part 7, 175.) Accounts at Bridport, Southampton, and Hythe on paper

under Richard the Second. (Ibid. vi. 492; xi. 3-8; iv. 1, 438-9.) Some of the guild returns were on paper in 1389. (English Guilds, 132-3.) In 1467 there was a rule in Worcester that the town clerk must be a citizen, and do his own work with daily attendance and not by simple and inefficient deputy, and must engross on parchment. (Guilds, 399.)

[491] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 477.

[492] Ibid. ix. 108.

[493] Ibid. vi. 603.

[494] The difference is seen by comparing with their accounts such documents as presentments at sessions, bills for goods and the like. (Nottingham Records, iii. xiv.) See also entries in the records made by Roger Bramston, mayor of Wycombe, in 1490.

[495] The possible difficulty of getting rid of a clerk is illustrated by what happened when the mayor, sheriffs, alderman, and commons of York, in 1475, by their whole and common assent, dismissed the common clerk “for divers and many offences—excessive takings of money, misguiding of their books, accounts, and evidences, with other great trespasses.” They then wrote to D. of Gloucester to entreat his good lordship and that he would move the king to allow them to name another common clerk; and the Duke having sent letters to Lord Hastings and Lord Stanley, finally received an answer from the king that he had commissioned two serjeants of the law to examine the case, that they had reported in favour of the corporation, and that a new clerk might be elected. The grateful town agreed at a meeting of the council that the D. of Gloucester “for his great labour now late made unto the king’s great grace” should “be presented at his coming to the city with 6 swans and 6 pikes.” (Davies’ York, 53-55.)

[496] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 603. In Hereford the steward might be a “foreigner who is known of the citizens.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 463-4.)

[497] In Sandwich the “town clerk’s” salary was 40_s._ a year, out of which he had to find parchment, except when he wrote out the cesses, when the commonalty might give him a shilling or two for the parchment and his trouble. Other small payments fell to him when a freeman was made or a corporation letter was signed or suchlike business done. (Boys’ Sandwich, 476.) In 1390 Romney paid as much as 56_s._ 8_d._; then the salary fell to 40_s._ in 1428; then to 32_s._ 11_d._; and then to 26_s._ 8_d._, with 3_s._ 4_d._ for parchment. (Ibid. 803.) This corresponded with the decline in the fortunes of Romney.

[498] The common clerk at Hythe, John Smallwood, secured for himself a following of thirty-six men sworn to help him in all his undertakings, and in 1397 he had even gathered sixty men pledged to bring about the death of four of his enemies. For four years the town refused to have any clerk at all, until at last Smallwood made his peace in 1414 by the gift of certain tenements and lands. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. part 1, 437-8.)

[499] Davies’ York, 207. Thomas Atwood, who was town clerk of Canterbury in 1497, seems to have been mayor in 1500. His brother William was one of the counsel of the city in 1497.

[500] Nottingham Records, iii. 59, 84.

[501] For his writing and one or two of his mottoes see Nottingham Records, III. ix.-xiii. ii. xvi. For Robert de Ricarto of Bristol, see p. 20. For Daniel Rowe of Romney, p. 61.

[502] Thompson, Mun. Hist. 82.

[503] See Paston Letters. Cf. The Common Weal (ed. Miss Lamond), 83-4.

[504] See the case of Norwich. The main effect of the new charters was simply to make the rate of progress apparent, and to some extent to help it forward by the mere process of reducing everything to formal legal arrangement, thus incidentally destroying vague liberties, or hardening the exercise of them into a fixed form which had lost all elasticity.

[505] Piers Ploughman. Passus ix. 174.

[506]

“But while Hunger was their master would none chide, Ne strive against the Statute, he looked so stern.”

Ibid. Passus ix. 342, 343.

[507] Occasionally we find odd instances of growing independence. In Worcester “at some seasons of wilfulness” the people had shewn their revolutionary temper by choosing for serjeants and constables “persons of worship, to the dishonour of them and of the said city;” and an ordinance was made in 1467 that none of the twenty-four or the forty-eight might be appointed to these offices. (English Guilds, 409.) In like manner the great court of Bridgenorth decreed in 1503 that no burgess should be made serjeant. (Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 426.) In 1350 a guild was formed in Lincoln of “common and middling folks” who strongly objected to any one joining them “of the rank of mayor or bailiffs,” or claiming dignity for his personal rank, and made a rule that if any such persons insisted on entering their society they should not meddle with its business and should never be appointed officers. (English Guilds, 178-9.)

[508] Piers Ploughman. Pass. xviii. 88.

[509] The differences of early charters should all be studied. See, for example, the charters of Nottingham and Northampton given in the same year (Stubbs’s Charters, 300-302).

[510] The complexity and apparently inexhaustible confusion of their methods is well illustrated by the lists drawn up in 1833 by the commissioners appointed to inquire into municipal corporations. See appendix to the Rep. on Mun. Corpor. 94, 95; and especially the tables on pp. 102-132. Evidently the burghers have scarcely deserved the reproach of those who consider direct election by the people as the natural rude expedient of unlearned men grouped in political societies and ignorant of the wiser system of nomination which commends itself to trained legislators.

[511] Kitchin’s Winchester, 164.

[512] P. 306.

[513] Municipal Corporations Report, 21.

[514] The modes of election of sheriffs and bailiffs were as various and complicated as those of mayor and council. For illustrations of this see Rep. on Mun. Corp. 24, 25.

[515] There was also a “Great Court” of twenty-four. Hist. MSS. Com. x. part 4, pp. 425-7. At Melcombe Regis (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 578) there was an electing jury of twelve. In Preston the mayor chose in open court two ancient discreet and honest burgesses, who took an oath that they would at once select twenty-four burgesses who should not bear any office in the town during the next year. The twenty-four having been chosen and sworn, elected a mayor, a bailiff, and a sub-bailiff; these three at once took their respective oaths, and the mayor before he left the hall appointed a mayor’s bailiff and a serjeant. Laws were made by the “mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses, with all the commonalty, by a whole assent and consent.” Government seems to have been carried on by the mayor and “twelve of those who with him are ordained,” and who were known as aldermen or capital burgesses. By a guild law earlier than 1328 former mayors and bailiffs, though they might sit on the bench as aldermen, were not allowed to meddle with the twenty-four during the election, under penalty of a fine of twenty shillings or loss of citizenship. (Preston, Guild Record, xxiv. Guild ordinances in history of Preston Guild, by Dobson and Harland, 12, 17, 19-23.)

[516] To illustrate the variety of town constitutions I have given three or four, taken at random, in an Appendix at the end of the chapter. Other instances will be found in Chapters. XII.-XVI.

[517] See note A, p. 283, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171-2. This plan was perhaps modelled on a system common in ecclesiastical elections and possibly peculiar in Canterbury so far as municipalities were concerned. There was a dispute in 1435 about the mode of presentation to S. Peter’s, Cornhill, to avoid the “great strife and controversy” between the mayor, aldermen, and common council. It was decided that the mayor and aldermen should choose four priests living within the city or a mile of it; that these four should name to the common council four clerks “most meet in manners and conyng”; and that out of these four the mayor, aldermen, and council should choose one. Three Fifteenth century Chron. (Camden Soc., 91-92).

