have been identified. It is clear that the guild of S. Benedict at
Lincoln was a society of traders or merchants, who traded on loans from
the common fund, paying back half of the increase they made on it.
(English Guilds, 174.) Among other instances see the Guild of S. John
Baptist at Hull (Lambert’s Guild Life, 112, etc. 118, 232, 233); Corpus
Christi (ibid. 124); Holy Trinity (ibid. 126.) A very curious and
interesting account of the formal founding of the Pepperers’ Company as
the Fraternity of S. Anthony in the Monastery of Bury, 1345, is given
in Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i., xvii. Compare the records given on
8-15. It had become the Grocers’ Company by 1373. The Drapers’ Guild in
Shrewsbury was originally the Guild of the Trinity. (Hibbert’s Inf. and
Dev. of Eng. Guilds, 32.) For other instances see Chapter V. The custom
was so common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that it is
highly probable that under any stress of difficulty it would have been
resorted to in earlier days. The artizans must have been fully aware
of the fact disclosed to us by the two forms of summonses for guild
returns issued in 1388, one for the religious and one for the trading
guilds—the fact that the two forms of association were regarded in a
different way by the government. Some guilds are avowedly of a double
character. (English Guilds, 126-128, 179-185.)
[285] See note A at end of chapter.
[286] Riley’s Mem. 627; see also 118, 120-1, 153-4.
[287] Riley’s Mem. 341.
[288] In the second half of the fourteenth century the London guild
ordinances are in the main simply rules against bad or deceitful wares.
See the chandlers, curriers and pelterers, cappers, potters, &c.
Riley’s Mem. 118, 358; Lib. Cus. 94, 101; goldsmiths, Schanz, i. 613-4.
[289] Mem. Lond. 293.
[290] Lib. Cus. 100.
[291] Mem. Lond. 280-2.
[292] Riley’s Liber Custumarum, 101. See the case of the weavers infra
p. 160, where the craft tried to shorten hours and the town forbade it.
[293] Ordinances of Pewterers. Riley’s Mem. 243. See also glovers and
hatters, &c., 239, 246.
[294] Ibid. 226.
[295] Riley’s Mem. 226-7.
[296] Ibid. 218.
[297] Annual congregations made by the masons were forbidden by statute
of Richard II., continued by later Kings (3 Henry VI., cap. i.). The
anxiety of the government was quickened by the number of tilers who
took part in the Peasants’ Revolt. (Stubbs, ii. 496.) Cf. The Common
Weal (ed. Miss Lamond), 88-9.
[298] Statutes of the Realm, 3 Edward IV. cap. 4; ibid. 4 Edward IV.
cap. 1. A law of 1410 withdrew from the worsted-weavers and merchants
of Norwich the supervision of the cloth trade that had been granted
to them in 1348 (Ashley, Woollen Industry, 54-5); and handed over to
the mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of Norwich, the right of measuring
and sealing all worsteds made in Norwich or Norfolk. (Blomefield,
iii. 125.) A later law enacted that “the worsted shearers in Norwich
shall make no ordinance but such as the Mayor and Alderman shall think
necessary.” (Stat. 1494, cap. xi.) In the fifteenth century the Privy
Council took away from the Bakers’ and Tailors’ Crafts in London
the right of search in their trades which had been granted to their
Wardens, and restored it to the Mayor, and ordered the crafts to obey
the Mayor after the old usages, customs, and laws of London. 1442.
Proceedings Privy Council, v. 196; Seligman, Med. Guilds, 82; Schanz,
i. 617.
[299] The mayor and aldermen of London had full jurisdiction over
all the various trades quite early in the fourteenth century. Two
master-masons were reconciled before the mayor of London in 1298. (Mem.
Lond. 38.) For early part of the fourteenth century see ibid. 90, 118,
120, 153-4, 216, 156, 178, 245-6.
[300] In “the ordinances of the Hull Guilds from 1490 to 1723 there is
no authorization by any but the mayor of the town.” (Lambert’s Guild
Life, 188.) For municipal authority over the Shrewsbury Guilds see
Hibbert, 40, 85-6. For Norwich, Blomefield, iii. 130.
[301] A law of 1413 ordered the registration of charters and approval
of ordinances and bye-laws—a law which was repeated by the Statute
of Henry VI. to prevent the masters of guilds and fraternities making
ordinances to the damage of the King or the people, when it was again
decreed that all their rules should be certified and registered by
Justices of the Peace or by the chief magistrates of cities or towns.
15 Henry VI., cap. 6. See also 19 Henry VII., cap. 7.
[302] English Guilds, 283-286.
[303] Ricart, 78. The examples are too numerous to give. But see the
ordinances drawn up in 1448 for the Tailors’ Guild of Lynn by the Mayor
and the Council. It was ordered that no new tailor should set up in
business unless he was considered “sufficient in conning” not only by
the two head men of his craft, but also by the mayor. Every tailor
admitted to the guild had to pay a fine as entrance fee to the Mayor
and another to the community, as well as his payment to the Guild;
and paid a yearly fee to the town for any sewers and apprentices whom
he employed. Quarrels between shapers and sewers were to be settled
by the Mayor and the head men of the craft. If a tailor sent home an
ill-fitting garment the buyer might bring his complaint to the Mayor’s
Court, and claim amends before the Mayor and the head men of the craft
on condition of paying a fine of 3_s._ 4_d._ if he did not prove his
case. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 165-6.)
[304] Miss Dormer Harris has kindly given me the rules at Coventry as
to how a craft was to proceed to the punishment of a member in 1518.
The master of the craft was first to ask a “reasonable penalty;” if the
offender refused to pay, the master was to apply again after three or
four days and have the refusal recorded; and in case the refusal was
repeated a second time he and three or four of the “honest men” of the
craft were to come to the mayor; and the mayor and one of the justices
were to command the offender to pay a double penalty; and if he refused
yet again, to commit him to prison until it was paid to the craft. At
the same time the offender was to desire the master to be “good master
to him and his good lover.” If the penalty were more than would suffice
for a pound of wax, the remainder was to go to common box, _i.e._, the
city funds.
[305] The tilers were strictly ruled by statute as to how the various
tiles should be made, thatch tile, roof tile, gutter tile, and so on;
how the earth should be prepared and how big the tiles should be.
Justices of the Peace, that is in towns the Mayor and the Aldermen,
were to hear the cases against offenders and appoint searchers. (17
Edward IV. cap. 4.)
[306] Mem. Lond. 308.
[307] English Guilds, 386, 398-9.
[308] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.
[309] Nott. Rec. i. 197. In Winchester every bureller had to give one
cloth yearly to the King’s ferm. (English Guilds, 351.)
[310] Enforced contribution of crafts was common; and the cost
considerable. (Gross, ii. 51; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 166, 225; ibid.
ix. 173-5.) See Kingdon, ii. 260, 318, &c. In Coventry there were
complaints in 1494 that the dyers, skinners, fishmongers, &c., were so
“self-willed” that they could not be made to contribute to pageants.
See Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Gilds, 63. For the whole question
of plays and pageants see Davidson’s Studies in Eng. Mystery Plays,
printed by Yale University, 1892. The Corpus Christi processions became
after the order of the Council of Vienne, 1318, exceedingly popular;
the guilds of Corpus Christi, having charge of the procession, not of
the plays (91-2), were probably generally composed of the upper class
of people. A list of Miracle Plays and Mysteries has been made for
students by F. Stoddard, California University, 1887.
[311] Von Ochenkowski thinks the relation of municipalities and crafts
depended on the relative force of the three principles then contending
for the mastery—feudal rights, the king’s will, and the common law;
in the conflicts between guilds and towns he sees the alternating
forces of the king’s law and of the common law. (Wirthschaftliche
Entwickelung, 59-60.) Many homelier causes than this were probably at
work.
[312] The surprising number of guilds formed under Richard the Second
and during the next hundred years must strike any one who looks at the
town records. As a single example see the list given for Shrewsbury
in Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Gilds, 58-9. In many cases it can
be proved that the new fraternity was really an old one, but its
re-constitution is as important as a new creation.
[313] Boys’ Sandwich, 678, 680.
[314] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173-4. “Provided always that any such masters
so elected shall be none of the same crafts or mysteries whereof they
shall be elected.”
[315] Boys, 685, &c.
[316] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173-5, 148. Sometimes wealthy guilds united
to gain a monopoly of power in the borough. There was a tendency to
combine even in the poorer social or religious fraternities. (Eng.
Gilds, 219.) A decline took place in the number of miracle plays for
the crafts. Pollard’s Miracle Plays, xxx.
[317] See the curious provision made by the mayor of London at the
request of the farriers to get their bills paid. (Riley’s Mem. Lond.
294.)
[318] English Guilds, 285.
[319] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.
[320] Shillingford’s Letters (Camden Soc.) 4.
[321] Though this body of Twelve appears first in the records in 1344,
it is impossible to doubt that it was of earlier origin, in view of the
custom of other boroughs. In the same way the notices in 1288, 1301,
and later, of the electing jury do not by any means imply that these
were its first appearances, and all analogy would point to an opposite
conclusion.
[322] Freeman’s Exeter, 147, 149.
[323] Mr. Freeman seems to suggest that the Council of Exeter was
formed by the habitual summoning of certain members of the Assembly to
advise the mayor, and speaks of it as “a committee of the whole body.”
(Ibid. p. 152.) It is, however, not yet certainly ascertained whether
the evidence bears out this view as regards Exeter.
[324] The regular list of recorders or law officers begins in 1354.
Freeman’s Exeter, 154.
[325] Freeman’s Exeter, 146-7. English Guilds, 303, 307, 308.
[326] Both these classes admitted “out-brothers,” probably
“foreigners,” who paid half fees.
[327] English Guilds, 313-316.
[328] Ibid. 318, 324, 327.
[329] Ibid. 321-2.
[330] His first charter to the Tailors was in 1461 (Gross i. 124 n.
2); the second in 1466. A different instance occurs in Shrewsbury,
when Edward the Fourth gave in 1461 a charter to the Fraternity of the
Blessed Trinity making it into the company of the Drapers. (Hibbert’s
Influence and Development of English Guilds, 59.)
[331] English Guilds, 301, 307, 310. Gross i. 124.
[332] English Guilds, 309-311.
[333] English Guilds, 302-304.
[334] Ibid. 303.
[335] English Guilds, 304-8.
[336] English Guilds, 324.
[337] Ibid. 326.
[338] English Guilds, 323.
[339] Ibid. 331-4.
[340] Ibid. 334-7.
[341] This forms the earliest account we possess of the costs of a
private bill. Ibid. 308-311.
[342] Freeman’s Exeter, 146-154.
[343] English Guilds, 328.
[344] See Chapter XIII. p. 352-4.
[345] In 1376 the judges held that no guild could be established save
by royal charter. (Seligman in his Med. Guilds p. 66, quotes Year
Book 49, Edward III. fol. 36.) On the other hand in 1376 the commons
presented a petition complaining that many of the mayors were prevented
from exercising their office thoroughly by the special charters which
had been granted to certain misteries and praying that these special
charters might be withdrawn so as to strengthen the hands of the local
authorities. (Rot. Parl. ii. 331 No. 54.) See Gross i. 113 note 2. For
instances of royal charters to guilds see the Mercers of Shrewsbury
(Hibbert, 64), the Tailors of London (Clode’s Merchant Tailors), and
various companies in Hull (Lambert’s Two Thousand Years of Guild Life).
[346] A curious instance is given in Hull in which one of the county
magnates made use of the guild as an instrument for getting hold of the
borough representation in Parliament. (Lambert’s Two Thousand Years of
Guild Life, 182.)
[347] The story of the Hull Merchants’ Company is very instructive.
Ibid. 180, etc.
[348] See Chapter VIII. The union of crafts in a guild at Walsall
(Gross ii. 248) before 1440 seems to have been very like the union
of crafts at Coventry a century earlier to get control of the town
government, “in eschewing of such great misorder and inconvenience as
here of late hath fortuned and happened.”
[349] Carlisle Mun. Rec. ed. Ferguson and Nansen 89-99.
[350] The town customs and bye-laws were drawn up in 1561 by “the
Mayor and Council with four of every occupation in the aforesaid city,
for and in the name of the whole citizens (Carlisle Mun. Rec. 28, 29,
59). In Beverley the alderman of merchants and twenty-one aldermen of
various crafts gave assent in the fifteenth century to ordinances of
the governors.” (Gross, ii. 23.)
