CHAPTER XVII

CONCLUSION

WITH the reign of Henry the Eighth a wholly new chapter opens in the history of the towns. In the preceding centuries we have traced their gradual rise out of obscure poverty into an illustrious opulence and dignity. Already in the time of Langland the poet’s imagination was arrested by the exalted position of the mayor, the “days-man” who could lay his hand upon the highest and the lowest—on the royal majesty and the mean people of the commune. When, a hundred and fifty years later, another poet pictures the court of Fame, where she sits

“Under a glorious cloth of estate ... Encrowned as empress of all this world of fate.”[868]

he sees in the crowd of applicants who press round the throne to solicit her favours the men of Dartmouth and Portsmouth and Plymouth, the burgesses and bailiffs of the Cinque Ports, mingling with messengers from Thrace and Rounceval. Nor were their claims to stand in such a court but a fantastic fiction of poetry. We have seen how the commune and the borough—originally in spite of their collective character mere feudal lordships like the rest, introduced under the sanction and protection of ordinary feudal custom and according to the fictions of feudal law—became in course of time a potent force for the rending asunder of the mediæval framework of society. Patronized and encouraged by the king, nourished in great measure at the expense of the baronage, lay and ecclesiastical, these insidious communities of the people had gradually revealed a character of their own alien to the whole feudal tradition. Under the shelter of their walls the forces of the middle class were mustered for battle against the ancient supremacy of the nobility and the Church. Charters “for the accommodation of the burgesses in doing their business quietly” became the cover for their irresistible attack; and the common bell which rang out to assemble the congregation of enfranchised burghers perpetually announced in every borough of the kingdom the ultimate triumph of “the common people of the realm.”

We have also noted the manner in which during these centuries the boroughs remained strongholds of a robust faith in political freedom.[869] Theories of liberty taught by statesmen and philosophers, and debated by barons and knights in their own manner at Runnymede, on the battle-field, or in the council chamber, assumed in the towns homelier forms, and became the vulgar property of the people. The burgher too had his notion of an ideal freedom—a freedom which had never entered within the range of his experience, but in which he still believed with a transcendent faith. In what manner the faith had come to him it is hard to say, through what legal fiction, from what mysterious tradition, by what dominant instinct of race. To quell the enemy and the accuser he might call to witness Domesday or Magna Charta, or liberties registered in the Old Red Book of the town “as we do think,” or in the customs of the elders; or for lack of better authority, the fable of a lost charter of the Saxon House, or a shadowy local legend, or tale of freedom “long before the Conquest,”[870] served as evidence of repute. But for the believer testimony was superfluous; the very vagueness of his faith was not without advantages, since the fancied world of the past might be adequately furnished with types of all that was desired in the present. Imagination was stimulated by the rivalry of factions, and political discussion never ceased. No doubt the vulgarization of the notion of freedom, thus thrown into the market-place for burghers to cut and trim to their own needs, has had a permanent effect on English thought.[871] In communities where strictly personal ambition in government was reduced to its lowest expression, where the only possible tyranny was that of a class or of a group, and where the whole society of burghers was nourished on a tradition of equal and indestructible rights, the privilege coveted by ordinary folk was not the pleasure of exercizing authority, but the right to suffer no coercion. Among the townsfolk the “gentleman” was not the man who ruled his neighbour, but the enfranchised equal among his fellows. It may not be altogether fanciful to detect, in the noble translation of a church collect, not only the fine intuition of the scholar, but an echo of the spirit of free and equal liberty that was quickening among the people at large. If the phrase “Cui servire est regnare” carried to English ears a foreign thought, the English words introduced a new and characteristic meaning—“Whose service is perfect freedom.”

Lastly we have seen how chequered was the fate of liberty—how often it was obstructed and impaired in its passage through the market-place and the bye-lanes of the city, driven from shelter to shelter, banished from the Guildhall, mocked by a false homage. Between the twelfth century, when the trading communities had represented a new democracy and led the attack on the then established magnates of society; and the sixteenth century, when a ruling oligarchy had been formed out of their ranks, a vast change had taken place in the political relations of the prosperous middle class. In their conduct of the great struggle for emancipation from the county potentates, feudal or official, and in their development of a general freedom of trade, the more prosperous burghers who had first come to the front in affairs had proved the champions of a new liberty. The strong government which they had established through the administration of a select body of experts had abundantly justified itself in setting the independence of the towns beyond attack; and long before the fifteenth century had opened the boroughs, represented by their magistrates and councillors, held an impregnable position. Meanwhile, however, the wave of industrial progress began slowly to lift up out of their dumb helplessness the masses who had till now learned obedience of poverty and despair, for “While hunger was their master would none strive.” Imperceptibly the whole scene was changed, and a new conflict was seen to be preparing. By the slow changes of time what had been the democracy of 1200 had become the oligarchy of 1500. On the one hand the plutocrats of the boroughs had made their way into the circle of the privileged classes; in a thousand points their interests now coincided with those of the officials and the gentry in the counties; and their conservative instincts had won the confidence and sympathy of the court. On the other hand the humbler sort of traders and artizans, congregated more and more thickly at the busy centres of industry, made familiar with the uses and methods of association, and impatient both of tyranny and of want, were beginning to form a new democracy, and to constitute to the comfortable classes an alarming social danger. In every borough the problems which confront the modern world were formulated. On all side agitators proclaimed the right of the workers to have a voice in the organization of trade, and the right of the common burghers to share in the control of municipal affairs. The demand of the people that government should really be carried on by their consent, so easily stifled in the thirteenth century, became in the fifteenth loud and persistent; and riotous confederacies of labourers and artizans added excitement to the political demonstrations in the streets. A new terror invaded the council-chamber of the Guildhall—the terror of the mob. While the craft-masters hastened to fortify the guild against the forces of misrule, town councillors made strong the borough administration in the interests of good order. The history of the municipalities in the fifteenth century is far from indicating an era of political apathy, or of mere civic indolence and corruption. In the records of the trade fraternities we see the opening of an industrial war. In the constitutions and ordinances of the towns we see the foreshadowing of a political revolution. The original struggle with feudal forces had closed in triumph for the boroughs, and a new conflict now takes its beginning. Faction fights, crafty intrigues, intricate constitutional changes, these signalise the opening of a new controversy—the controversy between the middle and the lower classes.

At the very moment however when this division of social forces had declared itself, and when it seemed as though the attention of England was to be concentrated on the new social problem, the whole movement was suddenly arrested. All speculation as to what might have happened in the course of a natural evolution is utterly vain. It is probable indeed that the poorer classes, unfed, untaught, and undisciplined, were at that time wholly unprepared to enter on any struggle for industrial and political emancipation, and if the battle had been really fought out, must have suffered a crushing defeat. Centuries of discipline have been needed to consolidate their forces, and very possibly the course of freedom was best served by delay. As a matter of fact however the social question was cast aside by external and arbitrary forces. It was engulfed in the political revolution inaugurated by the early Tudors. So violent was the change that it is only in our own age that the controversies which were opening in the fifteenth century have again taken the foremost place.

For from the moment when the history of national politics begins under the Tudor kings, the whole character and significance of the local centres of government undergo a profound change. Henry the Seventh, as we have seen, had laid the foundation of a vast commercial policy; but until the reign of Henry the Eighth, England, unconscious of its capacity and of its destiny, stood aloof from European affairs; and with her small population, her inadequate navy, her somewhat old-fashioned army, her feeble political influence, was little more than an upstart in the august society of continental nations. From this position she was raised by the genius of Wolsey into a State of which it might be said that its Crown “is this day more esteemed than the Emperor’s Crown and all his Empire;” and of whose minister a Venetian ambassador reports that “he is seven times more powerful than the Pope.”[872] In a very few years England, courted by French and Spanish kings, and able to treat on equal terms with Pope and Emperor, boasted of being mediator and arbiter of European politics. The pride of a great mission exalted the imagination of her people, and a poet of the Renascence in his vision of “all manner of nations” who dwelt on the field of fame, marked the gate of chalcedony which gave entrance to “Anglia.”

“The building thereof was passing commendable; Whereon stood a leopard, crowned with gold and stones, Terrible of countenance and passing formidable, ... As fiercely frowning as he had been fighting.”[873]

By the royal courage and appetite of Henry the Eighth, bent on making the whole people his accomplices for the carrying out of his personal will, the work of Wolsey was continued, though in a very different temper, and the national pride and confidence pushed to the highest point. If the policy of Cromwell had been fully carried out, the history of the Reformation and the fortunes of Europe might have been reversed by the intervention of England. We can well understand that amid these tremendous schemes local aspirations were forgotten and local quarrellings silenced. To perfect the policy of the new Monarchy the destinies of the several towns were submerged in the destinies of the whole Commonwealth. Sovereigns no longer viewed with interested regard or with indifferent tolerance, as of old,[874] the growth of borough franchises and the developement of local governments. Street riots were no longer matters of the parish, but of the State. The king’s hand was stretched out over the wealthy corporations whose liberties had grown into such vast proportions, and like the baronage and the Church, the boroughs were laid prostrate before the throne.

For under the Tudor system of government the king was the necessary centre of every interest in the country.[875] He alone could impose a common policy and give expression to a national will. To him all classes looked to defend their cause and ensure their prosperity, in the implicit faith that he lived for them alone and to perform their will. In the royal power lay the one force by which England could be held together. At an earlier time, indeed, the common folk had repudiated the doctrine of the king’s absolute supremacy as it was now understood. “They say that the king should live upon his commons, and that their bodies and goods are his: the contrary is true, for then needed him never to set Parliament and to ask good of them.”[876] But now new maxims were scattered abroad—“that the king can do no wrong, however much he may wish to do it; that not only the property but the persons of his subjects are his own; and that a man has a right to no more than the king’s goodness thinks fit not to take from him.” Parliament almost ceased to exist, until in course of time, packed with members carefully nominated, and by the craft of the king elaborately duped, it was turned into a mere instrument by which the most ruthless acts of royal aggression could be given the stamp and semblance of law.[877]

The new centralized government was carried on by means of a vast official system which extended from the highest to the lowest departments, and reached out to the farthest limits of the country. In its efficient form it was practically the creation of the first Tudor king. With Warwick the baronial leaders of an earlier time had passed away; and the weakened remnant of the baronage which emerged from the civil wars had been carefully depressed by Henry the Seventh. At the council-board their places were taken by officials who received their orders directly from the king; and when the barons returned to office and council they returned as fellow servants with the new officials, and holding the same functions. Henry the Eighth carried out the same policy. The great nobles might complain of “low-born knaves” who surrounded the king; but when the minister “clapped his rod upon the board” silence fell on an obsequious council—and barons and commons alike trembled before the son of an Ipswich merchant or a Putney blacksmith.

For the tremendous power of Wolsey or of Cromwell lay in the fact that the whole hierarchy of officials, from the most exalted to the most base, was directly responsible to him. Every figure of any importance in the country was perfectly well known to the minister at the head of affairs, and on every subordinate through the length and breadth of the land the court kept vigilant watch. If an official at any point disagreed with the opinions held at head quarters he was forthwith turned out of office, and the ease with which Henry and his successors made national revolutions is the measure of the absolute perfection to which the machinery of their administration had been brought. In the boroughs it is impossible to exaggerate the effect of this political revolution. The consequence to which the towns had risen made of them all-important centres of administration for the maintenance of general order. Two-thirds of the members of Parliament were sent from the boroughs, and the control of these members, therefore, meant the control of the House of Commons. For a two-fold reason, therefore, the tendency long shewn by the Court to sympathize with the governing oligarchy in the municipalities inevitably took from this time a new force. Under the oligarchic system of administration the towns could be held for the king by a mere handful of loyal officials; and the influence of the Crown was naturally flung on the side of the representatives of good order, as it was understood by the government. In the interests of the whole State a new policy was developed. Municipal independence was struck down at the very roots, and the free growth of earlier days arrested by an iron discipline invented at Westminster, and enforced by a selected company of Townhall officials, whose authority was felt to be ultimately supported by the majesty of the king himself. The number of the town councillors was constantly diminished, and the liberties of the commons curtailed. Under the new conditions the individual life of the borough ceased to have the same significance as of old, and an era opened in which its highest destiny was to be employed as an instrument of the royal will for national ends, and its only glory lay in forming one of the members of a mighty commonwealth. To follow out the internal record of municipal politics on the old lines, as though the story of the sixteenth century were the natural consequence of their earlier course of developement would be radically false; and I therefore pause on the threshold of the new state of things. The history of the boroughs as schools in which the new middle class received its training for service in the field of national politics, and as the laboratories in which they made their most fruitful experiments in administration, ends before the close of the fifteenth century. It may be that as the working class in its turn rises to take its place alongside of its predecessors on the stage of public affairs, the towns will again become centres of interest in the national story, as the workshops of an enlarged political science.

