Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2

383

Ibid. i. 31. See also Bury St. Edmunds, ii. 30-3.

384

See p. 219, note at end of Chapter.

385

Barnstaple, Gross, ii. 12.

386

Bury St. Edmunds, Gross, ii. 33-4.

387

Gross, i. 117. Is there any reason to think that if the enjoyment of monopoly was split up and divided among the crafts, the exercize of authority was split up and transferred in the same proportions?

388

When wealthy individuals of a craft, men perhaps almost in the position of merchants, were admitted to the Guild, no argument can be drawn from this as to the relation of the craft itself to the Guild.

389

Gross, i. 114-5. In the instances here given (p. 116, note 1) of regulations made for craftsmen by the Guild Merchant it is necessary to define the exact relation between the Guild and the governing body of the town. (See Andover in 1314. Gross, ii. 308. Compare Leicester, ibid. 144.)

390

Gross, i. 125-6, 159-60.

391

Ibid. i. 75, 76.

392

All the materials which I have used in speaking of Coventry have been given me very kindly by Miss Dormer Harris, who has made a careful study of the town records on the spot, and will soon, it is hoped, publish the result of her researches.

393

Compare Chesterfield, where a Guild was established in 1218 to guard the “liberties of the town”; in case of need its aldermen were to choose twelve men to go before the justices or elsewhere to help these “liberties” of the town; and any one suffering loss for them was to be repaid by the Guild. (English Guilds, 165-167.)

394

Compare the very small numbers of the Reading Guild, which was a survival of olden times (Vol. I. p. 302, note 1). S. Alban’s was larger, but apparently of a more doubtful character, even in the eyes of the prudent burghers. (Ibid. 296-7.)

395

They got land from Isabella, and built their church at Bablake – the first church built by the burghers.

396

The taking of a common name may have been connected with the license to mortmain. S. John’s Guild had got a license in 1342 and land to build its church, but some extended license must have been needed for a larger society which desired to possess new property.

397

Mercers’ obits were celebrated in S. Catherine’s Chapel; drapers’ obits usually in the Lady Chapel belonging to S. Mary’s or the Merchant Guild.

398

The early guildhall of York belonged to the guilds of S. George and S. Christopher; and when the new hall was built in the middle of the fifteenth century these two guilds retained considerable power in it. (Davies’ Walks Through York, 49-51.) Sir William Plumpton and his wife joined the fraternity of S. Christopher at York, 1439. (Plumpton Corr. lxii.)

399

Cf. Norwich (p. 395). This arrangement was probably made for the sake of financial security (see p. 215-6).

400

English Gilds, 232.

401

Accounts of the Guild of Corpus Christi are preserved from 1488. The brethren and sisters of the Guild seem to have been spread all over England, and are mentioned at London, Lynn, and Birmingham. They were of all ranks and of all trades and callings. (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 101.) The Prior of the cathedral, the Prior’s bailiff, the vicar of Trinity, various craftsmen of the town and vicars of the neighbourhood, merchants of Queenborough, Dublin, Drogheda, Bristol, Kingston-on-Hull, London, and many other places, a “merchant of the Staple,” and great men of the neighbourhood, such as Thomas Grey, the Marquis of Dorset, Lord Hastings, and others belonged to its association.

402

S. Mary’s Hall was begun in 1340, and finished in 1413.

403

The Twenty-four were self-elected; the mayor was elected by the Twenty-four; the common council were appointed and summoned by the mayor.

404

Compare the case of Southampton where a guild merchant had imposed its methods on a town government.

405

The list compiled in 1449 of living craftsmen who had held office gives fifteen drapers and eleven mercers, and seven dyers; as against two wire-drawers, two whit-tawyers, and two weavers. The dyers in Coventry were often cloth merchants of great consequence.

406

In the time of Richard the Second the fullers and tailors first attempted to form a guild, and even obtained a patent which licensed their society to hold property worth a yearly rental of eight marks.