[351] Gross, ii. 380-3.
[352] See Chapter XIII. 374-5.
[353] Gross, i. 111, note 3. The cases of Durham and Morpeth here
mentioned are very late.
[354] Ibid. 112, note 4.
[355] Ibid. i. 124 note 2. Von Ochenkowski (Wirthschaftliche
Entwickelung, 67) argues that this regulation was made in consequence
of the mediæval view of trade as a public trust not a mere individual
act; and that skill in craft was taken as a test of uprightness of
character and a pledge of fitness for citizenship. From this conclusion
follows the belief, which in its turn supports the conclusion, that the
rule was one imposed by the town authorities and not by the will of the
crafts.
[356] Stubbs, iii. 607.
[357] This history has been treated by Dr. Gross in his “Gild
Merchant.” In the thirteenth century Merchant Guilds existed in at
least one-third and probably in a much greater proportion of the
English boroughs. (Gross, i. 2, 22, 158.)
[358] Ibid. i. 107.
[359] Gross, i. 74, 107, 108, note 3, 109. There were clergy and women
in the Andover Guild (Ibid. ii. 299, 321); and in Coventry (English
Guilds, 228).
[360] Gross, i. 66-71, ii. 236.
[361] Ibid. i. 43, 61, 158-9.
[362] Ibid. i. 282-3.
[363] Gross, i. 61-63, 85. Sometimes the grant of a guild was given
before the grant of other rights. In other cases it followed. Thus
in Gloucester the first charter was given by Henry the Second “to my
burgesses of Gloucester” in 1155. The Guild did not appear in the
charter till 1200, when John granted certain municipal rights to “our
burgesses of Gloucester,” and others mainly of a trading sort to “our
burgesses of Gloucester of the Merchant Guild”; and in 1227 a charter
of Henry the Third seems for the first time to enact that burgesses
must not only dwell in the borough, hold land, and pay lot and scot,
but must also “be in the Merchant Guild and Hanse.”
[364] Ibid. i. 43-52, 158-9.
[365] Ibid. i. 63, 85, 114. “In some places their powers appear to have
been gradually enlarged during the thirteenth century so as to embrace
jurisdiction in pleas relating to trade.” (Ibid. 65.)
[366] Ibid. i. 114-115.
[367] Gross, i. 117, 159-60.
[368] Ibid. i. 116.
[369] Dr. Gross holds that all guilds of merchants formed after the
decline of the Gilda Mercatoria in the thirteenth century must be
considered as being merely craft-unions of the ordinary kind—in most
cases superseding the Guild Merchant (i. 129).
[370] By Dr. Gross’s definition, “What had once been a distinct
integral part of the civic body politic became vaguely blended with the
whole of it.” (Gross, i. 159-60, 163.)
[371] This is stated to have been very rare. (Ibid. p. 114.)
[372] Ibid. 118, 163. The appellation of the Guild Merchant “was
more frequently applied to the aggregate of the crafts” than to the
governing body of the borough. (Ibid. i. 114.) In Carlisle had the term
“been used at all, _it would probably have been applied_ to the eight
guilds aggregately, rather than to the Corporation.” (Ibid. ii. 40.) In
proving that the later Guild Merchant was “an aggregate of the crafts,”
Dr. Gross carries us at a single step into a much later period (pp.
118-123), where the name tells us little apart from the history of the
borough. The case of Coventry seems a doubtful instance.
[373] Gross, i. 161, 163. Lynn is given as an illustration of this
change, but the evidence is not adduced.
[374] Ibid. i. 118. No instance is given of this.
[375] Dr. Gross argues that any struggle which did take place was not
between the Guild Merchant and the crafts, but between “the governing
council (the “magnates,” “potentiores,” etc.) on the one side and the
burgesses at large (“communitas,” “populus,” “minores”) on the other.”
(Gross i. 110, 285.) The “magnates” of Norwich (Hudson’s Mun. Org.
p. 24-5), or “les riches” of the city records, ruled in a city where
there was no Guild Merchant. The “potentiores” of Lynn seem from the
printed records to have been the Guild Merchant. In the town records
“communitas” cannot be understood as synonymous with “populus,” still
less with “minores.”
[376] Gross, i. 109. “Not a single unmistakable example of such a
conflict has ever been deduced.” On this point Seligman (Mediæval
Guilds, 57-8) speaks very dogmatically on most inconclusive evidence,
so far as this is given in his notes. The analogy on p. 58 of craft
guilds including smaller unions is not shewn, nor their common
occurrence proved.
[377] In London, Norwich, and the Cinque Ports, there was no Guild
Merchant at any time. In Lynn, Andover, Southampton, and Bristol it was
all-powerful. In Nottingham no influence of its action can be traced;
the guild mentioned in John’s charter (Nott. Rec. i. 9) is only once
mentioned afterwards, in 1365. (Ibid. i. 189.)
[378] Gross, i. 107.
[379] See Lynn, Gross, ii. 157. Southampton, ibid. 216-226. Andover,
ibid. 4, 8, 294, 344. Derby, ibid. 51-3. Newcastle, ibid. 184-5; other
instances, i. 69. For Reading see vol. i. 302. For the variety in
relations of the Guild to the town see Gross, i. 73.
[380] As at Oxford and Lincoln, Lib. Cus. 671. Gross, ii. 146. It
is very probable, however, that these were confirmations of older
institutions.
[381] Gross, i. 109.
[382] Ibid. i. 33.
[383] Ibid. i. 31. See also Bury St. Edmunds, ii. 30-3.
[384] See p. 219, note at end of Chapter.
[385] Barnstaple, Gross, ii. 12.
[386] Bury St. Edmunds, Gross, ii. 33-4.
[387] Gross, i. 117. Is there any reason to think that if the enjoyment
of monopoly was split up and divided among the crafts, the exercize of
authority was split up and transferred in the same proportions?
[388] When wealthy individuals of a craft, men perhaps almost in the
position of merchants, were admitted to the Guild, no argument can be
drawn from this as to the relation of the craft itself to the Guild.
[389] Gross, i. 114-5. In the instances here given (p. 116, note 1) of
regulations made for craftsmen by the Guild Merchant it is necessary
to define the exact relation between the Guild and the governing body
of the town. (See Andover in 1314. Gross, ii. 308. Compare Leicester,
ibid. 144.)
[390] Gross, i. 125-6, 159-60.
[391] Ibid. i. 75, 76.
[392] All the materials which I have used in speaking of Coventry have
been given me very kindly by Miss Dormer Harris, who has made a careful
study of the town records on the spot, and will soon, it is hoped,
publish the result of her researches.
[393] Compare Chesterfield, where a Guild was established in 1218 to
guard the “liberties of the town”; in case of need its aldermen were to
choose twelve men to go before the justices or elsewhere to help these
“liberties” of the town; and any one suffering loss for them was to be
repaid by the Guild. (English Guilds, 165-167.)
[394] Compare the very small numbers of the Reading Guild, which was
a survival of olden times (Vol. I. p. 302, note 1). S. Alban’s was
larger, but apparently of a more doubtful character, even in the eyes
of the prudent burghers. (Ibid. 296-7.)
[395] They got land from Isabella, and built their church at
Bablake—the first church built by the burghers.
[396] The taking of a common name may have been connected with the
license to mortmain. S. John’s Guild had got a license in 1342 and land
to build its church, but some extended license must have been needed
for a larger society which desired to possess new property.
[397] Mercers’ obits were celebrated in S. Catherine’s Chapel; drapers’
obits usually in the Lady Chapel belonging to S. Mary’s or the Merchant
Guild.
[398] The early guildhall of York belonged to the guilds of S. George
and S. Christopher; and when the new hall was built in the middle of
the fifteenth century these two guilds retained considerable power in
it. (Davies’ Walks Through York, 49-51.) Sir William Plumpton and his
wife joined the fraternity of S. Christopher at York, 1439. (Plumpton
Corr. lxii.)
[399] Cf. Norwich (p. 395). This arrangement was probably made for the
sake of financial security (see p. 215-6).
[400] English Gilds, 232.
[401] Accounts of the Guild of Corpus Christi are preserved from 1488.
The brethren and sisters of the Guild seem to have been spread all
over England, and are mentioned at London, Lynn, and Birmingham. They
were of all ranks and of all trades and callings. (Hist. MSS. Com. i.
101.) The Prior of the cathedral, the Prior’s bailiff, the vicar of
Trinity, various craftsmen of the town and vicars of the neighbourhood,
merchants of Queenborough, Dublin, Drogheda, Bristol, Kingston-on-Hull,
London, and many other places, a “merchant of the Staple,” and great
men of the neighbourhood, such as Thomas Grey, the Marquis of Dorset,
Lord Hastings, and others belonged to its association.
[402] S. Mary’s Hall was begun in 1340, and finished in 1413.
[403] The Twenty-four were self-elected; the mayor was elected by the
Twenty-four; the common council were appointed and summoned by the
mayor.
[404] Compare the case of Southampton where a guild merchant had
imposed its methods on a town government.
[405] The list compiled in 1449 of living craftsmen who had held office
gives fifteen drapers and eleven mercers, and seven dyers; as against
two wire-drawers, two whit-tawyers, and two weavers. The dyers in
Coventry were often cloth merchants of great consequence.
[406] In the time of Richard the Second the fullers and tailors first
attempted to form a guild, and even obtained a patent which licensed
their society to hold property worth a yearly rental of eight marks.
[407] The complaint against the dyers is shown in a petition to
Parliament in 1415 (Rot. Parl. iv. 75), in which the community of
Coventry say that by reason of a confederacy among the dyers they
cannot get their cloth dyed under 6_s._ or 7_s._ a dozen, whereas last
year’s price was 5_s._; and forty pounds of wool was now 30_s._ which
was last year 20_s._, &c. The dyers are also great and common makers
of cloth and take all the flower of the wool for their own cloth, the
remnant serving the common people. The petitioners request that on the
day of the mayor’s election, those that elect him (that is twenty-four
members of the ruling guilds) shall also appoint four persons, two
drapers, one dyer, and one woder, sworn to keep watch over the dyers,
and present them for any “fault or confederacy” to the mayor, bailiffs,
and justices of the peace—in other words to the officers of the
Trinity Guild. For the first fault he was to pay a fine to the king,
for the second a fine and half a year’s imprisonment. They also prayed
that no one who was a dyer should make vendible cloth. These conditions
being refused they claimed the suppression of the guild.
[408] The mayor and his brethren carried their complaint to the king
in 1424, and by royal writ the assemblies were forbidden. In 1422 the
governing guilds issued an order that all wardens should bring the
ordinances of the crafts before the mayor, recorder, and bailiffs, and
eight of the general council by whom honest, lawful, and good rules
should be allowed; and no ordinances might be made against the law in
oppression of people, upon pain of imprisonment or fine at the king’s
will. In 1424 arbitrators were appointed by the mayor’s order to decide
the disputes between the master weavers and their men; and rules were
drawn up for the whole craft. It is obvious that this is very different
from regulation by a guild which still retained the crafts within its
own association.
[409] They gave forty marks for a fresh license for their guild with
mortmain up to ten marks, and leave to elect four masters at the
Nativity to rule the craft and to plead in courts for the whole body.
As of old they seem to have failed in carrying out their scheme in
spite of the license, and in 1448 a petition was presented by them
(whether it was voluntary may well be doubted) that the union between
the fullers’ and tailors’ crafts should be severed. At the suppression
of the guilds the shearmen and tailors held a mill and tenements in
mortmain for the support of their chauntry.
[410] Cf. Exeter, Chapter VII.
[411] How little freedom was left to far the most powerful craft of
all—the dyers—we see from the law of 1530, that if any masters and
journeymen of the dyers can be proved before the mayor and justices
to have hindered any one from becoming a dyer, they are to be fined.
If the journeymen refuse to work for the new dyers, then, without
hindrance from the craft or the journeymen, they may hire others not
inhabitants. In 1530 it was ordered that a certain Robert Perkins was
to become a dyer without “let or hindrance” from craft and journeymen.
In general the corporation resisted the tendency of the lesser crafts
to prevent the setting up of new masters—a policy which is easy
to understand in the rule of merchants, as opposed to that of the
manufacturers.