INDEX

INDEX

A

Abingdon, money given towards bridges at, 75-6; Guild of Holy Cross, 215; supplies Southampton with bends of elms for ploughs, 289

Accounts of towns, adornment of, 260; change in manner of keeping and auditing in Lynn, 411; of Norwich, 370, _note_ 4; royal, auditing and signing of, 15, _note_ 1

Admiral of the Fleet, 323

Admiralty, courts of, 319, _note_ 2

Adventurers, merchant, Guild of, 112; results of their monopoly of cloth trade, 91-92

Agriculture, law for protection of, 99

“Alablaster man” of Nottingham, 54, 326

Alberti, Society of, 290

Alcock, Bishop of Rochester, 14

Aldermen in Canterbury, 156, 276, 279, _note_; Gloucester, 287; Lincoln, 279, _note_; London, 279, 375, _note_ 2; Lynn, 421, 422; Norwich, 362, _note_ 2, 380; Nottingham, 309, 339, 340; Oxford, 245, _note_ 2, 278, _note_ 2; Shrewsbury, 286; Southampton, 307-309, 312, _note_

Andernach, mill-stones brought from, 406, _note_ 1

Andover, dispute between great people and community in, 245, _note_ 4; common lands, 237; leet jury, 229; merchant guild, 193, _note_ 1, 198, _note_ 1, 199

Anne of Bohemia, Nottingham given to, 330

Appleby, its school, 14, _note_ 2

Apprentices, their duty during harvest, 64; escape from town and become free traders in suburbs, 96-97; regulations concerning, 99, _note_ 2, 102-104, 108, 120, 212, _note_ 1

Artizans, guilds of, 112; subjected to town authorities, 151-152; question as to their admission to guild merchant, 192-193, 199

Ashburton, its school, 13, _note_ 2

Ascham, his rebuke of noblemen’s sons, 23

Assembly, the common, 226, 247-249; of Hereford, 225; of Sandwich, 225-227, 430; select committee of, 353; of Norwich, 365, 371-372, 377-379; its Rolls, 370; of Nottingham, 341, 347-348, 352-353

Assize of beer, 35; of bread, 35; of wine, 35; of breadth of cloth, 67, _note_ 2

Atwill, John, mayor of Exeter, 180

Atwood, Thomas, town clerk of Canterbury, 263, _note_ 2

Atwood, William, one of counsel of Canterbury, 263, _note_ 2

Aylesbury, charge against miller of, 31-32

B

Babington, Sir John, 329, _note_ 1

Bablake, church at, 203, _note_ 3; payment of its warden and priests, 206

Bablake Gate, Coventry, 207

Bachelors, fellowship of the, among Exeter tailors, 172

“Bachery, Le”, Guild of, in Norwich, 389, 392

Bailiffs, modes of election of, 275, _note_ 3, 276; of Canterbury, 227, _note_ 2, 276, 283-284; of Ipswich, 223-224; of Lincoln, 250; of leets in Norwich, 361-364, 373; of Shrewsbury, 285; of Southampton, 305, 309; of Winchester, 286; of Yarmouth, 434

Bakers of Canterbury, 46; of Exeter, their ordinances, 179; of London, withdraw outside boundaries, 45; punishment of fraudulent servants among, 117, _note_ 2; their right of search transferred to mayor, 149, _note_ 1

Ball, John, 211

Baltic, trade with Southampton, 289

Banbury, its school, 17

Bardi, Society of, rent part of tenement in Southampton, 290

Bargate Tower, Southampton, 310

Barge, the town, of Lynn, 410

Barnstaple, use of seal of commonalty in, 233, _note_ 1

Bartholomew of Baddlesmere, custos of Bristol, 267

Bartone, Brother William, his connexion with strike of shoemakers’ journeymen in London, 125

Bate, Andrew, 60

Bate (brother of Andrew), town clerk of Lydd, 60

Bath, merchants become Knights of the, 79

Bayonne, swearing-in of citizens at, 230, _note_ 1

Beam, right of keeping, 27

Beaufort, Cardinal, 292

Beer, sent from Kent to Flanders, 89

Bell, the common, 226; made for Ely Cathedral, 54; metal for, got from Lincolnshire, 54, _note_ 1

Bell foundry at Nottingham, 326

Bellman of Guild of S. George in Norwich, 384

Benedict, son of Aaron, his mayoralty in Southampton, 307

Bequests to town corporations, 75-76

Berford, Simon de, 400

Berkeley, Lady, founder of first lay school, 16, _note_ 2

Berkeley, Sir Maurice, 79, _note_ 2

Berne, North, its trade with Lynn, 404

Berwick-on-Tweed, interest of its burghers in municipal affairs, 234, _note_ 3

Beverley, weavers excluded from franchise in, 142; aldermen of trades assent to governors’ ordinances in, 185, _note_ 2

Bingham, William, founds school, 14, _note_ 2

Birmingham, its Guild of Holy Cross, 213-214; land and rights of common, 237; members of Corpus Christi Guild, Coventry, at, 206, _note_; town hall, 213

Biscay, its trade with Southampton, 289, 291, _note_ 3

Black Sea, trade of Southampton with, 291

Blackburn, Nicholas, Admiral of Fleet, 323

Blackheath, Nottingham men sent to help King at, 334

“Blackleg” labour, London saddlers accused of encouraging, 163; law in London against, 165

Bonet, Richard, 124

Books of Courtesy, 3-10; of towns, 258; of Dartmouth and Wycombe, their binding, 230, _note_ 2; Black Book of Hythe, 230, 257, _note_ 4; of Sandwich, 258, _note_ 3; Doomsday, of Dorchester, 258; Red, of Nottingham, 334, 337, 355-356; White, of Norwich, 258, _note_ 3; of Sandwich, 258

Boose, Richard, of Aylesbury, 31-32

Bordeaux, effect of its loss on Bristol trade, 91

Boroughs, results of their external relations, 1-2; independence, 2, 3; their life in fifteenth century, as pictured in songs, 6-12; results of extension of Statute of Mortmain to, 215; disputes about property in, 238. _See_ Towns

Bosworth, battle of, 330

Bowyers of London, 119

Box, the common, of Southampton, 314

Bramston, Roger, mayor of Wycombe, 260, _note_ 4

“Brasylle, the Island of”, Bristol ships sent in search of, 73

Bread, assize of, 35

Bredon, Friar John, agitator in Coventry, 125, _note_

Brewers, Piers Ploughman’s picture of, 38; their early wealth, 60-63; forbidden to hold offices in towns, 62, _note_ 1; of Kent, 89; of Nottingham, 38

Bridges, at Abingdon, 75-76; kept in repair by Guild of Holy Cross at Birmingham, 213; of Nottingham, 322, 324, 341

Bridgenorth, priests forbidden to keep school at, 18; no burgess to be made serjeant, 271, _note_ 3; chief officers elected by special jury, 275; its “Great Court” of Twenty-four, 275, _note_ 4

Bridgewater, its guild merchant, 214; Guild of S. Mary or Holy Cross, 214, 215; town clerk, 261

Bridport, its suburban manufacturers, 97; use of paper for accounts, 259; twelve jurors, 278, _note_ 1

Bright Waltham, manor of, communal organization of its villein tenants, 232, _note_

Bristol, its Guild of Kalendars, 13, _note_ 2; rivalry with Gloucester, 42; school, 13, _note_ 2, 20; treaty with Southampton, 53; trade, 73; sends ships on voyages of discovery, 73; fine merchants’ houses, 74; plate left by grocer of, 74, _note_ 1; decline of its wool trade, 91-92; complaint of weavers against employment of foreigners, 92; law against employment of women at loom, 96, _note_; decay of wealth, 104, _note_ 3; coruesers, 119, _note_; guilds ordered to keep the peace, 153; robes of officers, 257, _note_ 3; quarrel about customs, 266-267; taken into King’s hand, 267; appointment of custos, 267; Council of Forty-eight, 268; Council of Forty, 268, 278, _note_ 2; charters, 268; influential families, 267-268; troubles from neighbouring lords, 328; guildhall, 37; guild merchant, 198, _note_ 1; mayor, his supervision of trades, 37-38; feeling of burghers for mayor, 228; merchants, in Corpus Christi Guild at Coventry, 206, _note_; town clerk, 20, 264, _note_ 1; coroner, 267

Brittany, its trade with Bristol, 73; with Southampton, 289

Brodhull, Court of, 428, 433

Brokers, their duties and payment, 34

Bromsgrove, its decay, caused by growth of free-traders, 97, _note_ 3

Brown, Thomas, Bishop of Norwich, 392

Bruges, mayor of Lynn sent as ambassador to, 422

Bull-baiting, attendance of municipal officers at, 256

Burellers of London, their quarrel with the weavers, 161-162; of Winchester, contribution made to ferm by, 154, _note_ 1

Burgesses, their monopoly of trade, 40; early significance of the word, 231-232; “inn” and “foreign” in Preston, 47; of Nottingham, fined for not attending meetings, 336; act with commonalty, 355, _note_ 3; the “out”, of Southampton, 47, _note_ 2; _see_ Citizens

Burghers of fifteenth century, their anxiety about manners, 9-10; ambition and love of learning, 11-13; public munificence, 74-77; become usurers and money-lenders, 77-78; alliance with guilds against oligarchy, 167-168, 184; their theory about the mayor, 227-228; traditions of ancient liberties, 235-236; buy copies of Magna Charta, 236; punished for speaking against town councillors, 256-257; _see_ Citizens

Burgundy, settlers from, in Southampton, 289

Butchers, forbidden to kill within towns, 32, _note_ 2; of London, complaint of corporation about, 44-45

Butchers’ House, Nottingham, 324

Butt, Thomas, M.P. for Norwich, 400

C

Cabot, his voyage of discovery, 73

Cade, Jack, 334

Calendar of Ricart of Bristol, 20

Calle, Richard, marries Margery Paston, 80

Cambridge, school attached to Clare Hall at, 14, _note_ 2; trade with Rowe of Romney, 61

Candlemakers of London, 45

Candles, “Paris”, made at Southampton, 289

Canterbury, its aldermanries, 283; aldermen made heads of guilds, 156, 276, 279, _note_; bailiffs, 227, _note_ 2, 276, 283-284; bakers, 46; charter, 284; cloth trade, 158; craft guilds, 155-157; councils, 278, _note_ 2, 283-284; disturbance caused by Crompe, 62-63; freedom granted to Lynn merchants, 49, _note_ 2; friars, 125, _note_; law about inns, 33, _note_ 1; “Intrantes”, 47; jubilee of 1420, 43; manufacturing trade, its decline, 88; mayor, 284; ordinances of 1474, 284; portreeve, 283; grammar school, 14, _note_ 2; “Tollerati”, 47; traders withdraw outside liberties, 45-46; town clerk, 263, _note_ 2; triours, 276; wards, hereditary ownership of, 276, 279, _note_ 1

Cap-makers resist introduction of fulling mills, 90

Carlisle, extension of its liberties, 40, _note_ 2; its council, 185; merchant guild, 185

Carpenters, rule made by guild of, 147

Carracks of Genoa, 302, 305, _note_ 1

Carriers, their introduction into England, 28

Carrow, Prioress of, her disputes with Norwich, 387, _note_

Castle of Nottingham, 323; of Southampton, 297, _note_ 3; constable of, survival of his authority, 297

Catalonia, ships of, compete with Jacques Cœur for Mediterranean coasting trade, 81

Caxton, William, 21

Caxton, Thomas, 261-263

Chandlers of Norwich, 140

Charles VII. (of France) borrows from Jacques Cœur, 82

Charters, privileges given to towns by early, 50-51; conflicting rights bestowed by two, 51-52; of incorporation given under Henry VI., 269; of Bristol, 268; Canterbury, 284; Colchester, 282; Exeter, 180; Gloucester, 194, _note_ 1; Leicester, 25, _note_ 1, 258, _note_ 1; Liverpool, 41; London, 53, _note_ 1; Lynn, 421; Nottingham, 330, 332-334, 339; Norwich, 371-373, 379, 380, 395; Oxford, 278, _note_ 2; Southampton, 306-310; of cordwainers at Exeter, 179; of girdlers of London, 143, _note_ 2; to guild merchant of Lynn, 403, _note_, 404, 405, _note_ 5, 407; to craft guilds, 141, 143, _note_ 3; commons petition for their withdrawal, 182, _note_ 1; registration of, ordered by law, 150, _note_ 2; of tailors of Exeter, 173-174, 179-180; of merchant tailors of London, 143, _note_ 3, 182, _note_ 1; of Fraternity of B. Trinity at Shrewsbury, 173, _note_ 4