[518] Report on Mun. Corporations, 20.

[519] In Bridport there were twelve jurors. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 489-90, 492-3.) In Southampton twelve “discreets,” p. 308. The jurats in Romney and others of the Cinque Ports formed a similar body. So also in Carlisle, and in Pontefract. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 270-1.) A writ from the privy council was addressed to “the mayor, bailiffs, and twenty-four notablest burgesses of our town of Northampton” in 1442. (Proceed. Privy Council v. 191.) Wells had a council of twenty-four. (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 106-7.)

[520] Oxford, by a charter of Richard the First, had a mayor and two aldermen. In 1255 Henry the Third made the aldermen four, corresponding to the four wards of the city, and joined with them eight leading burgesses mainly to keep peace in the city and to have charge of the assize of bread, beer, and wine. The twenty-four common councilmen were elected from the citizens at large. (Boase’s Oxford, 42-44.) In Ipswich besides the twelve “honest and loyal” portmen elected yearly in the cemetery of S. Mary Tower there was a council of twenty-four; and seven of the portmen and thirteen of the twenty-four could together make rules for the town. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 242, 244.) In Yarmouth (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 305; Blomefield, xi. 301-2, 342), twenty-four jurats (afterwards called aldermen) were chosen by the burgesses, and appointed all the officers of the town. Between 1400 and 1407 changes were made in the constitution. Two bailiffs were elected instead of four, and besides the council of twenty-four aldermen a common council was formed of forty-eight members. So also in Colchester and Norwich. Worcester had two councils, “the twenty-four above and the forty-eight beneath.” (English Guilds, 379, 396. Also Leicester, Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 425.) Canterbury had an upper council of twelve and another of thirty-six. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171-2.) For councils of seventy and eighty see pp. 374, 432. In Chester a charter of 1506 gave twenty-four aldermen and forty of the common council. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 359-60.) In Bristol (Hunt’s Bristol, 85-86) and Liverpool (Picton ii. 26) the council was composed of forty “honest and discreet” men. Colchester had two councils of sixteen each. (Cromwell’s Colchester, 265.)

[521] The manner in which the aldermen took their place in the system of municipal government has not yet been worked out. In London, Canterbury, and Lincoln they were hereditary owners of the various wards. The people of Coventry petitioned for aldermen over the wards in 1450, but the mayor and his brethren refused. In Lynn there were only constables of the wards.

[522] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 551-569.

[523] Davies’ Southampton, 263.

[524] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. p. 42, 77-82.

[525] Davies’ Southampton, 250.

[526] Gross, ii. 232.

[527] Davies, 253.

[528] 2 Rich. II. St. 1, cap. 3.

[529] Davies, 254.

[530] Ibid. 250.

[531] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 50, 87.

[532] Ibid. xi. 3, 81, 83, 86. Davies, 253-4.

[533] For example, Thomas Payne, whose barge, the “John of Southampton,” traded with Zealand; or the goldsmith, William Nycoll, who was also a merchant, and sent his ship the “Marye of Hampton” to the Bay of Biscay under the charge of a cousin, his factor and purser. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. p. 78, 84, 88.)

[534] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 70-73. Davies, 97-8. In 1399 Richard the Second granted to the Emperor for the war against the Turks a sum of £2,000, which was sent through a Genoese merchant and charged on the customs at Southampton. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 16. Bekynton, i. lx. note. In 1401 a second £2,000 was paid.

[535] Davies, 61, 256.

[536] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 66-69.

[537] Ibid. 77.

[538] Davies, 255.

[539] Ibid. 471.

[540] Ibid. 255-6.

[541] In 1411 the burgesses made a great wharf with a crane on it at the water-gate to increase merchandise and prevent the evading of customs. Davies, 112. For strangers brought their wines “very contemptuously” and landed them “within this realm where they think good themselves.” (H.M.C. xi. 3, 50-52.)

[542] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 11, 87.

[543] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 90.

[544] Hist. MSS. Com. vi, 551-569.

[545] Davies, 294. This may have supported nearly 140 people.

[546] Davies, 82. For supplies for the King’s ship see Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 113.

[547] Davies, 79. Archers sent to the castle for the defence of the townsmen were charged to their account, and they had to submit patiently to their exactions; a letter from Edward the Fourth ordered the town to release one of the Bowers who had been committed to prison “for his inordinate demeaning,” and to go on paying him his wages like other Bowers. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 99.)

[548] The castle wall was not pulled down before the end of the fifteenth century. Finally the castle hill itself, after its mound had been lowered and planed, was crowned in 1818 with a Zion chapel on the site of the Norman keep. (Davies, 76, 84.)

[549] Ibid. 81. For the inconvenience which a constable might cause to the town if he wished, see p. 83.

[550] See for one example among many, Davies, 81.

[551] Davies, 216.

[552] Ibid. 79.

[553] In the last year of Henry the Sixth the master of one of the King’s ships received from the Mayor £31 10_s._ 10_d._ In the first year of Edward the Fourth he again paid for the victualling and custody of the ship £68 5_s._ 10_d._ (Davies, 110, 113. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 85, 98.)

[554] Davies’ Southampton, 214. For sum in 1468 ibid. 72, 100.

[555] Davies, 62-3.

[556] Ibid. 105.

[557] With help from the king if necessary. (Davies, 80.) The town had power to raise a tax on all goods carried in or out of the gates till the wall was finished. (Davies, 60.)

[558] Davies, 80. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 61. So a hundred and fifty years later Henry the Eighth forbade any citizen to leave Chester, because “the city standeth open in the danger of enemies,” and requireth all “for its safety and defence.” (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 370.)

[559] Davies, 60, 61. Similar complaints were perpetually renewed in the next century.

[560] Davies, 35. Southampton was constantly in arrears of its ferm. Ibid. 34.

[561] Margaret of Anjou was allowed in 1445 a grant of £1,000 a year from the great and little customs of the town, and the annuity of £100 which was confirmed to her in 1454 was not resumed by Parliament till 1464.

[562] Davies, 37.

[563] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 111, 112.

[564] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 112-13.

[565] English Chronicle, 1377-1461 (Camden Soc.), 90. Davies, 471-2.

[566] Davies, 111. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 16. See also 98-99.

[567] Davies, 111, 37. In 1462 arrears of the ferm were remitted, and again in 1484 (Ib. 34). In 1463 a mayor of Southampton was deposed by the King’s mandamus (Ibid. 168).

[568] Davies speaks of this John Ingoldsby who paid the debt as afterwards apparently one of the Barons of the Exchequer (p. 38.) A John Ingoldsby had been Recorder of Southampton from at least 1444 (p. 185) to at least 1459 (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 113) and very probably later.

[569] Davies, 36. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 100.

[570] In 1486 the pension of £154 was paid to the Earl of Arundel as constable of Dover Castle, part of it being given in kind. For other trouble, see Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 98.

[571] The outlay of the town in this year was £383 9_s._ 7_d._ (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 141-2.)

[572] In this last case they were comforted by a promise of release for ten years from payment of 140 marks from the rent of £200 which had been assigned to Queen Joan, and by a grant to the corporation of the right to hold land to the value of £100. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 42-3.)

