“Commune,” in the case of London, which had acquired all other things,
expressed for its citizens the mayoralty only; “nothing else was asked
or desired by them, for it was the sole privilege which was wanting
to their burghal independence” (p. 287). We find, however, that on
the Continent the word ‘Commune’ did not of necessity imply a Mayor,
for Beauvais and Compiègne, though constituted ‘Communes,’ appear to
have had no Mayor during most of the 12th century. The chroniclers,
therefore, had they only meant to speak of the privilege of electing
a Mayor, would not have all employed a word which did not connote it,
but would have said what they meant. Moreover, his theory rests on the
assumption, common till now to all historians, that the citizens had
continuously possessed, from the beginning of the 12th century, the
privileges granted in the charter of Henry I. But I have shown, in my
‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ that these privileges were not renewed by
Henry II. or Richard I., and that this fact strikingly confirms the
explicit words of Richard of Devizes, when he states that neither the
one nor the other would have allowed the Londoners to form a ‘Commune’
even for a million of marcs.
In ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ (pp. 357–9) I insisted on the necessity
of keeping steadily in view the annual _firma_ of London and
Middlesex, and showed that it was due in respect of the two jointly,
and not, as has been alleged of Middlesex, apart from London. The
further publication of the Pipe Rolls has enabled me to develop this
position. While the citizens, as I showed, strenuously claimed to hold
the city and county at ferm for £300, as in the charter of Henry I.,
the Crown no less persistently strove to exact a _firma_ of more
than £500. The exact amount of the high _firma_ is first recorded
at the change of shrievalty in 1169. The four outgoing sheriffs at
Easter of that year account for £250 “blank” and £11 “numero,” as the
half-year’s _firma_. This represents a total for the year of £500
“blank” and £22 “numero,” which is also precisely the sum accounted
for in 1173–4.[476] The whole sum would thus amount to £547 “numero,”
by the Exchequer system. But at Midsummer, 1174, there was a great
and a sudden change. Brichtmer de Haverhelle and Peter Fitz Walter
came into office not as sheriffs, but “ut custodes,” in the Exchequer
phrase,[477] and at Michaelmas they accounted not “de firma,” but “de
exitu firme.”[478]
The sheriff farmed his county and answered for a fixed _firma_,
as a tenant is responsible for his rent; the ‘custos,’ acting for the
Crown, like a bailiff for a landowner, was responsible only for the
actual proceeds (_exitus_). This distinction meets us even on the
earliest Pipe Roll (1130).[479] It is obvious that, on the _firma_
system, the sheriff might make a profit or a loss, according as the
sources of the ferm provided more or less than the rent for which he
had to account. But the point on which I am anxious to insist is that
the sources of his ferm were by no means so elastic as is alleged.[480]
As Professor Maitland observes:
The king’s rights are pecuniary rights; he is entitled to
collect numerous small sums. Instead of these he may be willing
to take a fixed sum every year, or, in other words, to let his
rights to farm.
He further describes these rights, in the case of a borough, as
“the profits of the market and of the borough court,” together with
“the king’s burgage rents.” Each of these sources, again, could be
sub-farmed.[481] This being so, I cannot agree with Dr. Stubbs in
holding that
the sheriff was answerable to the Crown for a certain sum, and
... nothing was easier than to exact the whole of the legal sum
from the rich burghers, and take for himself the profits of the
shire; or to demand such sums as he pleased of either, without
rendering any account.[482]
For the sources of the ferm were well defined: they were limited to
certain “rights.” The burgage rents were fixed; so, we believe, were
the tolls; and the fines arising from the courts cannot have varied
much. Outside these sources the sheriff had no right to “exact”
anything from the burghers.