Chaucer, his place in estimation of fifteenth-century scholars, 21

Cheese, manufacture of, at Southampton, 289

Chest, the common, of Southampton, 309, 314

Chester, lands of community at, 237; two councils, 278, _note_ 2; inhabitants forbidden to leave, 299, _note_ 4; mayor pays schoolmaster of Farneworth, 19, _note_ 3

Chesterfield, its guild merchant, 203, _note_ 1

Children practise shooting at Southampton, 297-298; of countrymen not to be apprenticed to crafts, 99, _note_ 1

Chipping Camden, merchant’s brass in church of, 73

Churchyards in fifteenth century, 31, _note_ 1

Cider made at Southampton, 289

Cinque Ports, rights claimed by merchants of, 52, _note_; their treaty with Southampton, 53; pay for copying of Magna Charta, 259, _note_ 2; jurats of, 278, _note_ 1; tradition of independence, 429; source of strength of government in, 433; resolution of Brodhull in 1526 about elections in, 433-434

Cirencester, cloth manufacture at, 68

Citizens, loss of freedom by, for helping “foreign” merchants, 39; distinguished from community or commonalty, 231-235, 311, 334-336; of Norwich, 366, 367, 368, 370, 373, 376, 399-401; “denizen” and “foreign”, of Worcester, 39, 40; the swearing-in of, at Bayonne, 230, _note_ 1. _See_ Burghers

Clergy, their admission to guild merchant, 193

Clerk, the common or town, his position and duties, 257-264; of Bridgewater, 261; of Bristol, 20, 264, _note_ 1; of Canterbury, 263, _note_ 2; of Hythe, 263, _note_ 1; of Lydd, 60, 262; of Lynn, 414, 415; of Nottingham, 19-20, 263, 337; of Romney, 61; of Sandwich, 257, _note_ 4, 262, _note_, 263; of Southampton, 309; of Winchester, 261; of Worcester, 259, _note_ 6; of York, 261, _note_ 1, 263

Clifton church, cross of, repaired by Nottingham goldsmith, 54, 326

Cloth, contractors of, their growth and wealth, 65; manufacture of, supersedes business of selling wool, 98-99; in Yorkshire, 89; shearers of, resist introduction of machinery, 89; trade in, law passed in Canterbury to improve, 158; supervision of, in Norwich, 149, _note_ 1, 385; Irish, 289

Clothiers, admitted to rank of “gentleman”, 68; one in Manchester founds a school, 17

“Clothing”, the, qualifications for member of, 62; its composition, 252; at Exeter, 181; at Nottingham, 341, 352-353, 355, 356, _note_ 1, 357

Coal-mines, profits made by Nottingham from, 325

Cobblers, their quarrels with cordwainers, 166

Cœur, Jacques, 81-82

Coin, clipping of, learned from Lombards, 67

Cok, Richard, mayor of Sandwich, 431, 432

Colchester, election by Twenty-four in, 169-170; land owned by, 238; number of men assessed for moveables in 1301, 250, _note_ 2; population in 1377, 250; mode of election of officers, 276, 282; charter, 282; two councils, 278, _note_ 2, 282; moot hall, 278; ordinances, 278; fining of late or absent members, 278, 283

Colle, Henry, of Hythe, 246, _note_ 2

College at Exeter, its foundation, 13, _note_ 2; at Rotherham, 13

Commons, their petition to Henry VII. about measures, 27, _note_ 3; petition to have guild charters withdrawn, 182, _note_ 1

“Commons”, “the poor”, their views about gains of merchants, 70-71; of Exeter, their quarrel with governing class, 170-172

Commonalty, distinguished from citizens or burgesses, 231-235, 311, 334-336; their interest in matters touching common lands, 234; lack of security for freedom, 247-249; exclusion from town administration, 249; brought into council chamber in fifteenth century, 270; its seal, 233, _note_ 1; of Norwich, 366-373, 376, 377, 399. _See_ Community

Communes of France, 321

Community of the town, reasons for entering, 55; its services to the guilds, 157-158; privileges of early, 232-233; its holding of land, 237-239; of Lynn, admission of non-burgesses to, 409; of Nottingham, their rights, 338-343; election of special juries by, 341. _See_ Commonalty

Conesford Ward, Norwich, 376, _note_ 2

Constable of Dover, 302, 303; of castle, survival of his authority in Southampton, 297

Constabularies in Lynn, 279, _note_, 415, _note_ 2, 421

Cooks, regulations for, 36

Cordwainers (shoemakers), their quarrels with cobblers, 166; guild of, at Exeter, 119, _note_, 179

Corn, encouragement of carriage of, 42, _note_ 2

Coruesers of Bristol, 119, _note_

Cornhill, S. Peter’s, dispute about presentation to, 276, _note_ 2

Coroners of Bristol, 267; of Ipswich, their election and duties in 1200, 223

Corporation chapel of S. Michael’s, Southampton, 308

Cossal, notice of transfer of coal-mine in, 325, _note_ 5

Cotswolds, wool of, 88, _note_ 3

Councils of towns, their alliances with guilds, 108; various business of, 254-255; their variety, 272-274, 277-279; probable causes influencing their character, 279-281; upper, result of appointing its members justices of the peace, 254-255; of Bristol, 268, 278, _note_ 2; of Canterbury, 278, _note_ 2, 283, 284; Carlisle, 185; Chester, 278, _note_ 2; Colchester, 278, 282; Coventry, 185, 205, 353, 354; Exeter, 170, 172, 180; Gloucester, 287, 354; Ipswich, 278, _note_ 2; Leicester, 287, 354; Liverpool, 278, _note_ 2; London, 375, _note_ 2; Lynn, 402, 413, 419-422, 424, 425; Norwich, 170, 278, _note_ 2, 363-365, 376, 377, 395, 419; Nottingham, 336, 337-340, 355, 357; Oxford, 278, _note_ 2; Pontefract, 278; Sandwich, 430, 432-434; Shrewsbury, 285, 286; Southampton, 280, 308, 309; Wells, 278, _note_ 1; Worcester, 278, _note_ 2; of Eight among Exeter tailors, 173; of Fifteen ordered by provisions of Oxford, 253; Privy, writ sent to Nottingham by, 278, _note_ 1; people of Norwich summoned before, 391

Councillors in early town government, 228; of Nottingham, 339-341, 355; town, various methods of electing, 277

Countrymen, their various difficulties, 98-99; town employers contract for work with, 105-106; policy concerning employment of, in Norwich and Worcester, 106

Courts of Admiralty, 319, _note_ 2; of aldermen, at Norwich, 362, _note_ 2; of arbitration, their importance to craft guilds, 114, _note_ 1; of Brodhull, 428, 433; consistory, clerks of, forbidden to be mayors, 171; the great, of Bridgenorth, 275, _note_ 4; of King’s Bench, 238; the Pye-powder, statute of 1477 about, 393, _note_ 2. _See_ Leet

Coventry, grammar school at, 14, _note_ 2; attempts free trade, 53, _note_ 4; laws about apprentices in, 99, _note_ 2, 102, _note_ 1; Bablake gate, 207; Drapery hall, 207; wages of journeymen, 104, _note_ 1; election of keepers among the smiths at, 118, _note_ 1; the White Friars in, 125, _note_; obtains right to have no guild, 144, _note_ 1; rules about punishment among guilds in 1518, 151, _note_ 2; complaint against craftsmen who would not contribute to pageants, 154, _note_ 2; drapers and mercers, 183, 204, _note_; election of officials, 205, 207, _note_ 2; craftsmen who held office, 207, _note_ 4; guild of S. Catherine, 203; of Corpus Christi, 204, 206, _note_; of S. George, 208; of S. John Baptist, 203; merchant, 193, _note_ 1, 203-204; of Trinity, 14, _note_ 2, 19, _note_ 3, 203-213; union of guilds, 203; attempts to set up craft-guilds in, 208-209; rhymes nailed by commons on church door, 211; dyers in, 207, _note_ 4, 208, 210, _note_ 2; regulations for crafts made at leet court, 212, _note_ 1; apprentices’ fines, 212; ferm, 206, 216; land of community, 238; petitions to have aldermen of wards, 279, _note_; procedure in leet, 345, _note_ 3; common council, 353-354; Queen Isabella’s land, 202-204; mayor, 205, 207, _note_ 2; town hall called S. Mary’s Guild, 203

Cowes, control of mayor of Southampton over, 319

Crafts, their anxiety to protect industry, 100; attitude towards countrymen, 99, _note_ 1, 100-101; journeymen of, their combinations for self-protection, 101. _See_ Guilds

Crompe, brewer at Canterbury, 62-63

Culham Ford, bridge over, 75-76

Customs of Bristol, quarrel about, 266-267; of Southampton, leasing out of, 68, 291

“Customs” of Norwich, 364

Custumals of towns, copying and translation of, 257-258

D

Dacia, its trade with Lynn, 404

Dartmouth, binding of its corporation books, 230, _note_ 2

Dean, Forest of, its rovers, 42, _note_ 1

“Decennaries”, appointment of, 34

Delf (canal), 435

Dengemarsh, 60, 237

Denmark, its trade with Bristol, 73; settlers from, in Southampton, 289

Dereham, work done for Norwich dealers at, 105, _note_ 2

Deritend, school of guild at, 13, _note_ 2

Devonshire, Flemish weavers in, 94

“Discreets” of Southampton, 308, 309

Dogget Rolls of Ipswich, 259

Doncaster, S. George’s Church at, merchants’ marks in, 71, _note_ 3

Doomsday Book, extracts made by town clerks from, 259; of towns, 258

Dorchester, its Doomsday Book, 258, _note_ 3

Dorset, Marquis of, 206, _note_

Dover, constable of, 302, 303; central government of Cinque Ports at, 428; hornblowing, 430, _note_ 2; election of jurats, 434, _note_ 2

Drapers admitted to rank of “gentleman”, 68; of Coventry, 183, 204, _note_; of Shrewsbury, their school, 13, _note_ 2; their guild, 144, _note_ 2, 173, _note_ 4

Drapers’ house, Nottingham, 325

Drapery hall, Coventry, 207

Drogheda, merchants of, in guild at Coventry, 206, _note_; its trade with Southampton, 289

Droitwich, cause of its decay, 97, _note_ 3

Dublin, merchants of, in guild at Coventry, 206, _note_

Dye, scarlet, English cloth sent to Italy for, 326

Dyeing, at Nottingham, 326

Dyers in Coventry, 207, _note_ 4, 208-210

E

Easingwold, town clerk of Nottingham, 263-264

Edmund Crouchback, his charter to Leicester, 25, _note_ 1, 258, _note_ 1;

Education in the fifteenth century, 12-23;

Edward I. summons councils to get money for Welsh war, 332; his charter to Nottingham, 334

Edward II., his grants to Nottingham, 333

Edward III. fixes price of wine of Gascony, 139; his charter to girdlers of London, 143, _note_ 2; grants bridge over Trent to townspeople of Nottingham, 324; demands soldiers from Norwich, 366

Edward IV., his charters to Exeter tailors, 173-174; to Fraternity of Trinity at Shrewsbury, 173, _note_ 4; judgment in the disputes at Exeter, 176-177, 179-180; his patent to York about election of mayor, 186; appeal of Plymouth guild merchant to, 220; Lydd sends men to his help, 263; his charter to Colchester, 282; reduces ferm of Nottingham, 328; renews its charter, 330; gives election of common council of London to trading companies, 375, _note_ 2; peace made by Sandwich with, 431

Elizabeth Woodville, coronation of, 79, _note_ 2; Nottingham granted to, 330, _note_ 1; confirms its charter, 339, _note_ 2

Ely, its cathedral bells, 54

Elys, Thomas, his benefactions to Sandwich, 16, 75

Employers, illicit industry carried on by, 88; settlement in country districts, 88; their attitude towards foreigners, 92-94; towards countrymen, 100-101; foster “uncovenanted” labour, 102; in Norwich, responsible for their servants, 101, _note_ 2; of towns, contract with country folk for work, 105-106