[412] Posted up on the door of S. Michael’s in 1494:—
“Be it knowen and understood This cite should be free and now is bond
Dame Goode-Eve made hit free And now the’ be customes for woll and the
drap’ie. Also hit is made that no prentice shall be But XIII. penies
pay shall he, This act did Robert Grene Therefore he had many a curse I
wene.”
(Sharp’s Antiquities, 235.)
[413]
“This city is bond that shuld be free, The right is holden from the
̄C̄īalte. Our cōins that at Lamas open shuld be cast They be closed
in and hegged full fast.... If ever ye have nede to the cōīalte Such
favour as ye show us such shall ye see. We may speke fair and bid ye
good morwe But luff from our herts ye shall have nevr.... Cherish the
cōīalte and so they have their right For drede of a worse chance by day
or by night. The best of all littel worth shuld be And ye had not had
help of the cōīalte.”
(Sharp, 235.) Perhaps it was from the talk of the streets in some such
local disturbance that Langland quoted when he wrote the lines quoted
in Vol. I. p. 26.
[414] The Coventry craft-masters’ apprentices paid their fines to the
mayor “for the use of the city,” not of the guild; the “searchers” for
the trades were appointed and the regulations made at the Leet Court,
not at meetings of a guild; the same officials attended, but they had
to act as representing the municipality.
[415] As in Lynn, Bristol, and, later, Norwich.
[416] It is a subject for inquiry whether any Guild Merchant gave
its name to a municipality unless it had been made responsible for
the payment of the ferm, and held openly and to the knowledge of the
exchequer some property or rents or tolls for the purpose.
[417] The Coventry Guild held town property for public purposes before
this, apparently as a private arrangement.
[418] It is possible that in the earlier part of Richard’s reign the
fear inspired by the Peasant Revolt may have quickened the spirit of
organization among the wealthier classes. In the Guild of Lichfield,
established by charter in 1387, the master of the Guild and the
Forty-eight were “steadfastly to abide together and see that good rule
be kept in the city.” (Gross, ii. 145.) Similar combinations of the
richer classes seem to have been very general.
[419] English Gilds, 244-6, 249, 250.
[420] Gross, ii. 353.
[421] Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 316. This states that all the burgesses and
the commonalty of the borough of Bridgewater have ordained that they
will choose yearly two seneschals of their guild, and one bailiff to
attend on them; such seneschals to have power to punish those offending
against these ordinances. If any one among them shall maliciously
impute to another a charge of theft, forgery, neifty (“nativitatis,”
the being a born bondman), murder, adultery, or excommunication, and be
convicted thereof before the seneschals, he shall be amerced and bound
to the commonalty to make satisfaction to the other at the award of
his peers. No one shall implead another without the borough under pain
of amercement. Any one neglecting to appear before the seneschals when
summoned is to be amerced. Those opposing execution or distress made by
order of the seneschals to be amerced and bound to the commonalty in
forty pence. No one is to buy flesh or fish before 9 A.M. for regrating
under pain of becoming bound to the commonalty in the price of the
flesh or fish so bought or sold. If any one is elected to the office of
seneschal of S. Mary’s or of the Holy Cross in the church of the said
borough he shall render account for the moneys arising therefrom to the
said seneschals whenever summoned so to do. Any person refusing any one
of those offices, if elected thereto, is to be bound to the commonalty
in the sum of 6_s._ 8_d._ The seneschals are to render account for all
moneys received by them each year upon the morrow of the circumcision
of our Lord. This deed has a large fragment of the castle seal or seal
of the lord of the fee still attached. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 316.)
[422] Their meetings for business were held in a small chamber attached
to the church of S. Helen, which is still the exchequer chamber of
their successors, the governors of Christ’s Hospital. (Hist. MSS. Com.
i. 98.) Dr. Gross (i. 83-4, note 11) gives the names of some towns
where the government was guided by a “simple social-religious gild.”
The instances suggest different problems, and need separate examination
of the special circumstances.
[423] Madox, 217. How many later declarations of the poverty of
_corporations_ was due to this convenient system of dealing with their
funds?
[424] This system was devised before the doctrine of Trusts was
adopted, in the reign of Henry the Fourth; but even after that doctrine
was accepted the holding of property by a friendly corporation would
have put considerable difficulty in the way of recovering money owed by
the municipality.
[425] English Gilds, 231-5.
[426] See Note A at end of Chapter.
[427] See Chapter XIV.
[428] Dr. Gross is one of the latest writers who insists especially on
the passage from democracy to oligarchy. (i. 108-110, 125-6, 160, 171,
285.)
[429] Gross, i. 23-6; ii. 115 et sq. Compare Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 239,
for the forms used in 1291. For elections in 1310 see Ibid. 242.
[430] In Romney an instance is given in 1442 of a man being arrested
who had come, not being free, to hear the common council. Hist. MSS.
Com. v. 540. For Wycombe, Ibid. 557.
[431] Journal Archæological Association, xxvii. 464.
[432] Ibid.
[433] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 493.
[434] Boys’ Sandwich, 429. See also Berwick, English Guilds, 344.
[435] Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 462. If a townsman struck the mayor and
was too harshly punished the friends of the prisoner might call a jury
“of the discreetest and stoutest men of the city,” who should ordain a
just penalty. In Rye as in Hereford the old custom was that the man who
struck the mayor was to lose his right hand (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 352);
in Preston there was some punishment for a mayor who struck a burgess
in or out of court (Custumal, Hist. Preston Guild). In Canterbury if a
bailiff did wrong to any “that may be found by two lawful men of syght
and of hyerth” complaint was made to the twelve aldermen; and if they
charged the bailiff in vain to amend the wrong, the case was carried to
a court of the thirty-six, the aldermen, and the most wisest men, “and
by them right shall be ordained” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171).
[436] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 559.
[437] Hunt’s Bristol, 103-5.
[438] For the variety of modes in which juries were elected then and
later see Rep. Mun. Corporations, 27.
[439] We find also special juries—for example a jury of masons and
carpenters to judge “because of a waterfall which fell from the house
and gutter of Richard Maidstone upon the house and ground of William
Bennett” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169); and groups of umpires appointed to
settle differences (Boys’ Sandwich, 786).
[440] This was the custom in Exeter. At Bayonne every new citizen was
sworn upon a book containing the charter and statutes of the commune
(Luchaire, 47).
[441] Ricart, 2.
[442] At Wycombe and Dartmouth two Italian copies of the Pandects of
Justinian and commentaries were used in the fifteenth century to bind
up the corporation books.
[443] See pp. 310-11, 334-6, 366-70. A decree of 1328 in Preston was
made by “the mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses, with all the commonalty,
by a whole assent and consent.” (Thomson, Mun. Hist. 105.)
[444] Mr. Maitland describes the communal organization of the villein
tenants on the manor of Bright Waltham in 1293 (Manorial Pleas, Selden
Soc. 161-4, 168). They formed a “communitas” which held property,
could receive a grant of land, could contract and make exchanges with
the lord (172). These rights were recognized in the manorial courts,
though at Westminster they would have been held very irregular (163).
They elected or recommended the reeve, shepherd, ploughman, swineherd
(170), the whole ville “undertaking” for him (168). The steward kept
watch that no land of servile tenure should be treated as free, and the
villeins themselves were very unwilling that a villein should set up as
a freeman on the ground of holding a freehold acre (164).
[445] In Barnstaple a deed concerning a tenement in the High Street in
1416 was sealed with the seal of the commonalty, not that of the mayor.
(Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 213.) In Rye there was a seal of the community
different from the mayor’s seal, which last was first used in 1377.
(Ibid. v. 489, 511.) Also in Lydd (ibid. 530-2).
[446] See note A at end of chapter.
[447] Worcester, Eng. Guilds, 378.
[448] Frequent cases indicate that where the common lands played an
important part in the wealth or industry of a borough the burgesses
long preserved an interest in municipal affairs. Thus, in Haverford
West, where the townsfolk up to 1832 took a very real part in the
election of their officers and the control of business, the common
meadow still contained over a thousand acres. (Report on Mun.
Corporation, 233, etc.) And at Berwick-on-Tweed, where also affairs
were administered by the whole body of burgesses, the annual value of
the lands whose profits went to the freemen was near £6,000. (Ibid. 31.)
[449] Piers Ploughman, pass. xi. 239.
[450] Merewether and Stephens, ii. 590-2.
[451] Norwich Town Close Evidences, p. 16. A copy of this volume (a
private publication printed in connection with the Town Close case in
1885) may be found in the British Museum.
[452] Norwich Town Close Evidences, 18-19.
[453] Ibid. 17.
[454] It was at this time that the mayor was given power to distrain
for sums levied on the commonalty. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 186-7.)
[455] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 187, 240. Gross, ii. 155-6.
[456] Report on Markets, 62.
[457] Rot. Parl. i. 433.
[458] Madox, 94.
[459] In the list of taxpayers to the poll-tax of 1380 in Oxford, we
find four aldermen mentioned—a vintner, a draper, and two others whose
trade is not mentioned, but who had eight and ten servants, a number
very greatly above the average. The vintner and draper each paid,
like the mayor, 13_s._ 4_d._; but the man with ten servants gave only
12_d._; and the man with eight is not registered as having paid at all.
(Oxford City Documents, Oxford Hist. Soc. 8-45.)
[460] See Note A at end of chapter.
[461] In 1327 a violent dispute broke out between the great people
of Andover and the rest of the community. The story of the election
of a sort of council of fifteen of the richer people in 1303, and of
incidents leading to the riot of 1327 can be traced in the entries
quoted in Gross, ii. 297-321.
[462] Inaugural Address at Oxford by Mr. Froude, Oct. 26th, 1892.
[463] Cases occur in the towns under the game laws. The Jurats of
Hythe present Henry Colle as “a common destroyer in killing hares with
snares and pypys to the great destruction of the sport of the gentry
and against the statute”; and another man “for keeping one ferret for
hunting against the statute.” (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 431, 2.)
[464] See Piers Ploughman. Pass. ix. 20-31; ii. 96; x. 223, _et sq._
[465]
“Then louh (laughed) there a lord and ‘by this light’ said, ‘I hold it
right and reason to take of my reeve All that mine auditor or else my
steward Counselleth me by their account and my clerk’s writing. With
_spiritus intellectus_ they took the reeve-rolls, And with _spiritus
fortitudinis_ fetch it, will he, nil he.’”
—Piers Ploughman. Passus xxii. 461-466.
[466] “If any judgment be given,” say the Hereford Customs, “or any
execution of writs of our Lord the King, be to be impleaded or done,
or if any doubt or ambiguity shall be upon any of our laws or customs,
or anything else touching the whole commonalty, then the bailiff or
steward, by all kind of rigour, may compel _the discreeter especially,
or any other citizen whom they have need of_, to come unto them.”
(Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 464.)
[467] Hudson, Mun. Org., 24-5.
[468] Royal Commission on Markets, 15, 16. The justices had a right to
dismiss poor recognitors, and order the sheriff to cause lawful knights
and other proved discreet men to be elected in their stead (Select
Civil Pleas, Selden Society, 100). The records of the Manchester Court
Leet Jury have only been preserved from 1552. The number varied from
about fourteen to eighteen, who were yearly chosen at the court leets
from the chief burgesses of the town. When the father died his eldest
son or younger brother seems to have been made a juror in his stead.
The jurors, in fact, were chosen generation after generation from the
same small number of families. The reeve and one or both constables
were generally nominated from among the jury then in the box.
(Manchester Court Leet Records, 177-8.) Cf. Ship of Fools. Barclay, 99.
[469] Ibid. 62. See Vol. I. 186, 165, note A. In Canterbury there
was a law that if by the bailiff’s fault the king should send a writ
“in hindering of the liberty” of the town the bailiff should make
restitution.
[470] In Colchester for example the number of people assessed for all
moveables in 1301 was 390 and the sum raised £24 12_s._ 6_d._ In 1377,
when it stood twelfth on the list of English towns, it is said to have
had about 4,500 inhabitants.
[471] Thus in 1342 Nicholas Langton was elected mayor of York for the
seventeenth time (Hargrove’s York, i. 308) and two men bore rule in
Liverpool for eighteen years between 1374 and 1406—one for twelve
years and the other for six (Picton’s Liverpool, i. 30).