Here we have the explanation of an otherwise singular phenomenon. The
Crown, which was receiving, as has been shown, £547 “numero” a year
from the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, obtained less than half
that amount when its own _custodes_ were in charge! The proceeds for
the first whole year were £238 5_s._ 7_d._ “numero,” and out of this,
moreover, it had to pay Peter Fitz Walter £20 for his services, and the
clerks and serjeants (_servientes_) employed under him £8 10_s._; thus
the net receipts were only some £200 “de exitu firme de Londonia et de
Middilsexa.”[483] I infer from this that the _ferm_ extorted for London
and Middlesex had been shamefully high,[484] and that this was the
cause of the sheriffs being often laden with debt when they went out of
office,[485] as they had to make good, out of their own pockets, the
difference between the proceeds of the dues and the ferm exacted by the
Crown. It is possible that this was indeed the reason of four sheriffs,
as in 1130, being so often appointed; the loss would thus be spread
over a wider area, and the chance of recovering the debt greater. The
system, on this hypothesis, was strangely analogous to that by which,
at the present day, appointment as sheriff of a county is equivalent
to exaction of a fine by the Crown. Combining, as I have elsewhere
suggested, the fact that in 1130 each of the four sheriffs gave £12
to the Crown to be quit of his office with the clause in the earliest
charter to Rouen that no citizen should be compelled to serve as
sheriff against his will, we may certainly conclude that such sheriffs
were the victims of Crown extortion. But obscurity must still surround
the manner of their appointment.
There remains the salient fact that the Crown undoubtedly suffered a
heavy annual loss by the substitution of _custodes_ for sheriffs
in 1174. As this is a fact new to historians, one is tempted to seek
an explanation. The Crown’s loss being the city’s gain, it is at least
worth consideration that the change virtually synchronized with the
king’s arrival in London at the crisis of the feudal revolt. He was
welcomed, Fantosme tells us, by the citizens, and reminded
Ke nul peiist le Lundreis traïtres apeler.
Ne fereient traïsun pur les membres colper.
In the previous year he had been assured that they were
La plus leale gent de tut vostre regné.
Ni ad nul en la vile ki seit de tel eë
Ki puisse porter armes, ne seit très bien armé.
This testimony is in harmony with the fact they gave the Crown that
year (1173) a _novum donum_ of 1,000 marcs, supplemented by 100
marcs apiece from three leading citizens. It is, therefore, perfectly
possible that, as Rouen obtained from Henry II. a charter increasing
its privileges, as a reward for its attitude in the rebellion, London
may have been similarly rewarded by what was in practice financial
relief.
But the change did not last. After two years of the _custodes_,
they went out of office at Midsummer, 1176, their returns, “de exitu
ejusdem civitatis,” even lower than before.[486] Their place was
taken by William Fitz Isabel, whose account for the three months’
_firma_ at Michaelmas shows that it, at once, leapt up to the huge
sum formerly exacted.[487]
Having traced in ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ the fortunes of the long
struggle between the citizens and the Crown over the amount of their
_firma_--fixed at £300 by Henry the First’s charter, but raised by
Henry II. to over £500--I was led to test the chroniclers’ statements
as to 1191 by turning to the Pipe Rolls to see if the citizens’
triumph enabled them to secure that reduction on which they insisted
throughout. In the Roll of 1 Richard I. we find the _firma_, as
under Henry II., to be between £520 and £530,[488] but in the Roll of
two years later (1191) we suddenly meet with this bold entry: “Cives
Londoniæ--Willelmus de Haverhull et Johannes Bucuinte pro eis--reddunt
compotum de ccc libris blancis pro hoc anno.” This sudden return to
the old figure was effected at the very time of the change which the
chroniclers describe. The fact is as striking as it is welcome where
all is so obscure. In the following year (4 Ric. I.) we find the
_firma_ again amounting to about £300; but the difficulty of
ascertaining its sum where this is not given is, unfortunately, so
great that until the Pipe Rolls of the reign are in print we cannot
speak positively as to the endurance of this amount. In the Pipe
Roll, however, of the ninth year (1197) we find the account headed
(as in 1191): “Cives Lund[oniæ]--Nicholas Duket et Robertus Blund
pro eis--reddunt compotum de ccc libris blancis de firma Lond[onie]
et Middelsexe,” and in that of the tenth year the sum is similarly
stated to be £300 “blanch.” It is clear, therefore, that at the close
of Richard’s reign the citizens had made good their claim to farm the
city and county for £300 a year, as they had recommenced to do in 1191.
The explanation of their gaining from Richard the confirmation of
that success is probably to be found in their payment of £1,000, thus
recorded on the roll of 1195 (7 Ric. I.):
Cives Lond[onie] M et D marcas de dono suo pro benevolentia
domini Regis, _et pro libertatibus suis conservandis_, et
de auxilio suo ad redemptionem domini Regis.
In that case the king would have dealt with the _firma_, as he is known
to have dealt with the sheriffwicks of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, etc.,
and simply sold it to the citizens for a lump sum down. In this year
(7 Ric. I.), accordingly, it is again the “Cives Lond[onie],” who,
through their two representatives, account for the ferm.