[573] The Southampton trade did in fact utterly fail before a century was over. In 1530 its rent was reduced by £26 13_s._ _d._, and in 1552 the King ordered that when the customs at the port did not amount to £200, and no ships called carracks of Genoa and galleys of Venice should enter the port to load or unload, the town should not pay the accustomed rent of £200, but only £50. To this day certificates are still prepared every year on November 9th that no carracks of Genoa nor galleys of Venice have arrived at the port. (Davies, 38-9. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 49.)

[574] Unfortunately in the brief extracts from the Southampton records which have been as yet published, references to municipal government are so scanty that any sketch of it can only be drawn in faint and uncertain outline. In the opinion of Dr. Gross the Merchant Guild was originally a strictly private fraternity, and only became the dominant burghal authority in the fourteenth century. (Gross, ii. 231.) I have suggested here the idea of an earlier connexion; but the question needs full examination.

[575] Davies’ Southampton, 163.

[576] Hist. MSS. Com. Report xi. Appendix 3. p. 43.

[577] Ibid. 44.

[578] Possibly in 1217, certainly in 1237. Davies, 170.

[579] Gross, ii. 220-5.

[580] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 57. See guild ordinances.

[581] Indenture in 1368 by mayor, four scavins, two bailiffs, the steward, sixteen burgesses named, and the whole community. Ibid. p. 66.

[582] In 1240 the style used is simply “the burgesses.” Ibid. p. 7.

[583] Gross, ii. 214. Davies, 163.

[584] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 40-2, 43, 46. Compare Nottingham.

[585] Davies, 154, 238.

[586] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 42.

[587] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 45.

[588] Ibid. pp. 46, 81, 84, 87, 106.

[589] Gross, ii. 222-5.

[590] In 1302 a lease of the ferm of the town to certain persons is granted by consent of twenty-two men named, but without any mention of their position, “and all the community of the town.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 56.) Ordinances were made in 1349 by the mayor, aldermen, and community. (Ibid. 9.)

[591] Gross, ii. 220, 223, 225.

[592] Gross, ii. 220-3.

[593] See the office assigned to the aldermen in 1504, Davies, 76. For their dress, ibid. 235.

[594] Davies, 237-9. An ordinance was made in 1409 by the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, and a similar one in 1486 by the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses in common assembly; and an ordinance in common assembly in 1504. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 11.)

[595] Davies, 155. It is possible that at this time the chief aldermen were fashioned into a close body elected for life after the pattern of London; at any rate soon after this we find them and their wives in the orthodox scarlet robes with fur and velvet, in all points the same as those of the mayor. 235.

[596] Davies, 63, 71-2, 125.

[597] Gross, ii. 225. Davies (p. 136) says that whenever the guild became settled as the supreme authority, there entered at that period an element of restriction alien from the more ancient government of the towns; and traces to the guild the narrowing of common privileges and subjection of the community to an exclusive system of local administration. It is possible that wherever a guild merchant did lay hold on a town government, as here, at Lynn, or at Coventry, the tendency may always have been to intensify the existing tendencies to the despotic rule of the richer citizens.

[598] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 7, 60, 61. Ordinances in 1368 and 1393, 9, 8; a concord in 1397, 74; lease of customs in 1390, 72; land in 1373, 1379, 69-70. For other instances see 1403, p. 76; 1410, 77; 1413, 79; 1421, 80; 1422, 80-1; 1433, 82; 1433, 44; 1439, 84; 1462, 85; 1466, 86; 1477, 87; 1482, 90; 1491, 90; 1494, 90-1; 1496, 91; 1507, 91.

[599] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 12, 91, 113.

[600] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 91, 107; Davies, 164. In Nottingham, as in Southampton, we have an occasional indication that the burgesses or common councillors, possibly under some fit of impatience at the pretensions of the aldermen, had intermittent tendencies to side with the people. In Southampton there was possibly at this time a certain bond of sympathy, for seven years earlier, in 1452, the burgesses complained that the aldermen had assumed the right of retaining, as justices of the peace, fines which had always gone to them towards the payment of the ferm; and their contention having been maintained in Parliament, royal orders were sent to the aldermen to molest the burgesses no more. Davies, 156.

[601] Davies, 164, 165.

[602] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 104. In 1617 two burgesses tried to oppose the “private nomination,” but were called before the common council and forced to submit. (Davies, 164, 165.)

[603] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 11.

[604] Ibid.

[605] Davies, 71-2.

[606] As early as 1254 an inquisition of boundaries had been held by twenty-four lawful men. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 7.)

[607] The same sense of insufficiency of the common to the increasing number of burgesses seems to have been felt as at Nottingham. In the next century a man was fined, because “being a bachelor and not keeping house, he ought not to keep any cattle at all” on it.

[608] The hospital had made encroachments and put up fences in 1438, which the then mayor had broken down (Davies, 52).

[609] Davies, 53.

[610] Ibid. 53. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. p. 14, 91.

[611] Davies, 52.

[612] Davies, 57-8.

[613] Davies, 58-59.

[614] See, for 1549, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 14; for 1681, Davies, 52. The latest grant of the public land of Southampton was made on Sept. 16th, 1892, by the Mayor and corporation for a graving dock—part of the harbour improvements by which Southampton is to be restored to its old supremacy on the southern coast and once more to give room in its port to the largest steamers afloat. There was a far-away echo of old world controversies in the assurance of the mayor to the people that by this act of the corporation in giving the land at a nominal consideration there was scarcely anybody in Southampton who would not be benefited, and “not a soul in Southampton would be injured.”

[615] In the following century we find them making presentments at the Court Leet about the mayor’s misdoings (Davies, 123).

[616] As the King’s servant orders were sent direct to him without mention of the community. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 16, 103.)

[617] By admiralty law the sea was supposed to reach up to the first bridge, and he therefore controlled the Itchen as far as Woodhill and the Test as far as Red Bridge, and as admiral held his courts of admiralty in the accustomed places on the sea-shore at Keyhaven, Lepe, and Hamble. Davies, 237-40. Compare the mayor of Rochester (H. M. C. ix. 287).

[618] See for example of one difficulty of this supervision, Davies, 475. For an illustration of his anxieties in the seizing of a carrack, see Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 111.

[619] See _Louis XI. et les Villes_. Henri Sée.

[620] See pp. 447-8.

[621] Nottingham Records, ii. 34-6.

[622] Nottingham Records, ii. 222-238.

[623] Ibid. i. 269.

[624] Nottingham Records, iii. 412, 62, etc. 39.

[625] For lists of new burgesses admitted in the latter half of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century each paying 6_s._ 8_d._ and in the great majority of cases giving the names of two burgesses as pledges, see Ibid. ii. 303-305. In the fourteenth century only one pledge was needed. Ibid. i. 286. At the end of the sixteenth century strangers who were made freemen paid £10. Ibid. iv. 170-1.

[626] Ibid. ii. 102, 242; iii. 349-52.

[627] Ibid. ii. xi. xii.

[628] There is notice of the transfer of a coal mine in Cossal in 1348. Ibid. i. 145

[629] Nottingham Records, ii. 147.

[630] Bekynton, i. 230.

