CHAPTER I
THE RECORDS

Before entering upon the government of London under the Plantagenet Kings, let us first ask what are the documents in which we shall find information at first hand.

No city in the world possesses a collection of archives so ancient and so complete as the collection at the Guildhall. Riley, in his Introduction to the Liber Albus, begins his list of those who have consulted the archives with John Stow. Surely, however, the compiler of the Liber Albus itself, John Carpenter, also consulted archives even in his day valuable and ancient. Strype, in the preparation of his Edition of Stow, also consulted the City archives:—

“Again,” he says, “another Thing, that Labour and Diligence hath been bestowed in, relates to the Laws, Customs and Usages of the City. Wherein the Liberties and Privileges, as well as the Duties of the Citizens, are contained. And therefore ought to be known by them, and in that regard necessary to be set down, as accurately and largely as might be; being Things so material for them to be advised of. This was laudably begun by A. M. in the last Edition: but very much improved and enlarged in this. And to enable me the better in the doing the same, it was not only necessary to gather up, and present the many and most important Acts of Parliament and Common Council, relating to the City and its Affairs; but also to have recourse to the authentick Books and Records belonging to the Chamber of London: Where many ancient and curious Matters of this nature might be found. But this seemed to be somewhat difficult to be obtained. Yet by the Help of some friends of Quality and good Account, and making the Court of Aldermen acquainted with my Design, and requesting their Leave and Licence, I obtained an Order from them to Mr. Ashhurst, then Town Clerk, to give me Access to some of their Books, that might be most to my Purpose, and their Allowance to transcribe what I thought convenient out of them: but withal I was enjoined by the Court to leave in Mr. Town Clerk’s hands all my Notes that I should so collect thence, to be reviewed and examined; lest some things published from them might seem prejudicial some way or other to the City, or be judged not so convenient to be known; or lest any Mistakes might be made by me in transcribing. Which (as was fit), I readily complied with. Many Remarks I took out thence, respecting both the ancient State of the City, and also of the Courts, the Customs, the Magistrates, the Officers, &c. The Chief Books I conversed with, were those two famous ancient Volumes, the one called Liber Horne, from the Writer, the other called Liber Albus, i.e. the White Book. Both so often made use of and cited by Mr. Stow. This last mentioned Book was composed in Latin, An. 1419. 7. H. 5. mense Novembris. And what it contains is known by what is writ in one of the First Pages, viz. Continens tam laudabiles Observantias, non scriptas, in dict. Civitate fieri solitas, quam notabilia memoranda, &c., sparsim et inordinate scripta. That is, ‘Containing as well laudable Customs, not written, wont to be observed in the said City, as other notable things worthy remembering, here and there scatteringly, not in any Order written.’ The Compiler of this White Book was one Carpenter: whose Name fairly and largely writ fronts the first page. Who I suppose may be that J. Carpenter, sometime Town Clark in the Reign of Henry V., mentioned by Stow in his Survey among the worthy Benefactors of the City: and whose Gifts are there set down. In this Volume are inserted Memorials of the Maiors, Sheriffs, Recorders, Chamberlains, and the other chief officers of the City: likewise all the Charters granted by the several Kings of England from William the Conqueror: and the Confirmations thereof. There is also a Tract of the Manner and Order, ‘How Barones & Universitas Civitat. London, &c. That is, the Barons (i.e. the Freemen) and Commonality of the City of London, ought to behave and carry themselves towards the King and his Justitiaries Itinerants in the Time it pleaseth the King to hold Pleas of the Crown at the Tower of London: Together with many other Matters and Subjects, contained in this Choice MS.’

The other Book, which I had also the favour of perusing, namely Horne, was near an Hundred Years older, so named from Andrew Horne, sometime Chamberlain of the City, viz. in the time of King Edward the Second. What this Book contains, is told by this Inscription in one place of it, viz. ‘Iste Liber restat Andreae Horne Piscenario London, de Breggestrete. In quo continentur Cartae, & aliae Consuetudines predict. Civitat. Angliae & Statuta per Henricum Regem, & Edwardum Regem fil. predict. Regis Henrici edita.’ And again, ‘In isto Libro continentur tota Statuta, & Ordinationes & Cartae & Libertates, & Consuetudines Civitat. London & Ordo Justitiorum itinerantium apud Turrim Lond. & ipsum iter.’

Another Book also there was in the Chamber, which I also perused for the same purpose, called Liber Custumarum. The First Tract whereof is, de Laudibus Nobilitatis Insulae Britanniae. It is in old French, and consisteth of thirteen chapters; Beginning thus—

‘De Britaigne, que ore est appele Engleterre, & qui est si benure sur toutes autres Isles; & qui est si plentiuous de blez & des arbres, & large de boys & de rivers & de veneisons & de oisiaus convenables, et noble de mout de maneres bons chiens. Citees y ad mont belles et bien assises, & belles guameries de terre amyable; close de mere & de douces Ewes delitables: ceo est asavoir, de fluvies, de beaus undes, de clers fountaynes & de douces, &c.’

The writer then applies himself to treat of London; as, the several Charters, the Wards, and the Streets, Passages, and Places there, Privileges of Maiors, &c.

To which I add the Calendarium CamerÆ, London, which was also another Book in the Chamber, of use to me also in my searches.”

During the eighteenth century, except for Strype, the archives appear to have been unmolested. Early last century Sir Francis Palgrave made many extracts from this treasury. More recently, M. Auguste Thierry published certain treaties of commerce of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, between the citizens of London and the merchants of Amiens. In 1843 M. Jules Delpit spent some time at the Guildhall collecting from copies of documents relating to the connections between France and England. Since then the work of publishing and annotating these papers has gone on with great diligence.

A list of the items which comprise the City archives is given by Riley:—

“In addition to the early Registers, or Letter-Books, from A to K inclusive (the respective dates of which are given at the conclusion of this volume), the Record-room at Guildhall contains the following compilations:—Journals and Repertories of the Courts of Aldermen and Common Council from A.D. 1417 down to the present time. Liber de Antiquis Legibus, a Latin Chronicle of the City transactions from A.D. 1178 to 1274, the only one of the records hitherto published. Liber Horn, a miscellaneous collection, date 1311, and compiled probably by its original owner, Andrew Horn. Liber Custumarum, a compilation of a similar nature, date about 1320, and put together probably under the supervision of the same Andrew Horn. Liber Albus. Liber Dunthorn, a compilation in Latin, Anglo-French, and English, prepared between A.D. 1461 and 1490. Liber Legum, a collection of laws from A.D. 1342 to 1590. Liber Ordinationum de Itinere, compiled temp. Edward I.: in addition to which, there are the Assisa Panis, commencing in 1284; Liber Memorandorum, date 1298, and several other manuscript volumes of inferior note and value.

Among the books which are known to have formerly belonged to the Corporation of London, but are now lost, are the following:—Liber Niger Major, and Liber Niger Minor, both quoted in Liber Albus, Speculum, Recordatorium, possibly identical with the Liber Regum Antiquorum, also lost; Magnus Liber de Chartis et Libertatibus Civitatis; Liber Rubeus, and Liber de Heretochiis, both mentioned in the Letter-Books, according to M. Delpit, as formerly in existence. It is not improbable that these volumes may have disappeared on the disastrous occasion when, in the reign of Edward VI., the Lord Protector Somerset borrowed three cartloads of books from the Library at Guildhall, none of which were ever returned.”—Riley’s Introduction to Liber Albus.

Since this list was prepared, the Corporation have undertaken the publication of Riley’s Memorials of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries; Sharpe’s Calendar of Wills; the Calendar of Letters; Sharpe’s London and the Kingdom; Price’s Descriptive Account of the Guildhall; Agas’s “Map of London”; Riley’s Chronicles of Old London. In addition to these volumes, one must not omit Arnold’s Chronicle of Customs, published in 1811; the publications of the Camden Society, which include many documents invaluable to the student of City history; other Chronicles translation has made accessible, such as the “Dialogue de Scaccario,” published in full in Stubbs’s Select Charters.

CHAPTER II
THE CHARTER OF HENRY THE SECOND

The Charter granted by Henry the Second, though apparently full, contained certain omissions which are significant and important. Round has arranged this Charter side by side with that of Henry the First, dividing their contents into numbered clauses, italicising the points of difference (Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 368-369).

The text of the first is that of Stubbs’s Select Charters; that of the second is taken from the transcript in the Liber Custumarum (collated with the Liber Rubeus).

One very curious mistake was discovered by Round in the first. In clause 9 the word wardemotum is used. This, by comparison with the corresponding clause in the second Henry’s Charter, should be vadimonia: in other words, both Charters confirmed to the citizens “the property mortgaged to them and the debts due to them.”

To consider the differences:—

(1) No citizens are to plead without the walls. The second Charter adds “except in pleas for exterior tenures, my moneyers and servants excepted.”

By the second clause the citizens are freed from Scot and Lot and Danegeld and Murder. Henry the Second substitutes acquittance of murder within the City and Portsoken.

(6) Clause 6 is omitted in the second Charter.

(9) Clause 9. I have already shown the error discovered by Round in the word wardemotum.

(10) Here is a limitation, “quÆ infra urbem sunt,” which are within the City.

(11) The clause concerning debtors omitted in the second Charter.

(12) About taking toll or any other custom from the citizens: for the “citizens” is substituted the Sheriff.

(13) Observe that Henry the Second does not speak of the Sheriff of London, but of my Sheriff.

The most important omission, however, in the second Charter is that which gives the citizens the right to hold Middlesex on the firma of £300 a year, and the right to elect their own Justiciar and Sheriff.

CHAPTER III
THE COMMUNE

We are now in a position to proceed to the establishment of the Commune. The stages of any important reform are, first, the right understanding of the facts; then a tentative discussion of the facts; then an animated discussion of the facts; next, an angry denial of the facts; then a refusal to consider the question of reform at all; finally, the unwilling acceptance of reform with gloomy prophecies of disaster and ruin. One knows nothing about these preliminary stages as regards the great Civic Revolution of 1191. But I am quite sure that, just as it was with the Reform Bill of 1832, so it was with the creation of a Mayor in 1191. There were no newspapers, no pamphlets, and no means of united action except the Folk Mote at Paul’s Cross—which would clearly be of no use on such a point—and the casual meeting day by day of the merchants by the riverside. There was no Royal Exchange; there were no Companies’ Halls for them to meet in; we have no record of any meeting; but we may be sure that the inconvenience of the situation was discussed whenever two or three were gathered together. We may be equally sure that there were Conservatives, those who loved the old days, and dreaded the power of a central authority. Opinion as regards reform has always been divided, and always will be divided; there are always those who would rather endure the ills that exist than meet unknown ills which may be brought upon them by change. I do not know how long the discussions continued and the discontent was endured. On this subject history is dumb. One or two points, however, are certain. The first is that all the great towns of Western Europe were eager for the Commune; the next is the model which they proposed to copy.