It follows from this that when the citizens paid John £2,000 “pro
habendo confirmationem Regis de libertatibus suis,” they did not
obtain, as I had gathered from his charter, for the first time a
reduction of the _firma_ to £300, but a confirmation of the
reduction they had won at the crisis of 1191.
This, then, up to now has been the sum total of our knowledge: a
_commune_ was granted to London in October, 1191; the ferm of the city
was, simultaneously, reduced from over £500 to the old £300, as granted
by Henry I.; and the Mayor of London first meets us in the spring of
1193. Of the nature of the _commune_ we know nothing; of its very
existence after the autumn of 1191, we are in equal ignorance.
It is at this point that the document which follows comes to our help
with a flood of light, proving, as it does, that London, in 1193,
possessed a fully developed _commune_ of the continental pattern.
* * * * *
“_Sacramentum commune tempore regis Ricardi quando
detentus erat Alemaniam_ (_sic_).[489]
Quod fidem portabunt domino regi Ricardo de vita sua et
de membris et de terreno honore suo contra omnes homines
et feminas qui vivere possunt aut mori et quod pacem suam
servabunt et adjuvabunt servare, et quod communam tenebunt et
obedientes erunt maiori civitatis Lond[onie] et skivin[is][490]
ejusdem commune in fide regis et quod sequentur et tenebunt
considerationem maioris et skivinorum et aliorum proborum
hominum qui cum illis erunt salvo honore dei et sancte ecclesie
et fide domini regis Ricardi et salvis per omnia libertatibus
civitatis Lond[onie]. Et quod pro mercede nec pro parentela nec
pro aliqua re omittent quin jus in omnibus rebus [pro]sequentur
et teneant pro posse suo et scientia et quod ipsi communiter
in fide domini regis Ricardi sustinebunt bonum et malum et
ad vitam et ad mortem. Et si quis presumeret pacem domini
regis et regni perturbare ipsi consilio domine[491] et domini
Rothomagensis[492] et aliorum justiciarum domini regis juvabunt
fideles domini regis et illos qui pacem servare volunt pro posse
suo et pro scientia sua salvis semper in omnibus libertatibus
Lond[onie].”
Before discussing this document one may well compare it with the
Freeman’s oath at the present day, as taken by the latest honorary
freeman, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum (4th November, 1898):
“I solemnly declare that I will be good and true to our
Sovereign lady Queen Victoria, that I will be obedient to the
Mayor of this City, that I will maintain the franchises and
customs thereof, and will keep this City harmless in that which
in me is; that I will also keep the Queen’s peace in my own
person, that I will know no gatherings nor conspiracies made
against the Queen’s peace, but I will warn the Mayor thereof or
hinder it to my power; and that all these points and articles I
will well and truly keep according to the laws and customs of
this City to my power.”
The obligations of allegiance to the Sovereign, of obedience to the
Mayor, and of keeping the King’s peace against all attempts to disturb
it, remain, it will be seen, in force.
* * * * *
On the importance, in many aspects, of this unique document it is
hardly necessary to dwell. Its _formulæ_ deserve to be carefully
compared with the oaths of allegiance and of the peace; but here
one must restrict attention to its bearing on the _commune_ of
London. For the first time we learn that the government of the city
was then in the hands of a Mayor and _échevins_ (_skivini_).
Of these latter officers no one, hitherto, had even suspected the
existence. Dr. Gross, indeed, the chief specialist on English municipal
institutions, appears to consider these officers a purely continental
institution.[493] But in this document the Mayor and _échevins_ do
not exhaust the governing body. Of Aldermen, indeed, we hear nothing;
but we read of “alii probi homines” as associated with the Mayor and
_échevins_. For these we may turn to another document, fortunately
preserved in this volume, which shows us a body of “twenty-four”
connected with the government of London some twelve years later
(1205–6).
