LIBERTIES¹

Liberties were small areas that were under a different legal authority from that which was exercised over the districts in which they were located. The authority over them was often not applied and, if it was, was done so lightly. As a result, they were often lawless environments.

¹. The right of sanctuary with respect to churches does not exist. It was abolished by King James I in the early 17^thC.

Alsatia

In medieval times ecclesiastical institutions were subject to Canon Law and exempt from civil jurisdiction. It was possible for a person to take sanctuary on church precincts and remain immune from civil prosecution just so long as s/he remained physically on that property.

Whitefriars was a Carmelite priory that occupied the district that lay between the Thames, Fleet Street, the Temple, and Whitefriars Street. The dissolution of the monasteries (1535-40) did not remove the property's Canon Law-derived immunity. In 1608 King James I issued a charter that confirmed the inhabitants privileges. The authorities could only enter the land using a writ that had been issued either by the Privy Council or by the Lord Chief Justice. The area became a ghetto that was inhabited by outlaws and criminals. The first known reference to it as Alsatia was in Thomas Shadwell's 1688 play of the same name. In 1697 the land became subject to the City of London's jurisdiction. However, it continued to be extremely lawless for several decades.

Location: Alsatia, EC4Y 8AY. The district lay between Fleet Street, and the River Thames, and Whitefriars Street, and the Temple. (orange, white)

Coldharbour

Coldharbour as a place name occurs across England, especially in the south. The locations that bear it are often isolated. Its origins have been the subject of a scholarly debate.¹ There was a theory that the word described a wayside refuge, where a traveller could shelter. The German counterpart to Coldharbour is Kalteherberge. It appears to refer to an inn.

The only pre-1600 topographical reference to a Coldharbour relates to the City of London. Initially, it described a small riverside district next to what is now Cannon Street Railway Station. The name had become associated with the site during the 14^thC. It migrated a few yards to a property that was owned by the Crown. Over the centuries this was granted out to a series of individuals. These included the 5^th Earl of Shrewsbury (d.1560), who had several houses built upon the land.

Prior to the Great Fire of 1666 the London Coldharbour seems to have been a debtors sanctuary.² The site retained this status for a couple of centuries. The post-1600 spread of Coldharbour as a place name may well have been a reference to this one location and to have been a term that implied that the place so described was lawless.

Location: Cannon Street Railway Station, EC4N 6AF. To the east. (orange, yellow)

(Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, SE5 9PR.)

(Coldharbour, Isle Of Dogs, E14 9NS.)

See Also: PALACES

¹. The leading contributors to the Coldharbour dispute have included Trevor Ogden (Durham University Journal 59, 13-24 (1966)) and Richard Coates (Nomina 8, 73-78 (1984)).

². Such a privileged status would probably have been a residue of the property's former royal ownership.

Fleet Marriages

The Fleet Prison was in the Liberties of the Fleet. Because of the Liberties privileged status, couples could marry there without a licence. The service would usually be conducted by a clergyman, who had himself been imprisoned for debt. The first known Fleet marriage took place in 1613. The number soared after an Act was passed in 1696 under which any priest who failed to read the due banns before conducting a marriage could be deprived of his benefice. Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753 ended the practice. Subsequently, the Scottish village of Gretna Green became a place where couples from south of the border went to in order to marry in haste under the unreformed marriage laws of Scotland.

Location: Old Seacoal Lane, c.EC4M 7LD (orange, red)

Norton Folgate

The Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital occupied a site that covered several acres between Shoreditch and Bishopsgate. Following the Reformation, the district became an extra-parochial liberty that was under the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of St Paul s Cathedral. Therefore, it was not subject to the City of London's authority. It had its own judiciary and governing council. During the Elizabethan era a number of playwrights - including Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe - lived in the parish.

In 1759 Norton Folgate, which covered 11.5 ac., secured an Act of Parliament for its cleaning, lighting, and watching. At the close of the eighteenth-century Norton Folgate had 24 pubs to service a population of 1750 people.

In 2008 it was reported that the Parish of Norton Folgate was claiming that its rights as a liberty had not been legally extinguished in 1900 and that therefore the planning permission that had been granted for the proposed Norman Foster-designed Broadgate Tower was invalid.

Location: Norton Folgate, E1 6DB (blue, red)

Passport To Pimlico

The movie Passport To Pimlico (1948) is an Ealing Studios comedy in which the residents of Pimlico discover that in the 15^thC King Edward IV had granted the last Duke of Burgundy a charter that made his property in Pimlico legally Burgundian territory. The film's essence is encapsulated by the line of dialogue, We always were English and we ll always be English, and it's precisely because we are English that we re sticking up for our right to be Burgundians .

G.K. Chesteron's speculative first novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) may have informed the creation of Passport To Pimlico.

Location: Ealing Studios, Ealing Green, W5 5EP

Website: https://ealingstudios.com

St Martin-le-Grand

The liberty of St Martin-le-Grand was ended by the Post Office Act of 1815.

Location: St Martin-le-Grand, EC2V 7BX (red, turquoise)

David Backhouse 2024