Freedom of the City

• 1. Introduction

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  Freedom of the City is one of the oldest civic honours in the English-speaking world, and its roots reach back far beyond any modern city hall. In medieval Europe, a freeman was not simply a respected person. Being a freeman meant you were not a vassal, not bound to a feudal lord, not a serf. The distinction mattered enormously. It meant you could trade, own property, and move through a walled city under the protection of its charter. Today, that same title is given to athletes, prime ministers, actors, and military regiments, yet it carries almost none of its original legal weight. What happened to turn a hard-won legal status into a ceremonial ribbon? And what do a flock of sheep crossing London Bridge, the assassination of Julius Caesar, and a Calgary cowboy hat all have to do with one another? Those threads run through the long, strange history of the Freedom of the City.

• 2. Medieval Roots

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  Before modern boroughs existed, freemen did. That sequence matters because it explains why the Freedom of the City feels ancient even when practiced today. Medieval town charters drew a sharp line between two kinds of people: those who were free, and those who were not. Vassals owed loyalty and labour to a lord. Freemen owed neither. They could buy and sell goods, hold property, and rely on the town's legal protection. Early freedom-of-borough ceremonies were not polite formalities. They were public affirmations of rights that had real economic and personal consequences.

  Similar laws were passed by European cities throughout the medieval era to protect public security and civic rights, even against the troops of their own king. Armies were routinely forced to camp outside city walls during the winter months. A soldier's unit could only march inside if the local populace had extended their trust, either through some valiant act or through long familiarity. That trust, once given, was the Freedom of Entry. It is in some ways the most literal form the honour ever took: the freedom to walk through the gate.

• 3. Rome and the Sacred Boundary

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  The ancient Romans understood the line between city and battlefield as a religious boundary, not just a political one. They called it the pomerium, the sacred edge of the city, and it was treated as genuinely inviolable. Generals and promagistrates, no matter how powerful, were required to resign their military authority the moment they crossed it. An exception existed only for the triumph, the formal victory celebration, and even then the general was permitted inside for one day only.

  Soldiers who marched in a triumph wore civilian dress rather than armour, because inside the pomerium they reverted to the status of citizens, not warriors. Weapons were banned within the boundary for religious and traditional reasons. The assassination of Julius Caesar is sometimes connected to this framework because it occurred outside this boundary. The parallel to medieval Europe is direct: the idea that armed force needed explicit civic permission to enter a city runs from ancient Rome through the centuries-long tradition of soldiers camping outside walled towns.

• 4. London's Living Ceremony

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  The Freedom of the City of London was first recorded in 1237, making it the most established borough freedom in England. For much of its history it was closely tied to the livery companies, the guild-like trade associations that shaped London's economy. From 1835, the freedom became available through a general resolution of Common Council, without requiring a livery company's involvement. Today a person can receive it through servitude, patrimony, nomination, or presentation via a livery company. Freedom through nomination by two sponsors is available for a fee, though it is free to those on the electoral roll of the City of London.

  New freemen are enrolled in a ceremony at Guildhall, where they receive a sealed certificate and a guide to living an honourable life. Children of freemen receive admission preference at the City of London Freemen's School. Then there are the rights that are traditional but openly acknowledged to be apocryphal: the right to drive sheep and cattle over London Bridge, the right to a silken rope if hanged, the right to carry a naked sword in public, and the informal understanding that if a City of London Police officer finds a freeman drunk and incapable, they will bundle that person into a taxi rather than a cell.

  Those sheep rights have in fact been exercised. On the 19th of August 1999, Jef Smith, a freeman of London, walked two sheep over Tower Bridge to draw attention to the rights of older citizens. On the 17th of June 2006, around thirty sheep were driven across the Millennium Bridge to mark the start of London Architecture Week. On the 31st of August 2008, Amanda Cottrell, former High Sheriff of Kent, marched six rams across London Bridge to raise funds for the restoration of Canterbury Cathedral. On the 17th of September 2008, the Lord Mayor David Lewis joined some five hundred freemen driving Romney ewes across London Bridge to raise funds for the charities Orbis and Wellbeing of Women. On the 7th of April 2013, actor and presenter Stephen Fry drove a year-old lamb named Grace over London Bridge for a documentary called Stephen Fry's Key To The City. On the 27th of April 2019, Simone Lakmaker drove a ram named Mark from Spitalfields City Farm over London Bridge as part of her eightieth birthday celebrations and to raise awareness for her charity the Speaking Out Forum. By 2015, the event had become an annual occasion organised by the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, typically raising funds for the Lord Mayor's Appeal.