It must have been well known to our Kings throughout the twelfth century that the creation of the Commune in the great trading cities of Western Europe was not only ardently desired by the citizens, but had been actually achieved by many. What they desired was a Corporation, a municipality, self-government within their own walls. It is certain that London looked with eyes of envy upon Rouen, a City with which it was closely connected by ties of relationship, as well as those of trade, because Rouen obtained her Commune fifteen years before London obtained the mere shadow of one. It was, in fact, from Normandy that the City derived her desire to possess a Commune. The connection between London and Rouen was much closer than we are generally willing to recognise. Communication was easy, the Channel could be crossed whenever the wind was favourable, the Englishman was on a friendly soil when he landed in Normandy, a country ruled by his own Prince. The Normans found themselves also among a friendly people on the soil of England. They came over in great numbers, especially to London. The merchants of Rouen had their port at Dowgate from the days of Edward the Confessor. Many of the leading London merchants came from Rouen and Caen. Therefore, whatever went on in Rouen was known in London. Now, in the year 1145, great and startling news arrived. It was heard that the City of Rouen had obtained a Commune, that is to say, a municipality, with a Mayor for a central authority, and powers of government over the whole City. Further news came that the Commune was established in other parts of France and in the Netherlands, and that everywhere the cities were forming themselves into municipalities, breaking away from the old traditions and organising themselves. This was not done without considerable opposition. The rights of the Church, the rights of the Barons, the rights of the King, were all invaded by the creation of the Commune. It was, however, a great popular movement, irresistible. It succeeded for a time, but in one city after another it fell to pieces. In England it succeeded greatly, and it continued to extend and to flourish. Meanwhile the merchants of London understood very well that, in this respect, what suited the people of Rouen would suit them. Indeed, the conditions were very similar in the two Cities.1

Then began a serious agitation—but not after the modern fashion—among the London citizens in favour of the new civic organisation. Henry the Second would have none of it. In his jealousy of any transfer of power to the people, he allowed no guilds to be formed save with his consent; at one blow he suppressed eighteen “Adulterine” guilds which had thus been created. But he could not suppress the ardent desire of the people for the Commune.

Had the successor of Henry been as wise a King and as clear-sighted as his father, the desire of the City might have been staved off for another generation. But Richard was not Henry. When he was gone upon his crusade, the government was left in the hands of his Chancellor, William Longchamp. And then follows one of those episodes in which the history of London becomes actually the history of the whole country.

Longchamp had become unpopular with all classes. The barons felt the power of his hand and resented it; the merchants found themselves continually subject to extortionate fines, the clergy to exactions. He held all the Royal Castles; he was attended by a guard of a thousand horsemen; he affected the parade of royalty. In considering this personage, it must be remembered that he had many enemies in all ranks, and that his character has been chiefly drawn by his enemies. It was, of course, a great point against him—and always hurled in his teeth—that he was of humble origin; he was also, as a matter of course, charged with every kind of immorality. His haughtiness, which might be excused in his position of Viceroy, was undoubted; it was called by his enemies insolence; and there could be no doubt as to the taxes which he imposed. In the letter written by Hugh, Bishop of Coventry, after Longchamp’s deposition, even ecclesiastical invective seems to have done its very worst. The real reason of the deadly hatred is summed up in the following:—

“To omit other matters, he and his revellers had so exhausted the whole kingdom, that they did not leave a man his belt, a woman her necklace, a nobleman his ring, or anything of value even to a Jew. He had likewise so utterly emptied the King’s treasury, that in all the coffers and bags therein, nothing but the keys could be met with, after the lapse of these last two years.” (Roger de Hoveden, Riley’s trans., vol. ii. p. 235.)

On the other hand, Peter of Blois replied to the gentle Bishop of Coventry with a letter which must have awakened in the mind of that prelate something of the ungovernable wrath which belonged to his time. He says: “The Bishop of Ely [Longchamp], one beloved by God and men, a man amiable, wise, generous, kind, and meek, bounteous and liberal to the highest degree, had by the dispensations of the Divine favour, and in accordance with the requirements of his own manners and merits, been honoured with the administration of the State, and had thus gained the supreme authority. With feelings of anger you beheld this, and forthwith he became the object of your envy. Accordingly, your envy conceived vexation and brought forth iniquity; whereas he, walking in the simplicity of his mind, received you into the hallowed precincts of his acquaintanceship, and with singleness of heart, and into the bonds of friendship and strict alliance. His entire spirit reposed upon you, and all your thoughts unto him were for evil.” (Roger de Hoveden, Riley’s trans., vol. ii. p. 238.)

We have not to determine the guilt or the innocence of the Chancellor; it is enough to learn that there were opposite views.

The Barons and Bishops were headed by John, Earl of Mortain,2 brother of the King.

It was notorious that of all those who went out to fight the Saracen, few returned. Richard, in the Holy Land, was not sparing himself; it was therefore quite likely that he would meet his death upon the battlefield. Then, as the heir to the crown was a child, and as a man, and not a child, was wanted on the throne, John had certainly every reason to believe that his own accession would be welcomed. He prepared the way, therefore, by joining the popular cause, and put himself at the head of the malcontents.

And now, at last, the citizens saw their chance. They offered to use the whole power of the City for John and the barons, but on conditions. J.H. Round, in his Origin of the Mayoralty of London, p. 3, says:—

“It was at about the same time that the ‘Commune’ and its ‘Maire’ were triumphantly reaching Dijon in one direction, and Bordeaux in another, that they took a northern flight and descended upon London. Not for the first time in her history, the Crown’s difficulty was London’s opportunity, and when in October, 1191, the administration found itself paralysed by the conflict between the King’s brother John, and the King’s representative, the famous Longchamp, London, finding that she held the scales, promptly named the concession of a ‘Commune’ as the price of her support. The chroniclers of the day enable us to picture to ourselves the scene, as the excited citizens who had poured forth overnight, with lanterns and torches, to welcome John to the capital, streamed together on the morning, of the eventful 8th October, at the well-known summons of the great bell, swinging out from its campanile in St. Paul’s Churchyard. There they heard John take the oath to the ‘Commune,’ like a French King or Lord, and then London for the first time had a municipality of her own. What the English and territorial organisation could never have brought about, the foreign Commune, with its commercial basis, could and did accomplish.

And as London alone had her ‘Commune,’ so London alone had her Mayor. The ‘Maire’ was unquestionably imported with the ‘Commune,’ although it is not till the spring of 1193 that the Mayor of London is first mentioned. But already in 1194 we find a citizen accused of boasting that ‘come what may the Londoners shall never have any King but their Mayor.’”

“Not for the first time.” Remember that in 1066, after the battle of Hastings, London only admitted William as King on conditions. London elected Henry the First King on conditions. London made Stephen King on conditions. London received the Empress on conditions; a week later the Queen also on conditions; and now, once more, London saw its chance—such a chance as might never occur again—for getting what it wanted—on conditions.

Let us, however, enter more fully into the details of this victory, and into the causes which led to concession.

Longchamp gave the barons an opening by his attempted exclusion of Geoffrey, Archbishop of York (natural brother of the King), from the kingdom, and his forcible seizure of the Archbishop from the very horns of the Altar. Geoffrey complained to John, who gave orders that the Chancellor should stand his trial for the injury he had done to the Archbishop. Remembering the position of Longchamp, as the actual representative of the King, this summons was in the nature of an ultimatum. As regards the City, Longchamp had alienated many of the citizens by his exactions and by the great works which he carried on at the Tower, a point on which the citizens were always extremely jealous.

A day was named for the hearing of the case. The Court, or the Council, sat at Reading. There were present: John, Earl of Mortain; the Archbishop of York as plaintiff; the Archbishop of Rouen—his appearance is most significant, with the bishops and the principal barons of the realm.

But no Chancellor appeared, nor did any message or reply come from him.

The Court being broken up, the barons marched from Reading to Windsor, while the Chancellor retired from Windsor to the Tower of London.

On the day following, the barons marched from Windsor into London. By this statement we may clearly understand that everything had already been arranged with the citizens, otherwise the gates would have been shut. The barons, with their following, were admitted into the City; they held another meeting at the Chapter House of St. Paul’s; and here John, the Archbishops of York and Rouen, and nearly all the bishops and barons of the realm, received the principal citizens, and solemnly granted to the City of London its long-sought Commune, and swore to maintain it firmly so long as it should please the King.

The words of Roger of Hoveden are quite clear; it is extraordinary that there could be any doubt about what was done:

“On the same day, also, the Earl of Mortaigne, the Archbishop of Rouen, and the other justiciaries of the King, granted to the citizens of London the privilege of their commonalty; and, during the same year, the Earl of Mortaigne, the Archbishop of Rouen, and the other justiciaries of the King, made oath that they would solemnly and inviolably observe the said privilege, so long as the same should please their lord the King. The citizens of London also made oath that they would faithfully serve their lord King Richard, and his heirs, and would, if he should die without issue, receive Earl John, the brother of King Richard, as their King and Lord.” (Roger de Hoveden, Riley’s trans., vol. ii. p. 230.)

This done, they proceeded without any trouble to depose the Chancellor, who fled, and, after many adventures, got across to Normandy in safety.

Observe the very great importance attached to this step. It was the condition in return for which London joined the barons in getting rid of a rapacious Viceroy; the concession was not lightly, but solemnly, granted, as a measure of the greatest weight, in presence of the chief persons of the kingdom; all present set their hands to the Act; all present swore to maintain it.

One of the chroniclers, Richard of Devizes, a very strong Conservative, shows us what was thought of the step by his party:

“On that very day,” he says, “was granted and instituted the Commune of the Londoners, and the magnates of the whole realm, even the Bishops of the province itself, were compelled to swear to it. London learned now for the first time, in obtaining the Commune, that the realm had no King, for neither Richard nor his father Henry would ever have allowed this to be done, even for a million marks of silver. How great those evils are which spring from a Commune may be understood from the common saying that it puffs up the people and it terrifies the King.”

Ralph de Diceto says more succinctly, “All the before-mentioned magnates [i.e. John, the archbishop, the bishops, earls, and barons] swore [that they would maintain] the Commune of London.” It is he who tells us what the others do not tell us, that this parliament was holden in the Chapter House of Saint Paul, London.

Giraldus Cambrensis says:—

“In crastino vero convocatis in unum civibus, communione, vel ut Latine minus vulgariter magis loquamur, commune seu communia eis concessa et communiter jurata.”

It is therefore abundantly plain that the citizens desired, and obtained from John, the concession of the Commune.

Another chronicler informs us that the Commune was granted to the whole body of citizens gathered together. This means that it was announced at a Folk Mote specially summoned at Paul’s Cross. I cannot but think that the importance of the concession called for the assemblage of the whole people. Mr. Round must be right in his picture. After the meeting in the Chapter House, the Great Bell of St. Paul’s was rung; the people flocked together; the bishop stood up at Paul’s Cross and told them the great news: that they had at last won their community; that for the first time they were one City; that they had for the first time their leader and their speaker.

The City got its Commune. The first Mayor, Henry FitzAylwin, or Henry of London Stone, was elected. Two years afterwards, he is spoken of as the Mayor of London. He held the office for five-and-twenty years: it was twenty-four years after his election that he was recognised by the King. John’s recognition, when he was no more than Earl of Mortain, heir to the Crown, was not official. As we have heard already, Richard never recognised either the Commune or the Mayor.

Mr. H.C. Coote, in a paper published by the London and Middlesex ArchÆological Society, argues that so great a change as that from the former to the later constitution demanded a Charter; that therefore this Charter must have been granted; and that it must have been lost. It is sufficient to note the fact that there is no such Charter. Considering the circumstances, it does not seem as if a Charter could have been granted. The Commune was conferred so long as it should please the King. It did not please the King, who never recognised the Commune. Therefore, one would infer there was no Charter.

