town festivals, there was usually a tie between the Bible story
and the guild's craft. For instance, the story of the loaves and
fishes would be performed by the Bakers' or Fishmongers' Guild.
The theme of the morality play was the fight of the Seven Cardinal
Virtues against the Seven Deadly Sins for the human soul, a life-
long battle. The number seven was thought to have sacred power;
there were seven sacraments, seven churches in the Biblical
Apocalypse, seven liberal arts and seven devilish arts. The seven
sacraments were: baptism, confirmation, Lord's Supper, penance,
orders, matrimony, and extreme unction.
A borough was run by a mayor elected usually for life. By being
members of a guild, merchant-traders and craftsmen acquired the
legal status of burgesses and had the freedom of the borough. Each
guild occupied a certain ward of the town headed by an alderman.
The town aldermen, who were unpaid, made up the town council,
which advised the mayor. The Mayor of London received 40 pounds
for hospitality, but in small towns, 20s. sufficed. Often there
were town police, bailiffs, beadles [messengers], a town crier,
and a town clerk. London offices included recorder, prosecutor,
common sergeant, and attorneys. In the center of town were the
fine stone houses, a guildhall with a belfry-tower, and the
marketplace - a square or broad street, where the town crier made
public announcements with bell or horn. Here too was the ducking
stool for scandalmongers and the stocks which held offenders by
their legs and perhaps their hands to be scorned and pelted by
bystanders with, for instance, rotten fruit and filth. No longer
were towns dominated by the local landholders.
In London there were 4 royal princes, 6 great earls, 17 barons, 26
knights, and 11 female representatives of the peerage (counted in
1319). There was a wall with four towers surrounding the White
Tower, and this castle was known as the Tower of London. Another
wall and a moat were built around it and it has reached its final
form. Hovels, shops, and waste patches alternated with high walls
and imposing gateways protecting mansions. The mansions had
orchards, gardens, stables, brewhouses, bakeries, guardrooms, and
chapels. London streets were paved with cobbles and sand. Each
citizen was to keep the street in front of his tenement in good
repair. Later, each alderman appointed four reputable men to
repair and clean the streets for wages. The repair of Bishopsgate
was the responsibility of the Bishop because he received one stick
from every cart of firewood passing through it. Rules as to tiled
roofs were enforced. A 1297 ordinance required all taverns to
close at curfew, an hour that fluctuated. Prostitutes were
expelled from the city because the street with their bawdy houses
had become very noisy. Women huckster-retailers, nurses, servants,
and loose women were limited to wearing hoods furred with lambskin
or rabbitskin and forbidden to wear hoods furred with vair or
miniver [grey or white squirrel] in the guise of good ladies. An
infirmary for the blind was founded by a mercer, who became its
first prior.
The London mayoral elections were hotly fought over until in 1285,
when the aldermen began to act with the aid of an elected council
in each of the twenty-four wards, which decentralized the
government of the city. Each ward chose certain of its inhabitants
to be councilors to the aldermen. This council was to be consulted
by him and its advice to be followed. In 1291, the aldermen for
the first time included a fishmonger. The Fishmongers were the
only guild at this time, besides the Weavers, which had acquired
independent jurisdiction by the transfer of control of their
weekly hall-mote from a public official to themselves. Craftsmen
began to take other public offices too. By the reign of Edward II,
all the citizens were obliged to be enrolled among the trade-
guilds. A great quarrel between the weaver's guild and the
magistracy began the control of the city by the craft guilds or
city companies. Admission to freedom of the city [citizenship] was
controlled by the citizens, who decided that no man of English
birth, and especially no English merchant, who followed any
specific mistery [French word for a calling or trade] or craft,
was to be admitted to the freedom of the city except on the
security of six reputable men of that mistery or craft. No longer
could one simply purchase citizenship. Apprentices had to finish
their terms before such admission, and often could not afford the
citizenship fee imposed on them. Only freemen could sell wares in
the city, a custom of at least two hundred years.