Engrossing, 39

Erasmus, his estimate of schoolmasters, 22, _note_

Erith, clay got from, 54

Evesham, cause of its decay, 97, _note_ 3

Ewelme almshouse, 14, _note_ 2

Exchange, dry, denounced by Church and people, 69

Exchange, the King’s, Jews replaced by members of Pepperers’ Company at, 69, _note_ 1

Exeter, ordinances granted to bakers, 179; “the clothing”, 181; college, 13, _note_ 2; condition under Shillingford, 168-169; quarrel between commons and governing class, 170-172; official, its Lancastrian sympathies, 173; Henry VII.’s charter to, 180; common council, 170, _note_ 2, 172, 180; cordwainers’ guild, 119, _note_, 179; hospital, 75; mayor, election of, 169-171, 180; sworn on Black Book, 230, _note_ 1; his fellowship, 168, 172; recorder, 168, 171, _note_; style, 180; tailors’ guild, 172-181, 184; twelve men, 169-170; twenty-four, 170, 172; thirty-six, 171

Exeter, Hugh Oldham, Bishop of, 17

“Extravagantes” in Romney, 47

F

Fairs, their origin, history, and decline, 25; grants of, 26; of Leicester, 25, _note_ 1; of Lenton, 348, _note_ 3; of Southampton, 293; of Wayhill, 66; of Winchester, 66, 292; of Wycombe, 25, _note_ 2

Fairford, Henry VIII. at, 68

Fallande, Richard, his tablet in Hospital Hall, Abingdon, 76, _note_ 1

Farneworth, payment of schoolmaster at, 19, _note_ 3

Farriers, rule made by guild of, 146-147

Fastolf, Sir John, 79, _note_ 2

Fastolf, Richard, 79, _note_ 2

Ferm of Coventry, payment of, 206; in arrears, 216; of Nottingham reduced by Edward IV., 328, 330; its amount, 332; of Southampton, amount of, 300; part settled on successive queens, 300; in arrears, 300, _note_ 2, 301-302; arrear remitted, 303, _note_ 1; difficulties in raising, 304; reduced, 305, _note_ 1; of Winchester, contribution of burellers to, 154, _note_ 1

“Fermour of the Beme”, 28

Festivals, enforced contributions to, 154, _note_ 2; attendance of municipal officers at, 256

Fishmongers, regulations for, 36; of London, plate pawned to one, 78

Flanders, its manners and wealth in fifteenth century, 5; beer sent from Kent to, 89; weavers from, in England, 90-91; settlers from, in valley of Stroud, 88; in Southampton, 289; trade with Southampton, 288, 291, 294

Florence, the Bardi and Alberti Societies of, 290

Food, regulations of its price, 35-37, 43

Fordwich, its Kalendar, 258, _note_ 3

Foreigners, their position in towns, 90-96; in Norwich, 320; fine paid by, in Romney, 91, _note_ 1; tax on, in Sandwich, 91, 320, 429; in Southampton, 289, 293, 320

Forest laws and officers, exemption of Nottingham from, 328

Forestalling, 39, 50, 54; at Nottingham, 50, _note_ 1

Fork, first mention of, in England, 74, _note_ 1

France, its wine trade with Bristol, 73; appointment of guild officer in, 130; settlers from, in English towns, 320; communes of, 321

Franchise in Lynn, settlers not obliged to take up, 408. _See_ Freedom

Franchises of Norwich forfeited, 367, 389, 391-393; restored, 391, 394; of Nottingham forfeited, 332

Fray, John, 391

Freedom of borough obtained by becoming member of craft, 186; terms of admission to, in Nottingham, 325; loss of, for helping “foreign” merchant, 39; traders of Norwich ordered to take up, 400

Freemen generally members of craft guilds, 190; their right to attend meetings, 224; of Norwich must belong to craft guild, 383

Friars, 125, _note_

Fry, Thomas, 79, _note_ 1

Fullers of Coventry set up fraternity with tailors, 208-209

G

Game laws, men presented for breaking, 246, _note_ 2

Games, attendance of municipal officers at, 256

Gascony, its wine, result of fixing price of, 139; its wool trade with Southampton, 290; trade of Lynn with, 404

Gate, the Water, at Southampton, 291, 294, _note_ 1

Genoa, its relations with Jacques Cœur, 81; trade with Southampton, 289, 291; carracks, 302, 305, _note_ 1

Genoese, grant of Henry IV. to, 290; merchants at Southampton, 290, 291; Southampton burnt by, 295

“Gentleman”, drapers and clothiers admitted to rank of, 68

Gentry, country, marry traders, 78-80; take office in municipal government, 79

German, a, town clerk at Winchester, 261; merchants, their organization at Lynn, 404

Germany, appointment of guild officer in, 130; trade with Southampton, 291, 294

Giles, Karoll, 20

Girdlers of London, Edward III.’s charter to, 143, _note_ 2

Girdler Gate, Nottingham, 326

Gladman, John, his insurrection, 392-393

Gloucester, its trade, &c., 42; charters, 194, _note_ 1; guild merchant, 194; common council, 287, 354

Gloucester, [Humphry] Duke of, befriends Norwich, 387, 392

Gloucester, [Richard] Duke of, his services to York, 261, _note_ 1

Gloucester, John of, makes bells for Ely cathedral, 54

Glover of Leighton Buzzard, adventures of a, 31-32

God’s House Meadow, Southampton, 314

Godstede, William de, 283

Gold, fear of government lest merchants should diminish stock of, 69; its exportation forbidden, 69 _note_ 3

Goldsmith employed to weigh bread at Sandwich, 37-38; of Nottingham repairs cross in Clifton Church, 54, 326

Gorse held by Romney, 237

Gospels, portions of, copied for swearing-in of officers, 258

Greek learned by town clerk of Nottingham, 20

Green, Godfrey, 80, _note_ 4

Gregory, town clerk of Nottingham, 337, _note_ 3

Grendon, Simon, of Exeter, 75

Grocers of Bristol, plate left by one, 74, _note_ 1; of London, laws about their apprentices, 102, _note_ 2; control claimed by, 116, _note_ 1; protest against powers of oligarchy, 117, _note_ 4; appointment of wardens, 118, _note_ 2. _See_ Pepperers

Grocyn, his education at Bristol, 20

Gryme, Richard, of Southampton, 302

Guilds, schools founded by, 13; social-religious, 213-217; system of indirect election, 253; at Deritend, 13, _note_ 2; at Hull, 69, _note_ 2, 182, _note_ 2; at Lynn, 405, _note_ 2, 425; in Newcastle, 185-186; at Shrewsbury, 49, _note_ 1; at Southampton, 293; at Stratford, 13, _note_ 2; at Walsall, 183; at Warwick, 186; of merchant adventurers, 112; of artizans, 112; “Le Bachery” in Norwich, 389, 392; of S. Benedict at Lincoln, 144, _note_ 2; of S. Catherine at Coventry, 203; of “common and middling folks” at Lincoln, 271, _note_ 3; of Corpus Christi at Coventry, 204-206, 209; at Hull, 144, _note_ 2; at Lynn, 405, _note_ 2; of Holy Cross at Abingdon, 215; at Birmingham, 213-214; at Bridgewater, 215; of S. George at Coventry, 208; at Norwich, 384-385, 389, 395; of S. George and S. Christopher at York, 205, _note_ 1; of S. John at Coventry, 203; at Hull, 144, _note_ 2; of our Lady and S. George at Plymouth, 220; of S. Lawrence at Ashburton, 13, _note_ 2; of S. Mary at Bridgewater, 214-215; at Coventry, 203; of S. Nicholas at Worcester, 13, _note_ 2; of palmers at Ludlow, 13; of young scholars at Lynn, 13; of Trinity at Coventry, 14, _note_ 2, 19, _note_ 3, 203-213; at Hull, 144, _note_ 2; at Lynn, 217, 404-407; at Shrewsbury, 144, _note_ 2, 173, _note_ 4; craft, their origin, 113, 114; exclusive character, 99; alliance with town councils, 108; aid burghers in strife with governing body, 167-168, 184-187; various forms, 110-113; charitable works, 113, _note_ 2; courts of arbitration, 114, _note_ 1; protection of members, 114, _note_ 2; composition, 115-117; difference from modern trades unions, 115-116, 134-136, 159-160; government, 117-120; laws concerning hired workers, 121-123; organization, 128-129; rule of oligarchy in, 129-131; part taken by members of, on appointment to town offices, 130-131; founded by order of town, 135, 155; attitude towards the public, 136-138; struggle for control of prices, 139-140; charters, 141, 143, _note_ 3; relations with town and State, 143-154, 181-189; shelter themselves under form of religious association, 144-145; enforced contribution to feasts, 154, _note_ 2; increase in number, 155; combinations, 156, 157, _note_ 1; relations with municipality, 157-158; victory in the strife with town, 159-160; greater and lesser, 160; struggles between, 160-166; their alliance with burghers against ruling oligarchy, 167-168; freedom of borough often obtained by becoming member of, 186; freemen of borough generally enrolled in, 190; relations with guild merchant, 191-199; at Beverley, 142; in Bristol, 153; at Canterbury, 156-157; at Coventry, 151, _note_ 2, 207-211; of Newcastle, 185-186; in Norwich, 144, _note_ 1, 381-4; at Sandwich, 155; at Southampton, their duties, 299; of bakers at Exeter, 179; in London, 149, _note_ 1; of carpenters, 147; of cordwainers at Exeter, 119, _note_, 179; of drapers at Shrewsbury, 144, _note_ 2, 173, _note_ 4; of farriers, 146-147; of joiners and lorimers in London, 163-164; of kalendars at Bristol, 13, _note_ 2; of masons, 147-148; of mercers of Shrewsbury, 182, _note_ 1; of painters in London, 163; of saddlers in London, 162-164; of spurriers, 147; of tailors at Exeter, 172-181, 184; in London, 143, _note_ 3, 149, _note_ 1, 182, _note_ 1; at Lynn, 151, _note_ 1; of weavers in Leicester, 122, _note_ 1; in London, 141-142, 162; in Newcastle, 102, _note_ 2; in Nottingham, 141, _note_; merchant, its early history, and composition, 191-193; organization, 193; independent position, 194; monopoly of trade, 40; struggle with crafts, 191; Gross’s theory of its decline, 191-197; obscurity and local variety of its history, 197-201; its successors in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 201-202; of Andover, 193, _note_ 1, 198, _note_ 1, 199; of Bridgewater, 214; of Bristol, 198, _note_ 1; of Carlisle, 185; of Chesterfield, 203, _note_ 1; of Coventry, 203-204; of Gloucester, 194, note 1; of Lichfield, 213, _note_ 3; of Lynn, 184, 196, _note_ 3, 198, _note_ 1, 217, 403; of Nottingham, 332; of Plymouth, 220; of Reading, 203, _note_ 2; of S. Albans, 203; of Southampton, 198, _note_ 1, 207, _note_ 3, 305; of Totnes, 33, _note_ 2, 220

Guildhall, _see_ Hall

Gun made for Lydd, 54, _note_ 1

Gunner, payment of, by Southampton, 298

H

Halifax, cloth-makers at, 89

Hall, the drapery, at Coventry, 207; guild, its storage rooms, 34; of Bristol, 37; of Lynn, 406; of Nottingham, 325; of Southampton, 310, 312; of York, 205, _note_ 1; town or guild, of Birmingham, 213; town, of Coventry, called S. Mary’s Guild, 203

Hamble, court of Admiralty held at, 319, _note_ 2

Hanse, its trade with Lynn, 404

Harpe, held by Romney, 237

Hastings, metal for gun got from, 54, _note_ 1

Haverford West, interest taken by its burghers in municipal affairs, 234, _note_ 3

Hawk, town clerk of Norwich, 390

Hawleys, the, of Dartmouth, 73

Hazard, John, coroner of Bristol, 267

Henley, Walter of, 133

Henry I., his grant of liberties to Southampton, 306

Henry II., his charter to Gloucester, 194, _note_ 1; to Southampton, 306; to Nottingham, 331

Henry III., his charter to Liverpool, 41; to Gloucester, 194, _note_ 1; to Oxford, 278, _note_ 2; to guild merchant of Lynn, 407

Henry IV., his Act about apprentices, 104, _note_ 3; charter to Liverpool, 41; to Nottingham, 333; to Norwich, 373; to Southampton, 307, 309; confirms decrees of committee of eighteen in Lynn, 414; grant to Genoese traders, 290; grant for fortification of Southampton, 292

Henry V., loan of Cardinal Beaufort to, 292; his letters patent to Lynn, 409; to Southampton, 307; confirms decrees of committee of eighteen in Lynn, 414; appeal of people of Lynn to, 417; confirms guild of S. George in Norwich, 384; his charter to Norwich, 379-380