[472] There was a great variety in the names of mayors during the
fifteenth century. John Samon held the office several times, but
generally speaking the mayors were not re-elected, and in no case did
they hold office two years in succession. (See Nottingham Records.)
[473] Gross, ii. 117.
[474] Lincoln and London (Madox, 14; Gross, i. 80). Canterbury (Hist.
MSS. Com. ix. 167).
[475] See Lynn and Southampton.
[476] Ricart’s Kalendar, 72, etc. The Mayor in Nottingham was bound
“to give his brethren knowledge for to see the game of the fishing”
... and “in likewise to give them knowledge of every bear-baiting and
bull-baiting within the town, to see the sport of the game after the
old custom and usage.” (Rec. iii. 449.)
[477] Hythe, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 432, 434.
[478] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 542. Ibid. vi. 572-580. Any man thrice
convicted of “cursing the mayor and slandering him with good and grave
people,” was to be deprived of his freedom by sound of the bell of the
Guild Hall.
[479] See ch. viii. Freeman’s Exeter, 90.
[480] In Bristol the town clerk, the steward, and the attorney, had
forty-two rays, and their under clerks thirty-two rays. (Ricart, xii.
81.)
[481] In 1476 Lydd paid 13_s._ 4_d._ for the writing out of its
“Customall.” The custumal of Sandwich written in 1301 was copied about
1465 by the Town Clerk, John Serles. The Black Book of Hythe was copied
in the same way. For Southampton see Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 8.
Instances are too numerous to give.
[482] See the Translation of Crouchback’s Charter at Leicester (Hist.
MSS. Com. viii. 404); a translation from the French in 1491 of the old
book of laws and customs of Yarmouth (Ibid. ix. 305); a translation in
1473 of the ancient rules of the Guild of Southampton known as the Pax
Bread. (Davies’ Southampton, 133.)
[483] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 606-7. The clerk was also responsible for
deeds which were constantly given into the keeping of the Mayor and
Council.
[484] The Domesday Book of Dorchester compiled in the XV. century
(Journ. Arch. Ass. xxviii. 29); the Liber Albus of Norwich in 1426
(Blomefield, iii. 141; Arch. Journ. xlvi. 302). Ordinances were drawn
up at Rye in 1397 (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489); the Fordwich Kalendar in
the fifteenth century (Ibid. v. 606-607). The oldest Year Book of
Sandwich is the Old Black Book in which entries are made in 1432 and
end in 1487. Entries in its White Book begin in 1488 and end in 1526.
The fact that the laws of the Scotch Marches were codified at this time
shews the prevailing tendency.
[485] As in Romney (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539).
[486] In 1386 the Cinque Ports paid for the copying of Magna Charta
(Ibid. 533).
[487] Nottingham Records, ii. 340.
[488] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 489.
[489] Ibid. ix. 223-4.
[490] First paper roll in Reading accounts 1463. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi.
part 7, 175.) Accounts at Bridport, Southampton, and Hythe on paper
under Richard the Second. (Ibid. vi. 492; xi. 3-8; iv. 1, 438-9.) Some
of the guild returns were on paper in 1389. (English Guilds, 132-3.)
In 1467 there was a rule in Worcester that the town clerk must be a
citizen, and do his own work with daily attendance and not by simple
and inefficient deputy, and must engross on parchment. (Guilds, 399.)
[491] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 477.
[492] Ibid. ix. 108.
[493] Ibid. vi. 603.
[494] The difference is seen by comparing with their accounts such
documents as presentments at sessions, bills for goods and the like.
(Nottingham Records, iii. xiv.) See also entries in the records made by
Roger Bramston, mayor of Wycombe, in 1490.
[495] The possible difficulty of getting rid of a clerk is illustrated
by what happened when the mayor, sheriffs, alderman, and commons of
York, in 1475, by their whole and common assent, dismissed the common
clerk “for divers and many offences—excessive takings of money,
misguiding of their books, accounts, and evidences, with other great
trespasses.” They then wrote to D. of Gloucester to entreat his good
lordship and that he would move the king to allow them to name another
common clerk; and the Duke having sent letters to Lord Hastings and
Lord Stanley, finally received an answer from the king that he had
commissioned two serjeants of the law to examine the case, that they
had reported in favour of the corporation, and that a new clerk might
be elected. The grateful town agreed at a meeting of the council that
the D. of Gloucester “for his great labour now late made unto the
king’s great grace” should “be presented at his coming to the city with
6 swans and 6 pikes.” (Davies’ York, 53-55.)
[496] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 603. In Hereford the steward might be a
“foreigner who is known of the citizens.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii.
463-4.)
[497] In Sandwich the “town clerk’s” salary was 40_s._ a year, out of
which he had to find parchment, except when he wrote out the cesses,
when the commonalty might give him a shilling or two for the parchment
and his trouble. Other small payments fell to him when a freeman was
made or a corporation letter was signed or suchlike business done.
(Boys’ Sandwich, 476.) In 1390 Romney paid as much as 56_s._ 8_d._;
then the salary fell to 40_s._ in 1428; then to 32_s._ 11_d._; and then
to 26_s._ 8_d._, with 3_s._ 4_d._ for parchment. (Ibid. 803.) This
corresponded with the decline in the fortunes of Romney.
[498] The common clerk at Hythe, John Smallwood, secured for himself a
following of thirty-six men sworn to help him in all his undertakings,
and in 1397 he had even gathered sixty men pledged to bring about the
death of four of his enemies. For four years the town refused to have
any clerk at all, until at last Smallwood made his peace in 1414 by
the gift of certain tenements and lands. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. part 1,
437-8.)
[499] Davies’ York, 207. Thomas Atwood, who was town clerk of
Canterbury in 1497, seems to have been mayor in 1500. His brother
William was one of the counsel of the city in 1497.
[500] Nottingham Records, iii. 59, 84.
[501] For his writing and one or two of his mottoes see Nottingham
Records, III. ix.-xiii. ii. xvi. For Robert de Ricarto of Bristol, see
p. 20. For Daniel Rowe of Romney, p. 61.
[502] Thompson, Mun. Hist. 82.
[503] See Paston Letters. Cf. The Common Weal (ed. Miss Lamond), 83-4.
[504] See the case of Norwich. The main effect of the new charters was
simply to make the rate of progress apparent, and to some extent to
help it forward by the mere process of reducing everything to formal
legal arrangement, thus incidentally destroying vague liberties, or
hardening the exercise of them into a fixed form which had lost all
elasticity.
[505] Piers Ploughman. Passus ix. 174.
[506]
“But while Hunger was their master would none chide, Ne strive against
the Statute, he looked so stern.”
Ibid. Passus ix. 342, 343.
[507] Occasionally we find odd instances of growing independence.
In Worcester “at some seasons of wilfulness” the people had shewn
their revolutionary temper by choosing for serjeants and constables
“persons of worship, to the dishonour of them and of the said city;”
and an ordinance was made in 1467 that none of the twenty-four or the
forty-eight might be appointed to these offices. (English Guilds, 409.)
In like manner the great court of Bridgenorth decreed in 1503 that no
burgess should be made serjeant. (Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 426.) In 1350 a
guild was formed in Lincoln of “common and middling folks” who strongly
objected to any one joining them “of the rank of mayor or bailiffs,”
or claiming dignity for his personal rank, and made a rule that if any
such persons insisted on entering their society they should not meddle
with its business and should never be appointed officers. (English
Guilds, 178-9.)
[508] Piers Ploughman. Pass. xviii. 88.
[509] The differences of early charters should all be studied. See, for
example, the charters of Nottingham and Northampton given in the same
year (Stubbs’s Charters, 300-302).
[510] The complexity and apparently inexhaustible confusion of their
methods is well illustrated by the lists drawn up in 1833 by the
commissioners appointed to inquire into municipal corporations. See
appendix to the Rep. on Mun. Corpor. 94, 95; and especially the tables
on pp. 102-132. Evidently the burghers have scarcely deserved the
reproach of those who consider direct election by the people as the
natural rude expedient of unlearned men grouped in political societies
and ignorant of the wiser system of nomination which commends itself to
trained legislators.
[511] Kitchin’s Winchester, 164.
[512] P. 306.
[513] Municipal Corporations Report, 21.
[514] The modes of election of sheriffs and bailiffs were as various
and complicated as those of mayor and council. For illustrations of
this see Rep. on Mun. Corp. 24, 25.
[515] There was also a “Great Court” of twenty-four. Hist. MSS. Com.
x. part 4, pp. 425-7. At Melcombe Regis (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 578) there
was an electing jury of twelve. In Preston the mayor chose in open
court two ancient discreet and honest burgesses, who took an oath that
they would at once select twenty-four burgesses who should not bear any
office in the town during the next year. The twenty-four having been
chosen and sworn, elected a mayor, a bailiff, and a sub-bailiff; these
three at once took their respective oaths, and the mayor before he left
the hall appointed a mayor’s bailiff and a serjeant. Laws were made
by the “mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses, with all the commonalty, by a
whole assent and consent.” Government seems to have been carried on by
the mayor and “twelve of those who with him are ordained,” and who were
known as aldermen or capital burgesses. By a guild law earlier than
1328 former mayors and bailiffs, though they might sit on the bench
as aldermen, were not allowed to meddle with the twenty-four during
the election, under penalty of a fine of twenty shillings or loss of
citizenship. (Preston, Guild Record, xxiv. Guild ordinances in history
of Preston Guild, by Dobson and Harland, 12, 17, 19-23.)
[516] To illustrate the variety of town constitutions I have given
three or four, taken at random, in an Appendix at the end of the
chapter. Other instances will be found in Chapters. XII.-XVI.
[517] See note A, p. 283, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171-2. This plan was
perhaps modelled on a system common in ecclesiastical elections
and possibly peculiar in Canterbury so far as municipalities were
concerned. There was a dispute in 1435 about the mode of presentation
to S. Peter’s, Cornhill, to avoid the “great strife and controversy”
between the mayor, aldermen, and common council. It was decided that
the mayor and aldermen should choose four priests living within the
city or a mile of it; that these four should name to the common
council four clerks “most meet in manners and conyng”; and that out of
these four the mayor, aldermen, and council should choose one. Three
Fifteenth century Chron. (Camden Soc., 91-92).
[518] Report on Mun. Corporations, 20.
[519] In Bridport there were twelve jurors. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi.
489-90, 492-3.) In Southampton twelve “discreets,” p. 308. The jurats
in Romney and others of the Cinque Ports formed a similar body. So
also in Carlisle, and in Pontefract. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 270-1.) A
writ from the privy council was addressed to “the mayor, bailiffs, and
twenty-four notablest burgesses of our town of Northampton” in 1442.
(Proceed. Privy Council v. 191.) Wells had a council of twenty-four.
(Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106-7.)
[520] Oxford, by a charter of Richard the First, had a mayor and two
aldermen. In 1255 Henry the Third made the aldermen four, corresponding
to the four wards of the city, and joined with them eight leading
burgesses mainly to keep peace in the city and to have charge of the
assize of bread, beer, and wine. The twenty-four common councilmen
were elected from the citizens at large. (Boase’s Oxford, 42-44.) In
Ipswich besides the twelve “honest and loyal” portmen elected yearly
in the cemetery of S. Mary Tower there was a council of twenty-four;
and seven of the portmen and thirteen of the twenty-four could together
make rules for the town. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 242, 244.) In Yarmouth
(Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 305; Blomefield, xi. 301-2, 342), twenty-four
jurats (afterwards called aldermen) were chosen by the burgesses, and
appointed all the officers of the town. Between 1400 and 1407 changes
were made in the constitution. Two bailiffs were elected instead of
four, and besides the council of twenty-four aldermen a common council
was formed of forty-eight members. So also in Colchester and Norwich.
Worcester had two councils, “the twenty-four above and the forty-eight
beneath.” (English Guilds, 379, 396. Also Leicester, Hist. MSS. Com.
viii. 425.) Canterbury had an upper council of twelve and another of
thirty-six. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171-2.) For councils of seventy and
eighty see pp. 374, 432. In Chester a charter of 1506 gave twenty-four
aldermen and forty of the common council. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii.
359-60.) In Bristol (Hunt’s Bristol, 85-86) and Liverpool (Picton
ii. 26) the council was composed of forty “honest and discreet” men.
Colchester had two councils of sixteen each. (Cromwell’s Colchester,
265.)