In 1215 the citizens obtained from John their right to elect their own Mayor.

As for the meaning of the Commune, Stubbs says:—

“The establishment of the ‘Communa’ of the citizens of London which is recorded by the historians to have been specially confirmed by the Barons and Justiciar on the occasion of Longchamp’s deposition from the Justiciarship is a matter of some difficulty as the word ‘Communa’ is not found in English town-charters, and no formal record of the act of confirmation is now preserved. Interpreted, however, by foreign usage and by the later meaning of the word ‘Communitas’ it must be understood to signify a corporate identity of the municipality which it may have claimed before and which may even have been occasionally recognised but was now firmly established: a sort of consolidation into a single organised body of the variety of franchises, guilds, and other departments of local jurisdiction. It was probably connected with, and perhaps implied by, the nomination of a Mayor who now appears for the first time. It cannot, however, be defined with certainty.” (Stubbs’s Select Charters.)

Now Round3 points out that the words “concessa est communÆ Londinensium,” agree exactly with the granting of the French Communes. The same words were used for the Communes of Senlis, of CompiÈgne, of Abbeville, and of Poitiers. The Commune again, in France, did not necessarily imply the election of a Mayor. At Beauvais and CompiÈgne at first there was no Mayor.

Round next shows, which is very remarkable, that the long struggle of the citizens to hold the City and County at the firma of £300, which the Crown persistently strove to raise to £500 and more, was terminated in 1191, the year when the Commune was granted, by a return to the old sum of £300. This is a very important fact. Entries of the years 1192 and 1197 show that this yearly sum was maintained at the lower figure. Three points, therefore, are certain:—

1. A Commune was granted to London in 1191.

2. The Firma of City and County was simultaneously lowered from over £500 to the old sum of £300.

3. The Mayor of London first appears in 1193.

It is at this point that an almost contemporary document, discovered by Mr. Round, in the British Museum, which is nothing less than the oath of the Commune, throws a flood of light on the situation.

“Sacramentum commune tempore regis Ricardi quando detentus erat Alemaniam (sic).

Quod fidem portabunt domino regi Ricardo de vita sua et de membris et de terreno honore suo contra omnes homines et feminas qui vivere possunt aut mori et quod pacem suam servabunt et adjuvabunt servare, et quod communam tenebunt et obedientes erunt maiori civitatis Lond[onie] et skivin[is] ejusdem commune in fide regis et quod sequentur et tenebunt considerationem maioris et skivinorum et aliorum proborum hominum qui cum illis erunt salvo honore dei et sancte ecclesie et fide domini regis Ricardi et salvis per omnia libertatibus civitatis Lond[onie]. Et quod pro mercede nec pro parentela nec pro aliqua re omittent quin jus in omnibus rebus p[ro]sequentur et teneant pro posse suo et scientia et quod ipsi communiter in fide domini regis Ricardi sustinebunt bonum et malum et ad vitam et ad mortem. Et si quis presumeret pacem domini regis et regni perturbare ipsi consilio domine et domini Rothomagensis et aliorum justiciarum domini regis juvabunt fideles domini regis et illos qui pacem servare volunt pro posse suo et pro scientia sua salvis semper in omnibus libertatibus Lond[onie].” (Round, p. 235.)

Compare this oath with that of a freeman of the present day:—

“I solemnly declare that I will be good and true to our Sovereign Lord King Edward, that I will be obedient to the Mayor of this City, that I will maintain the franchises and customs thereof, and will keep this City harmless in that which in me is; that I will also keep the King’s peace in my own person, that I will know no gatherings nor conspiracies made against the King’s peace, but I will warn the Mayor thereof or hinder it to my power; and that all these points and articles I will well and truly keep according to the laws and customs of this City to my power.”

Again, to quote from Round:—

“For the first time we learn that the government of the City was then in the hands of a Mayor and Échevins (skevini). Of these latter officers no one, hitherto, had even suspected the existence. Dr. Gross, indeed, the chief specialist on English municipal institutions, appears to consider these officers a purely continental institution. But in this document the Mayor and Échevins do not exhaust the governing body. Of Aldermen, indeed, we hear nothing; but we read of ‘alii probi homines’ as associated with the Mayor and Échevins. For these we may turn to another document, fortunately preserved in this volume, which shows us a body of ‘twenty-four’ connected with the government of London some twelve years later (1205-6).

Sacramentum xxiiij^or factum anno regni regis Johannis vij^o.

Quod legaliter intendent ad consulendum secundum suam consuetudinem juri domini regis quod ad illos spectat in civitate Lond[onie] salva libertate civitatis et quod de nullo homine qui in placito sit ad civitatem spectante aliquod premium ad suam conscientiam reciperent. Et si aliquis illorum donum aut promissum dum in placitum fatiat illud nunquam recipient, neque aliquis per ipsos vel pro ipsis. Et quod illi nullum modum premii accipient, nec aliquis per ipsos vel pro ipsis, pro injuria allevanda vel pro jure sternendo. Et concessum est inter ipsos quod si aliquis inde attinctus vel convictus fuerit, libertatem civitatis et eorum societatem amittet.” (Round, pp. 237-238.)

“Of a body of twenty-four councillors, nothing has hitherto been known. To a body of twenty-five there is this one reference (Liber de Antiq. Leg. Camden Soc. p. 2):

Hoc anno fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis, et jurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.

The year is Mich. 1200-Mich. 1201; but the authority is not first-rate. Standing alone as it does, the passage has been much discussed. The latest exposition is that of Dr. Sharpe, Records Clerk to the City Corporation (London and the Kingdom, i. 72):

Soon after John’s accession we find what appears to be the first mention of a court of Aldermen as a deliberate body. In the year 1200, writes Thedmar (himself an Alderman), ‘were chosen five-and-twenty of the more discreet men of the City and sworn to take counsel on behalf of the City, together with the Mayor. Just as, in the constitution of the realm, the House of Lords can claim a greater antiquity than the House of Commons, so in the City—described by Lord Coke as epitome totius regni—the establishment of a Court of Aldermen preceded that of a Common Council.’”

But they could not have been Aldermen of the wards, simply because the number do not agree.

To find out who they were, we must turn to the foreign evidence. At Rouen the advisers of the Mayor were a body of twenty-four annually elected.

This oath on election was as follows. It will be seen how closely it resembles that of the English Commune—

“(II). De centum vero paribus eligentur viginti quatuor, assensu centum parium, qui singulis annis removebuntur: quorum duodecim eschevini vocabuntur, et alii duodecim consultores. Isti viginti quatuor, in principio sui anni, jurabunt se servaturos jura sancte ecclesie et fidelitatem domini regis atque justiciam quod et ipse recte judicabunt secundum suam conscienciam, etc.

LIV. Iterum, major et eschevini et pares, in principio sui eschevinatus, jurabunt eque judicare, nec pro inimicitia nec pro amicitia injuste judicabunt. Iterum, jurabunt se nullos denarios nec premia capturos, quod et eque judicabunt secundum suam conscienciam.

LV. Si aliquis juratorum possit comperi accepisse premium pro aliqua questione de qua aliquis trahatur in eschevinagio, domus ejus ... prosternatur, nec amplius ille qui super hoc deliraverit, nec ipse, nec heres ejus dominatum in communia habebit.

The three salient features in common are (1) the oath to administer justice fairly; (2) the special provisions against bribery; (3) the expulsion of any member of the body convicted of receiving a bribe.

If we had only ‘the oath of the Commune,’ we might have remained in doubt as to the nature of the administrative body; but we can now assert, on continental analogy, that its twenty-four members comprised twelve ‘skevini’ and an equal number of councillors. We can also assert that it administered justice, even though this has been unsuspected, and may, indeed, at first arouse question.” (Round, p. 240.)

We conclude, therefore, from continental analogy, that the twenty-four of London comprised twelve “skevini” and an equal number of Councillors. What became of this Council?

Round is of opinion, in which most will agree, that this Council was the germ of the Common Council, and he points out that the oath of a member of the Common Council, like that of the ancient Council of twenty-four, still binds him—(1) not to be influenced by private favour; (2) not to leave the Council without the Mayor’s permission; (3) to keep the proceedings secret.

Now the oath of an Alderman (Liber Albus, Riley’s translation, p. 267) is quite different. It is the oath of a Magistrate and superintendent of a ward—

“You shall swear, that well and lawfully you shall serve our lord the King in the City of London, in the office of Alderman in the Ward of N, wherein you are chosen Alderman, and shall lawfully treat and inform the people of the same Ward of such things as unto them pertain to do, for keeping the City, and for maintaining the peace within the City; and that the laws, usages, and franchises of the said City you shall keep and maintain, within town and without, according to your wit and power. And that attentive you shall be to save and maintain the rights of orphans, according to the laws and usages of the said City. And that ready you shall be, and readily shall come, at the summons and warning of the Mayor and ministers of the said City, for the time being, to speed the Assizes, Pleas, and judgments of the Hustings, and other needs of the said City, if you be not hindered by the needs of our lord the King, or by other reasonable cause; and that good lawful counsel you shall give for such things as touch the common profit in the same City. And that you shall sell no manner of victuals by retail; that is to say, bread, ale, wine, fish, or flesh, by you, your apprentices, hired persons, servants, or by any other; nor profit shall you take of any such manner of victuals sold during your office. And that well and lawfully you shall (behave) yourself in the said office, and in other things touching the City.—So God you help, and the saints.”4

Again, for English evidence. The City of Winchester shows also the existence of a Council of twenty-four, which continued until 1835:

“Il iert en la vile mere eleu par commun assentement des vint et quatre jures et de la commune ... le quel mere soit remuable de an en an.... Derechef en la cite deinent estre vint et quatre jurez esluz des plus prudeshommes e des plus sages de la ville e leaument eider e conseiller le avandit mere a franchise sauver et sustener.” (Round, p. 242.)

“There shall be in the City a Mayor elected by common consent of the twenty-four ‘Jurats’ and the Commune.... The which Mayor is to be removeable from year to year. Further, in the City there must be twenty-four ‘Jurats’ elected from the most notable and the wisest of the City, both loyally to aid and to counsel the aforesaid Mayor to protect and to maintain the franchise.”

At Winchester the twenty-four retained their distinct position, and it was not till the sixteenth century that the Aldermen were interposed between the Mayor and the Council.

Thus did London get the recognition of its Commune—its community,—and with it the Mayor. There was certainly reason for the suspicion and hostility of the old-fashioned Conservatives towards the new constitution. Some of the citizens, we are told, in the first exuberant joy over their newly-acquired liberties thought that henceforth there would be no need of a King at all. They pictured to themselves a sovereign State like that of Genoa, Pisa, or Venice, in which the City should be independent and separate from the rest of the country. I dare say there were such dreamers. Three years later, in 1194, we hear of citizens who boasted that “come what may, the Londoners shall never have any King but their Mayor.” Fortunately, the Mayor himself observed wiser counsels.