[631] Nottingham Records, iii. 113.

[632] Ibid. ii. 142, 158, 166, 160; iii. 403, 445.

[633] Among the cases brought before the leet jury was that of a wager as to whether the painter of the rood-loft had been paid or not. (Records, iii. 143.)

[634] Ibid. ii. 178.

[635] Ibid. iii. 18, 20, 28, 83, 180, 499.

[636] Nottingham Records, ii. 284 _et sq._

[637] Ibid. ii. 389.

[638] See Ibid. iv. 259. Similar entries become very frequent.

[639] Nottingham Records, ii. 246, 248, 254, _et sq._; iii. 414, 416.

[640] Ibid. iii. 65, 68.

[641] Ibid. i. 120.

[642] In 1378 a commission was appointed to inquire into the obstructions of the Trent. Nottingham Records, i. 198. Again in 1382 the King was moved by the “clamorous relation” of the men of Nottingham and a royal proclamation was issued to forbid the raising of such tolls; while a new commission was appointed in the following year, 1383, to prevent Richard Byron, lord of Colwick, from directing the waters of the Trent to his own uses to the injury of Nottingham. (Ibid. i. 225, 227, 413.) Sir John Babington, who owned considerable land in Nottingham, seems to have quarrelled with the corporation about 1500. They appealed to Sir Thomas Lovel for help, who answered that he had written to him to demean himself as he ought to do until Lovel had examined the case and decided on it. (Ibid. iii. 402.)

[643] In the fourteenth century there were nearly 70 churches in Norwich.

[644] Ibid. iii. 362.

[645] Richard the Second seems to have handed it over to Anne of Bohemia. (Nottingham Records, i. 226.) And under Edward the Fourth it was granted to Elizabeth Woodville.

[646] Ibid. iii. 414, 416.

[647] One man was paid for cutting out the letters and another for stitching them on the jackets. (Ibid. ii. 377.)

[648] Ibid. iii. 421.

[649] Ibid. ii. 331.

[650] Ibid. iii. 237.

[651] Nottingham Records, iii. 239, 245.

[652] In 1461 the chamberlains’ expenditure for the whole year came to £124. Ibid. iii. 418. In 1486 they render account for £440 11_s._ 4_d._ Ibid. 266.

[653] Ibid. i. 1.

[654] Nottingham Records, i. 8.

[655] Ibid. i. 22, 24.

[656] Ibid. i. 40-46.

[657] Ibid. i. 56, 58, 124, 168. The wife’s dower differed in each. Inheritance went by borough English in the English town; in the French town it went to the eldest son. (Ibid. i. 186.) The jurors from the eastern and western sides always remained distinct. (Ibid. ii. 322, etc.; iii. 344.) By 1330 one of the boroughs had fallen into such poverty that it could no longer find a bailiff, and leave was given by charter to elect the bailiff from the inhabitants of any part of the town that seemed best. (Ibid. i. 109.)

[658] Nottingham Records, i. 78-80.

[659] Ibid. ii. 2-10.

[660] Nottingham Records, ii. 186.

[661] The land was let for thirty years at the yearly rent of a rose, and the corporation was to make enclosures of ditches and hedges. The agreement was made by the mayor, sheriff, and aldermen, “with the assent and consent of the entire community of the town.” Ibid. iii. 408-410.

[662] Ibid. i. 56.

[663] Nottingham Records, i. 363; ii. 362; iv. 43. It will be seen that in this case the word community was sometimes used; the term varied no doubt according to the exact body in which the right was vested that formed the subject of the treaty, and this again might depend partly on the date at which the right was acquired. Cf. the various styles used in Calender of Letters of London Corporation, ed. by Dr. Sharpe.

[664] Some instances of this style follow. There is a mortgage of rent of certain tolls by the “mayor and community,” 1315. Ibid. i. 84. Settlement as to common pasture by “mayor, burgesses, and community,” i. 150. Lease in 1390 by “mayor, chamberlains, and all the burgesses with the assent and will of the entire community,” iii. 425. For similar phrases in 1401 and 1416 iii. 425-6; ii. 106-8. In 1435, ii. 362. In 1443, ii. 408. In 1444, ii. 424. In 1451, iii. 408. In 1467, ii. 269. In 1479 land bequeathed to “mayor, sheriffs, burgesses, and men of Nottingham,” ii. 304-6, 307. For 1480, ii. 420. In 1482 an agreement about the Retford tolls is settled by “the mayor and his brethren and the commonalty of Nottingham,” iii. 427. There is an extreme particularity in the phrase used in 1485, ii. 353. For a lease of land in 1494, iii. 431. For 1504, iii. 325-6.

[665] We may compare this with the Council of Southampton; see pp. 308-11.

[666] In 1435 we read of the mayor, and nine, or possibly eleven, burgesses named “and many other commons in the said hall,” (Nott. Rec. ii. 362.) In 1443 there is something very like the council—the mayor, four justices of the peace named, John Orgram and other “trustworthy men” of the town, and the two chamberlains, who acted “with the assent of the whole community of the town.” (Ibid. ii. 408.) For the fine see ii. 424.

[667] Ibid. ii. 424.

[668] The editor of the Records, Mr. Stevenson, accepts this statement of Gregory, and says that “The council had no existence prior to 1446, and it was at first merely a committee appointed by the burgesses for the management of the affairs of the town.” According to him the townspeople were accustomed to assemble for the discussion of any important business, and “this was the system of government in use prior to the establishment of this committee in 1446.” (Nott. Rec. iv. ix.) He believes further that “it was, no doubt, the abuses arising from this system and the inconvenience of having to call a meeting of the whole community for the consideration of every question connected with the ruling of the town that caused the burgesses to choose the committee of 1446.” (Ibid. xi.)

[669] Ibid. iv. xi.

[670] Nott. Rec. ii. 362, 425, 420. The right of the burgesses to ask for the calling of a common hall is admitted in iii. 342.

[671] Ibid. ii. 186 _et sq._ There are passages in the charter which seem to convey this impression. In 1465 Elizabeth Woodville confirms a charter to “the mayor, sheriffs, burgesses, and men of the town,” by whatsoever name they might be incorporated and known (ii. 255-7).

[672] Ibid. ii. 202-4. For boundaries of wards see iv. 174.

[673] Ibid. ii. 425; iv. xii. 2. The aldermen were still merged for general business in the council, and appear only three times, possibly acting as a kind of separate estate—once in 1450 when some land was let by the mayor, sheriffs, chamberlains, aldermen, and the whole community; once twenty years later, when in 1471 a complaint was addressed to the King by the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty; and once in 1504 when an ordinance was made by the mayor and aldermen to reduce certain fines to be paid by them for neglect of financial duties, to which they obtained the consent of councillors and commons. (Nott. Rec. iii. 325; iii. 408; ii. 334.) In the first two cases the word may have been used to denote the whole council.

[674] Ibid. iv. xii. xv.

[675] Nott. Rec. iv. xi. xii. xiv. xv. We have only records of the completed changes in the middle of the sixteenth century, probably because of the loss of documents. But in the time of Henry VII. the distinction was already established between the mayor and his brethren and the clothing (those who had served the office of chamberlain or sheriff). iii. 449.

