Mr. Round seems to imply that Simon Maudit (whom he misnames "Hugh") was an "unscrupulous bailiff" invented by the Jurats, "on whom they bestow the appropriate name of Hugh the Accursed (Hugo Maudit)." But Simon Maudit was a real person: a son of his entered the Guild Merchant in 1209. The toll-collector was only too genuine: the Jurats' point was that his actions were wrong.
All this has nothing to do directly with bridges, but the same Jurats were also enquiring at the same time into the origin of bridge-silver. If suspicion rests upon one of their findings, its shadow is thrown over the other. Our doubts are again raised when we find that, in the case of bridge-silver, the Leicester burgesses tried to make out a plea exactly similar to that which they presented with regard to gavel-pence. They would have it that the impost was an exaction created by a Norman Earl, and that there had been grave irregularities in its collection. But their story cannot be accepted. The "pontagium," as its name denotes, was a toll paid for the making and upkeep of bridges, as at Nottingham and elsewhere, and had nothing to do with the wood collected in Leicester Forest.
The burgesses secured from Simon de Montfort a charter abolishing both pontage and gavelpence; but, in spite of their eloquent pleading, they were compelled to pay rather heavily for it. Besides having to make a certain annual payment, which appears in the charter of redemption, they were also obliged to buy up, and hand over to the Earl, some rents that cost a considerable sum. They gave, for instance, 33 marks (£22), for a rent that had been paid to Simon de Salcey. A loan was raised among themselves to enable the town to make these payments.
It is not clear that the proceeds of bridge-silver were made use of by the Earl in providing the cost of building and repairing bridges, though Kelly thought that Earl Robert de Beaumont imposed the tax in order to cover the cost of building the West Bridge. The community had certainly taken a large share in this work long before Simon de Montfort's charter. In the earliest rolls of the Guild Merchant that have come down to us, dated from the end of the 12th century, we read of money being contributed "ad opus pontis," or "ad pontes emendandos."
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