And now we may ask what it was that the City got with its new form of government. The Mayor took over the whole control of trade, which had been in the hands of the mysterious Guild Merchant; but with this vast difference, that he was provided with powers to enforce his ordinances. He took over, in addition, the administration of justice, the maintenance of order in the City, the subjection of all the various Courts and Ward Motes under one Central Court, with its Magistrates, its Bailiffs, its Officers, and its Servants. London as a corporate body actually began in 1191. The Sheriffs lost a great part of their importance; the Aldermen became, but not immediately, Magistrates of the City and not of the Wards only; the citizens themselves began to elect their representatives to rule the City; the regulations of the various crafts passed under the licensing authority of a Judge and his Assessors, who enforced their commands by penalties. In a word, the Commune abolished the ancient treatment of the City as an aggregate of private properties, each of which had its own Lord of the Manor, or Alderman, and substituted one great City, presided over by a representative possessed of power and authority, and backed by the strong arm of the law.

The step, in fact, made the future development of London possible and natural. Wherever there is self-government there is the power of adjusting laws and customs to meet changed conditions. Where there is no self-government there is no such power. A long succession of the wisest and most benevolent Kings would never have done for London what London was thus enabled to do for herself, because, to use the familiar illustration, it is only the foot which knows where the shoe pinches.

We must not claim for the wisdom of our ancestors that London advanced at once, and by a single step, to the full recognition of the possibilities before her. I admit that there were many failures; we know that there were jealousies and animosities; that there were times when the Mayor was unable to cope with the difficulties of the situation—for example, when Edward the First suppressed the Mayoralty altogether, and for eleven years ruled the City strongly and wisely,—but we can claim for the City that there was continuous and steady advance in the direction of orderly and just administration, and that the unity of the City, thus recognised and conceded, became a most powerful factor in the extension and expansion of the City and its trade.

To return to the changes made possible. The chief officer of the City was called a Mayor, after French custom; the Mayor was not appointed by the King; he was elected by the citizens from their own body; his powers were at first indefinite and uncertain; thus, the first act of Edward the Third, a hundred years later, was to make the Mayor one of the Judges of Oyer and Terminer for the trials of criminals in Newgate; the citizens’ right of electing the Mayor was always grudgingly conceded and continually violated. I suppose, next, that the practice of electing the Aldermen, which came in gradually, was accelerated by the natural desire of the citizens to elect all their officers. Another cause was undoubtedly the fact that the manors, or wards, of the City did not continue in the hands of the original families. The holders parted with their property; perhaps they retained certain manorial rights, which were afterwards bought out. The wards in which this happened began to elect their Aldermen; by the year 1290 there were only four wards still named after the Lords of the Manor. And it seems reasonable that, as soon as the City had a recognised head and chief under the King, he would be considered first, so that the Bishop’s Aldermanry naturally fell into abeyance. Certainly we find no more Charters addressed to the Bishop. The first Mayor remained Mayor for twenty-five years; that is to say, for life. It is natural to suppose that he was at first put forward on occasion as the City’s spokesman, as well as its chief officer. It is not absolutely certain that the Mayor was first appointed in 1191, when John granted the “Commune.” In some French towns the Mayor, as we have seen, came after the Commune, but he is mentioned in 1193. In 1194 Richard’s Charter makes no mention of the Mayor; he existed, certainly, but he was not yet acknowledged. In 1215—May 8th—John conceded the citizens the privilege of electing their Mayor.

This concession to London was followed by the same concession to other cities and towns of England. The Commune or municipality of London became the model for all other municipalities granted to other towns. It is also the model for all municipalities created wherever our race settles itself, and wherever an English-speaking town is founded. This fact makes the history we have just considered of the most vital interest and importance to every citizen or burgess in whatever town is governed by Mayor, Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council.

I cannot do better than sum up these notes on the changes effected by the Commune with another quotation from Dean Stubbs:—

“The Communa of London, and of those other English towns which in the twelfth century aimed at such a constitution, was the old English guild in a new French garb; it was the ancient association, but directed to the attainment of municipal rather than mercantile privileges; like the French communa, it was united and sustained by the oaths of its members and of those whom it could compel to support it. The mayor and the jurati, the mayor and jurats, were the framework of the communa, as the aldermen and brethren constituted the guild, and the reeve and good-men the magistracy of the township. And the system which resulted from the combination of these elements, the history of which lies outside our present period and scope, testifies to their existence in a continued life of their own. London, and the municipal system generally, has in the mayor a relic of the communal idea, in the alderman the representative of the guild, and in the councillors of the wards, the successors to the rights of the most ancient township system. The jurati of the Commune, the brethren of the guild, the reeve of the ward, have either disappeared altogether, or taken forms in which they can scarcely be identified.”

We have spoken of the first Mayor of London, and what we know about him has been summed up by Round for the Dictionary of National Biography. We do not know his parentage. It has been conjectured that he was the grandson of Leofstan, Portreeve of London before the Conquest. But there were three or four Leofstans. It is suggested by Stubbs that he was descended from Ailwin Child, who founded or endowed Bermondsey Abbey in 1082. It is also suggested that he was an hereditary Baron of London. In the “Pipe Roll” of 1165, a Henry FitzAylwin, Fitz Leofstan, with Alan his brother, pay for succeeding to land in Essex or Hertfordshire. Now FitzAylwin the Mayor did hold land in Hertfordshire by tenure of serjeantry. The name appears in four documents as Henry Fitz Ailwin, or Æthelwine, before he was Mayor, and in many documents after he was Mayor. In the former name the latest date is 30th November 1191, and under the latter the first is April 1193. It would therefore seem as if the Mayoralty was not established at first on the concession of the grant. It may well be that it took time for the citizens to assume their full organisation. We may fairly assume that his office, if not his election, dates from the day of that concession.

FitzAylwin was one of the Treasurers for the King’s ransom in 1194. He was also called Henry of London Stone, because his house stood on the north side of Candlewick Street, near St. Swithin’s Church, over against London Stone. He presided over a meeting of citizens on 24th July 1212, and died a few weeks later. He left children from whom many persons can still trace descent. Among them, as the two living representatives of the first Mayor, are, I believe, Lady Beaumont and the Earl of Abingdon. Fifty years ago a learned antiquary, Stapleton, drew up a list of all the descendants of Henry FitzAylwin.

King Richard took no hostile proceedings against the Mayoralty. He never recognised it; but he never tried to abolish it, and as the enemies of the Commune observed that nothing disloyal to the King, nothing dangerous to the Church, was set up in the City, they learned to regard the institution without disfavour or suspicion, so that when the Mayoralty was at last recognised by King John, there was no longer any hostility, or even any misgiving. The old order had passed, giving way to the new. How necessary this new order was; how it fitted in with the old order, so that there was revolution without dislocation, is proved by its adoption in all our towns and cities, by its long continuance, and by its present vitality.

CHAPTER IV
THE WARDS

The large area included by the Roman Wall was parcelled out, after the Saxon occupation, into manors, socs, or estates, held by private persons. Some of them passed into the possession of the Church; some into possession of the City; some changed hands. That these manors included the most densely populated parts of the City, or Thames Street, and the streets north of that main artery, proves that the first allotment took place very early in the Saxon occupation, when the City was still deserted; this fact, indeed, affords another proof of that desertion, because we cannot believe that a populous quarter, covered with warehouses and merchants’ residences, should have been assigned to one man or to a dozen men. The value of the manor, comprising gardens lying among ruined foundations, shut off from the river and its fish by a high and thick stone wall, could have been no more than that of a manor lying beside the north wall, on which corn was growing and orchards were planted. Just as the Bedford Estate in London began with the fields of Bloomsbury; just as the Westminster Estate began with the marshes round Thorney Island, so the original manors of London, at first gardens and wastes, became built over or sold for building purposes. What, then, were manorial rights? Let us read the instructions of Archdeacon Hall on this point. He says:—

“Manorial property was a possession differing in many respects from what is now called landed estate. It was not a breadth of land, which the lord might cultivate or not as he pleased, suffer it to be inhabited, or reduce it to solitude and waste; but it was a dominion or empire, within which the lord was the superior over subjects of different ranks, his power over them not being absolute, but limited by law and custom. The lord of a manor, who had received by grant from the crown, saca and soca, tol and team, was not merely a proprietor, but a prince; and his courts were not only courts of law, but frequently of criminal justice. The demesne, the assised, and the waste lands were his; but the usufruct of the assised land belonged, on conditions, to the tenants, and the waste lands were not so entirely his, that he could exclude the tenants from the use of them. It was this double capacity, in which the lord stood, to his tenants, as the arbiter of their rights, as well as the owner of the land, which rendered it necessary to the due discharge of the duty of his station, that the lord of a manor should be such a person as Fleta describes: Truthful in his words, faithful in his actions, a lover of justice and of God, a hater of fraud and wrong, since it most concerns him not to act with violence, or according to his own will, but to follow advice, not being guided by some young hanger-on, some jester or flatterer, but by the opinion of persons learned in the law, men faithful and honest, and of much experience. Manors were petty royalties; the court and household of the lord resembling in some degree that of the King. In Fleta an account is given of the officers of the royal household, the Senescallus Hospitii Regis, who held his court in the palace; the Marescallus, the Camerarius, the Clericus panetarii; but in the latter part of the book, which treats of the management of manors, we find the lord of the manor attended by the Senescallus, who held his courts, by the Marescallus, who had the charge of his stud, and by the Coquus, who rendered an account of the daily expenditure to the Senescallus.”

Some of these manors belonged to the Bishop or to a Church or to a religious foundation, but the rights and the government and the management of all were alike. Again to quote Archdeacon Hall:—

“Manors, whether royal and baronial, or episcopal and ecclesiastical, were to their owners sources of wealth, derived from two distinct sources—the exercise of a legal jurisdiction and the rent of cultivation of land. The Ecclesiastical Manors differed in no respect from those which were in lay hands. They were the sources of income, not the field of spiritual labour. They contributed to the support of the Bishop or of the Chapter, and of the religious household of the Cathedral, by profits and revenues no way different from those derived by the Sovereign and the Lords from other Manors. It is remarkable that neither the Exchequer Domesday, nor the Domesday of St. Paul’s contains any evidence, that the Ecclesiastical Manors had any superior religious privileges, or were the centres from which religious knowledge was diffused to the neighbourhood. The Manors of the religious houses were in reality secular possessions; and their history, as shown in the Domesday of St. Paul’s, is valuable as illustrating the social, rather than the religious, condition of the time.”

It must be noted, however, that none of the City manors were royal; nor did any of their manors at any time belong to any noble great or small. The nobles had their town houses, many of them large and stately palaces covering a broad area, but they were never Lords of any London Manor. And the Church property in the City included, after a time, only the site of the various religious foundations and the house property which they happened to possess. The Ward of Portsoken, of which mention has already been made, is the only exception to this rule.

The manors, then, became the wards of the City.

The earliest list of the wards is contained in a document found among the archives of St. Paul’s, entitled: “The measurements of the land of St. Paul’s within the City of London.” The date is early in the twelfth century.