[676] Ibid. ii. 227.

[677] See p. 350. In an agreement made in 1500 between the mayor, council and clothing the names of six inhabitants are included, apparently unofficial, and possibly representatives of the commons. (Nott. Rec. iii. 301.) The names set down for the election of the mayor and officers for the next year are the mayor, recorder, six aldermen, six common councillors, two sheriffs, the six (apparently) plain burgesses mentioned in the last list, and twenty-four others of the clothing. (Compare the lists ibid. iii. 301, 302.)

[678] For a list of the common property and common lands in 1435 see Ibid. ii. 355-361; see also iii. 62-66; in 1351 iii. 366 _et sq._

[679] The importance to the burgesses of the common lands may be illustrated by their argument in 1577 against admitting new burgesses “for there is too many of them already; by making of them the poor burgesses commons is eaten up, to the great hindrance of all.” At the same time they insisted that if a burgess let out his part of the land it should be to a burgess and not to a foreigner. (Nott. Rec. iv. 171, 172.)

[680] Ibid. iv. 282. “We present the new council for not setting the town’s grounds to the true meaning of their new election, but hath taken the best ground to the richest men, and let the poor men have nothing that are ancienter burgesses. Also we find that the whole house or the most of them overhipt (passed over) themselves as it came to them by order of their names in the book while they were disposing of Hartliff ground and the coppices, but now that the East Steaner and other good closes come to be disposed of, they share them themselves, and leaves poor men unserved that are both ancient and needful.” This happened in 1606 when the council had got control of the land.

[681] Ibid. ii. 420. No doubt one of the grievances of the people under a despotic administration was the being deprived of any adequate control over the admission of new burgesses to share their lands. Compare Ibid. iii. 459 etc. with the constant remonstrance of the Mickletorn jury.

[682] The conflict of the sixteenth century lies really beyond our period in point of time, but the complaints of the people and the incidents of the fight throw much light on the working of municipal government, even in earlier days.

[683] 1500, Nott. Rec. iii. 74, 76. The chamberlain concerned in this business was John Rose.

[684] 1516, Nott. Rec. iii. 353. A very frequent charge against the aldermen.

[685] Ibid. iii. 344.

[686] Ibid. iii. 300. The Mickletorn mentioned in 1308 was held in the presence of the coroners and bailiffs, and presentments were made by decennaries of the daily market, (i. 66, 68.) Seventeen jurors are mentioned at the Mickletorn of 1395. (i. 268.) It is interesting to compare the procedure at Coventry, as taken by Miss Dormer Harris from the records. All petitions to be laid before the court were given in to the mayor four days before the meeting of the Leet; and these were inspected by twenty-four men summoned by the mayor. On the day of the Leet these petitions, if satisfactory, received the assent of the twenty-four jurats of the Leet.

[687] Nott. Rec. iii. 438.

[688] Ibid. iii. 338-40.

[689] As late as 1480 their right of assembly had been admitted, and at least six of the commons had taken formal part in elections and other business in 1500 and 1504.

[690] This Mr. Treasurer was Sir Thomas Lovel, Treasurer of the Household, Constable of Nottingham Castle, Steward of Lenton monastery.

[691] Nott. Rec. iii. 341-2.

[692] Ibid. iii. 342-3.

[693] In September, 1514, John Rose, mayor, and the burgesses of the town gave a licence to John Sye to enclose part of the common ground for his use at a rent of 2_s._ a year. (Nott. Rec. iii. 125.) But in February, 1515, when leave was given to the guardians of the free school to enclose land express mention is made of the mayor, burgesses, and community. (iii. 457.) The agreement in 1516 about the Lenton fair was made between the convent and the mayor, sheriffs, burgesses, and commonalty. (iii. 345.) See also 439-40.

[694] June 1513 to Dec. 1514. Again in 1520.

[695] Nottingham Records, iii. 342, 463.

[696] Ibid. iii. 423, 463-4.

[697] Ibid. iii. 357. He apparently neglected their entreaties. 358.

[698] Nott. Rec. iii. 359.

[699] Nott. Rec. iii. 358-60.

[700] Nottingham Records, iv. xiii. For a case in which this certainly happened see p. 356. The same thing seems to have happened in 1504. A law of 1442 had ordered that if the mayor and bailiffs did not render up their accounts before leaving office they should be fined, £20 for the mayor, £10 for the bailiffs; in 1504 the mayor and aldermen together issued a new ordinance reducing the fine to one half, an ordinance which was assented to by three common councillors, while for the commonalty appear the names of seventeen burgesses, of whom one was certainly one of the sheriffs. (Ibid. ii. 424; iii. 325.)

[701] Nottingham Records, iv. pp. xiii. xxvii. xxviii. 100, 101, 1552.

[702] Ibid. iv. 106-8, 215 _et sq._

[703] Ibid. iii. 365; iv. 10.

[704] Ibid. iv. 106, 191, 223. The free school was left to the guardianship of the mayor, aldermen, and common council, and if they were negligent to the Lenton convent, now of course suppressed. (Ibid. iii. 453 _et sq._)

[705] Nottingham Records, iv. 108.

[706] Ibid. iv. 238.

[707] Ibid. iv. 408-9. The burgesses seem to have twice at least acted with the people against or apart from the aldermen—once in the settlement about the town accounts in 1504 (iii. 325-6); and once in the complaint drawn up by the Mickletorn jury in 1527 against the mayor and aldermen (iii. 358-60.) The people may have hoped to strengthen this element of resistance.

[708] Mr. Stevenson thinks that the Clothing about this date became a portion of the council. Nottingham Records, iv. xiii. The other explanation seems to me to meet difficulties which this leaves unsolved.

[709] Ibid. iv. 171, 172.

[710] Ibid. iv. 191.

[711] Nottingham Records, iv. 191.

[712] Ibid. iv. 214, 237-8.

[713] Ibid. iv. 245-8.

[714] Ibid. iv. 253.

[715] Ibid. iv. 262-3, 265. See 268, xvi.

[716] Ibid. iv. 269, 282.

[717] Ibid. 270. For the final settlement see iv. xvii.

[718] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 300-305. Blomefield, xi. 300-342.

[719] Cromwell’s Colchester, 264-5.

[720] See Mr. Hudson’s admirable work on Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich. (Selden Soc. vol. v.) For the four “vice-comites” of London see Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 363.

[721] Leet Jur. (Selden Soc.) v. p. xviii. lxii, xliii-li.; Hudson, Mun. Org. in Norwich: Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 312, 316.

[722] According to Mr. Hudson the Norwich Leet Juries were solely a “police” organization. They existed to make “presentments” which involved a certain amount of previous keeping of the peace in their own little neighbourhood. In their _individual_ capacity the capital pledges were the precursors of the “petty constable” [see Selden Soc. v. lxii. no. 1, and cf. pages there cited]; in their _collective_ capacity as juries they preceded the local “Justice of the Peace,” a function usurped to a small extent between (say) 1360 and 1420 by the “twenty-four citizens,” and afterwards wholly usurped by the “Court of Aldermen,” who were the borough magistrates.

[723] Hudson, Leet Jur. in Norwich, lxxi., note.