As economic activity in London became more complex and on a larger
scale in the 1200s, some craftsmen were brought under the control
of other crafts or merchants. The bakers fell under the control of
the wholesale grain dealers; the weavers became pieceworkers for
rich cloth merchants; the blade-makers and shearers were employed
by cutlers; coppersmiths were controlled by girdlers; fullers were
controlled by entrepreneurial dyers; and the painters, joiners,
and lorimers were controlled by the saddlers. Guilds moved their
meeting places from churches, which were now too small, to guild
halls. The controlling officers of the large guilds met at the
Guildhall, which became the seat of mayoral authority. London
streets in existence by this time include Cordwainer, Silver,
Cannon (Candlewick), and Roper. Lanes included Ironmonger, Soper,
Spurrier, Lad (ladles), Distaff, Needles, Mede, Limeburner, and
Hosier. Fighting among groups was common in London. There was a
street fight on a large scale in 1327 between the saddlers and a
coalition of joiners, painters, and lorimers (makers of metal work
of saddles). Much blood was shed in the street battle between the
skinners and the fishmongers in 1340. There was a city ordinance
that no one except royal attendants, baronial valets, and city
officials were to go about armed. Disputes among neighbors that
were brought to court included the use and upkeep of party walls,
blocked and overflowing gutters, cesspits too close to a
neighbor's property, noisy tenants, loss of light, and dangerous
or overhanging structures.
In 1275, a goldsmith was chief assay-master of the King's mint and
keeper of the exchange at London. The king gave the Goldsmiths'
Company the right of assay [determination of the quantity of gold
or silver in an object] and required that no vessels of gold or
silver should leave the maker's hands until they had been tested
by the wardens and stamped appropriately. In 1279, goldsmith
William Farrington bought the soke of the ward containing the
goldsmiths' shops. It remained in his family for 80 years. A
patent of 1327 empowered the guild to elect a properly qualified
governing body to superintend its affairs, and reform subjects of
just complaint. It also prescribed, as a safeguard against a
prevailing fraud and abuse, that all members of the trade should
have their standing in Cheapside or in the King's exchange, and
that no gold or silver should be manufactured for export, except
that which had been bought at the exchange or of the trade openly.
Some prices in London were: large wooden bedstead 18s., a small
bedstead 2s., a large chest for household items 2s., feather beds
2-3s., a table 1s., a chair 4-6d., cloth gown lined with fur 13-
20s., plain coats and overcoats 2-8s., caps 2-8d., a pair of pen-
cases with inkhorn 4d., a skin of parchment 1d., 24 sheets of
paper 6d, a carcass of beef 15s., a pig 4s., a swan 5s., and a
pheasant 4s. There was a problem with malefactors committing
offenses in London and avoiding its jurisdiction by escaping to
Southwark across the Thames. So Southwark was given a royal
charter which put it under the jurisdiction of London for peace
and order matters and allowed London to appoint its tax collector.
London forbade games being played because they had replaced
practice in archery, which was necessary for defense.
A royal inquiry into the state of the currency indicated much
falsification and coin-clipping by the Jews and others. About 280
Jews and many Englishmen were found guilty and hanged. The rest of
the Jews, about 16,000, were expelled in 1290. This was popular
with the public because of the abuses of usury. There had been
outbreaks of violence directed at the Jews since about 1140. The
king used Italian bankers instead because he thought them more
equitable in their dealings. The lepers were driven out of London
in 1276. Exports and imports were no longer a tiny margin in an
economy just above the subsistence level. Exports were primarily
raw wool and cloth, but also grain, butter, eggs, herring, hides,
leather goods such as bottles and boots, embroideries, metalware,
horseshoes, daggers, tin, coal, and lead. Imported were wine,
silk, timber, furs, rubies, emeralds, fruits, raisins, currents,
pepper, ginger, cloves, rice, cordovan leather, pitch, hemp,
spars, fine iron, short rods of steel, bow-staves of yew, tar,
oil, salt, cotton (for candle-wicks), and alum (makes dyes hold).