* * * * *
“_Sacramentum xxiiij^{or} factum anno regni regis
Johannis vij^{o}._
Quod legaliter intendent ad consulendum secundum suam
consuetudinem juri domini regis quod ad illos spectat in
civitate Lond[onie] salva libertate civitatis et quod de nullo
homine qui in placito sit ad civitatem spectante aliquod premium
ad suam conscientiam reciperent. Et si aliquis illorum donum
aut promissum dum in placitum fatiat illud nunquam recipient,
neque aliquis per ipsos vel pro ipsis. Et quod illi nullum
modum premii accipient, nec aliquis per ipsos vel pro ipsis,
pro injuria allevanda vel pro jure sternendo. Et concessum est
inter ipsos quod si aliquis inde attinctus vel convictus fuerit,
libertatem civitatis et eorum societatem amittet.”[494]
* * * * *
Of a body of twenty-_four_ councillors, nothing has hitherto been
known. To a body of twenty-_five_ there is this one reference:
Hoc anno fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis, et
jurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.[495]
The year is Mich. 1200–Mich. 1201; but the authority is not first-rate.
Standing alone as it does, the passage has been much discussed. The
latest exposition is that of Dr. Sharpe, Records Clerk to the City
Corporation:
Soon after John’s accession we find what appears to be the
first mention of a court of aldermen as a deliberative body.
In the year 1200, writes Thedmar (himself an alderman), “were
chosen five and twenty of the more discreet men of the city and
sworn to take counsel on behalf of the city, together with the
mayor.” Just as, in the constitution of the realm, the House of
Lords can claim a greater antiquity than the House of Commons,
so in the City--described by Lord Coke as _epitome totius
regni_--the establishment of a court of aldermen preceded
that of a common council.[496]
Mr. Loftie, however, had pointed out several years before that this
view was erroneous:
It has sometimes been assumed that this was the beginning of the
court of aldermen. As we have seen, however, the aldermen were
in existence long before, and the question is how far they were,
under ordinary circumstances, the councillors and assistants of
the mayor.[497]
To any one, indeed, who realizes what the Aldermen were it should be
obvious that the passage in question could not possibly apply to them.
In his larger work, Mr. Loftie held that these councillors eventually
became “identified with the aldermen,” but he brought out the very
important point that their number could not be that of the wards.
The twenty-five councillors who advised the Mayor in the reign
of King John had gradually become identified with the aldermen;
and this title, which at first was applied to the heads of trade
guilds and other functionaries, was henceforth confined to the
rulers of the wards.
[NOTE]. It has been suggested that the twenty-five
councillors came from the twenty-five wards, but a chronological
arrangement of the facts disposes of this idea. There were
not twenty-five wards then in existence--moreover, it would
be necessary to account for twenty-six, if the mayor is
reckoned.[498]
As, then, they were not representatives of the wards their character is
left obscure. But when we turn to the foreign evidence, the nature of
the twenty-four becomes manifest at once; and we find in it conclusive
proof that the Commune of London derived its origin from that of Rouen.
M. Giry’s able treatise on the “Établissements de Rouen” shows us the
“Vingt Quatre” forming the administrative body, annually elected, which
acted as the Mayor’s Council. And the oath they had to take on their
election, as described in the ‘Établissements,’ bears, it will be seen,
a marked resemblance to that of the “xxiiij^{or}” in London.
(II). De centum vero paribus eligentur viginti quatuor, assensu
centum parium, qui singulis annis removebuntur; quorum duodecim
eschevini vocabuntur, et alii duodecim consultores. Isti viginti
quatuor, in principio sui anni, jurabunt se servaturos jura
sancte ecclesie et fidelitatem domini regis atque justiciam quod
et ipse recte judicabunt secundum suam conscienciam, etc.
LIV. Iterum, major et eschevini et pares, in principio sui
eschevinatus, jurabunt eque judicare, nec pro inimicitia nec pro
amicitia injuste judicabunt. Iterum, jurabunt se nullos denarios
nec premia capturos, quod et eque judicabunt secundum suam
conscienciam.
LV. Si aliquis juratorum possit comperi accepisse premium pro
aliqua questione de qua aliquis trahatur in eschevinagio,
domus ejus ... prosternatur, nec amplius ille qui super hoc
deliraverit, nec ipse, nec heres ejus dominatum in communia
habebit.
The three salient features in common are (1) the oath to administer
justice fairly, (2) the special provisions against bribery, (3) the
expulsion of any member of the body convicted of receiving a bribe.
If we had only “the oath of the Commune,” we might have remained in
doubt as to the nature of the administrative body; but we can now
assert, on continental analogy, that its twenty-four members comprised
twelve “skevini” and an equal number of councillors. We can also assert
that it administered justice, even though this has been unsuspected,
and may, indeed, at first arouse question.