The list is not, unfortunately, complete; nor can all the wards be identified. But it is most valuable for what it does contain. A facsimile is published in J.E. Price’s Guildhall. Thus, the first ward is “Warda Episcopi,” the Bishop’s Ward, Cornhill. Then we have Warda Haco, i.e. of St. Nicholas of Acon, in Lombard Street; Warda Alwold (Cripplegate); Warda Fori—of the Market-place—Chepe; Warda Ralph, son of Algod; Warda Osbert Dringepinne; Warda Hugh, son of Ulgar; Warda Brocesgange; Warda Liured; Warda Reimund; Warda Herbert; Warda Edward, son of Wizel; Warda Sperling; Warda Brichmar the Moneyer; Warda Brichmar the Cottager; Warda Godwin, son of Esgar; Warda Alegate; Warda Rolf, son of Liviva; Warda Algar Manningestepsunne; Warda Edward Parole.5

There are twenty wards in all. It will be observed that they are all named after single persons except the Ward of the Market Place and the Ward of Alegate. These single persons were the proprietors, the barons, the owners of the land; the wards were the private manors into which the City was divided. (See Appendix I.)

It is impossible to say how many wards there were in the whole City. The owners were barons of right, a rank which afterwards descended to their successors, the elected Aldermen. The first governing body of London consisted of the owners of these estates, to whom were added the more important merchants. In the changes and chances of fortune, the estates changed hands; families died out and were replaced; we find, in the fourteenth century, for instance, that all the old families, whose names we know, had by that time disappeared, left the City, or become merged in the general population. But the manors themselves seem to have remained for the most part unbroken. It is difficult even at the present day to cut up a manor. The Lord of the Manor, called the Alderman, formed part of the ruling body by virtue of possession. In other words, the government of London, despite the survival of the Folk Mote, was a territorial aristocracy. In the Liber Albus (p. 30), Carpenter calls attention to the fact that although in his day—the beginning of the fifteenth century—the wards were known by their own names, they had formerly borne the names of their Aldermen. Thus, he says that the Ward of Candelwyk Street was formerly the Ward of Thomas Basyng; the Ward of Castle Baynard was the Ward of Simon Hadestok; Tower Ward was the Ward of Henry le Frowyk; Vintry Ward was the Ward of Henry le Covyntre; Farringdon Ward Without was the Ward of Anketill de Auvern. So also, as W. J. Loftie points out, the Ward of the Bridge was at one time that of John Horn; the Cordwainers’ Ward was that of Henry le Waleys; Langbourne Ward that of Nicolas de Winton; Aldgate that of John of Northampton; Walbrook of John Adrian; Broad Street of William Bukerel; Aldersgate of Wolman de Essex; Bread Street of William de Denham. Not one of these names can be found in the list just quoted.

By the time of Carpenter, the wards were clearly defined. Up to the reign of Edward the First their boundaries were unsettled.

The Ward Mote has been held from time immemorial, according to Stow. That is to say, whenever a manor became settled and populated, it was the interest of the Alderman to have a court of Assistants who could act as his Police, his Constables, his Detectives.

At what period the Aldermen ceased to be hereditary and were elected by the citizens, I know not. The election of Aldermen is not contemplated in the Charters of Henry the First, Henry the Second, Richard the First, or John. In the second Charter of Henry the Third, the Barons (i.e. Aldermen) of the City are appointed to elect the Mayor. In the Charter of Edward the Second it is provided that the Aldermen shall be “removable yearly and be removed on the day of St. Gregory (the 12th of March) and in the year following shall not be re-elected, but others shall be elected in their stead.” (Liber Albus.)

In the year 1354 the old order was restored, and the Aldermen remained in office for life.

The following is a list of the twenty-four wards into which London was divided before the end of the thirteenth century, with the names of the respective Aldermen:—

In this list we observe that Cheap Ward is still called Ward Fori; Langbourne Ward appears as Langeford; Broad Street Ward is Lodyngebery; Farringdon is Ludgate and Newgate Ward; Aldgate is Alegate. Forty years later there is found another list of wards in which the modern names appear with the exception of Alegate which is written Algate. The names of the wards are in four cases derived from the trades carried on in them: in four cases from the chief families in them: in the rest from buildings or monuments belonging to them. The names of the Aldermen show sixteen belonging to the old ruling families: seven belonging to new families or to trades, and one, the Prior of Holy Trinity, as an official Alderman.

The date of this list of wards and Aldermen is probably somewhere about 1290, nearly two hundred years after the first list. We have, then, the old City families still represented among the Aldermen. Were they elected? It is impossible to say how long the hereditary system was maintained, and when it was replaced by the elective system. The revolution was a peaceful and bloodless one, since there is no record of it. William Farringdon, who bought his ward, and his son Nicholas, were successive Aldermen of the ward for no less than eighty-two years.

The change of the names in the wards seems to have been carried out between the year 1272, when Riley’s Memorials begin, and 1314, when a list of wards appears with the names that belong to the street or quarter.

Thus we have6:—

From this list, it appears that between 1272 and 1283, of fourteen wards named in the Memorials, three only have the name of their street or quarter, the rest being all named after their Aldermen. But from 1283 to 1314 there are nineteen wards mentioned, and they are all named after their street or district. It is therefore safe to conclude that within these forty years the aldermanry had ceased to be proprietary or hereditary. We may connect this fact with the story of Walter Hervey’s election in 1272 (see p. 52), which proves that the oligarchy had already lost much of their power.

To repeat. The City consisted originally of a certain number of manors or private estates: the proprietors of these estates were the so-called barons of the City: some of the estates remained in the hands of their proprietors for many generations: these proprietors constituted themselves, without any law other than immemorial custom, the ruling council of the City. The boundaries of the manors remained after the property had been cut up and divided among many proprietors. Perhaps the Aldermen remained with the representative of the old family. When, one by one, the original proprietors had disappeared, died out, or parted with their property, the ancient boundaries of the ward were retained, and the inhabitants elected a chief, whom they still called Alderman, in place of the hereditary Alderman. It was ordered, in the thirteenth century, that the Alderman, like the Mayor, should be elected every year, and should go out after serving his year of office. But, as the new method was found to make difficulties, after half a century they went back to the old plan of electing an Alderman for life, and so the custom has remained ever since. The Alderman of the ward represents the Lord of the Manor, and is its principal magistrate for life.

Attention has been directed to the “Warda Episcopi.” Was, then, the Bishop of London formerly an Alderman? He was. He took his seat among the Aldermen in right of the property of the Church. He did not, therefore, take part in the temporal government of the City as Bishop, but as Alderman. This right he delegated to a Provost. So, also, the Prior of the Holy Trinity was an Alderman, not as Prior, but as Lord of the Manor of Portsoken.

When the Bishop ceased to preside over a ward I know not. It is certain, however, that it was of incalculable advantage at that time for the City of London to be partly governed in its temporal affairs by one who was a great churchman, a great lord, a person often with the King, a scholar and a statesman, one who had nothing to gain by encroaching on the liberties of the people, and, therefore, one who might be trusted. In certain cases it is known that he acted not by his Provost, but personally. It was no doubt the Bishop who persuaded the citizens into admitting William into the City as King on conditions which involved no dishonour, but quite the contrary—namely, that nothing was to be changed, but that all the rights and liberties which the citizens had enjoyed under Edward the Confessor, or Alfred himself, should be continued.

It must be borne in mind that parish boundaries and ward boundaries are by no means the same. One instance there is where a parish and a ward are conterminous, it is that of St. Michael Bassishaw.

Maitland gives the list of the wards in 1393 with their rateable value at one fifteenth. Thus:—

“The Wards in the West of Wallbrook.

The Ward of Cheap, taxed in London at £72: 16s. and in the Exchequer accounted for £72.

The Ward of the Vintry, in London at £36 and in the Exchequer accounted for £35: 5s.

The Ward of Queenhithe, in London taxed at £20 and in the Exchequer accounted for £20.

The Ward of Baynard-Castle, taxed in London at £12 and in the Exchequer accounted for £12.

The Ward of Cordwainers-Street, in London at £72: 16s. and in the Exchequer accounted for £72.

The Ward of Bread-Street, taxed in London at £37 and in the Exchequer accounted for £36: 10s.

The Ward of Faringdon Without, in London taxed at £35 and in the Exchequer accounted for £34: 10s.

The Ward of Faringdon Within, in London taxed at £54 and in the Exchequer accounted for £53: 6: 8.

The Ward of Aldrychgate, taxed in London at £7 and in the Exchequer accounted for £7.

The Ward of Cripplegate, taxed in London at £40 and in the Exchequer accounted for £39: 10s.

The Ward of Cripplegate Without, in London taxed at £10 and in the Exchequer accounted for £10. N.B.—This was not a separate ward, but only a liberty, or part of the former, under one Alderman, as at present.

The Ward of Bassyngshawe, taxed in London at £7 and in the Exchequer accounted for £7.

The Ward of Coleman-Street, taxed in London at £19 and in the Exchequer accounted for £19.

The Wards on the east side of Wallbrook.

The Ward of Wallbrook, taxed in London at £40 and in the Exchequer accounted for £39.

The Ward of Dowgate, taxed in London at £36 and in the Exchequer accounted for £34: 10s.

The Ward of Brydge, taxed in London at £50 and in the Exchequer accounted for £49: 10s.

The Ward of Byllingsgate, taxed in London at £32 and in the Exchequer accounted for £31: 10s.

The Ward of the Tower, taxed in London at £46 and in the Exchequer accounted for £45: 10s.

The Ward of Portsoken, taxed in London at £9 and in the Exchequer accounted at £9.

The Ward of Aldgate, taxed in London at £6 and in the Exchequer accounted for £5.

The Ward of Lyme-Street, taxed in London at 40s. and in the Exchequer accounted for 40s.

The Ward of Byshopsgate, taxed in London at £22 and in the Exchequer accounted for £21 10s.

The Ward of Broad-Street, taxed in London at £27 and in the Exchequer accounted for £25.

The Ward of Cornhill, taxed in London at £16 and in the Exchequer accounted for £16.

The Ward of Langbourne, taxed in London at £21 and in the Exchequer accounted for £20: 10s.

The Ward of Candlewick-Street, taxed in London at £16 and in the Exchequer accounted for £16.”

(Maitland, vol. i. p. 181.)

Outside the wards and not belonging to them, or within their jurisdiction, were certain socs, liberties, or vacant spaces. Such were the Precinct of St. Paul’s, the Precincts of the Religious Houses, the Sanctuary of St. Martin’s le Grand, and the “Roomlands” or open spaces of West Chepe, East Chepe, Tower Hill, and other places which were afterwards absorbed into the wards.

The names of those who owned the manors, together with the names found in contemporary documents, sufficiently prove how the Norman kings kept their promise and left the London merchants in possession of their property and their land. For with a few exceptions they are all Saxon names. The first, Mayor, Henry of London Stone, was FitzAylwin: Basing, Batt, Rokesby, Durman, Pountney, Bukerel, Billing, Faringdon, Thetmar, Orgar, Leofwin, Brechmar, Alwold, Algod, Esgar, Algar, Liured are all Saxon. Becket, it is true, is a name from Caen in Normandy. Blunt is Blond; Anketill de Auverne proclaims his origin.

We remark also that lads from the country had already begun to seek their fortune in London. We find Henry de Covyntre, Wolmar de Essex, John de Northampton, and many others.

We are considering in this place the City only. But we cannot avoid connecting the land all round the City, especially the land of Middlesex, held in farm by the citizens, with the City itself.