• 5. Patrimony and Apprenticeship

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  Across the United Kingdom, two categories determine who can claim the older, hereditary form of borough freedom: patrimony and servitude. Patrimony means inheritance through family descent; servitude means completing an apprenticeship. The exact rules differ markedly from city to city.

  In Chester, only children or grandchildren of freemen may apply. In York, the lineage extends to great-great-grandchildren, and apprenticeship to a freeman of the city also qualifies. In Great Grimsby, the widow of a freeman passes his rights to her second husband, who retains the privilege even after divorce from or death of the widow. Durham and Northampton have opened their criteria to those who served an apprenticeship without being trained by a freeman directly. Freemen of Newcastle upon Tyne hold the right to graze cattle on the town moor.

  York's records of freemen date to 1272 and reach back into the Anglo-Saxon period. Women were admitted in York during medieval times, but that right was forgotten for a time until the late 1970s, when the Gild carried out research and rediscovered it. The honour carries a formal ceremony with the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall, usually held in October. Prince Andrew, Duke of York, received the honour in 1986, but a vote by York councillors later stripped him of the title after allegations of sexual abuse became public.

• 6. Reform and Expansion

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  Before parliamentary reform in 1832, freedom of the city in the United Kingdom conferred something tangible and politically significant: the right to vote in parliamentary boroughs. Until the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, freemen were the exclusive electorate for some of those boroughs. Those two pieces of legislation together cut back the power of freemen and extended voting rights to all householders, defined as local rate payers and thus in practice property owners.

  What the reforms did not touch was private property collectively owned by freemen. The freemen of York, Oxford, and Newcastle upon Tyne still hold considerable areas within their towns, though the income from that land is effectively directed toward charitable purposes. The Local Government Act 1972 specifically preserved freemen's rights. The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 removed any restrictions that had allowed only men to become freemen, and extended the ability to confer honorary freedom to any county, city, district, borough, town, parish, or community council. Under the 1972 Act as amended, a council can grant honorary freedom to persons of distinction or those who have rendered eminent services to the local area. A special meeting of the council must pass a resolution with a two-thirds majority to do so.

• 7. Keys, Hats, and Carnival Princes

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  The key to the city developed as a variation on the freedom tradition, particularly in the United States and parts of Continental Europe. The symbolism reaches back to medieval walled cities, whose gates were guarded during the day and locked at night. Presenting a key to an honoured visitor evoked the idea of that person being trusted enough to enter and leave at will, as a friend of the residents. Some American cities award honorary citizenship with just a certificate in place of a key.

  In cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, the key to the city follows a carnival logic rather than a civic dignity logic. The so-called prince carnival, who leads the festivities in the week before Septuagesima, receives the key when the mayor symbolically steps down. The prince carnival returns the key at the end of Shrove Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras. In Latin America, a similar role is played by King Momo, who receives the key at the start of Rio Carnival. In Tampa, Florida, the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival stages a recreation of a friendly invasion by the crew of the mythical pirate Jose Gaspar, with costumed pirates arriving at the Tampa Convention Center and demanding the mayor surrender the key in a playful ceremony.

  In 2016, the Canadian recording artist Drake received a key to the city of Toronto, presented by mayor John Tory. Calgary, characteristically, takes its own path: it awards esteemed visitors a symbolic cowboy hat instead of a key, followed by one of two oaths to become an honorary Calgarian, one formal and one described as more silly.

• 8. Military Honour

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  When a regiment receives the Freedom of the City today, the accompanying parade is the point. The old formula describes the privilege as the right to march "with drums beating, colours flying, and bayonets fixed", a phrase that carries the full weight of the tradition in nine words. In Canada, the Calgary Highlanders, known as the 10th Canadians, commemorate the Battle of Kitcheners' Wood with an annual freedom of the city parade, tying the honour directly to a specific military action.

  The Freedom of the City of Belfast has been given to a notably varied list of recipients that includes athlete Mary Peters, actor Kenneth Branagh, diplomat John Jordan, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, shipowner Thomas Henry Ismay, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In Ireland, the freedom is generally reserved for noted foreign and national dignitaries, and the list in any given city rarely exceeds a few dozen. Dublin freemen receive the right to vote in certain elections, bring goods for sale in the city without customs, and pasture sheep on common ground including College Green and St. Stephen's Green, echoing the livestock rights that once meant something very real in London.