Excerpt from The Victoria History of the Counties of England Lancashire, Vol. 4<br><br>The privileges which John promised to the occu pants of the burgages are included under the general phrase all the liberties and free customs which any free borough on the sea has in our land.' This, if taken literally, would place Liverpool from the outset at the same level of burghal liberties as Bristol and Southampton but probably nothing of the sort was intended, and the phrase is to be taken merely as securing to the burgesses personal liberty, freedom from service, free tenure of land, and exemption from the payment of tolls within the limits of the borough, though seemingly not beyond them. The grants of John are essentially promises to individuals, not formal concessions of powers to an organized community. During the next twenty-two years the borough was doubtless governed by a royal bailiff or steward, and the burgesses were represented, as in the rural period, by a reeve. Probably, however, 1207 saw also the establishment of a weekly market and an annual fair, the erection of a mill, and perhaps of a chapel.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.