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Each of the four wards of York had its common pasture; Oxford has still its own "Port-meadow." The inner rule of the borough lay as in the townships about it in the hands of its own freemen, gathered in "borough-moot" or "portmanni-mote."
Even then lands, islands, pastures belonged to it, and amongst them the same Port-meadow which is familiar to Oxford men pulling lazily on a summer's noon to Godstow. The connexion between the two gilds was primarily one of trade.
Frideswide, in becoming the later cathedral, has brought down to our own times the memory of the ecclesiastical origins to which the little borough owed its existence. But the men themselves are dim to us. Their town-meeting, their Portmannimote, still lives in shadowy fashion as the Freeman's Common Hall; their town-mead is still Port-meadow.
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.
Martin, still lives in a shadow of its older self as the Freeman's Common Hall their town-mead is still the Port-meadow.
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