[724] Ibid. xv. 1365. Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 322. In reference to the election of bailiffs or the “twenty-four” the word “leet” means a division of the city, not a court.

[725] Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich, xli.

[726] Besides the deed of 1290 (p. 367 n. 2) Mr. Hudson has kindly sent me the following extracts. Saturday, Vigil of Palms, 27 Edward I. 1298—John the carpenter and Alice his wife grant a messuage next the gates of Nedham to “Ballivi, Cives, et Communitas Norwici” “ad asiamentum muri civitatis erigendi.” (City Domesday, fol. lxxiii.) On folio lxviii. of the same book there is a grant of a messuage near the cathedral to the commonalty, 31 Edward, 1302, in the following form: “to the four Bailiffs (named), Henry Clark, Robert de Holveston, ... Adam de Blicling, citizens of the said city (15 persons), and all the Commonalty thereof.”

[727] Norwich Town Close Evidences, printed privately, 1885. (British Museum), 18.

[728] Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 322.

[729] They state in 1378 that this had already been the custom. (Town Close Evidences, 30.)

[730] Arch. Journ. xlvi. No 183, 315.

[731] Town Close Evidences, 7. The phraze used in 1218 (p. 5), “men of the city,” is not the same.

[732] Ibid. 7, 13, 17, 18, 25, 26, 30. Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 325. See Note A at end of chapter.

[733] Town Close Evidences, 27.

[734] Ibid. 16, 18.

[735] Town Close Evidences, 10, 11, 17.

[736] Norwich Town Close Evidences, 14, 24, 27, 31, 32. The same form was used even after the charter of 1403, in 1420 and 1435. (Ibid. 46.) We find “the citizens” joined with “the commonalty” in the thirteenth century. An enrolled deed of 1290, in which license to build a stall in the market is granted by the “Communitas Norwici et cives ejusdam civitatis,” is quoted by Mr. Hudson. (See Mun. Org., Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184.) The double style used is, I think, explained by a contention which occurred a century later, in 1379. “There was a discussion whether the stalls in the meat-market ought to belong to the commonalty or to the bailiffs. They are agreed that the said stalls shall in future remain to the commonalty for ever, without challenge or contradiction to the present bailiffs or the bailiffs in future.” (Town Close Evidences, 31.) At that time a great reorganization of the market was in progress (see Kirkpatrick’s “Streets and Lanes of Norwich,” App. i. pp. 95, 96) with a view to getting as many stalls as possible into the hands of the authorities. As the bailiffs had certain sources of income allotted to them (they being personally responsible for the fee ferm rent) they need not be blamed for trying to help themselves. On the other hand the attempt shows how significant was the use of the word “communitas” in the older deed (see p. 364 no. 1). I think it very possible that property set apart for a definite public purpose was held in the joint names of citizens and commonalty; but I am convinced this last word was never used in a formal way, but always expressed a tenure and control with which the “cives” or the twenty-four could not interfere.

[737] Hudson, Leet Jur. in Norwich, xxxvi. lxxiii. 63. Selden Soc.

[738] Arch. Journ. xlvi. 316-17.

[739] Town Close Evidences, 16-17.

[740] Ibid. 29. Evidently this was a time of very active municipal life. About 1372 the corporation seems to have begun copying out carefully older legal documents, and this copying and re-writing went on through the next century. The account-books which still exist began to be kept in 1393. In 1378 the income of the city was £374 17 _s._ 4_d._ Blomefield, iii. 103.

[741] Town Close Evidences, 30.

[742] Mr. Hudson informs me that there are rolls (more or less perfect) for about half the years between 1365 and 1385. Then they fail till 1413, when the constitution of the assembly had been entirely altered.

[743] I have to thank Mr. Hudson for his kindness in giving me this information. He tells me that an assembly on October 7th, 1372, is thus described: “Prima congregatio ibidem tenta die Jovis, &c. ... quatuor Ballivis (eleven persons specially named) et aliis de com’tate presentibus.” This is the constant form in use, whenever the attendance is recorded, down to the last of these rolls in 1385. The number of persons specially named varies from eleven to seventeen. Their similarity in the course of each year suggests that they were specially bound to attend. In two years 1377-8 and 1379-80 the attendances are recorded several times, and, as in the first case the total number of persons named is twenty-five and in the other twenty-four, it seems reasonably certain that they were the actual twenty-four. This is confirmed by the fact that almost all the “committee,” as they would now be called, are appointed from their number and almost the whole burden of administration is undertaken by one or other of them in conjunction with the bailiffs.

[744] Citizens left legacies to help in these expenses. Not only was £1,000 lent to the King, but heavy bribes had to be paid all round. Blomefield, iii. 120.

[745] Town Close Evidences, 36. In considering the new style two views present themselves. We may lay the whole stress on the association of mayor and sheriffs instead of bailiffs with “the citizens and commonalty”; or, as I incline to think, we may also attach importance to the formal association in a charter of “citizens” and “commonalty,” as marking an epoch in the civic history.

[746] Mr. Hudson has been good enough to give me these dates and facts, in which he has been able to correct Blomefield’s statements, from evidence in the Norwich Conveyance Rolls, etc.

[747] Blomefield, iii. 123-124. Hudson, Mun. Org., Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, 299.

[748] Town Close Evidences, 37-43.

[749] In 1354 it was ordered that London aldermen should not be elected yearly but hold office for life. (Stow’s London, 189.) A common council appears as early as 1273; and again in 1347. It was then chosen by the mayor, aldermen, and representatives from the wards. At the end of Edward’s reign the election was transferred to the trading companies, but restored to the wards in 1384; to be given back to the companies by Edward the Fourth in 1467; and restored to the wards in 1650. (Merewether and Stephens, 734-5, 1988-1992.)

[750] All that had been mayors were to ride in their cloaks whenever the mayor rode on pain of £20, each of the twenty-four on pain of 100_s._ The hat of the mayor cost in 1418 2_s._ 10_d._, in 1437 10_s._ 2_d._ (Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, iv. 579.)

[751] Town Close Evidences, 40-1.

[752] Conesford elected twelve councillors, Mancroft sixteen, Wymer twenty, and the Ward over the Water twelve.

[753] The Speaker of the House of Commons is first mentioned in 1378.

[754] Town Close Evidences, 39, 40, 41.

[755] Town Close Evidences, 41, 42.

[756] Ibid. 45.

[757] Blomefield, iii. 134.

[758] Town Close Evidences, 41.

[759] Ibid. 45.

[760] In 1423 when the mayor and other judges sat in the city there appeared before them two coroners, 16 constables for the four wards, the constables for the liberties of Holmestrete and Spitelond, with the bailiff of the prior’s liberties in those places, and four men out of each ward possibly for jurymen. In 1424 a tripartite indenture was made by the mayor, aldermen, and commons, with constitutions for the better government of the city, and was ratified at a common assembly in the guild hall. (Blomefield, iii. 136-139.)

[761] Leet Jur. in Norwich, xx. lxxvi. lxxx.

[762] Leet Jurisdiction, lxxx.

[763] Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, p. 326-7. Leet Jur. lxxxix. Before the end of the thirteenth century there were guilds of cobblers, fullers, saddlers, tanners. (Ibid. 13, 39, 42, 43.)

