Trade and Transport
The early boroughs were military foundations that with the growth of the English kingdom became administrative centres. Their reeves, courts, markets, and mints were all under royal administration. Defence of the borough fell upon the landowners of the surrounding shires. By the eleventh century the original ‘military’ constitution was virtually obsolete. Mercantile interests, as traders settled under the protection of the borough’s peace, had tended to become dominant. The Port – In the dooms (codes) of Edward the Elder, the…