The City was surrounded by a broad belt of manors. These were very largely held by the Bishop, the cathedral, and certain abbeys and religious houses: in addition to these proprietors there were also a few nobles and private persons. The Abbey of Westminster owned a great estate, including the Strand and the lands between the river and Oxford Street: the De Veres held the manor of Kensington, but passed it over to the Abbey of Abingdon. The Chapter of St. Paul’s possessed manors at Willesden, Brondesbury, Brownswood, Chamberlain Wood, Mapesbury, Marden, Harlesden, Twyford, St. Pancras, Rugmere (St. Giles’s), Tottenhall, Kentish Town, Islington, Newington, Holborn, Portpool (Gray’s Inn), Finsbury, Hoxton, Wincock, Barn, Mora, and Fald Street; “covering a belt of land extending from St. Pancras on the west to the episcopal Manor of Stepney on the east.”

This being the case, the question arises as to the advantages accruing to the City in obtaining the Farm of Middlesex at £300 a year. It is certain that they would not have welcomed the privilege so eagerly but for the advantages it offered. These advantages may be summed up by the simple fact that the King’s rights over Middlesex were farmed out to the City. To begin with, the shire could no longer remain, as Southwark continued to be, a refuge or safe asylum for criminals whom it was difficult to catch, and still more difficult, in the conflict of royal and manorial rights, to bring to justice: next, it was a great step, though not at first understood, to creating the unity of the City. Other advantages in the grant are set forth by Archdeacon Hall:—

“The Sheriffs of Middlesex—every London burgher, that is—henceforth found themselves in possession, so to speak, when disputes arose between king and people; there was also a certain income from the courts which may eventually have been greater than the rent; the military protection of the City was rendered more easy when its civil jurisdiction extended so far beyond the walls, and the right conceded to the citizens to hunt in the surrounding forests formed the outward symbol of the completeness of their rule—a symbol which signified more under a Norman king than at any time since. To recognise the customs and laws of the City itself; to allow the ancient assemblies, the husting and the folkmote; to sanction the election of magistrates by the still unincorporated burghers; all these things were of importance, but the grant of Middlesex was more than any of them.”

It has been said that these manors made the growth of the suburbs impossible. But not in all directions. There was no obstacle to the growth of the riverside suburb called the Strand; here a long line of stately houses displaced the fishermen from Blackfriars to Westminster stairs: there was no obstacle to the extension of London along the river to the east, yet it did not extend in that direction. How the Church, which was the principal owner of the suburban manors, affected the successive settlements is described by Archdeacon Hall:—

“The suburbs, as I have said, owe their present condition not so much to the City as to the Church. By the time Henry I. made his grant of the county to the City, the broad lands of Middlesex had, almost wholly, passed into the possession of the great ecclesiastical foundations. What St. Paul had left, St. Peter acquired; and St. Martin, St. Bartholomew, and a little later, Holy Trinity at Aldgate, were watching to pick up fragments that the others had overlooked. Therefore, we must ascribe the modern suburbs, with their curious anomalies of local government, the so-called ‘metropolitan area’ with its imaginary boundaries, its districts and precincts, its boards and its vestries, answering to the sokes and liberties, the sanctuaries and wards within the walls, more to the clergy than to the municipality. The City supplied the population to colonise the wastes and woods; but the Church supplied the houses for them to dwell in, marked out their streets, and controlled the direction of each fresh stream of emigrants. When the first settlers along Holborn, or in Norton, or by the White Chapel, went forth from the City gates, it might have been expected that the rulers who had sway within the walls, and to whom Middlesex now belonged, as much as it had belonged to Earl Leofwine in the good days of King Edward, would have guided their steps and continued to govern their actions. But, where the citizens formed ‘wards without’ the walls, it was only by the leave, or in spite of the prohibition, of the Church. The King, when he gave to London the jurisdiction he had exercised in Middlesex, could give no land with it. At the time of the Survey, the royal estates had passed already to the Church, and William hardly owned an acre in the county. The estates of the Norman nobles had nearly all gone into the same hands by the time of Henry’s accession; and an enumeration of the Middlesex manors which never, at any time, were held ‘in mortmain’ would not comprise half-a-dozen names. The citizens could not protect their public meeting-place, their parade-ground, their markets within the walls, from the grasp of the ‘dead hand’; much less could they protect the new colonies of citizens in Kensington or Chelsea, in Hackney or Tyburn, far out in the open country.”

CHAPTER V
THE FACTIONS OF THE CITY

The long struggle between the oligarchic and the popular party, which was carried on without cessation for at least two hundred years, was at its acutest and its worst in the thirteenth century. It must be noted here because it exercised great influence in the development of municipal institutions. To this point I will return after we have considered the leading features of the faction struggle complicated by the machinations of the King.

We must note, at the outset, that the various Charters conferring and confirming old and new rights did not lay down laws for the government of the City; nor was it contemplated that the City was to be governed by the craftsmen. By Saxon custom every man was a lord or a dependant upon a lord; yet there was a Folk Mote: by Norman rule every townsman was under an over-lord and every countryman was under the Lord of the Manor; yet the Folk Mote was continued. That the craftsmen of the town were to be the rulers of the town; that they were to have a voice, as we understand it, in the management of the City was considered by the “Barons” of the City, the Aldermen, the wealthy merchants and the notables as a thing to be resisted in every way possible. Yet, to repeat, there was the Folk Mote with the lingering memory of a time when the people were summoned and shouted their approval or their refusal.

Again, we have been accustomed for so long to consider London as one of the greatest and most important cities of the world that we fail to realise her position in the twelfth or thirteenth century, as compared with certain other cities of Western Europe, long since sunk into decay and insignificance.

At that time the cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, now so shrunken and so deserted, were, in point of population, at least twice as great as London, while their trade and wealth were very much greater, even in proportion, and the liberties enjoyed by their citizens were such as London did not dream of until fired by their example. The trade between the Port of London and these towns, especially Bruges, made the citizens acquainted with these liberties as well as this wealth. It is difficult not to connect the newly-born ambitions and aspirations of the craftsmen of London with the liberties acquired by those of the Flemish towns.

London was governed, as we have seen, by the owners of the land; they were presently joined by the richer merchants; but they remained few in number. And they ruled the City in their own interests. We have seen how valuable was the Charter of Henry the First, how it assisted the City to advance, how it enabled the merchants to conduct their trade with greater security and ease, how it gave the citizens the right of electing their own sheriffs and their own justiciar, who were to be appointed by the citizens. What this meant, I take it, was that the Aldermen nominated the sheriffs, and their election by the people took the form of an assent declared at a noisy and tumultuous Folk Mote. It certainly could not be, and was not, an election by the citizens as we understand it. That the governing body had the power of election was a concession of the highest importance to them. The privileges of freedom from toll, etc., were again of enormous value to the merchants, but only indirectly to the craftsmen; now craftsmen understand direct advantage only. In a word, the Charters did not interfere with the government of the City, which remained in the hands of the small company of Aldermen. The Charters were intended to advance the trade and the prosperity of the City, not to confer new liberties upon the working man. Yet the craftsman began to understand the possibilities open to him.

The struggle begins, so far as history knows of it, with the brief and stormy episode of William Longbeard, shortly before the granting of the Commune. His is the first articulate voice heard among the murmurs of popular discontent. Perhaps there were other Hampdens before him whose dust lies beneath our feet, and whose blood like his tinged the earth of Smithfield, but we do not know of them.

Towards the close of the twelfth century change was impending. Guilds there were. As yet, they were not, as a rule, trading, but religious societies. As we have seen, in 1186, Henry the Second fined as many as eighteen for having been incorporated without license. What can this indicate but that the regulation of trade was contemplated by these guilds as well as the charitable and religious objects for which such associations were at first founded?

Even more important than the regulations of trade is the great fact that by means of their guilds the people, who had hitherto been inarticulate and powerless, were now becoming able to speak and to listen and to act.

Their grievances seem to have been at first founded rather on suspicion than on proof. When the City was taxed, the assessors were the Aldermen; the craftsmen had to pay what they were ordered to pay; no one knew what the Aldermen themselves paid. They were therefore, very naturally, accused of shifting the whole burden of taxation from their own shoulders to those of the craftsmen. But a grievance of suspicion, among a rude and ignorant people, is as dangerous as a grievance founded on fact. Another grievance was the poll tax, in which the poor men paid as much as the rich men. And a standard grievance in every industrial city, and in every age, is the question of wages and hours.

Presently the Deliverer arose—who yet was to prove no Deliverer.

William, called FitzOsbert, and sometimes William Longbeard, was the grandson of a certain Osbert, one of the Aldermen who, in 1125, had given to the Priory of the Holy Trinity, with the King’s permission, the lands belonging to the Cnihten Guild.

He was, therefore, by birth one of the governing class, whose abuses he attacked. He was also, it would seem from the first episode in his life which has come down to us, of a nature easily moved and imaginative, and, like his grandfather, disposed to piety. Such a mind belongs to the man who instinctively hates injustice and oppression.

Most of the chroniclers who tell the story belong to the other side, and, therefore, charge him with everything that they dare: the crimes, however, are so vague, such as obscurity of origin, meanness of appearance, ingratitude to a brother, that they mean nothing and may be neglected. I prefer to take the evidence of the historian, Roger de Hoveden, who says as follows:—

“The rich men, sparing their own purses, wanted the poor to pay everything. But a certain lawyer, William FitzOsbert by name, or Long-beard, becoming sensible of this, being inflamed by zeal for justice and equity, became the champion of the poor, it being his wish that every person, both rich as well as poor, should give according to his property and means for all the necessities of the State; and, going across the sea to the King, he demanded his protection for himself and the people.” (Roger de Hoveden’s Annals, vol. ii.)

The facts are few as they have come down to us. But we can learn something about the man. He was, to begin with, a visionary; now it is out of visionaries that martyrs, confessors, and enthusiasts are made. I know that he was a visionary from a little story related of him. He was one of those who took the cross and the vow when King Richard went on his crusade, and sailed in the fleet which contained the London and the Dartmouth Crusaders whose intention was to fight the Infidels. This fact points in the direction of an emotional temperament easily moved to enthusiasm. The fleet was becalmed in the Bay of Biscay. Thereupon, William FitzOsbert, with one Geoffrey, a goldsmith, prayed to St. Thomas À Becket—the newly canonised saint—already considered as the natural protector of London. St. Thomas, to the eyes of faith, answered their prayers in person. He appeared to them. He bade them be of good cheer; he promised a favourable breeze in the morning, after which they should accomplish their vows and return in safety. It must have been a visionary who would actually see the saint and receive his message. In the morning the promised breeze sprang up; the ships proceeded on their course and put in at a Portuguese port. Here they learned that the King of Portugal was in dire straits, being besieged by the Moors with a vast army. The Crusaders resolved upon going to his assistance; among them marched William FitzOsbert, rejoicing in the promise made him by St. Thomas À Becket, that he should perform his vows and should return. In these days he would have said that St. Thomas had need of him in his native town.

The Moors being defeated, the London Crusaders thought they had done their duty in fighting the Infidel, and so returned home.

