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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.
Of the life of its burgesses however we still know little or nothing. The names of its parishes, St. Aldate, St. Ebbe, St. Mildred, St. Edmund, show how early church after church gathered round the earlier town-church of St. Martin. But the men of the little town remain dim to us. Their town-mote, or the "Portmannimote" as it was called, which was held in the churchyard of St.
A legal connexion such as this could hardly fail to bring with it an identity of municipal rights. Oxford had already passed through the earlier steps of her advance towards municipal freedom before the conquest of the Norman. Her burghers assembled in their own Portmannimote, and their dues to the crown were assessed at a fixed sum of honey or coin.
Her citizens assembled in their Portmannimote, their free self-ruling assembly. Their merchant-guild leagued with that of London. Their dues to the Crown are assessed in Domesday at a fixed sum of honey and coin. The charter of Henry II. marks the acquisition by Oxford, probably at a far earlier date, of judicial and commercial freedom.
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