Henry VI., charters of incorporation given under, 269; loans from Lynn to, 423; supported by Nottingham, 330; charter to Nottingham, 333-334; to Southampton, 307-308

Henry VII., depression of trade in his early years, 87; effects of his commercial treaties, 87; brings over Flemish weavers, 94; repeals Act of Henry IV. about apprentices, 104, _note_ 3; charter to Exeter, 180; to merchant tailors of London, 143, _note_ 3; grants to Southampton, 293; Nottingham sends deputation to, 331

Henry VIII. entertained at Fairford, 68; forbids emigration from Chester, 299, _note_ 4

Hereford, its in-borough and out-borough, 40, _note_ 2; customs, 225-227; law about steward, 261, _note_ 2

Heydon, John, of Baconsthorpe, 387, 389, 393, 394, 395, _note_ 1

Hill, Nicholas, image-maker of Nottingham, 326

Hoastmen, complaint of London corporation against, 140, _note_ 3

Holbein, his “Dance of Death”, 57

Holidays, disputes about, 88; trading on, forbidden, 133

Hollingbrokes, the, of Romney, 59, _note_

Holme, Abbot of, his disputes with Norwich, 387, _note_, 391-392

Honywodes, merchants at Hythe, 29

Horn, the common, of Sandwich, 227

“Hornblowing”, 430

Horseho held by Romney, 237

Hospital of S. Julian, Southampton, 295, 314-315; of S. Thomas the Martyr, at Sandwich, 75; founded by Simon Grendon at Exeter, 75; of S. Paul, Norwich, its dispute with the town, 387, _note_

House, the audit, of Southampton, 310; the butchers’, in Nottingham, 324; the common, its storerooms for wool, 3; the drapers’, in Nottingham, 325; the mercers’, in Nottingham, 324-325

Houses in Nottingham, 327; contrast between English and French, 84; of merchants in Bristol, 74

Huddersfield, cloth-makers at, 89

Hull, its grammar school, 14; merchants, 69, _note_ 2; guilds at, 144, _note_ 2; use made of them by county magnate, 182, _note_ 2; royal charters to guilds, 182, _note_ 1; trade with Nottingham, 324, 328

Hythe, its condition in early fifteenth century, 29-30; Black Book, 230, 257, _note_ 4; use of paper for accounts, 259, _note_ 6; lands of community, 237; perambulation on Holy Thursday, 30; pestilence, 30; its town clerk, 263, _note_ 1

I

Iceland, Bristol merchants in, 73

Illuminator of Nottingham, 326

Image-maker of Nottingham, 326

Incorporation, charters of, given under Henry VI., 269

“Inferiores” of Lynn, 407-409, 412, 413, 420-425

Ingoldsby, John, 303, _note_ 2

Inns provided by the towns, 33

Inn-holders, profit allowed to be taken by, 36

“Intrantes” in Canterbury, 47

Ipswich, its coroners, 223; early form of government, 223, 224; land of community, 237; powers assumed by oligarchy, 240-241, 252; portmen, 223, 250, 252; dogget rolls, 259; two councils, 278, _note_ 2; agreement made by barber taking apprentice at, 120, _note_ 1

Ireland, its trade with Liverpool, 41, _note_; smuggling trade with Gloucester, 42; cloth, 289

Iron works at Nottingham, 326

Isabella, Queen, her land at Coventry, 202-204

Italy, cities of, their commerce with Southampton, 290-291, 320; English cloth sent to, to be dyed scarlet, 326; merchants from, obliged to buy only in London, Southampton, or Sandwich, 293

J

Jews at King’s exchange, 69, _note_ 1; school for, at Bristol, 13, _note_ 2

Joan, Queen, 304, _note_ 2

John, King, his charter to Gloucester, 194, _note_ 1; grant of privileges to Southampton, 306; “palaces” of, in Nottingham, 327; frees Nottingham from forest laws and forest officers, 328; charter to Nottingham, 332; to guild merchant of Lynn, 404

John of Horncastle, bailiff of Bristol, 267

John the Taverner, mayor of Bristol, 267

Joiners, guild of, in London, 163-164

Journeymen, their combinations for self-protection, 101; protection of, in guild, 103; regulations about their wages, 104, _note_ 1; position in craft-guilds, 119, 128-129; protection by town authorities, 120; laws about, 121-123; strikes of, 123-127; unions of, 129

Jubilee of 1420 at Canterbury, 43

Jurats of Cinque Ports, 278, _note_ 1, 434; of Lynn, 407, 409, 421

Juries, system of, in towns, 228-229; special, 229, _note_ 2, 275, 276, 341; of forty-eight of Nottingham, 356-358; of wards and leets in Norwich, 381. _See_ Leet, Mickletorn

Justices, their right to order election of discreet men for town officers, 249, _note_ 2; of the peace, appointment of members of upper town council as, 254-255; in Nottingham, 339, 340; in Norwich, 362, _note_ 2; in Southampton, 307, 309

K

Kalendar of Fordwich, 258, _note_ 3

Kalendars, guild of, at Bristol, 13, _note_ 2

Kent, its decline in wealth during Hundred Years’ War, 88, _note_ 3; brewers of, 89; popular movements in, 429

Keyhaven, court of Admiralty held at, 319, _note_ 2

Kidderminster, cause of its decay, 97, _note_ 3

King’s Bench, court of, 238

Kipton Ash, its market, 404, _note_ 1

L

Labour, effects of war and rivalry between England and Netherlands on, 87; difficulties caused by industrial changes, 87-90; by foreign immigration, 90-96; problem of, 107-109; “blackleg”, London saddlers accused of encouraging, 163; law against, 165; “uncovenanted”, fostered by employers, 102

Labourers, unskilled, 103-104; country, difficulties of their transfer to towns, 98-99; legal hours of work, 133; of Norwich, their condition before 1340, 101

Lammas lands of Colchester, 238

Lancaster, Nicholas, town clerk of York, 263

Land, conversion of arable, into pasture, 98; disputes about ownership and use of, 238-239; common, of towns, rights and interests of commonalty in, 234, 237-239; of Andover, 237; of Birmingham, 237; of Chester, 237; of Colchester, 238; of Coventry, 238; of Hythe, 237; of Ipswich, 237; of Liverpool, 237; of Lydd, 237, 238; of Morpeth, 237; of Norwich, 367; of Nottingham, 237, 334, 335-336, 342-343, 348, _note_ 3; of Oxford, 237; of Romney, 237; of Southampton, 311, 314-317; of Wycombe, 237

Lanes, naming of, in towns, 29; improvement in their condition, 32-33

Langton, Nicholas, mayor of York, 251, _note_ 1

Laymen, schools founded by, 16-17

“Leave-lookers”, 34

Leet of Andover, 229; of Coventry, 205, 206, 212, _note_ 1, 345, _note_ 3; of Manchester, 249, _note_ 2; of Nottingham, 19, 341, 345, 346, 356; of Southampton, 318, _note_

Leets of Norwich, 361-362

Legate, Richard, bailiff of Bristol, 267

Leicester, no plea held in, during fairs, 25, _note_ 1; night work allowed by guild in, 122, _note_ 1; Crouchback’s charter to, 25, _note_ 1, 258, _note_ 1; councils, 287, 354

Leighton Buzzard, adventures of a glover of, 31-32

Lenton, agreement with Nottingham about its fair, 348, _note_ 3; convent of, 354, _note_ 4

Lepe, court of Admiralty held at, 319, _note_ 2

Levant, Bristol vessels first to enter, 73; trade of Jacques Cœur with, 81; trade of Southampton with, 290

Liberties, extension of, in Carlisle and Hereford, 40, _note_ 2

Lichfield, its guild merchant, 213, _note_ 3

Lime-burners, conspiracy of, in London, 140

Lincoln, guild of S. Benedict at, 144, _note_ 2; bailiffs, 250; appeal of commonalty to King against corporation, 244; charter, 244; dispute with lord of S. Botolph’s fair about tolls, 244; its guild of “common and middling folks”, 271, _note_ 3; aldermen, 279, _note_

Lincoln, Robert, bishop of, translation of his “Rules”, 5

Lincoln, bishop of, begs for Norwich liberties to be restored, 391

Lincolnshire, its bell-metal, 54, _note_ 1; its wool, 88, _note_ 3

Linen manufactured at Nottingham, 326

Literature of fifteenth century, 3-10

Liverpool, its charters, 41; attempt to establish free trade, 41; council of forty, 278, _note_ 2; its mayor, 61, _note_ 2, 251, _note_ 1; mosses granted to, 237; grant for paving, 32, _note_ 3; school, 14, _note_ 2

Lombards, traders learn to clip coin from, 67; settle in Southampton, 289

London, its aldermen hereditary owners of wards, 279, _note_; elected for life, 375, _note_ 2; apprentices must be sworn to the franchise before using trade, 103, _note_ 2; yearly wage of artizans, 133; bakers, 45, 117, _note_ 2, 149, _note_ 1; bowyers, 119; complaint about butchers, 44-45; dispute between burellers and weavers, 161-162; candlemakers, 45; common council, 375, _note_ 2; hindrance to influence of crafts, 186; complaints about cloth, 146; farriers, 146-147; complaints against foreigners, 95; plate pawned to a fishmonger of, 78; trouble about fulling machinery, 90, _note_ 2; Edward III.’s charter to girdlers, 143, _note_ 2; grocers, 102, _note_ 2, 116, _note_ 1, 117, _note_ 4, 118, _note_ 2; growth, 50; guild ordinances, 146-148; relations with Coventry guild, 206, _note_; complaint against hoastmen, 140, _note_ 3; images sent from Nottingham to, 326; mayors of, 16, 149, _notes_; Italian merchants in, 293; conspiracy of lime-burners, 140; lorimers, 163; decline of manufacturing trade, 88; merchants of, cause assassination of Genoese at Southampton, 291; provision for mercer’s widow, 80; laws to protect consumer against pepperers, 139-140; the raising of prices for repairing roofs forbidden, 152; controversy between saddlers and other crafts, 162-165; schools, 13, _note_ 2, 14, _note_ 2; sheriff lends money to John Paston, 77; dealings with Southampton, 294-295; settlers from, in Southampton, 291; strikes in, 123-127; tailors of, 149, _note_ 2, 143, _note_ 3, 182, _note_ 1; rebellion of taverners, 139; ordinances of tawyers, 165; withdrawal of tradesmen outside boundaries, 44-45; jurisdiction of trades, 149, _notes_; retaliation in taking of toll, 53, _note_ 1; “vice-comites”, 361, _note_ 3; regulations about wages of journeymen, 104, _note_ 1; decay of wealth, 104, _note_ 3; weavers, 141-142, 160-162

Lorimers of London, 163

Louis XI., extinction of liberties of French communes under, 321

Lovel, Sir Thomas, 329, _note_ 1, 347, _note_ 2

Lübeck, merchants of, at Lynn, 404

Ludlow, its school, 13, _note_ 2

Lydd, gun made for, 54, _note_ 1; troubles caused by Andrew Bate, 60; seals of community and of mayor, 233, _note_ 1, 238; lands, 237-238; dispute about ownership of shore, 238; custumal, 257, _note_ 4; helps Warwick, 262; helps Edward IV., 263; town clerks, 60, 262; treasurer, 263

Lydgate, 21

Lyhert, Walter, bishop of Norwich, 394, _note_ 1

Lymington, its treaty with Southampton, 53, _note_ 4

Lynn, its people seek protection against ruling burgesses, 242-243; relations with bishop of Norwich, 403, 408, 412, 419, 423-424, 428; advantages of its position, 404; three classes in, 407; constitution in 1417, 409; prosperity, 410; expenses, 410-411; financial difficulties, 411-413; dispute between ruling body and people, 411-420; failure of attempt to gain popular liberty, 423-426, 428; barge, 410; non-burgesses of, their share in administration, 412, 413; change in mode of electing for Parliament, 420, _note_ 1; cattle market, 404; charter, 421; committee of eighteen, 412-416; councils, 402, 413, 419-422, 424, 425; its constabularies, 279, _note_, 415, _note_ 2, 421; copper, 54; wealth and importance of corporation, 402; franchise not obligatory on settlers, 408; admission of “foreign” inhabitants to, 417; German merchants, 404; guilds, 13, _note_ 2, 151, _note_ 1, 217, 403-407, 425; guild merchant, 184, 196, _note_ 3, 198, _note_ 1, 403; guildhall, 406; “inferiores”, their decline, 420-425; jurats, 407, 409, 421; loans to the King, 411, 423; mayor, composition with, 243; his powers of distraint, 243, _note_ 1; mode of election, 409, 416-417; salary, 413; sent as ambassador to Bruges, 422; “mediocres”, 407-409, 412, 413; merchants made freemen of Canterbury, 49, _note_ 2; their power, 403, 425; ordinances about elections, 414-416; prolocutor, 414; “potentiores”, 196, _note_ 3, 407-409, 412, 413, 419; their alliance with “mediocres”, 421-424; election of serjeant, 418, _note_ 3; trade, 404; town clerk, 414, 415; wealth, 326; members of Coventry guild at, 206, _note_