After this crusade, William made the discovery above described. Now he was not of obscure birth, because he belonged to one of the great City families; his grandfather had been an Alderman, probably his father as well; he was a scholar—one Chronicler calls him a lawyer; he was a man of eloquence; he could persuade and carry with him the rude craftsmen of London, whom he gathered together at Paul’s Cross in the name of the old Folk Mote. He found out irregularities of all kinds on the part of the governing class. When there was neither audit nor scrutiny, irregularities were inevitable. He imparted these discoveries to the King, who listened with attention, and doubtless communicated his views on the subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury, then justiciary. It may be understood, also, that his communications rendered him peculiarly hateful to his own class, the governing body, whom he had deserted. His nickname, Longbeard, denotes his desertion of that class, which affected Norman customs, and either wore no beard or a very small beard. He himself went back to the old Saxon custom, which seems to have been retained by the craftsmen, and grew a long beard.

He left, then, his own people; he was no longer one of the governing class; he joined the party of the craftsmen; to show his change of opinion and of plan, he grew a beard. And we find him a great orator, haranguing the people on their wrongs; calling them together at Paul’s Cross; followed by a crowd who waited on his words; going to the King with proofs of the evil-doing of the Aldermen; getting, at first, the ear of the King, until Richard was set against the reforms by reports against FitzOsbert, such as that he was continually exciting the populace to further discontent. The historians, as has been stated, differ as to William’s real character. Stow, copying some of the Chronicles, says that he was “poor in degree, evil-favoured in shape ... a counterfeit friend to the poor ... a man of evil life, a murderer ... who falsely accused his elder brother of treason....”

Holinshed says that he was a “seditious person and of a busie nature.” Fabyan’s account is much more favourable. I subjoin his account of the whole episode:—

“And Wyllyam with ye longe berde shewyd to ye kynge the owtrage of the ryche men, whiche, as he sayd, sparyd theyr owne, and pylled the poore people. It is sayde that this Wyllyam was borne in London, and purchased that name by use of his berde. He was sharpe of wyt, and somedeale lettred, a bolde man of speche, and sadde of his contenance, and toke upon hym gretter dedys than he cowde weld: and some he usyd cruell, as apereth in appechynge of his owne brother of treason, ye whiche was a burges of London, and to hym had shewed great kyndenesse in his youthe. This Wyllyam styred and excyted ye common people to desyre and love fredam and lybertye, & blamed the excesse and owtrage of ryche men: by syche meanys, he drewe to hym many great companyes, and, with all his power, defendyd the poore mannys cause agayne the ryche, and accused dyuerse to ye kyng, shewinge that by theyr meanys, ye kyng loste many forfaytes and encheatis. For this, gentylmen and men of honoure, malygned agayne hym, but he had suche comforte of ye kyng, that he kept on his purpose. Then ye kyng beyng warned of the congregacions that this Wyllyam made, commaunded hym to cease of such doyngys, that the people myght exercyse theyr artis and occupacions; by reason whereof it was lefte for a whyle: but it was not longe or ye people followed hym, as they before hys tyme had done. Then he made unto them colacions or exortacions, & toke for his anteteme, ‘Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus saluatoris,’ that is to meane, ye shall drawe, in joy, waters of ye wellys, of our savyour: and to this he added, ‘I am,’ sayd he, ‘ye savyoure of poore men; ye be poore and have assayed ye harde handis of ryche men; now drawe ye therefore holefull water of lore of my wellys, and that with joy, for ye tyme of youre vysytacyon is comyn. I shall,’ sayde he, ‘departe waters from waters. By waters I understande the people; then shall I departe the people which is good and meke, from the people that is wyckyd and prowde, and I shall dissevyr the good and the ylle, as the lyght is departyd from the derkenesse.’ When the bysshop was brought to ye archebisshop of Canterbury, he, by counceyll of the lordis of the spyritualtye, sent unto this Wyllyam, commaundynge hym to appere before the lordis of the kyngys counceyll to answere unto suche maters as there shulde be layed unto hym. At which day this Wyllyam appered, havynge with hym a multytude of people, in so moch that the lordys were of hym adrad, for ye which cause they remyttyd hym with pleasaunt wordys for that tyme, and commaundyd certeyn personys, in secrete maner, to espye when he were voyde of his company, and then to take hym, and to put hym in sure kepyng, the which, accordyng to that commaundment, at tyme convenyent, as they thought, sette upon hym and to have takyn hym; but he, with an axe, resysted them, and slew one of theym, and after fled to Saynt Mary Bowe Church, of Chepe, and tooke that for his savegarde, defendynge hym by strength, and not by ye suffragis of ye church: for to hym drewe, shortly, great multytude of people; but in short processe, by mean of the hedys and rulers of ye cytie, the people mynysshed, so that, in short tyme, he was left with fewe personys, and after, by fyre, compellyd to forsake the church, and so was taken, but not without shedying of blode. After which takyng, he was arreygned before ye jugys, and there, with ix. of his adherentis, cast and judged to dye, and was hanged, and they with hym the day folowynge. But yet the rumor ceased not; for the common people reysyed a great cryme upon the archbisshop of Cantorbury, and other, and sayd that, by theyr meanes, Wyllyam, which was an innocent of suche crymes as were objecte and pute agayne hym, and was a defendor of the pore people agayne extorcioners and wronge doers, was by them put wrongfully to deth: approuyng hym an holy man and martyr, by this tale folowyng: sayinge, that a man, beyng seke of the fevers, was curid by vertue of a cheyn which this Wyllyam was bounde with in tyme of his dures of enprysonement, which, by a preest of the allye of the sayd Wyllyam was openly declared & prechyd, wherby he brought the people in such an errour, that they gave credence to his wordys, and secretly, in the night, conveyed away ye jebet that he was hangyd upon and scrapyd awey that blode made there an holow place by fetchyng away of that erthe, and sayde that syke men and women were cured of dyverse sykenesses by vertue of that blode and erthe. By theyse meanes, and blowyng of fame, that place was the more vysyted by women and undyscrete persones, of ye which some watchyd there ye hoole nyght in prayer, so that the lenger this contynuyd, ye more disclaunder was anotyd to the justyces, and to suche as put hym to deth: notwithstandynge, in processe of tyme when his actys were publysshed, as ye sleigne of man with his owne hande, and uysyng of his concubyne within seynt Mary Church, in tyme of his there beynge, as he openlye confessyd in the owre of his deth, with other detestable crymes, somewhat keyld ye great flame of ye hasty pylgrymage; but not clerely tyll ye archebisshop of Canterbury accursed ye preest that brought up the firste fable, and also causyd that place to be watchyd, that suche idolatry shuld there no more be used.” (Fabyan’s Chronicles, p. 306.)

The mention of the woman is also made by Holinshed. He adds a single line which contains a world of love and pathos, the words, “who never left him fearing danger might betide him.” Fabyan’s words “not without shedding of blood” are by Holinshed shown to mean that one of his assailants thrust a knife into William’s body, so that he was carried to the Tower. One pictures the faithful, loving creature—was she his wife?—watching by the wounded man all night, giving him such solace in the agony of his wound as she could, and going out in the morning to see him die—or haply, to die with him. The manner of his death was that which was ordered for William Wallace, a hundred years later. William Longbeard and his friends were dragged by the heels to Smithfield and then hanged. The distance from the Tower to Smithfield is a mile and a quarter. It is a long way for the body of a man to be dragged: first the head and arms and back were bruised by the roughness of the road; then the clothes were torn to rags; when the sufferer arrived at the gibbet he was already senseless from the blows and buffets of his head against the stones and rough places in the road; when he was hoisted up on the gibbet, his body, stripped of the clothes, was bleeding and torn. Was that poor woman present? Perhaps they took her to Smithfield in a cart and burned her alive.

The case, as I said, is one of a Reformer before his time. One knows not all the reforms he desired and advocated. The example of his life, however, and the tradition of his teaching, remained. The Archbishop might curse the priest, or anybody there who defended him. But the fact remained that this man died a martyr for the cause of justice against oppression and despotic rule. Such a life is not wasted.

Then came the Commune with the struggle, begun by Longbeard, of the craftsmen against the governing class, caused by their resolve to obtain their share in the administration. It was in one sense fortunate for the City that the factions and the struggles which divided the City were continually complicated by the dissension of King and Barons. The issues were thus to a great extent obscured, and what might have been civil war in the City became part of the civil wars between the King and the Barons.

The reign of Henry the Third is filled with the King’s displeasure against the City as well as with the quarrels and dissensions which rent the City in twain. Let us run rapidly through the main incidents of the time, and then consider how the growth and development of the Commune were affected by those factions.

In the year 1221, or 1223, the tumult for which Constantine FitzArnult was hanged awakened the jealousy and suspicion of the young King, because it revealed the existence or the survival of a French party in the City. I cannot but think that this foolish rising was the first cause of that hatred towards his rich city which Henry entertained throughout his reign. The conspiracy, says Fabyan, was so “heinous and grievous to the King that he was mynded and purposed to throwe downe the wallys of the Citie.” However, for the time he was appeased, and presently issued his Charter of Confirmation to the City with the grant of a common seal.

In 1229 the Aldermen, with the consent of the people, agreed that a sheriff should not continue in office for more than one year, because charges had been brought against previous sheriffs of taking bribes from victuallers, and also of various extortions. On referring to the list we find that the continuance in office of the sheriffs had become of recent years a common practice, as the following list (Stow) shows:—

In 1240, the Aldermen were elected and changed yearly, “but,” says Stow, “that order lasted not long.” (See Appendices II. and III.)

In the same year, following Fabyan’s Chronology, the King began to side with the popular party, intending in this manner to break up the privileges of the City.

At this point it is necessary to seek more closely into the reasons of the weakness which made London an almost unresisting prey to the exactions of this insatiate and insatiable King. The City, which could lend Simon de Montfort a fully equipped army of 15,000 men, might surely at any moment close its gates, keep the mouth of the Thames clear, and defy the King. But for many years it offered no resistance at all. The reason will immediately appear. A change so slow and gradual that it only at this juncture became important was passing over the City of London and its institutions, or to put it more accurately, the institutions themselves remained unchanged, yet assumed new meanings. It was, as has been already advanced, the happiness of London that, except for a very brief episode, its over-lord was the King and none other. The reeve of the borough was the bailiff or steward of this lord. In the name of the lord he was the magistrate; he collected rents, tolls and dues; he called the burgesses to their mote; he took care that the rights of the lord were properly executed. These duties observed, the burgesses were left at liberty to govern themselves. Naturally, when the town became prosperous it began to buy out the privileges of the over-lord. Thus, the Charters of the City of London are the recognition by king after king, that a certain portion of the rights of the over-lord have been bought out or conceded. And the reign of such a king as Henry the Third is a continual disregard of these concessions or purchases, by the assertion over and over again of the rights and powers of the over-lord, never, however, going so far as to give the City to any other over-lord. Thus Henry, as we shall see, in spite of the Charters, held courts in the City by his own justiciar, and called the citizens to plead their own cases at Westminster.

These Charters, then, granted their liberties to the citizens. But who were the citizens? “Land was from the first the test of freedom, and the possession of land was what constituted the townsman.... In England the landless man who dwelled in a borough had no share in its corporate life: for purposes of government or property the town was simply an association of the landed proprietors within its bounds.” (Green’s History of the English People.)