407

The complaint against the dyers is shown in a petition to Parliament in 1415 (Rot. Parl. iv. 75), in which the community of Coventry say that by reason of a confederacy among the dyers they cannot get their cloth dyed under 6s. or 7s. a dozen, whereas last year’s price was 5s.; and forty pounds of wool was now 30s. which was last year 20s., &c. The dyers are also great and common makers of cloth and take all the flower of the wool for their own cloth, the remnant serving the common people. The petitioners request that on the day of the mayor’s election, those that elect him (that is twenty-four members of the ruling guilds) shall also appoint four persons, two drapers, one dyer, and one woder, sworn to keep watch over the dyers, and present them for any “fault or confederacy” to the mayor, bailiffs, and justices of the peace – in other words to the officers of the Trinity Guild. For the first fault he was to pay a fine to the king, for the second a fine and half a year’s imprisonment. They also prayed that no one who was a dyer should make vendible cloth. These conditions being refused they claimed the suppression of the guild.

408

The mayor and his brethren carried their complaint to the king in 1424, and by royal writ the assemblies were forbidden. In 1422 the governing guilds issued an order that all wardens should bring the ordinances of the crafts before the mayor, recorder, and bailiffs, and eight of the general council by whom honest, lawful, and good rules should be allowed; and no ordinances might be made against the law in oppression of people, upon pain of imprisonment or fine at the king’s will. In 1424 arbitrators were appointed by the mayor’s order to decide the disputes between the master weavers and their men; and rules were drawn up for the whole craft. It is obvious that this is very different from regulation by a guild which still retained the crafts within its own association.

409

They gave forty marks for a fresh license for their guild with mortmain up to ten marks, and leave to elect four masters at the Nativity to rule the craft and to plead in courts for the whole body. As of old they seem to have failed in carrying out their scheme in spite of the license, and in 1448 a petition was presented by them (whether it was voluntary may well be doubted) that the union between the fullers’ and tailors’ crafts should be severed. At the suppression of the guilds the shearmen and tailors held a mill and tenements in mortmain for the support of their chauntry.

410

Cf. Exeter, Chapter VII.

411

How little freedom was left to far the most powerful craft of all – the dyers – we see from the law of 1530, that if any masters and journeymen of the dyers can be proved before the mayor and justices to have hindered any one from becoming a dyer, they are to be fined. If the journeymen refuse to work for the new dyers, then, without hindrance from the craft or the journeymen, they may hire others not inhabitants. In 1530 it was ordered that a certain Robert Perkins was to become a dyer without “let or hindrance” from craft and journeymen. In general the corporation resisted the tendency of the lesser crafts to prevent the setting up of new masters – a policy which is easy to understand in the rule of merchants, as opposed to that of the manufacturers.

412

Posted up on the door of S. Michael’s in 1494: —

“Be it knowen and understood

This cite should be free and now is bond

Dame Goode-Eve made hit free

And now the’ be customes for woll and the drap’ie.

Also hit is made that no prentice shall be

But XIII. penies pay shall he,

This act did Robert Grene

Therefore he had many a curse I wene.”

(Sharp’s Antiquities, 235.)

413

“This city is bond that shuld be free,

The right is holden from the ̄C̄īalte.

Our cōins that at Lamas open shuld be cast

They be closed in and hegged full fast…

If ever ye have nede to the cōīalte

Such favour as ye show us such shall ye see.

We may speke fair and bid ye good morwe

But luff from our herts ye shall have nevr…

Cherish the cōīalte and so they have their right

For drede of a worse chance by day or by night.

The best of all littel worth shuld be

And ye had not had help of the cōīalte.”

(Sharp, 235.) Perhaps it was from the talk of the streets in some such local disturbance that Langland quoted when he wrote the lines quoted in Vol. I. p. 26.