[521] The manner in which the aldermen took their place in the system
of municipal government has not yet been worked out. In London,
Canterbury, and Lincoln they were hereditary owners of the various
wards. The people of Coventry petitioned for aldermen over the wards in
1450, but the mayor and his brethren refused. In Lynn there were only
constables of the wards.
[522] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 551-569.
[523] Davies’ Southampton, 263.
[524] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. p. 42, 77-82.
[525] Davies’ Southampton, 250.
[526] Gross, ii. 232.
[527] Davies, 253.
[528] 2 Rich. II. St. 1, cap. 3.
[529] Davies, 254.
[530] Ibid. 250.
[531] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 50, 87.
[532] Ibid. xi. 3, 81, 83, 86. Davies, 253-4.
[533] For example, Thomas Payne, whose barge, the “John of
Southampton,” traded with Zealand; or the goldsmith, William Nycoll,
who was also a merchant, and sent his ship the “Marye of Hampton” to
the Bay of Biscay under the charge of a cousin, his factor and purser.
(Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. p. 78, 84, 88.)
[534] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 70-73. Davies, 97-8. In 1399 Richard
the Second granted to the Emperor for the war against the Turks a sum
of £2,000, which was sent through a Genoese merchant and charged on the
customs at Southampton. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 16. Bekynton, i. lx.
note. In 1401 a second £2,000 was paid.
[535] Davies, 61, 256.
[536] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 66-69.
[537] Ibid. 77.
[538] Davies, 255.
[539] Ibid. 471.
[540] Ibid. 255-6.
[541] In 1411 the burgesses made a great wharf with a crane on it
at the water-gate to increase merchandise and prevent the evading
of customs. Davies, 112. For strangers brought their wines “very
contemptuously” and landed them “within this realm where they think
good themselves.” (H.M.C. xi. 3, 50-52.)
[542] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 11, 87.
[543] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 90.
[544] Hist. MSS. Com. vi, 551-569.
[545] Davies, 294. This may have supported nearly 140 people.
[546] Davies, 82. For supplies for the King’s ship see Hist. MSS. Com.
xi. 3, 113.
[547] Davies, 79. Archers sent to the castle for the defence of
the townsmen were charged to their account, and they had to submit
patiently to their exactions; a letter from Edward the Fourth ordered
the town to release one of the Bowers who had been committed to prison
“for his inordinate demeaning,” and to go on paying him his wages like
other Bowers. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 99.)
[548] The castle wall was not pulled down before the end of the
fifteenth century. Finally the castle hill itself, after its mound had
been lowered and planed, was crowned in 1818 with a Zion chapel on the
site of the Norman keep. (Davies, 76, 84.)
[549] Ibid. 81. For the inconvenience which a constable might cause to
the town if he wished, see p. 83.
[550] See for one example among many, Davies, 81.
[551] Davies, 216.
[552] Ibid. 79.
[553] In the last year of Henry the Sixth the master of one of the
King’s ships received from the Mayor £31 10_s._ 10_d._ In the first
year of Edward the Fourth he again paid for the victualling and custody
of the ship £68 5_s._ 10_d._ (Davies, 110, 113. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3,
pp. 85, 98.)
[554] Davies’ Southampton, 214. For sum in 1468 ibid. 72, 100.
[555] Davies, 62-3.
[556] Ibid. 105.
[557] With help from the king if necessary. (Davies, 80.) The town had
power to raise a tax on all goods carried in or out of the gates till
the wall was finished. (Davies, 60.)
[558] Davies, 80. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 61. So a hundred and fifty
years later Henry the Eighth forbade any citizen to leave Chester,
because “the city standeth open in the danger of enemies,” and
requireth all “for its safety and defence.” (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 370.)
[559] Davies, 60, 61. Similar complaints were perpetually renewed in
the next century.
[560] Davies, 35. Southampton was constantly in arrears of its ferm.
Ibid. 34.
[561] Margaret of Anjou was allowed in 1445 a grant of £1,000 a year
from the great and little customs of the town, and the annuity of £100
which was confirmed to her in 1454 was not resumed by Parliament till
1464.
[562] Davies, 37.
[563] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 111, 112.
[564] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 112-13.
[565] English Chronicle, 1377-1461 (Camden Soc.), 90. Davies, 471-2.
[566] Davies, 111. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 16. See also 98-99.
[567] Davies, 111, 37. In 1462 arrears of the ferm were remitted, and
again in 1484 (Ib. 34). In 1463 a mayor of Southampton was deposed by
the King’s mandamus (Ibid. 168).
[568] Davies speaks of this John Ingoldsby who paid the debt as
afterwards apparently one of the Barons of the Exchequer (p. 38.) A
John Ingoldsby had been Recorder of Southampton from at least 1444 (p.
185) to at least 1459 (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 113) and very probably
later.
[569] Davies, 36. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 100.
[570] In 1486 the pension of £154 was paid to the Earl of Arundel as
constable of Dover Castle, part of it being given in kind. For other
trouble, see Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 98.
[571] The outlay of the town in this year was £383 9_s._ 7_d._ (Hist.
MSS. Com. xi. 3. 141-2.)
[572] In this last case they were comforted by a promise of release for
ten years from payment of 140 marks from the rent of £200 which had
been assigned to Queen Joan, and by a grant to the corporation of the
right to hold land to the value of £100. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 42-3.)
[573] The Southampton trade did in fact utterly fail before a century
was over. In 1530 its rent was reduced by £26 13_s._ _d._, and in 1552
the King ordered that when the customs at the port did not amount to
£200, and no ships called carracks of Genoa and galleys of Venice
should enter the port to load or unload, the town should not pay the
accustomed rent of £200, but only £50. To this day certificates are
still prepared every year on November 9th that no carracks of Genoa nor
galleys of Venice have arrived at the port. (Davies, 38-9. Hist. MSS.
Com. xi. 3, 49.)
[574] Unfortunately in the brief extracts from the Southampton records
which have been as yet published, references to municipal government
are so scanty that any sketch of it can only be drawn in faint and
uncertain outline. In the opinion of Dr. Gross the Merchant Guild was
originally a strictly private fraternity, and only became the dominant
burghal authority in the fourteenth century. (Gross, ii. 231.) I have
suggested here the idea of an earlier connexion; but the question needs
full examination.
[575] Davies’ Southampton, 163.
[576] Hist. MSS. Com. Report xi. Appendix 3. p. 43.
[577] Ibid. 44.
[578] Possibly in 1217, certainly in 1237. Davies, 170.
[579] Gross, ii. 220-5.
[580] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 57. See guild ordinances.
[581] Indenture in 1368 by mayor, four scavins, two bailiffs, the
steward, sixteen burgesses named, and the whole community. Ibid. p. 66.
[582] In 1240 the style used is simply “the burgesses.” Ibid. p. 7.
[583] Gross, ii. 214. Davies, 163.
[584] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 40-2, 43, 46. Compare Nottingham.
[585] Davies, 154, 238.
[586] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 42.
[587] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 45.
[588] Ibid. pp. 46, 81, 84, 87, 106.
[589] Gross, ii. 222-5.
[590] In 1302 a lease of the ferm of the town to certain persons is
granted by consent of twenty-two men named, but without any mention of
their position, “and all the community of the town.” (Hist. MSS. Com.
xi. 3, 56.) Ordinances were made in 1349 by the mayor, aldermen, and
community. (Ibid. 9.)
[591] Gross, ii. 220, 223, 225.
[592] Gross, ii. 220-3.
[593] See the office assigned to the aldermen in 1504, Davies, 76. For
their dress, ibid. 235.
[594] Davies, 237-9. An ordinance was made in 1409 by the mayor,
aldermen, and burgesses, and a similar one in 1486 by the mayor,
aldermen, and burgesses in common assembly; and an ordinance in common
assembly in 1504. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 11.)
[595] Davies, 155. It is possible that at this time the chief aldermen
were fashioned into a close body elected for life after the pattern of
London; at any rate soon after this we find them and their wives in the
orthodox scarlet robes with fur and velvet, in all points the same as
those of the mayor. 235.
[596] Davies, 63, 71-2, 125.
[597] Gross, ii. 225. Davies (p. 136) says that whenever the guild
became settled as the supreme authority, there entered at that period
an element of restriction alien from the more ancient government of
the towns; and traces to the guild the narrowing of common privileges
and subjection of the community to an exclusive system of local
administration. It is possible that wherever a guild merchant did
lay hold on a town government, as here, at Lynn, or at Coventry, the
tendency may always have been to intensify the existing tendencies to
the despotic rule of the richer citizens.
[598] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 7, 60, 61. Ordinances in 1368 and 1393,
9, 8; a concord in 1397, 74; lease of customs in 1390, 72; land in
1373, 1379, 69-70. For other instances see 1403, p. 76; 1410, 77; 1413,
79; 1421, 80; 1422, 80-1; 1433, 82; 1433, 44; 1439, 84; 1462, 85; 1466,
86; 1477, 87; 1482, 90; 1491, 90; 1494, 90-1; 1496, 91; 1507, 91.
[599] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 12, 91, 113.
[600] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 91, 107; Davies, 164. In Nottingham, as
in Southampton, we have an occasional indication that the burgesses
or common councillors, possibly under some fit of impatience at the
pretensions of the aldermen, had intermittent tendencies to side with
the people. In Southampton there was possibly at this time a certain
bond of sympathy, for seven years earlier, in 1452, the burgesses
complained that the aldermen had assumed the right of retaining, as
justices of the peace, fines which had always gone to them towards
the payment of the ferm; and their contention having been maintained
in Parliament, royal orders were sent to the aldermen to molest the
burgesses no more. Davies, 156.
[601] Davies, 164, 165.
[602] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 104. In 1617 two burgesses tried to
oppose the “private nomination,” but were called before the common
council and forced to submit. (Davies, 164, 165.)
[603] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 11.
[604] Ibid.
[605] Davies, 71-2.
[606] As early as 1254 an inquisition of boundaries had been held by
twenty-four lawful men. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 7.)
[607] The same sense of insufficiency of the common to the increasing
number of burgesses seems to have been felt as at Nottingham. In the
next century a man was fined, because “being a bachelor and not keeping
house, he ought not to keep any cattle at all” on it.
[608] The hospital had made encroachments and put up fences in 1438,
which the then mayor had broken down (Davies, 52).
[609] Davies, 53.
[610] Ibid. 53. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. p. 14, 91.
[611] Davies, 52.
[612] Davies, 57-8.
[613] Davies, 58-59.
[614] See, for 1549, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 14; for 1681, Davies,
52. The latest grant of the public land of Southampton was made on
Sept. 16th, 1892, by the Mayor and corporation for a graving dock—part
of the harbour improvements by which Southampton is to be restored to
its old supremacy on the southern coast and once more to give room in
its port to the largest steamers afloat. There was a far-away echo of
old world controversies in the assurance of the mayor to the people
that by this act of the corporation in giving the land at a nominal
consideration there was scarcely anybody in Southampton who would not
be benefited, and “not a soul in Southampton would be injured.”
[615] In the following century we find them making presentments at the
Court Leet about the mayor’s misdoings (Davies, 123).
[616] As the King’s servant orders were sent direct to him without
mention of the community. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 16, 103.)
[617] By admiralty law the sea was supposed to reach up to the first
bridge, and he therefore controlled the Itchen as far as Woodhill
and the Test as far as Red Bridge, and as admiral held his courts of
admiralty in the accustomed places on the sea-shore at Keyhaven, Lepe,
and Hamble. Davies, 237-40. Compare the mayor of Rochester (H. M. C.
ix. 287).
[618] See for example of one difficulty of this supervision, Davies,
475. For an illustration of his anxieties in the seizing of a carrack,
see Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 111.
[619] See _Louis XI. et les Villes_. Henri Sée.
[620] See pp. 447-8.
[621] Nottingham Records, ii. 34-6.
[622] Nottingham Records, ii. 222-238.
[623] Ibid. i. 269.
[624] Nottingham Records, iii. 412, 62, etc. 39.
[625] For lists of new burgesses admitted in the latter half of the
fifteenth and in the sixteenth century each paying 6_s._ 8_d._ and
in the great majority of cases giving the names of two burgesses as
pledges, see Ibid. ii. 303-305. In the fourteenth century only one
pledge was needed. Ibid. i. 286. At the end of the sixteenth century
strangers who were made freemen paid £10. Ibid. iv. 170-1.