Lyttleton’s “New Tenures”, extracts made by town clerks from, 259

M

Macclesfield, school at, 16

Machinery, trouble caused by introduction of, 89-90

Magna Charta, copies bought by burghers, 236; extracts made by town clerks from, 259

“Magnates”, of Norwich, 196, _note_ 3, 249

Malt, made by brewers, 89

Manchester, its grammar school, 17; trade with Liverpool, 41, _note_; election of court leet jury, 249, _note_ 2

Mancroft ward, Norwich, 376, _note_ 2

Manners, Latin treatise on, translation of, 5; anxiety of burghers about, 8-10

Manufacturers in suburbs, 96-97

Manufactures, the home, of the suburbs, 97

Marches, Scotch, their laws codified in fifteenth century, 258, _note_ 3

Margaret of Anjou, grant from revenue of Southampton to, 300, _note_ 3

Market, its situation, 24; origin, 25-27; early control of, 26; grants of, 26, 27; right of, in Scotland, 27, _note_ 1; regulation of 33, 34, 39, 40; laws made by government and by towns, 36, _note_ 1; officials of, 34; of Kipton Ash, 404, _note_ 1; the cattle, of Lynn, 404; of Norwich, 367, _note_ 2

Market-place of Norwich, 31; of Nottingham, 324

Market-crosses, 32

Marlborough, its treaty with Southampton, 53, _note_ 4; trouble caused by craft guilds in, 142

Mary, Queen, renews charter to Liverpool, 41

“Marye of Hampton”, 291, _note_ 3

Masons, rules made by guild of, 147; forbidden to confederate, 148, _note_ 3

Maximilian, treaty with, 311

Mayor, testing of weights and measures by, 27-28; officials of market sworn before, 34; his office as protector of people, 36-38; robe of “clean scarlet”, 62; modes of his election, 226-228, 274-276; his assistants, 228; oath on “Black Book”, 230; of Bristol, 212, _note_ 2; his supervision of trades, 37-38; of Canterbury, 284; of Coventry, 205, 207, _note_ 2; of Exeter, his election, 169-171; member of tailors’ guild appointed, 178; law of 1496 about his election, 169-171, 180; of Liverpool in 1380, his wealth, 61, _note_ 2, 251, _note_ 1; of London, 16, 149 _notes_; of Lynn, modes of his election, 409, 414-417; salary, 413; sent as ambassador to Bruges, 422-423; of Norwich, replaces bailiffs, 373; his imprisonment in London, 392; charges brought against, 393, _note_ 2; of Nottingham, 251, _note_ 2; presented at court leet, 346, 349, 354; of Oxford, 244; of Plymouth, 220; of Romney, elected at Stuppeney’s tomb, 59, _note_; of Sandwich, his election, 226-227, 274, 430-434; of Southampton, 298; deposed, 303, _note_ 1; his powers, 306; election, 274-275, 306-307, 312-313; decree about payment of his salary, 314; presented at court leet, 318, _note_; his important position, 319-320; his authority as King’s admiral, 319; alderman of guild, 306, 407, _note_ 2; of Wycombe, 228, 260, _note_ 4; of York, Edward IV.’s patent about election of, 186

Measures, petition of commons to Henry VII. about, 27, _note_ 3; standard, towns compelled to keep, 27; tested and sealed by mayor, 27-28

“Mediocres” of Lynn, 407, 408, 409, 412, 413, 421, 424

Mediterranean, trade of Southampton with, 289-290

Melcombe Regis, election of officers, 275, _note_ 4

Meller, Dame Agnes, founds school at Nottingham, 19, _note_ 3

Melors, Thomas, mayor of Nottingham, 349

“Mercatores” of Coventry guild, 204

Mercers of Coventry, 183, 204, _note_; of London, provision made by one for his widow, 80; of Shrewsbury, royal charter granted to, 182, _note_ 1; mistery of, at York, 69, _note_ 2; house, Nottingham, 324-325

Merchants, schools founded by, 16-17; their difficulties, 69-72; wealth, 69, 72-74; views of “poor commons” about their gains, 70-71; marks, 71; one at Abingdon gives money towards bridges, 75-76; become landed proprietors, 79; Knights of the Bath, 79; associations of, 108; of Cinque Ports, their privileges, 52, _note_; English, keeping of sea given to, 323; of Germany, their organization at Lynn, 404; Irish, in Liverpool, 41, _note_; Italian, laws about their buying, 293; expelled from London, 293; settle in Southampton, 293; of Lübeck, at Lynn, 404; of Lynn, made freemen of Canterbury, 49, _note_ 2; their powers, 403, 425

Metals, Southampton made staple of, 293

Mickletorn jury at Nottingham, 138, 345-346, 356-358

Mill-stones, cost of, 406, _note_ 1; brought from Paris and Andernach, 406;

Mills, fulling, forbidden by Parliament, 90; the school, at Manchester, inhabitants forced to grind corn at, 17

Monopoly, 48, 49, 51, 56

Morpeth, 186, _note_ 3, 237, 238

Mortmain, license to, given to Trinity Guild, Coventry, 203; to S. John Baptist’s Guild, 203, _note_ 4; to fullers and tailors of Coventry, 209; grant to assign lands in, given to merchant guild of Bridgewater, 214; statute of, results of its extension to cities and boroughs, 215

N

Netherlands, distress caused by their rivalry with England, 87; wool sent from Southampton to, 291; settlers from, in English towns, 320; in Sandwich, 429; independent temper of towns of, 360-361

Netley Abbey, its treaty with Southampton, 53, _note_ 4

Newcastle, weavers of, 102, _note_ 2; piece-work in, 121, _note_ 5; quarrel among guilds about government, 185-186

New Sarum attempts free trade, 47, _note_ 1; its treaty with Southampton, 53, _note_ 1

Non-burgesses of Lynn, their share in administration, 413; in Nottingham, their numbers, 325

Norfolk, supervision of its woollen trade by Norwich, 385-386

Northampton, its dispute with abbot of Thorney, 52, _note_; style, 278, _note_ 1; tin, 54

Norwich, complaint of democracy against oligarchy in, 241-242; character and value of its political experiments, 361, 396-397; early constitution, 361-365; copying of old documents, 370, _note_ 4; troubles about election in 1404, 373-374; disputes between mayor’s council and commonalty, 379-380; its disputes with the prioress of Carrow, hospital of S. Paul, and abbot of Wendling, 387, _note_; with abbot of Holme, 387, 391-392; with prior of the cathedral, 387, 391, 395-396; struggle between county party and town party, 385-395; insurrection of John Gladman, 392-393; refusal to advance money to King, 393; visited by him, 394; reception of the Duke of York, 394; poverty in fifteenth century, 395; causes of decay, 397-398; cause of failure of its attempt to gain popular liberty, 427-428; its account-books, 370, _note_ 4; aldermen, 362, _note_ 2, 380; apprentices, payments by, 102, _note_ 2; assembly, 371-372, 377-379; superseded by twenty-four, 365; assembly rolls, 370; “Le Bachery”, 389, 392; bailiffs, 361-364, 373; chandlers presented at court leet, 140; chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the Fields, 389, 397; charters, 371-373, 379-380, 395; churches, 329, _note_ 2; “the citizens”, 366, 367, 368, 370, 373, 376, 399-401; craft guilds, 144, _note_ 1, 381-384; supervision of cloth and wool trade, 149, _note_ 1, 385-386; system of contracting for work in surrounding villages, 105-106; the community or commonalty of, 366-373, 376, 377, 399; composition of 1415, 374-380; councils, 170, 278, _note_ 2, 363-365, 369-377, 419; “customs”, 364; election of common councillors, 376, 380-381; election of officers after 1415, 377-379; employers made responsible for servants, 101, _note_ 2; franchises forfeited, 367, 389, 391-393; restored, 391, 394; freemen must belong to craft guild, 383; foreign settlers, 320; guilds, 144, _note_ 1; guild of S. George, 384-385, 389, 395; income in 1378, 370, _note_ 4; justices of the peace, 362, _note_ 2; condition of its labourers before 1340, 101; its four leets, 361-362; replaced by wards, 380; leet courts, 362; loan to King, 372, _note_ 2; magnates, 196, _note_ 3, 249; manufacturing trade, its decline, 88; market, 367, _note_ 2; market-place, 31; mayor, 373; mayor imprisoned in London, 392; charges against him, 393, _note_ 2; lawsuit about rights of pasture, 238; petition to Parliament, 367; capital pledges, 362, 381; statute of 1477 about Pye-powder court, 393, _note_ 2; recorder, 387; increased rents, 400; common seal, 390, 391, 392; sheriffs, 373, 381; official styles, 365-368, 373; appointment of supervisors of bread, 35, _note_ 4; tanners, 105; tolbooth, 362, 389, _note_ 1; traders ordered to become freemen, 400; wards, 376, 380; wealth, causes of its decay, 104, _note_ 3; White Book, 258, _note_ 3; law about ordinances of worsted-shearers, 149, _note_ 1; relations with country workmen, 105-106

Norwich, bishop of, begs for restoration of town’s liberties, 391; relations of, with Lynn, 403, 408-412, 419, 423-424, 428

Nottingham, advantages of its position, 322-325; ordered to contribute to keeping of sea, 323; condition of people, 327-328; small part played by ecclesiastical interests in, 329; its quarrel with Sir John Babington, 329, _note_ 1; given to Anne of Bohemia, 330; supports Edward IV., 330; attitude towards Richard III., 330; granted to Elizabeth Woodville, 330, _note_ 1; sends deputation to Henry VII., 331; increasing wealth in fifteenth century, 331; originally governed by reeve, 331; grants from Henry II., 331; from Edward II., 333; privileges gained during Welsh war, 332; sends men to help King against Jack Cade, 334; condition of its government in 1500, 344; struggle between government and people, 345-359; “alablaster man”, 54, 326; aldermen, 309, 339-341; common assembly, 341, 347-348, 352-353; bell-foundry, 326; bell-metal got from Lincolnshire, 54, _note_ 1; two boroughs, 332; complaint about brewers, 38; bridges, 322, 324, 341; Bridlesmith gate, 326; burgesses, their relations with the people, 312, _note_, 355, _note_ 3; distinguished from community, 334-336; burgesses fined for not attending meetings, 336; butchers’ house, 324; castle, 323; charters, 330-334, 339; church of S. Mary, 326; town clerk, 19, 20, 263-264, 337; “clothing”, 341, 352-353, 355, 356, _note_ 1, 357; coal-mines, 325; common, 314, _note_ 5; “community” or commonalty, 338-343; council, 337-340, 355, 357; disputes about control of Trent, 328-329; drapers’ house, 325; exemption from forest laws and forest officers, 328; agreement with Lenton convent about its fair, 348, _note_ 3; ferm, 328, 330, 332; franchises forfeited, 332; terms of admission to freedom, 325; forestalling, 50, _note_ 1; Girdler gate, 326; goldsmith, 54, 326; guildhall, 325; guild merchant, 332; common hall, 343; houses, 327; illuminator, 326; image-maker, 326; industries, 325-327; jury of forty-eight, 356, 357, 358; special juries, 341; justices of peace, 339, 340; common lands, 237, 334, 335-336, 342-343, 348, _note_ 3; leet, 341, 346, 356, 19, 229, 345-346; market-place, 324; mayors, 251, _note_ 2; their independent rule in sixteenth century, 354; mayor presented at court leet, 346, 349, 354; fined for not rendering accounts, 353, _note_; mercers’ house, 324-325; Mickletorn jury, 138, 345-346, 356-358; money borrowed by corporation, 328; numbers of non-burgesses in, 325; Whitsuntide offerings, 329; paviour, 32, _note_ 3; recorder, 347-348; Red Book, 334, 337, 355, 356; sources of revenue, 47; rolls, 259; free school, 19, 348, _note_ 3, 354, _note_ 4; styles, 334-336; subsidy roll of 1472, 327; tin, 54; tolls at Retford, 335, _note_ 2; raising of river-side tolls forbidden, 329; trade and prosperity, 324-328; results of wide distribution of wealth, 251; weavers’ guild, 141, _note_; provision for widows, 80; workmen charged with taking too much pay, 132