414

The Coventry craft-masters’ apprentices paid their fines to the mayor “for the use of the city,” not of the guild; the “searchers” for the trades were appointed and the regulations made at the Leet Court, not at meetings of a guild; the same officials attended, but they had to act as representing the municipality.

415

As in Lynn, Bristol, and, later, Norwich.

416

It is a subject for inquiry whether any Guild Merchant gave its name to a municipality unless it had been made responsible for the payment of the ferm, and held openly and to the knowledge of the exchequer some property or rents or tolls for the purpose.

417

The Coventry Guild held town property for public purposes before this, apparently as a private arrangement.

418

It is possible that in the earlier part of Richard’s reign the fear inspired by the Peasant Revolt may have quickened the spirit of organization among the wealthier classes. In the Guild of Lichfield, established by charter in 1387, the master of the Guild and the Forty-eight were “steadfastly to abide together and see that good rule be kept in the city.” (Gross, ii. 145.) Similar combinations of the richer classes seem to have been very general.

419

English Gilds, 244-6, 249, 250.

420

Gross, ii. 353.

421

Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 316. This states that all the burgesses and the commonalty of the borough of Bridgewater have ordained that they will choose yearly two seneschals of their guild, and one bailiff to attend on them; such seneschals to have power to punish those offending against these ordinances. If any one among them shall maliciously impute to another a charge of theft, forgery, neifty (“nativitatis,” the being a born bondman), murder, adultery, or excommunication, and be convicted thereof before the seneschals, he shall be amerced and bound to the commonalty to make satisfaction to the other at the award of his peers. No one shall implead another without the borough under pain of amercement. Any one neglecting to appear before the seneschals when summoned is to be amerced. Those opposing execution or distress made by order of the seneschals to be amerced and bound to the commonalty in forty pence. No one is to buy flesh or fish before 9 A.M. for regrating under pain of becoming bound to the commonalty in the price of the flesh or fish so bought or sold. If any one is elected to the office of seneschal of S. Mary’s or of the Holy Cross in the church of the said borough he shall render account for the moneys arising therefrom to the said seneschals whenever summoned so to do. Any person refusing any one of those offices, if elected thereto, is to be bound to the commonalty in the sum of 6s. 8d. The seneschals are to render account for all moneys received by them each year upon the morrow of the circumcision of our Lord. This deed has a large fragment of the castle seal or seal of the lord of the fee still attached. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 316.)

422

Their meetings for business were held in a small chamber attached to the church of S. Helen, which is still the exchequer chamber of their successors, the governors of Christ’s Hospital. (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 98.) Dr. Gross (i. 83-4, note 11) gives the names of some towns where the government was guided by a “simple social-religious gild.” The instances suggest different problems, and need separate examination of the special circumstances.

423

Madox, 217. How many later declarations of the poverty of corporations was due to this convenient system of dealing with their funds?

424

This system was devised before the doctrine of Trusts was adopted, in the reign of Henry the Fourth; but even after that doctrine was accepted the holding of property by a friendly corporation would have put considerable difficulty in the way of recovering money owed by the municipality.

425

English Gilds, 231-5.

426

See Note A at end of Chapter.

427

See Chapter XIV.

428

Dr. Gross is one of the latest writers who insists especially on the passage from democracy to oligarchy. (i. 108-110, 125-6, 160, 171, 285.)

429

Gross, i. 23-6; ii. 115 et sq. Compare Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 239, for the forms used in 1291. For elections in 1310 see Ibid. 242.

430

In Romney an instance is given in 1442 of a man being arrested who had come, not being free, to hear the common council. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 540. For Wycombe, Ibid. 557.

431

Journal Archæological Association, xxvii. 464.

432

Ibid.

433

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 493.

434

Boys’ Sandwich, 429. See also Berwick, English Guilds, 344.