[626] Ibid. ii. 102, 242; iii. 349-52.
[627] Ibid. ii. xi. xii.
[628] There is notice of the transfer of a coal mine in Cossal in 1348.
Ibid. i. 145
[629] Nottingham Records, ii. 147.
[630] Bekynton, i. 230.
[631] Nottingham Records, iii. 113.
[632] Ibid. ii. 142, 158, 166, 160; iii. 403, 445.
[633] Among the cases brought before the leet jury was that of a wager
as to whether the painter of the rood-loft had been paid or not.
(Records, iii. 143.)
[634] Ibid. ii. 178.
[635] Ibid. iii. 18, 20, 28, 83, 180, 499.
[636] Nottingham Records, ii. 284 _et sq._
[637] Ibid. ii. 389.
[638] See Ibid. iv. 259. Similar entries become very frequent.
[639] Nottingham Records, ii. 246, 248, 254, _et sq._; iii. 414, 416.
[640] Ibid. iii. 65, 68.
[641] Ibid. i. 120.
[642] In 1378 a commission was appointed to inquire into the
obstructions of the Trent. Nottingham Records, i. 198. Again in 1382
the King was moved by the “clamorous relation” of the men of Nottingham
and a royal proclamation was issued to forbid the raising of such
tolls; while a new commission was appointed in the following year,
1383, to prevent Richard Byron, lord of Colwick, from directing the
waters of the Trent to his own uses to the injury of Nottingham. (Ibid.
i. 225, 227, 413.) Sir John Babington, who owned considerable land in
Nottingham, seems to have quarrelled with the corporation about 1500.
They appealed to Sir Thomas Lovel for help, who answered that he had
written to him to demean himself as he ought to do until Lovel had
examined the case and decided on it. (Ibid. iii. 402.)
[643] In the fourteenth century there were nearly 70 churches in
Norwich.
[644] Ibid. iii. 362.
[645] Richard the Second seems to have handed it over to Anne of
Bohemia. (Nottingham Records, i. 226.) And under Edward the Fourth it
was granted to Elizabeth Woodville.
[646] Ibid. iii. 414, 416.
[647] One man was paid for cutting out the letters and another for
stitching them on the jackets. (Ibid. ii. 377.)
[648] Ibid. iii. 421.
[649] Ibid. ii. 331.
[650] Ibid. iii. 237.
[651] Nottingham Records, iii. 239, 245.
[652] In 1461 the chamberlains’ expenditure for the whole year came to
£124. Ibid. iii. 418. In 1486 they render account for £440 11_s._ 4_d._
Ibid. 266.
[653] Ibid. i. 1.
[654] Nottingham Records, i. 8.
[655] Ibid. i. 22, 24.
[656] Ibid. i. 40-46.
[657] Ibid. i. 56, 58, 124, 168. The wife’s dower differed in each.
Inheritance went by borough English in the English town; in the French
town it went to the eldest son. (Ibid. i. 186.) The jurors from the
eastern and western sides always remained distinct. (Ibid. ii. 322,
etc.; iii. 344.) By 1330 one of the boroughs had fallen into such
poverty that it could no longer find a bailiff, and leave was given by
charter to elect the bailiff from the inhabitants of any part of the
town that seemed best. (Ibid. i. 109.)
[658] Nottingham Records, i. 78-80.
[659] Ibid. ii. 2-10.
[660] Nottingham Records, ii. 186.
[661] The land was let for thirty years at the yearly rent of a rose,
and the corporation was to make enclosures of ditches and hedges. The
agreement was made by the mayor, sheriff, and aldermen, “with the
assent and consent of the entire community of the town.” Ibid. iii.
408-410.
[662] Ibid. i. 56.
[663] Nottingham Records, i. 363; ii. 362; iv. 43. It will be seen that
in this case the word community was sometimes used; the term varied no
doubt according to the exact body in which the right was vested that
formed the subject of the treaty, and this again might depend partly on
the date at which the right was acquired. Cf. the various styles used
in Calender of Letters of London Corporation, ed. by Dr. Sharpe.
[664] Some instances of this style follow. There is a mortgage of rent
of certain tolls by the “mayor and community,” 1315. Ibid. i. 84.
Settlement as to common pasture by “mayor, burgesses, and community,”
i. 150. Lease in 1390 by “mayor, chamberlains, and all the burgesses
with the assent and will of the entire community,” iii. 425. For
similar phrases in 1401 and 1416 iii. 425-6; ii. 106-8. In 1435, ii.
362. In 1443, ii. 408. In 1444, ii. 424. In 1451, iii. 408. In 1467,
ii. 269. In 1479 land bequeathed to “mayor, sheriffs, burgesses, and
men of Nottingham,” ii. 304-6, 307. For 1480, ii. 420. In 1482 an
agreement about the Retford tolls is settled by “the mayor and his
brethren and the commonalty of Nottingham,” iii. 427. There is an
extreme particularity in the phrase used in 1485, ii. 353. For a lease
of land in 1494, iii. 431. For 1504, iii. 325-6.
[665] We may compare this with the Council of Southampton; see pp.
308-11.
[666] In 1435 we read of the mayor, and nine, or possibly eleven,
burgesses named “and many other commons in the said hall,” (Nott. Rec.
ii. 362.) In 1443 there is something very like the council—the mayor,
four justices of the peace named, John Orgram and other “trustworthy
men” of the town, and the two chamberlains, who acted “with the assent
of the whole community of the town.” (Ibid. ii. 408.) For the fine see
ii. 424.
[667] Ibid. ii. 424.
[668] The editor of the Records, Mr. Stevenson, accepts this statement
of Gregory, and says that “The council had no existence prior to 1446,
and it was at first merely a committee appointed by the burgesses
for the management of the affairs of the town.” According to him the
townspeople were accustomed to assemble for the discussion of any
important business, and “this was the system of government in use
prior to the establishment of this committee in 1446.” (Nott. Rec. iv.
ix.) He believes further that “it was, no doubt, the abuses arising
from this system and the inconvenience of having to call a meeting of
the whole community for the consideration of every question connected
with the ruling of the town that caused the burgesses to choose the
committee of 1446.” (Ibid. xi.)
[669] Ibid. iv. xi.
[670] Nott. Rec. ii. 362, 425, 420. The right of the burgesses to ask
for the calling of a common hall is admitted in iii. 342.
[671] Ibid. ii. 186 _et sq._ There are passages in the charter which
seem to convey this impression. In 1465 Elizabeth Woodville confirms a
charter to “the mayor, sheriffs, burgesses, and men of the town,” by
whatsoever name they might be incorporated and known (ii. 255-7).
[672] Ibid. ii. 202-4. For boundaries of wards see iv. 174.
[673] Ibid. ii. 425; iv. xii. 2. The aldermen were still merged for
general business in the council, and appear only three times, possibly
acting as a kind of separate estate—once in 1450 when some land was
let by the mayor, sheriffs, chamberlains, aldermen, and the whole
community; once twenty years later, when in 1471 a complaint was
addressed to the King by the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty; and once
in 1504 when an ordinance was made by the mayor and aldermen to reduce
certain fines to be paid by them for neglect of financial duties, to
which they obtained the consent of councillors and commons. (Nott. Rec.
iii. 325; iii. 408; ii. 334.) In the first two cases the word may have
been used to denote the whole council.
[674] Ibid. iv. xii. xv.
[675] Nott. Rec. iv. xi. xii. xiv. xv. We have only records of the
completed changes in the middle of the sixteenth century, probably
because of the loss of documents. But in the time of Henry VII. the
distinction was already established between the mayor and his brethren
and the clothing (those who had served the office of chamberlain or
sheriff). iii. 449.
[676] Ibid. ii. 227.
[677] See p. 350. In an agreement made in 1500 between the mayor,
council and clothing the names of six inhabitants are included,
apparently unofficial, and possibly representatives of the commons.
(Nott. Rec. iii. 301.) The names set down for the election of the mayor
and officers for the next year are the mayor, recorder, six aldermen,
six common councillors, two sheriffs, the six (apparently) plain
burgesses mentioned in the last list, and twenty-four others of the
clothing. (Compare the lists ibid. iii. 301, 302.)
[678] For a list of the common property and common lands in 1435 see
Ibid. ii. 355-361; see also iii. 62-66; in 1351 iii. 366 _et sq._
[679] The importance to the burgesses of the common lands may be
illustrated by their argument in 1577 against admitting new burgesses
“for there is too many of them already; by making of them the poor
burgesses commons is eaten up, to the great hindrance of all.” At the
same time they insisted that if a burgess let out his part of the land
it should be to a burgess and not to a foreigner. (Nott. Rec. iv. 171,
172.)
[680] Ibid. iv. 282. “We present the new council for not setting the
town’s grounds to the true meaning of their new election, but hath
taken the best ground to the richest men, and let the poor men have
nothing that are ancienter burgesses. Also we find that the whole house
or the most of them overhipt (passed over) themselves as it came to
them by order of their names in the book while they were disposing of
Hartliff ground and the coppices, but now that the East Steaner and
other good closes come to be disposed of, they share them themselves,
and leaves poor men unserved that are both ancient and needful.” This
happened in 1606 when the council had got control of the land.
[681] Ibid. ii. 420. No doubt one of the grievances of the people
under a despotic administration was the being deprived of any adequate
control over the admission of new burgesses to share their lands.
Compare Ibid. iii. 459 etc. with the constant remonstrance of the
Mickletorn jury.
[682] The conflict of the sixteenth century lies really beyond our
period in point of time, but the complaints of the people and the
incidents of the fight throw much light on the working of municipal
government, even in earlier days.
[683] 1500, Nott. Rec. iii. 74, 76. The chamberlain concerned in this
business was John Rose.
[684] 1516, Nott. Rec. iii. 353. A very frequent charge against the
aldermen.
[685] Ibid. iii. 344.
[686] Ibid. iii. 300. The Mickletorn mentioned in 1308 was held in
the presence of the coroners and bailiffs, and presentments were made
by decennaries of the daily market, (i. 66, 68.) Seventeen jurors are
mentioned at the Mickletorn of 1395. (i. 268.) It is interesting to
compare the procedure at Coventry, as taken by Miss Dormer Harris from
the records. All petitions to be laid before the court were given in
to the mayor four days before the meeting of the Leet; and these were
inspected by twenty-four men summoned by the mayor. On the day of the
Leet these petitions, if satisfactory, received the assent of the
twenty-four jurats of the Leet.
[687] Nott. Rec. iii. 438.
[688] Ibid. iii. 338-40.
[689] As late as 1480 their right of assembly had been admitted, and at
least six of the commons had taken formal part in elections and other
business in 1500 and 1504.
[690] This Mr. Treasurer was Sir Thomas Lovel, Treasurer of the
Household, Constable of Nottingham Castle, Steward of Lenton monastery.
[691] Nott. Rec. iii. 341-2.
[692] Ibid. iii. 342-3.
[693] In September, 1514, John Rose, mayor, and the burgesses of the
town gave a licence to John Sye to enclose part of the common ground
for his use at a rent of 2_s._ a year. (Nott. Rec. iii. 125.) But in
February, 1515, when leave was given to the guardians of the free
school to enclose land express mention is made of the mayor, burgesses,
and community. (iii. 457.) The agreement in 1516 about the Lenton fair
was made between the convent and the mayor, sheriffs, burgesses, and
commonalty. (iii. 345.) See also 439-40.
[694] June 1513 to Dec. 1514. Again in 1520.
[695] Nottingham Records, iii. 342, 463.
[696] Ibid. iii. 423, 463-4.
[697] Ibid. iii. 357. He apparently neglected their entreaties. 358.
[698] Nott. Rec. iii. 359.
[699] Nott. Rec. iii. 358-60.
[700] Nottingham Records, iv. xiii. For a case in which this certainly
happened see p. 356. The same thing seems to have happened in 1504. A
law of 1442 had ordered that if the mayor and bailiffs did not render
up their accounts before leaving office they should be fined, £20
for the mayor, £10 for the bailiffs; in 1504 the mayor and aldermen
together issued a new ordinance reducing the fine to one half, an
ordinance which was assented to by three common councillors, while for
the commonalty appear the names of seventeen burgesses, of whom one was
certainly one of the sheriffs. (Ibid. ii. 424; iii. 325.)
