yloft Gang The Story Of The National Barn Dan

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Hayloft Gang The Story Of The
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.
 were drawn up at Rye in 1397 (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489); the
Fordwich Kalendar in the fifteenth century (Ibid. v. 606-607). The
oldest Year Book of Sandwich is the Old Black Book in which
entries are made in 1432 and end in 1487. Entries in its White
Book begin in 1488 and end in 1526. The fact that the laws of
the Scotch Marches were codified at this time shews the
prevailing tendency.

[485] As in Romney (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 539).

[486] In 1386 the Cinque Ports paid for the copying of Magna
Charta (Ibid. 533).

[487] Nottingham Records, ii. 340.

[488] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 489.

[489] Ibid. ix. 223-4.

[490] First paper roll in Reading accounts 1463. (Hist. MSS. Com.
xi. 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 40s. 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 56s. 8d.; then the salary fell to 40s. in 1428;
then to 32s. 11d.; and then to 26s. 8d., with 3s. 4d. 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 10s. 10d. In the first
year of Edward the Fourth he again paid for the victualling and
custody of the ship £68 5s. 10d. (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 9s. 7d. (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 13s. 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 6s. 8d. 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
11s. 4d. 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 2s. 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.”