Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2

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. 4d. 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 100s. The hat of the mayor cost in 1418 2s. 10d., in 1437 10s. 2d. (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 20s. 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

1/2d. 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 103s. 2d. for meat and drinks and spices for its feast, and 169s. 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.