[764] In the list given in English Guilds there is one guild founded in 1307 and ten (or eleven, if we count the masons’ guild on p. 39) founded between 1350 and 1385, some of them craft guilds, others nominally social or religious associations, though it is very probable that in many cases this was but a thin disguise for a craft guild. English Guilds, 14, etc.

[765] See saddlers’ guild, which had existed a century before.

[766] The composition of 1415 decided that each craft in the city was yearly to choose two masters, whose names were to be presented for the mayor’s consent, and who were to take their oaths before him. The Monday after the mayor’s “riding” these masters were to make good and true search in their crafts and to present all offenders before the mayor for judgement; and half the fines were given to the sheriffs, half to the masters of the crafts. The mayor had to accept the presentment of the “masters”; he could not make search either himself or by any of the town officers; only if a craft refused to be searched or to elect masters the mayor might himself appoint two masters and order the search. If the masters concealed any notable default they were to be punished by the advice of the mayor and more sufficient men of the same craft. (Town Close Evidences, 41, 42.)

[767] On being enrolled each man must pay to the craft 40 pence, and to the chamber at least 20_s._ and “more after the quantity of his good.” (Town Close Evidences, 42.) The profits of admission to the freedom of the city had in old times gone half to the bailiffs and half to the community, but now the craft claimed a definite share of the entrance money. (Arch. Journ. xlvi. no. 184, p. 328.) By the composition six men were to be chosen “to be of counsel with the chamberlains in receiving of burgesses.”

[768] Town Close Evidences, 42-3.

[769] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 104.

[770] English Guilds, 443-4.

[771] Lambert’s Guild Life, 108. English Guilds, 443-60.

[772] 1/2_d._ was paid for each piece sealed. The right was leased to two citizens at 20 marks rent. Blomefield, iii. 125. By the law of 1442 the weavers were to choose every year four wardens from the craftsmen of the town, who should in their turn choose two inspectors or overseers for the stuff out of Norfolk. The wardens tested the faulty goods and received half of any forfeited stuffs. The law of 1445 ordered them to choose four wardens for Norwich and four for Norfolk, and directed the wardens to make such laws as were needful for the improvement of the trade. (20 Henry VI. cap. 10; 23 Henry VI. cap. 3; 7 Edward IV. cap. 1.)

[773] See Paston Letters.

[774] Not only were there disputes with the prior of Norwich, but with the Hospital of S. Paul (Town Close Evidences, 7-8); the prioress of Carrow (Blomefield, iii. 64, 147); the abbot of Holme (ibid. 153-4); the abbot of Wendling (ibid. 147).

[775] “For the people here is loth to complain till they hear tidings of a good sheriff.” (Paston Letters, i. 166.)

[776] The mayor and citizens were able if necessary to have in harness from two to five hundred men of the town. (Ibid. ii. 414.)

[777] Blomefield, iii. 144-155.

[778] In 1444. Blomefield, iii. 151, 152. The courts were held in the tolbooth, but the assemblies of the commons still gathered in the chapel of the Virgin Mary in the Fields. (Ibid. 92.) Most of the city business was done there as late as 1455. (Ibid. 160.) It appears that the citizens frequently availed themselves of other people’s accommodation (the Priory, Black Friars, Grey Friars) rather than spend money in providing it for themselves.

[779] Ibid. iii. 153.

[780] William Paston was one of the commissioners. (Blomefield, iii. 148.)

[781] Ibid. iii. 144-6.

[782] Proceedings of Privy Council, v. 17-19.

[783] Blomefield, iii. 146-7, 153.

[784] Proceedings of Privy Council, v. 34, 45.

[785] Blomefield, iii. 147. New arrangements were made about the payments of the sheriffs by raising regular taxes; the sword-bearer and the three serjeants for the maces were given their offices for life.

[786] Blomefield, iii. 147-149.

[787] The bishop was on the side of the anti-popular party. At his death he left to John Heydon the cup he daily used of silver gilt with the cover. (Ibid. iii. 538.)

[788] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 103.

[789] Charges that the mayor had sealed with the common seal measures bigger than the standard measures for certain favoured citizens, and that the people were forced to sell to them by these measures; that he had made an evil use of the Pye-powder Court, using its summary and autocratic procedure to imprison many men wrongly and tyrannically (one John Wetherby had been imprisoned); and that he sustained an illegal guild in the city called Le Bachery. In 1477 a statute was made that the Pye-powder Court could only deal with contracts or bargains made during the fair. (Blomefield, iii. 169.)

[790] Ibid. iii. 149-50, 154-5.

[791] Ibid. 147, 152.

[792] He left £40 to Norwich towards payment of the city tax. (Blomefield, iii. 534.) The city, however, asked in vain for the money in 1454 and again in 1460. (159.) Walter Lyhert, made bishop in 1446, was of an old Norwich family. An ancestor of his had been citizen in 1261. (Ibid. iii. 535-6.)

[793] Ibid. iii. 156.

[794] Paston Letters, i. 151, 156, 158.

[795] Ibid. i. 151.

[796] Ibid. i. 123, 183-4, 199-200, 206, 211-2, 225.

[797] In 1460 Heydon left Norfolk for Berkshire. (Paston Letters, i. cxlii.)

[798] In 1456 the common stock was so much wasted that several of the aldermen remitted debts to the city. (Blomefield, iii. 160.) And even the guild of S. George was scarcely able to pay its way. (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 104.)

[799] All ex-mayors were allowed to be justices of the peace. Four of the justices of the peace were to have the powers of King’s justices, and the aldermen were allowed to elect the under sheriffs, town clerks, and sheriffs’ bailiffs. (Blomefield, iii. 158.)

[800] Hist. MSS. Com. i. 104. In 1452 it was ordered that no brother should wear a red gown save the alderman of the guild or any of the twenty-four aldermen of the city.

[801] The first attempt at a settlement was in 1205 about the rights of common of the townspeople. (Town Close Evidences, 4-5.)

[802] Town Close Evidences, 52-64.

[803] Vol. I. p. 221.

[804] Dr. Gross, taking the Trinity guild of Lynn as “a continuation of the old guild merchant,” speaks of its “line of developement” into a “simple, social-religious fraternity” (i. 161); and notes that “though the ancient function of the guild had disappeared, its social-religious successor was a quasi-official part of the civic polity” (p. 162). He does not, however, enable us to trace any such “developement,” or to distinguish “ancient functions” from later ones. From our first glimpse of the guild in the charters of John and Henry the Third to the patent of Henry the Fifth it seems to be singularly free from change, nor is any evidence produced during these centuries for its “transformation into a simple social-religious guild.” In the case of Southampton Dr. Gross sees a developement of an exactly opposite kind (ii. 231).

[805] For a most interesting account of the Lynn cattle and sheep trade, and the Kipton Ash market, set up in 1306, for drafting off the sheep flocks, see Dr. Jessopp’s paper in the Nineteenth Century, June, 1892, on “A Fourteenth Century Parson.”

[806] Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 183.

[807] The guild did not include all the town traders (Gross, ii. 166-7), and probably tended to become an exclusive body since it could keep out all save the sons of its members by charging whatever entrance fees it liked (p. 164).

[808] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 210-11.

