| Description | This document reproduces the texts of, and confirms the grants made within, the first charter of Edward III, 1348 (M44a/1), and the second charter of Edward III, 1363. The latter charter does not survive. The text of the 1363 charter, as transcibed into this charter, records the conditions into which Huntingdon has fallen after the Black Death of 1348-49. A quarter of the town is stated to be uninhabited, and the remainder is too poor to pay the fee farm rent. Unless assistance is quickly brought, the town will be completely bereft of human habitation, and left desolate and ruined. To alleviate this financial position, all fines levied in the borough court are to be retained by the burgesses. Additional privileges are granted, including a toll levied on foreign [non-Huntingdon] merchants for storing wheat, malt, corn and other goods in the town. |