It will, naturally, now be asked: What became of these “twenty-four,”
who formed the Mayor’s council in the days of John? Mr. Loftie, we
have seen, held that they became “identified with the Aldermen”; my
own view is that, on the contrary, they were the germ of the Common
Council. The vital distinction to be kept in mind is that the Alderman
was essentially the officer in charge of a ward, while the Common
Council, as one body, represented the City as a whole. In questions
of this kind little reliance can be placed on late commentators; but
the _formulæ_ of oaths are usually ancient, and often enshrine
information on the duties of an office in the past. Now the oath of a
member of the Common Council contains significant clauses:
Sacramentum ... hominum ad Commune Consilium electorum est tale:
... bonum et fidele consilium dabis, secundum sensum et scire
tuum; et pro nullius favore manutenebis proficium singulare
contra proficium publicum vel commune dictæ civitatis; et
postquam veneris ad Commune Consilium, sine causa rationabili
vel Majoris licentia non recedes priusquam Major et socii sui
recesserint; et quod dictum fuerit in Communi Consilio celabis,
etc.[499]
It is not only that this is essentially the oath of one whose
function it is to be a councillor: the striking point is that it
contains three provisions in common with those which bound, at Rouen,
the “Vingtquatre.” The councillor was (1) not to be influenced by
private favour; (2) not to leave the Council without the Mayor’s
permission;[500] (3) to keep secret its proceedings.[501] I do not
say, of course, that there is verbal concordance; but when we turn to
the oath of the Alderman, we see at once how much less resemblance his
duties have to those of the “Twenty-four.”[502] It presents him as
primarily the head of a Ward, responsible for certain matters within
the compass of that Ward. He has to take part with the Mayor in assize,
pleas, and hustings;[503] but his functions as councillor obtain only a
brief mention in his oath (“et que boun et loial conseil durrez a ley
choses touchantz le comune profit en mesme la citee”).
If any doubt is felt on the subject, it should be removed by turning to
the case of Winchester. There, as in London, according to the ancient
custumal of the city, we find the Mayor closely associated with a
council of “Twenty-four,” which, in that case, continued to exist down
to 1835:
Il iert en la vile mere eleu par commun assentement des vint et
quatre jures et de la commune ... le quel mere soit remuable de
an en an ... Derechef en la cite deivent estre vint et quatre
jurez esluz des plus prudeshommes e des plus sages de la vile e
leaument eider e conseiller le avandit mere a franchise sauver
et sustener.[504]
It is clear, to me, that “the Twenty-Four” were no more elected by
the Wards (as is persistently believed) in London than at Winchester,
but by the city as a whole, though we must not define the Franchise.
The Winchester Aldermen, on the contrary, were distinctly district
officers, as in London, “whose functions related chiefly, but
not wholly, to the police and preservation of order, health, and
cleanliness within their several limits.”[505] Moreover, they retained
at Winchester, down to a late period, their distinct character and
existence. According to Dean Kitchin:
The aldermen, in later days the civic aristocracy, were
originally officers placed over each of the wards of the city,
and entrusted with the administration of it.... It was not till
early in the sixteenth century that they were interposed between
the mayor and the twenty-four men.[506]
The general powers for the whole town possessed by the Mayor and his
council were quite distinct from the local powers of each Alderman in
his district. For my part, I cannot resist the impression that, while
the sheriff, bailiff, or reeve represented the power of the Crown,
and the Alderman the old local officer, the council of twenty-four,
so closely associated with the Mayor, and not the representatives of
districts, were a later introduction, of different character, and
representing the commercial as against the territorial element. Whether
the Aldermen joined the council in later days or not, they were never,
I believe, originally or essentially, a part of that body.
The chief objection, probably, to connecting the “commune” of London
with the “Établissements de Rouen” will be found in the fact that the
latter refer to a system based on a body of a hundred _pares_, of which
body there does not seem to be any trace in England. At Winchester
the _pares_ were “the twenty-four.” It is obvious that, in this
respect, there is a marked discrepancy; but if the electoral body was
different, the executive, at any rate, was the same. And if, as must be
admitted, there was a foreign element introduced, it would be naturally
from Normandy that it came.[507]
Writing in 1893, before I had discovered the documents on which I
have dwelt above, I insisted on the _foreign_ origin of the London
“commune,” and pointed out that the close association between London
and Rouen at the time suggested that the office of Mayor was derived by
the former from the latter.[508] It may be permissible to repeat this
argument from presumption, although its form was adapted to a wider
circle than that of scholars.