[701] Nottingham Records, iv. pp. xiii. xxvii. xxviii. 100, 101, 1552.
[702] Ibid. iv. 106-8, 215 _et sq._
[703] Ibid. iii. 365; iv. 10.
[704] Ibid. iv. 106, 191, 223. The free school was left to the
guardianship of the mayor, aldermen, and common council, and if they
were negligent to the Lenton convent, now of course suppressed. (Ibid.
iii. 453 _et sq._)
[705] Nottingham Records, iv. 108.
[706] Ibid. iv. 238.
[707] Ibid. iv. 408-9. The burgesses seem to have twice at least
acted with the people against or apart from the aldermen—once in the
settlement about the town accounts in 1504 (iii. 325-6); and once in
the complaint drawn up by the Mickletorn jury in 1527 against the mayor
and aldermen (iii. 358-60.) The people may have hoped to strengthen
this element of resistance.
[708] Mr. Stevenson thinks that the Clothing about this date became
a portion of the council. Nottingham Records, iv. xiii. The other
explanation seems to me to meet difficulties which this leaves unsolved.
[709] Ibid. iv. 171, 172.
[710] Ibid. iv. 191.
[711] Nottingham Records, iv. 191.
[712] Ibid. iv. 214, 237-8.
[713] Ibid. iv. 245-8.
[714] Ibid. iv. 253.
[715] Ibid. iv. 262-3, 265. See 268, xvi.
[716] Ibid. iv. 269, 282.
[717] Ibid. 270. For the final settlement see iv. xvii.
[718] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 300-305. Blomefield, xi. 300-342.
[719] Cromwell’s Colchester, 264-5.
[720] See Mr. Hudson’s admirable work on Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich.
(Selden Soc. vol. v.) For the four “vice-comites” of London see Round’s
Geoffrey de Mandeville, 363.
[721] Leet Jur. (Selden Soc.) v. p. xviii. lxii, xliii-li.; Hudson,
Mun. Org. in Norwich: Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 312, 316.
[722] According to Mr. Hudson the Norwich Leet Juries were solely
a “police” organization. They existed to make “presentments” which
involved a certain amount of previous keeping of the peace in their
own little neighbourhood. In their _individual_ capacity the capital
pledges were the precursors of the “petty constable” [see Selden Soc.
v. lxii. no. 1, and cf. pages there cited]; in their _collective_
capacity as juries they preceded the local “Justice of the Peace,” a
function usurped to a small extent between (say) 1360 and 1420 by the
“twenty-four citizens,” and afterwards wholly usurped by the “Court of
Aldermen,” who were the borough magistrates.
[723] Hudson, Leet Jur. in Norwich, lxxi., note.
[724] Ibid. xv. 1365. Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 322. In reference to
the election of bailiffs or the “twenty-four” the word “leet” means a
division of the city, not a court.
[725] Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich, xli.
[726] Besides the deed of 1290 (p. 367 n. 2) Mr. Hudson has kindly
sent me the following extracts. Saturday, Vigil of Palms, 27 Edward
I. 1298—John the carpenter and Alice his wife grant a messuage next
the gates of Nedham to “Ballivi, Cives, et Communitas Norwici” “ad
asiamentum muri civitatis erigendi.” (City Domesday, fol. lxxiii.) On
folio lxviii. of the same book there is a grant of a messuage near the
cathedral to the commonalty, 31 Edward, 1302, in the following form:
“to the four Bailiffs (named), Henry Clark, Robert de Holveston, ...
Adam de Blicling, citizens of the said city (15 persons), and all the
Commonalty thereof.”
[727] Norwich Town Close Evidences, printed privately, 1885. (British
Museum), 18.
[728] Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 322.
[729] They state in 1378 that this had already been the custom. (Town
Close Evidences, 30.)
[730] Arch. Journ. xlvi. No 183, 315.
[731] Town Close Evidences, 7. The phraze used in 1218 (p. 5), “men of
the city,” is not the same.
[732] Ibid. 7, 13, 17, 18, 25, 26, 30. Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 325.
See Note A at end of chapter.
[733] Town Close Evidences, 27.
[734] Ibid. 16, 18.
[735] Town Close Evidences, 10, 11, 17.
[736] Norwich Town Close Evidences, 14, 24, 27, 31, 32. The same form
was used even after the charter of 1403, in 1420 and 1435. (Ibid. 46.)
We find “the citizens” joined with “the commonalty” in the thirteenth
century. An enrolled deed of 1290, in which license to build a stall
in the market is granted by the “Communitas Norwici et cives ejusdam
civitatis,” is quoted by Mr. Hudson. (See Mun. Org., Arch. Journ.
xlvi. no. 184.) The double style used is, I think, explained by a
contention which occurred a century later, in 1379. “There was a
discussion whether the stalls in the meat-market ought to belong to the
commonalty or to the bailiffs. They are agreed that the said stalls
shall in future remain to the commonalty for ever, without challenge or
contradiction to the present bailiffs or the bailiffs in future.” (Town
Close Evidences, 31.) At that time a great reorganization of the market
was in progress (see Kirkpatrick’s “Streets and Lanes of Norwich,” App.
i. pp. 95, 96) with a view to getting as many stalls as possible into
the hands of the authorities. As the bailiffs had certain sources of
income allotted to them (they being personally responsible for the fee
ferm rent) they need not be blamed for trying to help themselves. On
the other hand the attempt shows how significant was the use of the
word “communitas” in the older deed (see p. 364 no. 1). I think it very
possible that property set apart for a definite public purpose was
held in the joint names of citizens and commonalty; but I am convinced
this last word was never used in a formal way, but always expressed a
tenure and control with which the “cives” or the twenty-four could not
interfere.
[737] Hudson, Leet Jur. in Norwich, xxxvi. lxxiii. 63. Selden Soc.
[738] Arch. Journ. xlvi. 316-17.
[739] Town Close Evidences, 16-17.
[740] Ibid. 29. Evidently this was a time of very active municipal
life. About 1372 the corporation seems to have begun copying out
carefully older legal documents, and this copying and re-writing went
on through the next century. The account-books which still exist began
to be kept in 1393. In 1378 the income of the city was £374 17 _s._
4_d._ Blomefield, iii. 103.
[741] Town Close Evidences, 30.
[742] Mr. Hudson informs me that there are rolls (more or less perfect)
for about half the years between 1365 and 1385. Then they fail till
1413, when the constitution of the assembly had been entirely altered.
[743] I have to thank Mr. Hudson for his kindness in giving me this
information. He tells me that an assembly on October 7th, 1372, is
thus described: “Prima congregatio ibidem tenta die Jovis, &c. ...
quatuor Ballivis (eleven persons specially named) et aliis de com’tate
presentibus.” This is the constant form in use, whenever the attendance
is recorded, down to the last of these rolls in 1385. The number
of persons specially named varies from eleven to seventeen. Their
similarity in the course of each year suggests that they were specially
bound to attend. In two years 1377-8 and 1379-80 the attendances are
recorded several times, and, as in the first case the total number of
persons named is twenty-five and in the other twenty-four, it seems
reasonably certain that they were the actual twenty-four. This is
confirmed by the fact that almost all the “committee,” as they would
now be called, are appointed from their number and almost the whole
burden of administration is undertaken by one or other of them in
conjunction with the bailiffs.
[744] Citizens left legacies to help in these expenses. Not only was
£1,000 lent to the King, but heavy bribes had to be paid all round.
Blomefield, iii. 120.
[745] Town Close Evidences, 36. In considering the new style two views
present themselves. We may lay the whole stress on the association
of mayor and sheriffs instead of bailiffs with “the citizens and
commonalty”; or, as I incline to think, we may also attach importance
to the formal association in a charter of “citizens” and “commonalty,”
as marking an epoch in the civic history.
[746] Mr. Hudson has been good enough to give me these dates and facts,
in which he has been able to correct Blomefield’s statements, from
evidence in the Norwich Conveyance Rolls, etc.
[747] Blomefield, iii. 123-124. Hudson, Mun. Org., Arch. Journ. xlvi.
no. 184, 299.
[748] Town Close Evidences, 37-43.
[749] In 1354 it was ordered that London aldermen should not be elected
yearly but hold office for life. (Stow’s London, 189.) A common council
appears as early as 1273; and again in 1347. It was then chosen by the
mayor, aldermen, and representatives from the wards. At the end of
Edward’s reign the election was transferred to the trading companies,
but restored to the wards in 1384; to be given back to the companies
by Edward the Fourth in 1467; and restored to the wards in 1650.
(Merewether and Stephens, 734-5, 1988-1992.)
[750] All that had been mayors were to ride in their cloaks whenever
the mayor rode on pain of £20, each of the twenty-four on pain of
100_s._ The hat of the mayor cost in 1418 2_s._ 10_d._, in 1437 10_s._
2_d._ (Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, iv. 579.)
[751] Town Close Evidences, 40-1.
[752] Conesford elected twelve councillors, Mancroft sixteen, Wymer
twenty, and the Ward over the Water twelve.
[753] The Speaker of the House of Commons is first mentioned in 1378.
[754] Town Close Evidences, 39, 40, 41.
[755] Town Close Evidences, 41, 42.
[756] Ibid. 45.
[757] Blomefield, iii. 134.
[758] Town Close Evidences, 41.
[759] Ibid. 45.
[760] In 1423 when the mayor and other judges sat in the city there
appeared before them two coroners, 16 constables for the four wards,
the constables for the liberties of Holmestrete and Spitelond, with the
bailiff of the prior’s liberties in those places, and four men out of
each ward possibly for jurymen. In 1424 a tripartite indenture was made
by the mayor, aldermen, and commons, with constitutions for the better
government of the city, and was ratified at a common assembly in the
guild hall. (Blomefield, iii. 136-139.)
[761] Leet Jur. in Norwich, xx. lxxvi. lxxx.
[762] Leet Jurisdiction, lxxx.
[763] Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, p. 326-7. Leet Jur. lxxxix. Before
the end of the thirteenth century there were guilds of cobblers,
fullers, saddlers, tanners. (Ibid. 13, 39, 42, 43.)
[764] In the list given in English Guilds there is one guild founded
in 1307 and ten (or eleven, if we count the masons’ guild on p. 39)
founded between 1350 and 1385, some of them craft guilds, others
nominally social or religious associations, though it is very probable
that in many cases this was but a thin disguise for a craft guild.
English Guilds, 14, etc.
[765] See saddlers’ guild, which had existed a century before.
[766] The composition of 1415 decided that each craft in the city was
yearly to choose two masters, whose names were to be presented for
the mayor’s consent, and who were to take their oaths before him. The
Monday after the mayor’s “riding” these masters were to make good and
true search in their crafts and to present all offenders before the
mayor for judgement; and half the fines were given to the sheriffs,
half to the masters of the crafts. The mayor had to accept the
presentment of the “masters”; he could not make search either himself
or by any of the town officers; only if a craft refused to be searched
or to elect masters the mayor might himself appoint two masters and
order the search. If the masters concealed any notable default they
were to be punished by the advice of the mayor and more sufficient men
of the same craft. (Town Close Evidences, 41, 42.)
[767] On being enrolled each man must pay to the craft 40 pence, and to
the chamber at least 20_s._ and “more after the quantity of his good.”
(Town Close Evidences, 42.) The profits of admission to the freedom of
the city had in old times gone half to the bailiffs and half to the
community, but now the craft claimed a definite share of the entrance
money. (Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, p. 328.) By the composition six men
were to be chosen “to be of counsel with the chamberlains in receiving
of burgesses.”
[768] Town Close Evidences, 42-3.
[769] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 104.
[770] English Guilds, 443-4.
[771] Lambert’s Guild Life, 108. English Guilds, 443-60.
[772] 1/2_d._ was paid for each piece sealed. The right was leased
to two citizens at 20 marks rent. Blomefield, iii. 125. By the law
of 1442 the weavers were to choose every year four wardens from the
craftsmen of the town, who should in their turn choose two inspectors
or overseers for the stuff out of Norfolk. The wardens tested the
faulty goods and received half of any forfeited stuffs. The law of 1445
ordered them to choose four wardens for Norwich and four for Norfolk,
and directed the wardens to make such laws as were needful for the
improvement of the trade. (20 Henry VI. cap. 10; 23 Henry VI. cap. 3; 7
Edward IV. cap. 1.)