435

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 462. If a townsman struck the mayor and was too harshly punished the friends of the prisoner might call a jury “of the discreetest and stoutest men of the city,” who should ordain a just penalty. In Rye as in Hereford the old custom was that the man who struck the mayor was to lose his right hand (Lyon’s Dover, ii. 352); in Preston there was some punishment for a mayor who struck a burgess in or out of court (Custumal, Hist. Preston Guild). In Canterbury if a bailiff did wrong to any “that may be found by two lawful men of syght and of hyerth” complaint was made to the twelve aldermen; and if they charged the bailiff in vain to amend the wrong, the case was carried to a court of the thirty-six, the aldermen, and the most wisest men, “and by them right shall be ordained” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171).

436

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 559.

437

Hunt’s Bristol, 103-5.

438

For the variety of modes in which juries were elected then and later see Rep. Mun. Corporations, 27.

439

We find also special juries – for example a jury of masons and carpenters to judge “because of a waterfall which fell from the house and gutter of Richard Maidstone upon the house and ground of William Bennett” (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169); and groups of umpires appointed to settle differences (Boys’ Sandwich, 786).

440

This was the custom in Exeter. At Bayonne every new citizen was sworn upon a book containing the charter and statutes of the commune (Luchaire, 47).

441

Ricart, 2.

442

At Wycombe and Dartmouth two Italian copies of the Pandects of Justinian and commentaries were used in the fifteenth century to bind up the corporation books.

443

See pp. 310-11, 334-6, 366-70. A decree of 1328 in Preston was made by “the mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses, with all the commonalty, by a whole assent and consent.” (Thomson, Mun. Hist. 105.)

444

Mr. Maitland describes the communal organization of the villein tenants on the manor of Bright Waltham in 1293 (Manorial Pleas, Selden Soc. 161-4, 168). They formed a “communitas” which held property, could receive a grant of land, could contract and make exchanges with the lord (172). These rights were recognized in the manorial courts, though at Westminster they would have been held very irregular (163). They elected or recommended the reeve, shepherd, ploughman, swineherd (170), the whole ville “undertaking” for him (168). The steward kept watch that no land of servile tenure should be treated as free, and the villeins themselves were very unwilling that a villein should set up as a freeman on the ground of holding a freehold acre (164).

445

In Barnstaple a deed concerning a tenement in the High Street in 1416 was sealed with the seal of the commonalty, not that of the mayor. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 213.) In Rye there was a seal of the community different from the mayor’s seal, which last was first used in 1377. (Ibid. v. 489, 511.) Also in Lydd (ibid. 530-2).

446

See note A at end of chapter.

447

Worcester, Eng. Guilds, 378.

448

Frequent cases indicate that where the common lands played an important part in the wealth or industry of a borough the burgesses long preserved an interest in municipal affairs. Thus, in Haverford West, where the townsfolk up to 1832 took a very real part in the election of their officers and the control of business, the common meadow still contained over a thousand acres. (Report on Mun. Corporation, 233, etc.) And at Berwick-on-Tweed, where also affairs were administered by the whole body of burgesses, the annual value of the lands whose profits went to the freemen was near £6,000. (Ibid. 31.)

449

Piers Ploughman, pass. xi. 239.

450

Merewether and Stephens, ii. 590-2.

451

Norwich Town Close Evidences, p. 16. A copy of this volume (a private publication printed in connection with the Town Close case in 1885) may be found in the British Museum.

452

Norwich Town Close Evidences, 18-19.

453

Ibid. 17.

454

It was at this time that the mayor was given power to distrain for sums levied on the commonalty. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 186-7.)

455

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, pp. 187, 240. Gross, ii. 155-6.

456

Report on Markets, 62.

457

Rot. Parl. i. 433.

458

Madox, 94.

459

In the list of taxpayers to the poll-tax of 1380 in Oxford, we find four aldermen mentioned – a vintner, a draper, and two others whose trade is not mentioned, but who had eight and ten servants, a number very greatly above the average. The vintner and draper each paid, like the mayor, 13s. 4d.; but the man with ten servants gave only 12d.; and the man with eight is not registered as having paid at all. (Oxford City Documents, Oxford Hist. Soc. 8-45.)