Nycoll, William, sends his ship to Bay of Biscay, 291, _note_ 3

O

Occleve, 21

Oldham, Hugh, bishop of Exeter, completes Manchester grammar school, 17

Oligarchy, the ruling, alliance of guilds with burghers against, 167-168, 184; powers assumed by, in Ipswich, 240-241, 252; Lincoln, 244; Lynn, 242-243; Norwich, 241-242; Oxford, 244; government by, its beginnings in towns, 240-246, 255-257; its character, 256-257, 264-265

Orgram, John, of Nottingham, 337, _note_ 1

Orwellstow, owned by Lydd, 237

Oxford, marriage contract of cook’s daughter at, 61, _note_ 4; craft guilds, 142; charges brought against governing body, 244-245; aldermen, 245, _note_ 2, 278, _note_ 2; charter, 278, _note_ 2; formation of second council, 278; common lands, 237; mayor, 244, 278, _note_ 2; Provisions of, 253

P

Palmers, guild of, at Ludlow, its school, 13, _note_ 2

Paper takes place of parchment, 259

Parchment, use of, ordered at Worcester in 1467, 259, _note_ 6

Paris, Jacques Cœur at, 81; mill-stones brought from, 406, _note_ 1

Parliament forbids use of fulling mills 90; its laws about hired workers, 121; Acts of, copied by town clerks, 259; Act for fixing apprentices’ fees in Norwich, 102, _note_ 2; for deepening Stour, 435; members of, their election in Lynn, 420, _note_ 1; in Norwich, 379; in Shrewsbury, 285

Parr, Sir William, 78

Paston, Edmund, 79-80

Paston, John, 77; his marriage, 80

Paston, Margery, her marriage, 80

Paston, William, 390, _note_ 1, 391

Paving, grant for, to Liverpool, 32, _note_ 3

Paviours, appointment of, 32, _note_ 3

Payne, Thomas, his trade with Zealand, 291, _note_ 3

Peasant revolt, 213, _note_ 3, 265

Pepperers’ Company of London, founding of, 144, _note_ 2; laws to protect consumer against, 139-140; replace Jews at King’s exchange, 69, _note_ 1

Percyvale, Sir John, endows school at Macclesfield, 16

Perkins, Robert, 210, _note_ 2

Philip, Archduke, treaty with, 311

Piece-work, disputes about, 88; in Newcastle and London, 121, _note_ 5

Plate stored in merchants’ houses, 74; left by grocer of Bristol, 74, _note_ 1; pawning of, 78

Pledges, capital, of Norwich, 362, 381

Plumpton, Sir William, his marriage, 78, 79, _note_ 2; joins fraternity of S. Christopher at York, 205, _note_ 1

Plumpton, Lady, joins fraternity of S. Christopher at York, 205, _note_ 1

Plymouth, formed by union of three hamlets, 219-220; its incorporation, 220; church of S. Andrew, 220; guild merchant, 220.

Poles of Hull, 79, _note_ 2

Pontefract, its council, 278, _note_ 1

Portmen of Ipswich, 223, 250, 252

Portreeve of Canterbury, 283

Portsmouth, its treaty with Southampton, 53, _note_ 4; control exercised by mayor of Southampton over, 319

Portugal, its trade with Southampton, 291, 294

“Potentiores” of Lynn, 196, _note_ 3, 407-409, 412, 413, 419, 421-424

Preston, distinction between “foreign” and “inn” burgesses, 47; punishment of mayor for striking burgess, 227, _note_ 2; government, 275, _note_ 4; election of chief officers, 276; school, 14, _note_ 2; “stallingers”, 48; style, 231, _note_, 275, _note_ 4

Prices, controversy as to fixing of, 139-140

Priests forbidden to keep schools at Bridgenorth, 18

“Probi homines”, 249

Prolocutor of Lynn, 414

“Protection” of industry, 53, 56, 100

“Prud’hommes”, appointment of, 34

Prussia, its trade with Lynn, 404

Q

Queensborough, merchants of, in guild of Coventry, 206, _note_

Querdling, John, 390

R

Reading, almshouse of poor sisters at, 14, _note_ 2; guild merchant, 203, _note_ 2; first use of paper for accounts, 259, _note_ 6

Recorder of Exeter, 168, 171, _note_; of Norwich, 387; of Nottingham, 347-348; of Southampton, 302-303

Redehode, his gifts to the church at Wycombe, 75, _note_ 2

Regrating, 39, 54

Retford, settlement about its tolls, 335, _note_ 2

Revenue of towns, its source, 47

Rhineland, its trade with Lynn, 404; with Southampton, 289

Rhône, trade of Jacques Cœur on, 81

Rhymes of fifteenth century, their character, 6; nailed on church door in Coventry, 211

Ricarto, Robert de, town clerk of Bristol, 264, _note_ 1; his Calendar, 20

Richard I., his charter to Oxford, 278, _note_ 2

Richard II., his charter to Liverpool, 41; to “the citizens” of Norwich, 371; guilds formed in his reign, 155, _note_ 1; his grants to the Emperor, 292, _note_ 1

Richard III., his laws concerning foreigners, 94; letter to Southampton, 313; attitude of Nottingham towards, 330

Richard the Writer, of Nottingham, 326

Ripe, marshland common on, held by Lydd, 237

Robert, bishop of Lincoln, translation of his “Rules”, 5

Rochester, Alcock, bishop of, 14

Rolls of towns, 259

Romney, “extravagantes” in, 47; payment to apprentice at end of service, 120, _note_ 1; arrest of non-freeman for attending common council, 224, _note_ 2; church of S. Nicholas, 59, _note_; town clerk, 61, 261, 262, _note_, 263; fines paid by foreigners, 91, _note_ 1; jurats, 278, _note_ 1; common land, 237; election of Mayor, 59, _note_

Rose, John, chamberlain of Nottingham, 344, _note_ 2; mayor, 349

Rother, old bed of, held by Romney, 237

Rotherham, college at, 13

Rowe, Daniel, of Romney, 61

“Rules of S. Robert”, translation of, 5

Russell, John, 79, _note_ 1

Rye, punishment in, for striking mayor, 227, _note_ 2; seals, 233, _note_ 1; framing of ordinances, 258, _note_ 3; proposed union with Tenterden, 262; burnt, 323

S

Saddlers of London, strike among journeymen of, 125-126; their controversy with crafts that worked for them, 162-165

S. Albans, guild merchant of, 203, _note_ 2

S. Botolph’s, lord of the fair of, his dispute with Lincoln, 244

Salt marsh held by Romney, 237

Saltmarsh, Southampton, 314

Samon, John, 251, _note_ 2

Sandwich, member of Cinque Ports, 428; primitive constitution, 430-431; makes peace with Edward IV., 431; changes in its constitution in middle of fifteenth century, 431-432; conflict between governing class and commonalty, 432-434; royal grant of 1548 to, 435; ruin of popular liberties in sixteenth century, 433-436; common assembly, 225-226, 430; Black Book and White Book, 258, _note_ 3; church of S. Clement, 227; of S. Mary, 75, _note_ 2; town clerk, 257, _note_ 4, 262, _note_, 263; common council, 430, 432-434; custumal, 257, _note_ 4; Delf canal, 435; foreigners in, 91, _note_ 1, 320, 429; goldsmith employed to weigh bread, 37-38; guilds, 155; common horn, 227; hornblowing, 430; hospital of S. Thomas, 75; Italian merchants allowed to buy in, 293; jurats, 430; election of mayor, 226-227, 274, 430-434; non-burgesses fined for attending elections, 431; grammar school, 16; wards, 431

Schools, causes of their desertion, 14, _note_ 2; control of, transferred from clergy to people, 17-19; free grammar, their foundation, 13-17; their training, 21-22; influence, 22-23; first school founded by layman, 16, _note_ 2; school at Appleby, 14, _note_ 2; school at Ashburton, 13, _note_ 2; Banbury, 17; Bristol, 13, _note_ 2, 20; Canterbury, 14, _note_ 2; attached to Clare Hall, Cambridge, 14; at Coventry, 14, _note_ 2; Deritend, 13, _note_ 2; Hull, 14; Liverpool, 14, _note_ 2; London, 13, _note_ 2, 14, _note_ 2; Ludlow, 13, _note_ 2; Macclesfield, 16; Manchester, 17; Nottingham, 19, 348, _note_ 3, 354, _note_ 4; school at Preston, 14, _note_ 2; Reading, 14; Sandwich, 16; Shrewsbury, 13, _note_ 2; Stockport, 16; Stratford, 13, _note_ 2; Worcester, 13, _note_ 2; Wotton-under-Edge, 16, _note_ 2

Schoolmasters, Erasmus’s description of, 22, _note_

Scott, Thomas, founds Rotherham college, 13

Scrope, Sir John, visit of Sir William Plumpton’s daughter to, 78

Sea, keeping of, given to English merchants, 323

Seal of the community distinguished from mayor’s seal, 233, 238; the common, of Norwich, 390, 391, 392; of Southampton, 309; of Winchester, 286

Selling, Prior, appoints master for Canterbury school, 14, _note_ 2

Serles, John, town clerk of Sandwich, 257, _note_ 4

Serjeant of Lynn, his election, 418, _note_ 3; of Southampton, his election, 309; rules about his appointment in Worcester and Bridgenorth, 271, _note_ 3

Servants, their duties during harvest, 64; of country gentry, appointed to offices of importance, 79, _note_ 1

Shaa, Sir Edmund, establishes school at Stockport, 16

Shearers of cloth resist introduction of machinery, 89

Shearmen of London, 123-124; of Shrewsbury, 126, _note_

Sheriffs, election of, 275, _note_ 3; of Norwich, their election, 373; their tourns, 381

Sherwood Forest, 328

Shillingford, John, mayor of Exeter, 168, 172

Ships, English, sent out to foreign ports, 291; for protecting Southampton harbour, 298

Shipbuilding in Southampton, 289

Shoemakers, protection of tanners against, 165-166; protected against cobblers, 166; quarrels with cordwainers, 166; of London, their complaint about foreigners, 95, _note_ 1; strikes among their journeymen, 124-125

Shrewsbury, constitutional changes in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 285-286; aldermen, 286; bailiffs, 285; councils, 285, 286; disputes with Worcester as to jurisdiction over Severn, 42, _note_ 1; drapers’ company, 173, _note_ 4, 183-184; election of Members of Parliament, 285; foreigners in guild, 49, _note_ 1; guild of Trinity, 144, _note_ 2, 173, _note_ 4; mercers, 182, _note_ 1; shearmen, the festival suppressed, 126, _note_; school, 13, _note_ 2; trade troubles, 324

Shropshire, its wool, 88, _note_ 3

Silver, its exportation forbidden, 69, _note_ 3

Sligo, its trade with Southampton, 289

Smallwood, John, town clerk of Hythe, 263, _note_ 1

Smiths at Coventry, election of keepers among, 118, _note_ 1

Smuggling at Southampton, 293-294

Songs, political and satirical, their decline in fifteenth century, 6; pictures of town life in, 6-12