Ships which transported them had one or two masts upon which sails
could be furled, the recently invented rudder, and a carrying
capacity of up to 200 tuns [about one ton]. Many duties of
sheriffs and coroners were transferred to county landholders by
commissions. In coastal counties, there were such commissions for
supervising coastal defense and maintaining the beacons. Each
maritime county maintained a coast guard, which was under the
command of a knight. Ports had well-maintained harbors, quays, and
streets. By 1306 there was an office of admiral of the fleet of
the ships of the southern ports.
Women could inherit land in certain circumstances. Some tenants
holding land in chief of the king were women.
Regulation of trade became national instead of local. Trade was
relatively free; almost the only internal transportation tolls
were petty portages and viages levied to recoup the expense of a
bridge or road which had been built by private enterprise.
Responsibility for the coinage was transferred from the individual
moneyers working in different boroughs to a central official who
was to become Master of the Mint. The round half penny and
farthing [1/4 penny] were created so that the penny needn't be cut
into halves and quarters anymore.
Edward I called meetings of representatives from all social and
geographic sectors of the nation at one Parliament to determine
taxes due to the Crown. He declared that "what touches all, should
be approved by all". He wanted taxes from the burgesses in the
towns and the clergy's ecclesiastical property as well as from
landholders. He argued to the clergy that if barons had to both
fight and pay, they who could do no fighting must at least pay.
When the clergy refused to pay, he put them outside the royal
protection and threatened outlawry and confiscation of their
lands. Then they agreed to pay and to renounce all papal orders
contrary to the King's authority.
The Model Parliament of 1295 was composed of the three
communities. The first were the lords, which included seven earls
and forty-one barons. Because of the increase of lesser barons due
to a long national peace and prosperity, the lords attending were
reduced in numbers and peerage became dependent not on land
tenure, but on royal writ of summons. The great barons were chosen
by the king and received a special summons in their own names to
the council or Parliament. Others were called by a general
summons. The second community was the clergy, represented by the
two archbishops, bishops from each of eighteen dioceses, and
sixty-seven abbots. The third community was the commons. It was
composed of two knights elected by the suitors who were then
present at the county court, two burgesses elected by principal
burgesses of each borough, and two representatives from each city.
The country knights had a natural affinity with the towns in part
because their younger sons sought their occupation, wife, and
estate there. Also, great lords recruited younger brothers of
yeoman families for servants and fighting men, who ultimately
settled down as tradesmen in the towns. The country people and the
town people also had a community of interest by both being
encompassed by the county courts. The peasants were not
represented in the county courts nor in Parliament. One had to
have land to be entitled to vote because the landowner had a stake
in the country, a material security for his good behavior.
Parliaments without knights and burgesses still met with the king.
But it was understood that no extraordinary tax could be levied
without the knights and burgesses present. Ordinary taxes could be
arranged with individuals, estates, or communities. The lower
clergy ceased to attend Parliament and instead considered taxes to
pay to the king during their national church convocations, which
were held at the same time as Parliament. For collection purposes,
their diocesan synod was analogous to the count court. The higher
clergy remained in Parliament because they were feudal vassals of
the king.
Edward's council was the highest tribunal. It comprised the
chancellor, treasurer and other great officers of state, the
justices of the three courts, the master or chief clerks of the
chancery, and certain selected prelates and barons. The council
assisted the king in considering petitions. Most petitions to the
King were private grievances of individuals, including people of
no social rank, such as prisoners. Other petitions were from
communities and groups, such as religious houses, the two
universities, boroughs, and counties. These groups sometimes
formed alliances in a common cause. Women sometimes petitioned.
From 1293, the petitions were placed in four stacks for
examination by the King and council, by the Chancery, by the
Exchequer, or by the justices. Many hours were spent hearing and
answering petitions. From 1305, the petitions were presented to
the king in full Parliament.
The king still exercised the power of legislation without a full
Parliament. He might in his council issue proclamations. The Chief
Justices still had, as members of the king's council, a real voice
in the making of laws. The king and his justices might, after a
statute has been made, put an authoritative interpretation upon
it. Royal proclamations had the same force as statutes while the
king lived; sometimes there were demands that certain
proclamations be made perpetual by being embodied in statutes,
e.g. fixing wages. There was no convention that agreement or even
the presence of representatives was required for legislation. The
idea that the present can bind the absent and that the majority of
those present may outvote the minority was beginning to take hold.
