemen of the town. The
connection between the two cities and their guilds was primarily one of
traffic. Prior even to the Conquest, "in the time of King Eadward and
Abbot Ordric," the channel of the river running beneath the walls of the
Abbey of Abingdon became so blocked up "that boats could scarce pass as
far as Oxford." It was at the joint prayer of the burgesses of London
and Oxford that the abbot dug a new channel through the meadow to the
south of his church, the two cities engaging that each barge should pay
a toll of a hundred herrings on its passage during Lent. But the union
soon took a constitutional form. The earliest charter of the capital
which remains in detail is that of Henry I., and from the charter of his
grandson we find a similar date assigned to the liberties of Oxford. The
customs and exemptions of its burghers are granted by Henry II., "as
ever they enjoyed them in the time of King Henry my grandfather, and in
like manner as my citizens of London hold them." This identity of
municipal privileges is of course common to many other boroughs, for the
charter of London became the model for half the charters of the kingdom;
what is peculiar to Oxford is the federal bond which in Henry II.'s time
already linked the two cities together. In case of any doubt or contest
about judgment in their own court the burgesses of Oxford were empowered
to refer the matter to the decision of London, "and whatever the
citizens of London shall adjudge in such cases shall be deemed right."