460

See Note A at end of chapter.

461

In 1327 a violent dispute broke out between the great people of Andover and the rest of the community. The story of the election of a sort of council of fifteen of the richer people in 1303, and of incidents leading to the riot of 1327 can be traced in the entries quoted in Gross, ii. 297-321.

462

Inaugural Address at Oxford by Mr. Froude, Oct. 26th, 1892.

463

Cases occur in the towns under the game laws. The Jurats of Hythe present Henry Colle as “a common destroyer in killing hares with snares and pypys to the great destruction of the sport of the gentry and against the statute”; and another man “for keeping one ferret for hunting against the statute.” (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 431, 2.)

464

See Piers Ploughman. Pass. ix. 20-31; ii. 96; x. 223, et sq.

465

“Then louh (laughed) there a lord and ‘by this light’ said,

‘I hold it right and reason to take of my reeve

All that mine auditor or else my steward

Counselleth me by their account and my clerk’s writing.

With spiritus intellectus they took the reeve-rolls,

And with spiritus fortitudinis fetch it, will he, nil he.’”

– Piers Ploughman. Passus xxii. 461-466.

466

“If any judgment be given,” say the Hereford Customs, “or any execution of writs of our Lord the King, be to be impleaded or done, or if any doubt or ambiguity shall be upon any of our laws or customs, or anything else touching the whole commonalty, then the bailiff or steward, by all kind of rigour, may compel the discreeter especially, or any other citizen whom they have need of, to come unto them.” (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 464.)

467

Hudson, Mun. Org., 24-5.

468

Royal Commission on Markets, 15, 16. The justices had a right to dismiss poor recognitors, and order the sheriff to cause lawful knights and other proved discreet men to be elected in their stead (Select Civil Pleas, Selden Society, 100). The records of the Manchester Court Leet Jury have only been preserved from 1552. The number varied from about fourteen to eighteen, who were yearly chosen at the court leets from the chief burgesses of the town. When the father died his eldest son or younger brother seems to have been made a juror in his stead. The jurors, in fact, were chosen generation after generation from the same small number of families. The reeve and one or both constables were generally nominated from among the jury then in the box. (Manchester Court Leet Records, 177-8.) Cf. Ship of Fools. Barclay, 99.

469

Ibid. 62. See Vol. I. 186, 165, note A. In Canterbury there was a law that if by the bailiff’s fault the king should send a writ “in hindering of the liberty” of the town the bailiff should make restitution.

470

In Colchester for example the number of people assessed for all moveables in 1301 was 390 and the sum raised £24 12s. 6d. In 1377, when it stood twelfth on the list of English towns, it is said to have had about 4,500 inhabitants.

471

Thus in 1342 Nicholas Langton was elected mayor of York for the seventeenth time (Hargrove’s York, i. 308) and two men bore rule in Liverpool for eighteen years between 1374 and 1406 – one for twelve years and the other for six (Picton’s Liverpool, i. 30).

472

There was a great variety in the names of mayors during the fifteenth century. John Samon held the office several times, but generally speaking the mayors were not re-elected, and in no case did they hold office two years in succession. (See Nottingham Records.)

473

Gross, ii. 117.

474

Lincoln and London (Madox, 14; Gross, i. 80). Canterbury (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 167).

475

See Lynn and Southampton.

476

Ricart’s Kalendar, 72, etc. The Mayor in Nottingham was bound “to give his brethren knowledge for to see the game of the fishing” … and “in likewise to give them knowledge of every bear-baiting and bull-baiting within the town, to see the sport of the game after the old custom and usage.” (Rec. iii. 449.)

477

Hythe, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 432, 434.

478

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 542. Ibid. vi. 572-580. Any man thrice convicted of “cursing the mayor and slandering him with good and grave people,” was to be deprived of his freedom by sound of the bell of the Guild Hall.