Edward I's councilors and justices took an oath to give, expedite,
and execute faithful counsel; to maintain, recover, increase, and
prevent the diminution of, royal rights; to do justice, honestly
and unsparingly; to join in no engagements which may present the
councilor from fulfilling his promise; and to take no gifts in the
administration of justice, save meat and drink for the day. These
were in addition to other matters sworn to by the councilors.
Parliament soon was required to meet at least once a year at the
Great Hall at Westminster beside the royal palace. London paid its
representatives 10s. per day for their attendance at Parliament.
From the time of Edward II, the counties paid their knight-
representatives 4s. daily, and the boroughs paid their burgess-
representatives 2s. daily. When it convened, the Chancellor sat on
the left and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the right of the
king. Just below and in front of the king his council sits on wool
sacks brought in for their comfort from wool stored nearby. It
answers questions. Behind them on the wool sacks sit the justices,
who may be called upon to give legal advice, e.g. in framing
statutes. Then come the spiritual and lay barons, then the
knights, and lastly the elected burgesses and citizens. Lawmaking
is now a function of Parliament, of which the King's council is a
part, instead of a function of the king with his council and
justices. The common people now had a voice in law-making, though
legislation could be passed without their consent. The first
legislation proposed by the commons was alteration of the forest
laws governing the royal pleasure parks. Such a statute was passed
in a bargain for taxes of a percentage of all movables, which were
mostly foodstuffs and animals. The king offered to give up the
royal right to tax merchandise for a new tax: customs on exports.
The barons and knights of the county agreed to pay an 11th, the
burgesses, a 7th, and the clergy a 10th on their other movables.
In time, several boroughs sought to be included in the county
representation so they could pay the lower rate. This new system
of taxation began the decline of the imposition of feudal aids,
knights' fees, scutages, carucage, and tallage, which had been
negotiated by the Exchequer with the reeves of each town, the
sheriff and county courts of each county, and the bishops of each
diocese.
The staple [depot or mart, from the French "estaple"] system began
when the export of wool had increased and Parliament initiated
customs duties of 6s.8d. on every sack of wool, woolfells
[sheepskin with wool still on it], or skins exported in 1275.
These goods had to be assessed and collected at certain designated
ports. Certain large wool merchants, the merchants of the staple,
were allowed to have a monopoly on the purchase and export of
wool. Imports of wine were taxed as tunnage as before, that is
there was a royal right to take from each wine ship one cask for
every ten at the price of 20s. per cask.
In 1297, Edward I confirmed the Magna Carta and other items.
Judgments contrary to Magna Carta were nullified. The documents
were to be read in cathedral churches as grants of Edward and all
violators were to be excommunicated. He also agreed not to impose
taxes without the consent of Parliament after baronial pressure
had forced him to retreat from trying to increase, for a war in
France, the customs tax on every exported sack of wool to 40s.
from the 6s. 8d. per sack it had been since 1275. The customs tax
was finally fixed at 10s. for every sack of wool, 2s. for each tun
[casket] of wine, and 6d. for every pound's worth of other goods.
The "tenths and fifteenths" tax levied on income from movables or
chattels became regular every year. Edward also confirmed the
Forest Charter, which called for its earlier boundaries. And he
agreed not to impound any grain or wool or and like against the
will of the owners, as had been done before to collect taxes.
Also, the special prises or requisitions of goods for national
emergency were not to be a precedent. Lastly, he agreed not to
impose penalties on two earls and their supporters for refusing to
serve in the war in France when the king did not go.
From 1299, statutes were recorded in a Statute Roll as they were
enacted.