[773] See Paston Letters.
[774] Not only were there disputes with the prior of Norwich, but with
the Hospital of S. Paul (Town Close Evidences, 7-8); the prioress of
Carrow (Blomefield, iii. 64, 147); the abbot of Holme (ibid. 153-4);
the abbot of Wendling (ibid. 147).
[775] “For the people here is loth to complain till they hear tidings
of a good sheriff.” (Paston Letters, i. 166.)
[776] The mayor and citizens were able if necessary to have in harness
from two to five hundred men of the town. (Ibid. ii. 414.)
[777] Blomefield, iii. 144-155.
[778] In 1444. Blomefield, iii. 151, 152. The courts were held in
the tolbooth, but the assemblies of the commons still gathered in
the chapel of the Virgin Mary in the Fields. (Ibid. 92.) Most of the
city business was done there as late as 1455. (Ibid. 160.) It appears
that the citizens frequently availed themselves of other people’s
accommodation (the Priory, Black Friars, Grey Friars) rather than spend
money in providing it for themselves.
[779] Ibid. iii. 153.
[780] William Paston was one of the commissioners. (Blomefield, iii.
148.)
[781] Ibid. iii. 144-6.
[782] Proceedings of Privy Council, v. 17-19.
[783] Blomefield, iii. 146-7, 153.
[784] Proceedings of Privy Council, v. 34, 45.
[785] Blomefield, iii. 147. New arrangements were made about the
payments of the sheriffs by raising regular taxes; the sword-bearer and
the three serjeants for the maces were given their offices for life.
[786] Blomefield, iii. 147-149.
[787] The bishop was on the side of the anti-popular party. At his
death he left to John Heydon the cup he daily used of silver gilt with
the cover. (Ibid. iii. 538.)
[788] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 103.
[789] Charges that the mayor had sealed with the common seal measures
bigger than the standard measures for certain favoured citizens, and
that the people were forced to sell to them by these measures; that he
had made an evil use of the Pye-powder Court, using its summary and
autocratic procedure to imprison many men wrongly and tyrannically (one
John Wetherby had been imprisoned); and that he sustained an illegal
guild in the city called Le Bachery. In 1477 a statute was made that
the Pye-powder Court could only deal with contracts or bargains made
during the fair. (Blomefield, iii. 169.)
[790] Ibid. iii. 149-50, 154-5.
[791] Ibid. 147, 152.
[792] He left £40 to Norwich towards payment of the city tax.
(Blomefield, iii. 534.) The city, however, asked in vain for the money
in 1454 and again in 1460. (159.) Walter Lyhert, made bishop in 1446,
was of an old Norwich family. An ancestor of his had been citizen in
1261. (Ibid. iii. 535-6.)
[793] Ibid. iii. 156.
[794] Paston Letters, i. 151, 156, 158.
[795] Ibid. i. 151.
[796] Ibid. i. 123, 183-4, 199-200, 206, 211-2, 225.
[797] In 1460 Heydon left Norfolk for Berkshire. (Paston Letters, i.
cxlii.)
[798] In 1456 the common stock was so much wasted that several of the
aldermen remitted debts to the city. (Blomefield, iii. 160.) And even
the guild of S. George was scarcely able to pay its way. (Hist. MSS.
Com. i. 104.)
[799] All ex-mayors were allowed to be justices of the peace. Four of
the justices of the peace were to have the powers of King’s justices,
and the aldermen were allowed to elect the under sheriffs, town clerks,
and sheriffs’ bailiffs. (Blomefield, iii. 158.)
[800] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 104. In 1452 it was ordered that no brother
should wear a red gown save the alderman of the guild or any of the
twenty-four aldermen of the city.
[801] The first attempt at a settlement was in 1205 about the rights of
common of the townspeople. (Town Close Evidences, 4-5.)
[802] Town Close Evidences, 52-64.
[803] Vol. I. p. 221.
[804] Dr. Gross, taking the Trinity guild of Lynn as “a continuation of
the old guild merchant,” speaks of its “line of developement” into a
“simple, social-religious fraternity” (i. 161); and notes that “though
the ancient function of the guild had disappeared, its social-religious
successor was a quasi-official part of the civic polity” (p. 162). He
does not, however, enable us to trace any such “developement,” or to
distinguish “ancient functions” from later ones. From our first glimpse
of the guild in the charters of John and Henry the Third to the patent
of Henry the Fifth it seems to be singularly free from change, nor is
any evidence produced during these centuries for its “transformation
into a simple social-religious guild.” In the case of Southampton Dr.
Gross sees a developement of an exactly opposite kind (ii. 231).
[805] For a most interesting account of the Lynn cattle and sheep
trade, and the Kipton Ash market, set up in 1306, for drafting off the
sheep flocks, see Dr. Jessopp’s paper in the Nineteenth Century, June,
1892, on “A Fourteenth Century Parson.”
[806] Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 183.
[807] The guild did not include all the town traders (Gross, ii.
166-7), and probably tended to become an exclusive body since it could
keep out all save the sons of its members by charging whatever entrance
fees it liked (p. 164).
[808] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 210-11.
[809] Blomefield, viii. 515. Gross, ii. 159-170. The guild of Corpus
Christi paid in 1400 103_s._ 2_d._ for meat and drinks and spices for
its feast, and 169_s._ for making wax torches; and the beginning of the
century was marked by the foundation of at least three other guilds,
with right to hold land and buildings.
[810] Gross, ii. 166-7.
[811] Gross, ii. 166.
[812] A charter of 1305 secured its possession of certain property.
The charter of 1393 was probably connected with the extension of the
statute of mortmain to towns. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 186, 191.)
[813] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 211. Gross, ii. 153. The best
mill-stones in those days came from Paris, or from Andernach on the
Rhine. A good mill-stone might cost from £3 to £4. (Rogers’ Work and
Wages, i. 113.)
[814] Even from the thirteenth century. (Gross, ii. 153.)
[815] Gross, ii. 159.
[816] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 225-231.
[817] Gross, ii. 158, etc. 168.
[818] Compare this with Southampton, where the alderman was himself
mayor.
[819] Gross, ii. 155-156.
[820] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 194.
[821] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 195-6. Beloe, Our Borough, p. 19.
[822] Beloe, Our Borough, 15.
[823] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 196.
[824] In 1345 the king called out a hundred men of the most vigorous to
go to Gascony. (Ibid. 189.)
[825] See Vol. I. 291-2.
[826] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 218-223.
[827] Ibid. 158-9.
[828] Ibid. p. 229.
[829] Ibid. xi. 3, p. 224.
[830] Cf. for comparison and contrast the custom of Dinant after 1348.
(Ville de Dinant. Pirenne, 45-6, 49-50.)
[831] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 191-4.
[832] Mr. Beloe says that the ruling class resisted, and instituted
a costly suit to get a decree under the great seal setting aside the
award, but he gives no particulars. (Our Borough, 17.)
[833] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 197, 200.
[834] Either officer convicted of false dealing was to lose his office
and franchise for ever.
[835] The four chamberlains or treasurers were then to be chosen
from the body of burgesses, two by the mayor and jurats, two by the
burgesses. But, unlike Norwich, where the council and commons divided
the remaining elections between them, in Lynn the only appointment
left to the community besides the two chamberlains was the prolocutor.
Coroners and constables were nominated by the people, and elected
by the jurats, and the other officers, the common clerk, serjeant,
janitors, bell-man and wait, taken from the general community both of
burgesses and non-burgesses, were directly appointed by the mayor and
jurats.
[836] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 196-202. There were “constabularies” which
corresponded to wards, over which a captain was appointed in time of
war or danger. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.)
[837] Beloe, Our Borough, 16.
[838] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 191-4.
[839] Beloe, 17, 18. Gross, ii. 170.
[840] Ibid.
[841] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 195, 203.
[842] Instances of the important place held by the alderman in matters
of town government in 1420. (Ibid. 246, and in 1431-42, p. 162-4.)
[843] In 1426 the alderman of the guild chose four fit persons who
took the accustomed oath and entered the chamber; they chose four
others, who, after being sworn, were brought into the chamber, and the
eight then added to their number four more. The whole body of twelve,
after sitting from the tenth to the third hour, were finally divided
as to the election of the serjeant who had in some way offended the
community, and at whose name a “great murmur now arose amongst the
people” waiting outside. He was, however, chosen after asking pardon of
the mayor and community for his offence. (Ibid. 160.) In 1477 another
election is described, which was carried on in exactly the same way.
(Ibid. 169.) And in 1470, when a constable had to be elected there was
the same procedure.
[844] Beloe, 21.
[845] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 245, 246.
[846] The gradual change in the mode of electing burgesses for
parliament illustrates the action of the councils in absorbing
influence. In 1314 the jury to elect the burgesses had been chosen by
a committee of twenty-six townsmen. But at least from 1425 the mayor
assumed the right of choosing the first four of the jury, who then
named the remaining eight. In 1433, if not earlier, the mayor was bound
to select two of the twenty-four and two of the twenty-seven, and the
added eight members were all taken from the same bodies; and in 1442
this custom was made into a permanent law. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3.
240, 157-8, 163-4, 166-9.) About 1523 the burgesses were chosen by
the twenty-four and twenty-seven voting personally in assembly; this
assembly, called the “House,” carried on all dealings with members,
instructed them, paid them, and received their reports. The first
effort of the burgesses at large to take any part in election was at
the Long Parliament. (Ibid. pp. 148-9.)
[847] 1427, Ibid. 160; 1428, p. 161; 1441, p. 163-4; 1442, p. 164;
1466, p. 168. Cf. also p. 148.
[848] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 162.
[849] Ibid. 246.
[850] Ibid. 170.
[851] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 163.
[852] Ibid. 158-9, 161.
[853] Ibid. 167.
[854] Ibid. 168. The use of the word communitas in 1463 is here
explained as showing how the term had “already lost its original
meaning and was used to designate the humblest and least influential
class of the burgesses.” But community was used in exactly this sense
in 1305. (Ibid. 187.)
[855] For some details of the seventy-five guilds of Lynn see the
Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, edited by Walter Rye, Part I., pp.
153-183.
[856] Lyon’s Dover, I. xi.; ii. 267-8, 287, 312, 370.
[857] In Dover the common assembly summoned in the same way was called
a Hornblowing. (Boy’s Sandwich, 797.)
[858] Ibid. 538.
[859] Ibid. 783-4. In 1565 291 households were English and 129
Walloons. But there were many foreigners in Sandwich at a far earlier
time.
[860] In 1466 and 1492. Boys’ Sandwich, 675, 679.
[861] Ibid. 787.
[862] Ibid. 673-6. In 1469 the commons of Sandwich at a Shepway court
desire that the mayor may be kept in safe custody for such charges as
they will allege against him. (Ibid. 676.)
[863] Boys’ Sandwich, 677.
[864] Lyon’s Dover, i. 206-7.
[865] Boys’ Sandwich, 683.
[866] At the same time the jurats, who as late as 1492 need only
have lived a year in the town, “he and his wife together,” must now
have been there at least three years. (Ibid. 679-701.) Jurats were
ultimately chosen or nominated by the mayor in Dover and in Winchelsea.
(Lyon, ii. 268, 371.)
[867] Boys, 686.
[868] Skelton’s Poems. Ed. Dyce, 381-2.
[869] Green’s History of the English People, i. 211-225.
[870] See p. 238. Mr. Maitland’s Archaic Communities (Law Quarterly),
47.
[871] Brinklow’s Papers (Early Eng. Text Soc.) illustrate the
uncompromising ideas of radical reform fostered in towns.
[872] Bishop Creighton’s Wolsey, 51, 59.
[873] Skelton’s Poems. Ed. Dyce, i. 386.
[874] See Vol. I. Ch. VII.
[875]
“He rules his commonalty With all benignity, His noble baronage He
putteth them in courage To exploit deeds of arms.... Wherever he rides
or goes His subjects he doth support, Maintain them with comfort Of his
most princely port.”
Skelton, ii. 81-2.
[876] Vol. I. p. 26, n. 5.
[877] “And then they (princes) daub over their oppression with a
submissive, flattering carriage, that they may so far insinuate into
the affections of the vulgar, as they may not tumult nor rebel, but
patiently crouch to burdens and exactions.” (Erasmus, Praise of Folly,
tr.), 151.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.