Soper, William, repairs Water gate, Southampton, &c., 291

Southampton, example of early municipal government, 288; its early constitution, 305-306; attempt to make it a free port, 290; burnt, 295, 299; interference of royal officers in, 296-297; seized into King’s hands, 298; heavy charges, 299, 300; grant to Margaret of Anjou, 300, _note_ 3; money troubles, 300-304, 313-314; grant to hold land, 304, _note_ 2; Richard III.’s letter to, 313; want of political activity, 318; outer influences acting on, 320-321; administration, 305-321; alms, 295-296; aldermen, 307-309, 312, _note_; archers, 297, _note_ 2; audit house, 310; bailiffs, 305, 309; Bargate tower, 310; inquisition of boundaries in 1254, 314, _note_ 4; castle, 297, _note_ 3; common box, 314; burgesses distinguished from commonalty, 311; its charters, 306-310; common chest, 309, 314; church of S. Michael, 308; of Holy Rood, 316; town clerk, 309; foreign commerce, 288-292, 294, 320-321; common, 238, 314; corruption by town authorities, 294-295; council, 280, 308, 309; made into county, 310; leasing out of customs, 68, 291; pressure of military discipline, 297-300; twelve discreets, 278, _note_ 1, 308, 309; dispute with S. Julian’s Hospital, 314-315; with abbot of Westminster, 52, _note_ 1; about Winchester fair, 292-293; fair, 293; ferm, 300-305; foreign settlers, 289, 293, 320; God’s House Meadow, 314; guild merchant, 198, _note_ 1, 207, _note_ 3, 305; exclusive right of melting tin ore given to, 293; guildhall, 310, 312; guild rules, 258, _note_ 1; town gunner, 298; protection of harbour, 298; hospital of S. Julian, 295; home industries, 288-289; Italian merchants in, 290, 293; common lands, 311, 314-317; settlement of London traders in, 291; mayor the alderman of the guild, 306, 407, _note_ 2; his powers, 306; election, 274-275, 306-307, 312-313; salary, 314; authority as King’s admiral, 319; importance, 319-320; presented at court leet, 318, _note_; deposed, 303, _note_ 1; burgesses allowed to do without, 307; town officers, their election and duties, 308-309; “out-burgesses”, 47, _note_ 2; outlay in 1428, 303-304; paviour, 32, _note_ 3; relief to paupers, 296; recorder, 302, 303; revenue in 1428, 303-304; Saltmarsh, 314; common seal, 309; smuggling, 293-294; made staple of metals, 293; style, 307, 308; decree about alien tailors, 294; treaties with trading towns, 53; growth of trade, 292-294, 305, _note_ 1; maintenance of walls, &c., 292, 298-299; wharf, 294, _note_ 1; Water gate, 291; money left for water pipes, 76; condition of working people in fourteenth century, 295, 296

Southwell, church of, Whitsuntide offerings at, 329

Spain, its trade with Bristol, 73; with Southampton, 290, 291, 294

Speaker, the common, of Lynn, 414; of common council of Norwich, 376; of House of Commons, 376, _note_ 3

Spurriers, guild of, its rules, 147

“Stallingers” in Preston, 48

Stapledon, Bishop, founds Ashburton school and Exeter college, 13, _note_ 2

Statutes for regulation of craft guilds, 148-149; for protection of drapers’ craftsmen, 87

Steelyard, right of keeping, 27

Stockport, its school, 16

Stour, Act of Parliament for deepening, 435

Stratford, school of guild at, 13, _note_ 2

Stratford, London butchers rent houses at, 44-45; meeting of journeymen saddlers at, 126

Streets, improvement in their condition, 32

Strikes among journeymen, 123-127

Stroud, Flemish workmen settle in valley of, 88

Stuppeneys, the, of Romney, 59, _note_

Suffolk, Earl of, 387, 392

Sundays, reason for rules about closing on, 148; shooting practised at Southampton on, 297; trading forbidden on, 133

Sussex, popular movements in, 429

Sutton, Priors’, united with King’s Suttons, 219-220

Sye, John, obtains licence to enclose common ground in Nottingham, 348, _note_ 3

Symon, of Lynn, his pledge on behalf of Lübeck merchants, 404

Syre, John, schoolmaster at Canterbury, 14, _note_ 2

T

Tailors of Coventry, 208-209; of Exeter, 172-181, 184; of Lynn, 151, _note_ 1; merchant, of London, granted royal charter, 182, _note_ 1; their charters of 1390 and 1502, 143, _note_ 3; their right of search transferred to mayor, 149, _note_ 1; their school, 13, _note_ 2; strike among their journeymen, 126-127; alien, decree of Southampton in 1407 about, 294

Tames, the, of Fairford, 68

Tanners, protected against shoemakers, 165-166; of Norwich, 105

Taverners, profit allowed to be taken by, 36; rebellions of, in London, 139

Tawyers of London, their ordinances of 1365, 165

Tenterden, its proposed union with Rye, 261-262

Thorney, abbot of, his dispute with Northampton, 52, _note_

Tilers, regulations for their work, 152

Tilly, mayor of Bristol, 267

Tin ore, exclusive right of melting given to Southampton guild, 293

Tol-booth of Norwich, 362, 389, _note_ 1

Toll, retaliation in taking of, 53, _note_ 1; at Ipswich, money left for relief from, 76; at Retford, settled by Nottingham, 335, _note_ 2

“Tollerati” in Canterbury, 47

“Tolleration money” in Canterbury, 47

Totnes, its merchant guild, 33, _note_ 2, 220

Tourns of sheriffs of Norwich, 381

Towns, the characteristic movement of the fifteenth century in, 269-270; their condition in Middle Ages, 29-33; their accounts, use of Roman numerals in, 259; town-books, 258; burgesses and commonalty, 231-236; copies of Magna Charta bought by, 236; class inequalities and rivalries, 60; effacing of class-distinctions, 80-81; ancient customs, 230; copying and translating of custumals, 257-258; keeping of deeds, 258, _note_ 2; systems of government, 223-230, 253-254, 273-281; foreigners in, 90-96; their relations with guilds, 128-131, 135-138, 140-158, 181-189, 194; jury-system, 228-229; intellectual life, 19-23; common lands, 234, 237-239; their traditions of ancient liberties, 235-236; prosperous middle class of, 57; the appointment of officers in, 249-252; rise of oligarchy, 240-246, 255-257, 264-265; ordinances affected by local circumstances, 99, _note_ 2; strife of parties, 158-159, 190-191; early privileges, 50-51; questions of conflicting rights in, 51-52; rolls, 259-260; treaties made between towns, 52-53; of eastern coast, their intense vitality, 360-361; of Netherlands, their temper of independence, 360-361.

Trade, mediæval system of, 55; contrasted with modern theory, 134-136; reasons for its regulation, 43-48; its depression under Henry VIII., 87; free, 41, 47-56; manufacturing, its decline in Canterbury, London, and Norwich, 88; between towns, 53-54; of Bristol, 73; of Liverpool, 41; of Lynn, 404. _See_ Cloth, Wool

Trade union, modern, its difference from mediæval craft guild, 115-116, 134-136, 159-160

Traders, English, their character, 82-85; power to hold citizenship in more than one borough, 49; rough training, 57-59; position in towns, 60-62; devices to increase wealth, 64-66; capitalists and employers, 66-67; lend money to kings, 78; great marriages, 78-80; their art of organization, 83; their complaint against foreigners, 94-95; against suburban manufacturers, 96-97; their fraudulent dealings, 137-138; feeling of common folk against, 138; their foundation of schools, 16, 17; withdrawal outside town boundaries, 45-46; alien, 39-40, 47-48

Trades ordered to form themselves into guilds, 155-156; disputes about boundaries, 165-166; terms of incorporation, 156; of London, jurisdiction of, in early fourteenth century, 149, _note_ 2

Treaties between towns, 52-53, 233; commercial, of Henry VII., 87

Trenode, Richard, his services to Plymouth, 219-220

Trent, bridge over, 322, 324; dispute about control of waters, 328-329; free passage granted to Nottingham, 331

“Triours” of Canterbury, 276

“Trove”, weighing of wool at the, 28

Tuddenham, Sir Thomas, 388, 389, 391, 393, 394

Turks, war against, grant from Richard II. to Emperor for, 292, _note_ 1

Turtle, mayor of Bristol, 267

Tyece, James, of Romney, 61

U

Usurers, burghers become, 77-78

V

Venice, its trade with Southampton, 288, 290, 291; ships of, compete with Jacques Cœur for Mediterranean coasting trade, 81; galleys, 288, 305, _note_ 1

“Vice-comites”, 361, _note_ 3

Victuallers, profit allowed to be taken by, 35-36; their wealth, 60-65; forbidden to hold offices in towns, 62, _note_ 1

W

Wages, payment on truck system, 65-66; disputes about, 88; fixed by law, 152; of labourers and artizans in fifteenth century, 131-133; of labourer in Norwich before 1340, 101; of journeyman, 104, _note_ 1; of town clerk, 262

Wakefield, cloth-makers at, 89

Walden, teaching of children at, 17-18

Waleys, Nicholas, 390

Wallingford, its trade with Romney, 61

Walloons in Sandwich, 430, _note_ 4

Walsall, authority of guilds at, 183-184

Wars of the Roses, action of townsmen in, 331; their effects on towns, 265; on Southampton budget, 300-304

Wards of Norwich, 376, 380; of Sandwich, 431; hereditary owners of, 253; of Canterbury, 276, 279, _note_ 1

Warden of guilds sworn before mayor, 150

Warwick, guilds and government in, 186

Warwick, Earl of, 302; Lydd sends men to help, 262; his relations with Southampton, 299, 302, 303

Wayhill, fair at, 66

Wealth, its unequal distribution among townspeople, 60; of butchers, brewers, and victuallers, 60-65; devices to increase, 64-67

Weavers of Bristol, their complaints, 92; forbidden to employ women, 96, _note_; of Leicester, 122, _note_ 1; of London, their privileges, 141-142; quarrels with burellers, 160-162; decline of the guild, 162; of Newcastle, 102, _note_ 2; of Nottingham, their payment to King for guild, 141, _note_; of Winchester, 121, _note_ 5; of York, their monopoly, 106, _note_ 1; Flemish, in England, 90-91, 94; ordinances for, 162

Weigher, the common, 34

Weights tested and sealed by mayor, 27-28; use of stones for, 28

Wells, its council of twenty-four, 278, _note_ 1

Welles, John, 391

Wendling, abbot of, his disputes with Norwich, 387, _note_

Westminster, abbot of, his relations with Southampton, 52, _note_, 53, _note_ 4

Wetherby, Thomas, 389-393

Whittingdon, Richard, his prosperity, 72

Widows, provision for, in Nottingham and London, 80

Wight, Isle of, supplied by Southampton with wool for web, 289

William of Worcester, 20

William-at-the-Mill, 262

Wiltshire, Earl of, seizes carracks of Genoa in Southampton, 302

Winchelsea, its gun-metal, 54, _note_ 1; election of jurats in, 434, _note_ 2

Winchester attempts free trade, 47, _note_ 1; its treaty with Southampton, 53; fair, 66, 292; ordinance against payment on truck system, 66, _note_ 1; payment of weavers in, 121, _note_ 5; bailiffs, 286; craft guilds, 142; contribution of burellers to ferm, 154, _note_ 1; German town clerk, 261; method of electing mayor, 274; its constitution, 286; its common seal, 286; staple for wool, 290; Parliament at, 400

Women might be traders, 33, _note_ 2; admitted to guild merchant, 33, 193, _note_; disputes about employment of, 88; employment as weavers in Bristol forbidden, 96, _note_; their property guarded by law, 33, _note_ 2

Wool stored in common house, 3; weighed at the “Trove”, 28; manufactured at Nottingham, 326; different qualities of, 88, _note_ 3; Winchester made staple for, 290; trade in, its importance, 11; superseded by cloth manufacture, 98-99; in Norfolk, supervised by Norwich, 385-386

Worcester, free school of the guild of S. Nicholas at, 13, _note_ 2; its “citizens denizen” and “citizens foreign”, 39-40; its disputes with Shrewsbury, 42, _note_ 1; ordinance against payment on truck system, 66, _note_ 1; complaint about non-observance of assize of breadth of cloth, 67, _note_ 2; its decay, 97, _note_ 3; ordinances to protect townsmen against country weavers, 106; regulation for tilers, 152; common lands, 237; town clerk, 259, _note_ 6; use of parchment, 259; appointment of serjeants and constables in, 271, _note_ 3; its two councils, 278 _note_ 2

Worsted shearers of Norwich, 149, _note_ 1

Worsted trade of Norwich and Norfolk, 385-386

Wotton-under-Edge, first lay school at, 16, _note_ 2

Wycombe, its fair, 25, _note_ 2; gifts to church, 75, _note_ 2; mayor, 260, _note_ 4; his election, 228; binding of corporation books, 230, _note_ 2; common lands, 237

Y

Yarmouth, its two councils, 278, _note_ 2; translation of book of laws and customs, 258, _note_ 1; appointment of searcher, 79, _note_ 1; appointment of bailiffs by Cinque Ports, 434

Yelverton, Judge, 394

Ymme, John, M.P. for Norwich, 400

York, its mistery of mercers, 69, _note_ 2; merchant’s daughter of, marries Sir W. Plumpton, 78; coverlet-makers, 97, _note_ 3; weavers, 106, _note_ 1; Edward IV.’s patent about election of mayor, 186; guilds, 205, _note_ 1; guildhall, 205; town clerk, 261, _note_ 1, 263

York, Duke of, his reception at Norwich, 394

Yorkshire, Flemish weavers in, 94

Z

Zealand, its trade with Southampton, 291, 294; with Lynn, 404

END OF VOL. II

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