N the last two chapters we discussed the history of the Burgesses, or, as they were first called, the Free Tenants of Sheffield. It was they who formed the ruling caste. They held their land in "free" socage, and we may infer from the negative evidence afforded by the Furnival Charter and the books of the "Town Trustees" that at an early period they had attained a high state of social development, the evidence contained in these books being little more than echoes or scanty survivals from a long and unremembered past.
The very mention of a "free" class of men necessarily implies the existence of a class which was not free, and which, if not in actual serfdom, had not, at all events, the same social rights as the Burgesses. We have seen that the Burgesses held their land in free socage, and that the "sokemen" of the Doomsday Book are only found in the Danish parts of England. There is some reason therefore for believing that the Burgesses of Sheffield were originally a band or colony of Danish settlers.
We have seen that this ruling or higher caste has left traces of its early existence amongst us, and we have also seen that its system of local government survives to this very day in the bodies known as the "Town Trustees" and the Twelve Capital Burgesses.
Although, as I have said, the existence of a free class necessarily implies the existence of an unfree class, yet the traces or remains of such a class are not now to be found, except, indeed, in the copyholder or tenant in pure villenage, who, in the manor of Sheffield, holds his land "by the straw," and "at the will" of the lord, the freeman only being capable of holding real estate in fee simple. But there is evidence that in early times a body of men known as "Irish," or perhaps as "Scots," settled in Sheffield by the side of the Teutonic colonists, and occupied a quarter of their own. I have no evidence to show that these "Irish" were ever in a state of serfdom under the dominant inhabitants, but it is clear that they formed a separate class or caste.
At the bottom of Prior Gate, otherwise High street, stood a cross which in Gosling's plan is called Market Cross. On the same plan the street below is called Market Place, now Angel street, and it extends to the Irish Cross, which stood at the junction of Snig hill, Water lane, and Castle Green head, Bank street not having been made at the date of the plan. Both these crosses are figured in the plan, and the Irish Cross is mentioned in a deed of the year 1499. We may infer from this that, at a remote period, the inhabitants of Sheffield were divided into at least two distinct races, each having its own market. If, for the sake of argument, we call the Market Cross the English Cross, to distinguish it from the Irish Cross, we shall get an idea of what the distinction was. These two market crosses imply nothing less than the division of Sheffield into two distinct races. "If," says Mr. Gomme, "we only possessed early maps of all our towns it would be seen how the formation of the village was almost invariably based upon the aggregation of different clans." Further on he says "the mode of settlement in some of our great towns exhibits clear traces of tribal divisions. At Nottingham, until so recently as 1715, the market place was divided lengthwise by an ancient wall breast-high, supposed to have been erected to provide separate market-places for the irreconcilable Saxons and Normans. This wall was taken down about this date, and the market-place for the first time was paved. This division is most probably much older than the Norman era, as at Nottingham we have that remarkable instance of a difference between the two parts of the town in the modes of descent of property, one part following the rule of primogeniture, the other that of junior right, or borough English, and junior right is, at all events, older than political history." Mr. Gomme quotes the "Statistical Survey of Roscommon" thus: "In many of the ancient corporate towns and boroughs in Ireland, certain quarters are known under the appellation of Irish Town, and were occupied by the so-called 'mere Irish,' in contradistinction to the more favoured inhabitants of a different caste. In walled towns the quarters very commonly stood outside." In Sheffield the lower caste seems to have been settled under the castle walls, and to have extended thence in a northerly and westerly direction towards Shales Moor, or Shale Moor, and towards Scotland street.