[809] Blomefield, viii. 515. Gross, ii. 159-170. The guild of Corpus Christi paid in 1400 103_s._ 2_d._ for meat and drinks and spices for its feast, and 169_s._ for making wax torches; and the beginning of the century was marked by the foundation of at least three other guilds, with right to hold land and buildings.

[810] Gross, ii. 166-7.

[811] Gross, ii. 166.

[812] A charter of 1305 secured its possession of certain property. The charter of 1393 was probably connected with the extension of the statute of mortmain to towns. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 186, 191.)

[813] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 211. Gross, ii. 153. The best mill-stones in those days came from Paris, or from Andernach on the Rhine. A good mill-stone might cost from £3 to £4. (Rogers’ Work and Wages, i. 113.)

[814] Even from the thirteenth century. (Gross, ii. 153.)

[815] Gross, ii. 159.

[816] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 225-231.

[817] Gross, ii. 158, etc. 168.

[818] Compare this with Southampton, where the alderman was himself mayor.

[819] Gross, ii. 155-156.

[820] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 194.

[821] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 195-6. Beloe, Our Borough, p. 19.

[822] Beloe, Our Borough, 15.

[823] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 196.

[824] In 1345 the king called out a hundred men of the most vigorous to go to Gascony. (Ibid. 189.)

[825] See Vol. I. 291-2.

[826] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 218-223.

[827] Ibid. 158-9.

[828] Ibid. p. 229.

[829] Ibid. xi. 3, p. 224.

[830] Cf. for comparison and contrast the custom of Dinant after 1348. (Ville de Dinant. Pirenne, 45-6, 49-50.)

[831] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 191-4.

[832] Mr. Beloe says that the ruling class resisted, and instituted a costly suit to get a decree under the great seal setting aside the award, but he gives no particulars. (Our Borough, 17.)

[833] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 197, 200.

[834] Either officer convicted of false dealing was to lose his office and franchise for ever.

[835] The four chamberlains or treasurers were then to be chosen from the body of burgesses, two by the mayor and jurats, two by the burgesses. But, unlike Norwich, where the council and commons divided the remaining elections between them, in Lynn the only appointment left to the community besides the two chamberlains was the prolocutor. Coroners and constables were nominated by the people, and elected by the jurats, and the other officers, the common clerk, serjeant, janitors, bell-man and wait, taken from the general community both of burgesses and non-burgesses, were directly appointed by the mayor and jurats.

[836] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 196-202. There were “constabularies” which corresponded to wards, over which a captain was appointed in time of war or danger. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.)

[837] Beloe, Our Borough, 16.

[838] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 191-4.

[839] Beloe, 17, 18. Gross, ii. 170.

[840] Ibid.

[841] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 195, 203.

[842] Instances of the important place held by the alderman in matters of town government in 1420. (Ibid. 246, and in 1431-42, p. 162-4.)

[843] In 1426 the alderman of the guild chose four fit persons who took the accustomed oath and entered the chamber; they chose four others, who, after being sworn, were brought into the chamber, and the eight then added to their number four more. The whole body of twelve, after sitting from the tenth to the third hour, were finally divided as to the election of the serjeant who had in some way offended the community, and at whose name a “great murmur now arose amongst the people” waiting outside. He was, however, chosen after asking pardon of the mayor and community for his offence. (Ibid. 160.) In 1477 another election is described, which was carried on in exactly the same way. (Ibid. 169.) And in 1470, when a constable had to be elected there was the same procedure.

[844] Beloe, 21.

[845] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 245, 246.

[846] The gradual change in the mode of electing burgesses for parliament illustrates the action of the councils in absorbing influence. In 1314 the jury to elect the burgesses had been chosen by a committee of twenty-six townsmen. But at least from 1425 the mayor assumed the right of choosing the first four of the jury, who then named the remaining eight. In 1433, if not earlier, the mayor was bound to select two of the twenty-four and two of the twenty-seven, and the added eight members were all taken from the same bodies; and in 1442 this custom was made into a permanent law. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 240, 157-8, 163-4, 166-9.) About 1523 the burgesses were chosen by the twenty-four and twenty-seven voting personally in assembly; this assembly, called the “House,” carried on all dealings with members, instructed them, paid them, and received their reports. The first effort of the burgesses at large to take any part in election was at the Long Parliament. (Ibid. pp. 148-9.)

[847] 1427, Ibid. 160; 1428, p. 161; 1441, p. 163-4; 1442, p. 164; 1466, p. 168. Cf. also p. 148.

[848] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 162.

[849] Ibid. 246.

[850] Ibid. 170.

[851] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 163.

[852] Ibid. 158-9, 161.

[853] Ibid. 167.

[854] Ibid. 168. The use of the word communitas in 1463 is here explained as showing how the term had “already lost its original meaning and was used to designate the humblest and least influential class of the burgesses.” But community was used in exactly this sense in 1305. (Ibid. 187.)

[855] For some details of the seventy-five guilds of Lynn see the Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, edited by Walter Rye, Part I., pp. 153-183.

[856] Lyon’s Dover, I. xi.; ii. 267-8, 287, 312, 370.

[857] In Dover the common assembly summoned in the same way was called a Hornblowing. (Boy’s Sandwich, 797.)

[858] Ibid. 538.

[859] Ibid. 783-4. In 1565 291 households were English and 129 Walloons. But there were many foreigners in Sandwich at a far earlier time.

[860] In 1466 and 1492. Boys’ Sandwich, 675, 679.

[861] Ibid. 787.

[862] Ibid. 673-6. In 1469 the commons of Sandwich at a Shepway court desire that the mayor may be kept in safe custody for such charges as they will allege against him. (Ibid. 676.)

[863] Boys’ Sandwich, 677.

[864] Lyon’s Dover, i. 206-7.

[865] Boys’ Sandwich, 683.

[866] At the same time the jurats, who as late as 1492 need only have lived a year in the town, “he and his wife together,” must now have been there at least three years. (Ibid. 679-701.) Jurats were ultimately chosen or nominated by the mayor in Dover and in Winchelsea. (Lyon, ii. 268, 371.)

[867] Boys, 686.

[868] Skelton’s Poems. Ed. Dyce, 381-2.

[869] Green’s History of the English People, i. 211-225.

[870] See p. 238. Mr. Maitland’s Archaic Communities (Law Quarterly), 47.

[871] Brinklow’s Papers (Early Eng. Text Soc.) illustrate the uncompromising ideas of radical reform fostered in towns.

[872] Bishop Creighton’s Wolsey, 51, 59.

[873] Skelton’s Poems. Ed. Dyce, i. 386.

[874] See Vol. I. Ch. VII.

[875]

“He rules his commonalty With all benignity, His noble baronage He putteth them in courage To exploit deeds of arms.... Wherever he rides or goes His subjects he doth support, Maintain them with comfort Of his most princely port.”

Skelton, ii. 81-2.

[876] Vol. I. p. 26, n. 5.

[877] “And then they (princes) daub over their oppression with a submissive, flattering carriage, that they may so far insinuate into the affections of the vulgar, as they may not tumult nor rebel, but patiently crouch to burdens and exactions.” (Erasmus, Praise of Folly, tr.), 151.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.