By the end of the 1200s, the King's wardrobe, where confidential
matters such as military affairs were discussed in his bedroom,
became a department of state with the King's privy seal. The
keeper of the privy seal was established as a new office by Edward
I in 1318. The wardrobe paid and provisioned the knights, squires,
and sergeants of the king and was composed mostly of civil
servants. It traveled with the King. The Crown's treasure, plate,
tents, hangings, beds, cooking-utensils, wine, and legal and
financial rolls were carried on pack horses or in two-wheeled
carts drawn by oxen, donkeys, or dogs. The people in the entourage
rode horses or walked. The other two specialized administrative
bodies were the Exchequer, which received most of the royal
revenue and kept accounts at Westminster, and the Chancery, which
wrote royal writs, charters, and letters, and kept records.
The chief functions of administration in the 1300s were performed
by the council, chancery, wardrobe, chamber [room off wardrobe for
dressing and for storage], and exchequer. Many of the chancellors
had come from the wardrobe and chamber. In time, the chancellor
ceased to be a part of the king's personal retinue and to follow
the court. The chancery became primarily a department of central
administration rather than a secretarieat and record-keeping part
of the royal household. The king used a privy seal to issue
directives to the chancery. Edward III made some merchants earls
and appointed them to be his ministers. He did not summon anyone
to his council who did not have the confidence of the magnates
[barons, earls, bishops, and abbots].
There was a recoinage due to debasement of the old coinage. This
increased the number of coins in circulation. The price of wheat
went from about 7s. in 1270 to about 5s. per quarter in 1280. Also
the price of an ox went from 14s. to 10s. Then there were broad
movements of prices, within which there were wide fluctuations,
largely due to the state of the harvest. From 1280 to 1290, there
was runaway inflation. In some places, both grain and livestock
prices almost doubled between 1305 and 1310. Wheat prices peaked
at 15s.5d. a quarter in the famine year of 1316. In 1338, prices
dropped and remained low for twenty years. The poor were hurt by
high prices and the lords of the manors were hurt by low prices.
As before, inadequate care and ignorance of nutrition caused many
infant deaths. Accidents and disease were so prevalent that death
was always near and life insecure. Many women died in childbirth.
In the 1300s, there were extremes of fashion in men's and women's
clothing including tight garments, pendant sleeves down to the
ground, coats so short they didn't reach the hips or so long they
reached the heels, hoods so small they couldn't cover the head,
and shoes with long curved peaks like claws at the toes. Both men
and women wore belts low on the hips. The skirt of a lady's tunic
was fuller and the bodice more closely fitted than before. Her
hair was usually elaborately done up, e.g. with long curls or
curled braids on either side of the face. A jeweled circlet was
often worn around her head. Ladies wore on their arms or belts,
cloth handbags, which usually contained toiletries, such as combs
made of ivory, horn, bone, or wood, and perhaps a little book of
devotions. A man wore a knife and a bag on his belt. Some women
painted their faces and/or colored their hair. There were hand-
held glass mirrors. Some people kept dogs purely as pets.
There was a great development of heraldic splendor with for
instance, crests, coat-armor, badges, pennons [long, triangular
flag], and helmets. They descended through families. Not only was
it a mark of service to wear the badge of a lord, but lords wore
each other's badges by way of compliment.
Edward I always sought the agreement of Parliament before
assembling an army or taking actions of war, and Parliamentary
consent came to be expected for such. He completed the conquest
and annexation of Wales in 1284. The feudal army was summoned for
the last time in the 100 year war with France, which began in
1337. In it the English longbow was used to pierce French knights'
armor. There had been much competition between the strength of
arrows to pierce and the heaviness of armor to resist. Guns and
cannon with gunpowder were introduced in 1338. A system to raise
an army by contract was developed. Contracts were made with
nobles, knights, or esquires who undertook to enlist an agreed
number of armored men-at-arms and archers, who were paid wages.
The King provided transport for each contractor and his retinue,
baggage, and horses. The title of "knight" now resumed its
military character as well as being a social rank.
After Edward I died in 1307, there was a period of general
lawlessness and contests for power between earls and barons and
the irresponsible King Edward II, who was not a warrior king. He
eventually was assassinated. Also in 1307, Parliament required the
king to obtain its consent for any exchange or alteration of the
currency.