These words explain the whole position. In the twelfth century the government of London was entirely in the hands of certain families who held the land. As we have seen, the wards were their own property, named after them: the heads of these families were hereditary Aldermen of the wards. The members of this corporation or association were themselves, for the most part, engaged in trade. They were the wholesale traders—mercers, drapers, merchant adventurers. They would not admit within their body the craftsmen, who began, however, to form guilds for themselves. And the efforts of the governing body were directed against the formation of the craft guilds which, they plainly saw, would lead to the destruction of their own power. In the reign of Henry the Third this struggle of the Prud hommes or the “wise men”—the men of the ruling class—against the craftsmen was at its fiercest. In the reign of John, they had secured the suppression of the comprehensive weavers’ guild. Slow and difficult is the process and many are the lessons which must be learned, great are the oppressions which must be endured, before men so far overcome their suspicion of each other as to unite for the common good. The Londoner—the man of the commonalty—of Henry the Third could unite for fighting purposes; he could trust his brother to stand by him shoulder to shoulder; what he could not do was to trust his brother-craftsman not to overreach him, or to undersell him. Do we not see the same thing to-day? We think we are better educated and wiser; and we are even now exhorting men to do exactly what these popular leaders of the thirteenth century exhorted them to do, namely—to combine. The commonalty, at first, were galled, not so much by having no share in the administration, for they had never looked for any, but by the suspicion that the real burden of taxation fell upon themselves instead of on the wealthy. The names of the Mayors of this reign sufficiently indicate the side on which the power lay from time to time. Thus Basing, Blunt, Bukerel, Frowyk, FitzWalter are names of the old families: Le Fullour and Grapefig are the names of craftsmen.

Early in the long reign of Henry the Third we find a certain Symon FitzMary, whose name perhaps indicates an origin so obscure that it was only derived from his mother, yet he was one of the Aldermen, one of the popular party, and—which is significant—in the service of the King. Henry, therefore, was playing off the popular against the aristocratic side. Symon was elected Sheriff in the year 1233, but in the first term of his shrievalty he was charged with “wasting the property that formed the issues of the Sheriffwick.” He was, therefore, set aside,—surely a very strong step,—and his clerks were ordered in his place to collect the money that formed the Firma. Six years later, in 1239, Symon presents himself at the election of sheriffs. He has letters from the King commanding the City to elect him. Here we have a deliberate attempt of the King to trample on the Charters. The City refused to obey, and repaired to Court in hopes of conciliating the King’s favour, but could not, “so that,” says FitzThedmar, “the City was without a Mayor for three months, when Gerard Bat, one of the aristocratic party, was elected.” At the next election he was again chosen. Then follows a very curious story. With him “certain of the citizens proceeded to Wodestok, for the purpose of presenting him; and his lordship the King declined to admit him [to the Mayoralty] there, or before he had come to London. And on the third day after, upon the King’s arrival there, he admitted him; and after the oath had been administered to him, that he would restore everything that had before been taken and received, and would not receive the forty pounds which the Mayors had previously been wont to receive from the City, the Mayor said, when taking his departure:—‘Alas! my Lord, out of all this I might have found a marriage portion to give my daughter.’ For this reason the King was moved to anger, and forthwith swore upon the altar of Saint Stephen, by Saint Edward, and by the oath which he that day took upon that altar, and said:—‘Thou shalt not be Mayor this year, and for a very little I would say, Never. Go, now.’ The said Gerard, hereupon, not caring to have the King’s ill-will, resigned the Mayoralty, and Reginald de Bunge was appointed Mayor of London.” (Riley’s edit. FitzThedmar’s Chronicles of Old London, p. 9.)

At the same time we find this oppressive King calling the citizens together at Paul’s Cross, and asking their leave to pass over-seas to Gascony!

On his return, the King took the City into his own hand for harbouring a certain Walter Bukerel without warrant, yet it was proved that Bukerel had been pardoned. He “took the City into his own hand,” i.e. he suspended all the Charters and Liberties; but he gave it to the Mayor, Ralph Aswy, for safe keeping. He then marched north to fight the Scots, but on his return he forbade the sheriffs to perform any of their functions. The City bought their pardon by paying a fine of £1000.

Again we find Symon FitzMary active at the election of the Sheriffs. It was in 1244. Now in 1229 the Aldermen had all taken oath that at no time would they allow the same man to be Sheriff for two consecutive years. Symon, therefore, understanding that it was proposed to re-elect Nicholas Bat, rose in his place and called him a perjurer. Reading between the lines, we understand that the self-denying ordinance of 1229 was a concession to the popular party, and the re-election of Bat in 1244 was due to the return to power of the other side. There was certainly a warm debate, and in the end Symon had to resign his Aldermanry, and Nicholas Bat was re-elected. The case, however, was taken before the King, who refused to admit Nicholas Bat.

To this time belongs a series of determined attacks upon the liberties of the City by the King. There was first the case of Margery Vyel; then the claims of the Abbot of Westminster; and thirdly, the Fair of Westminster. The Fair was granted to the Abbot of Westminster for fifteen days, to be held in Tothill Fields. During its continuance, trade of all kinds was to cease in London. Consider the intolerable nature of this enactment. The City bought off the latter regulation for the sum of £2000. As regards the claims of Westminster Abbey, they were complicated by questions of mediÆval law and rights; for a long time they were advanced as a means of worrying the City. Thus, in 1249, the King appointed a “day of love” (i.e. reconciliation) between the City and the Abbot of Westminster. The meeting was held at the Temple. The Mayor, being accompanied by a “countless multitude,” met the Abbot, who had with him certain of the King’s Justices. But there was no conference; the whole of the people, with one consent, declared that they would have no conference, but would abide by their Charters. The case was taken before the King, but nothing seems to have been decided.

This brings us to the claim of Margery Vyel. It is related by Arnold FitzThedmar. Let us use his own words as far as possible.

“In the same year”—A.D. 1246—“on the Monday next after Hockeday [Hocking day was the second Tuesday after Easter] it was adjudged in the Guildhall that a woman who had been endowed with a certain and specified dower may not, nor ought to have of the chattels of her deceased husband beyond the certain and specified dower assigned to her, unless in accordance with the will of her husband. And this befel through Margery, the relict of John Vyel the elder, who, by numerous writs of his Lordship the King, demanded in the Hustings of London, the third part of the chattels belonging to her said husband.”

In the next year (A.D. 1247) “on the Monday after St. Peter Chains [St. Peter ad Vincula, August 1st] Henry de Ba, a Justiciar sent by his Lordship the King, came to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, where the record which had been given upon complaint of Margery Vyel was, to which judgment the said Margery had made complaint to his Lordship the King, and had found judges to prove that the same was false. Whereupon the Mayor and citizens meeting them, the record having been read through, and all the writs of his Lordship the King which the said Margery had obtained having been read and heard, the Justiciar said, ‘I do not say that this judgment is false, but the process thereof is faulty, as there is no mention made in this record of summons of the opponents of the said Margery, and seeing that John Vyel, her husband, made a will, it did not pertain to your Court to determine such a plea as this.’ To which the citizens made answer ‘There was no necessity to summons those who had possession of the property of the deceased for they were always ready, and preferred to stand trial at suit of the said Margery in our Court: and besides, we were fully able to entertain such plea by assent of the two parties, who did not at all claim or demand the Ecclesiastical Court and seeing that his Lordship the King by his writ commanded us to determine the same.’

At length after much altercation had taken place between the Justiciar and the citizens, the Justiciar said that they must show all this to the King and his Council and so they withdrew. Afterwards, however, and solely for this cause, the King took the city into his own hands and by his writ entrusted it to the custody of William de Haverille and Edward de Westminster, namely, on the vigil of St. Bartholomew (Aug. 24th): whereupon the Mayor and citizens went to the King at Wudestok and showed him that they had done no wrong: but they could not regain his favour. Wherefore, upon their arrival at London, William de Haverille exacted an oath of the clerks and all the serjeants who belonged to the Shrievalty, that they would be obedient unto him, the Mayor and Sheriffs being removed from their bailiwicks. Afterwards, on the Sunday before the Nativity of St. Mary (Sept. 8th) the Mayor and Sheriffs, by leave of the King, received the City into their hands and a day was given them to make answer as to the aforesaid judgment before the King and his Barons, namely, the morrow of the Translation of St. Edward [June 9th] at Westminster, and on the morrow of St. Edward, the Mayor and citizens appeared at Westminster to make answers to the judgment before mentioned, that had been given against the aforesaid Margery Vyel and so on from day to day till the fourth day, upon which last day, the King requested them to permit the Abbot of Westminster to enjoy the franchises which the King had granted him in Middlesex in exchange for other liberties which the citizens might of right demand. To which the citizens made answer that they could do nothing in such a matter without the consent of the whole community. The King on learning this, as though moved to anger, made them appear before him and after much altercation had passed as to the said judgment (Henry de la Mare a kinsman of the before named Margery Vyel constantly making allegations against the citizens) counsel being at last held before the King between the Bishops and Barons, the Mayor and citizens were acquitted and took their departure.” (Riley’s edition, FitzThedmar’s Chronicles of Old London.)

It will be observed that the King broke the Charters, first by sending his own Justiciar into the City to hear an appeal; next, by making the Mayor and citizens go to Westminster to have a City case tried; and thirdly, by granting the Abbot of Westminster rights or privileges in the County of Middlesex which was held and farmed by the City.

The City, at the price of surrendering its liberties, won the case, evidently a case considered as of the very highest importance. The reward bestowed upon Symon FitzMary is related by FitzThedmar:

“It should be observed, that when Symon FitzMary, for his offence, had delivered his Aldermanry into the hands of the City, as above noticed, by assent of the whole community the Mayor returned him his Aldermanry, upon condition of his conceding that if at any future time he should again contravene the franchises of the City, the Mayor might, without plea or gainsaying, take back his Aldermanry, into the hands of the City, and wholly remove him therefrom. Wherefore, in this year, because the said Symon had manifestly sided with Margery Vyel in the complaint which she had made to his lordship the King as to the judgment given by the citizens—as to which, as is already written, she herself was cast—as also, for many other evil and detestable actions of which he had secretly been guilty against the City, the Mayor took his Aldermanry into his own hands, and wholly removed him therefrom; and the men of that Ward, receiving liberty to elect on the Monday before Mid-Lent chose Alexander le Ferrun, and that too in his absence; but he, afterwards appearing at the Hustings, was on the Monday following admitted Alderman.” (Chronicles of Old London, pp. 16-17.)

And so Symon vanishes. One would like to hear more of his political career. As regards his private history, his will, by which he founded the House of St. Mary of Bethlehem, survives, so that he is the originator of the Royal Bethlehem Hospital, which has served the City so well and so long. He may have been of humble origin, in which case he is an early example of the rise of a poor lad to wealth, an example that after his time became well-nigh impossible until the eighteenth century.

In 1257 occurred another of the many strange stories of this time. A sealed Roll was found in the King’s wardrobe at Windsor. No one knew who wrote it, or how it came there. The Roll contained “many articles against the Mayor, to the effect that the City had been aggrieved by him and his abettors beyond measure, as well as in respect of tallage and of other injuries that had been committed by them.” In other words, the Roll contained a statement, no doubt highly coloured, of the discontented. The King, pretending to be resolute that the poor should not be treated unjustly, sent John Maunsell, Justiciar, to London with orders to hold a Folk Mote and to inquire into the truth of the allegations, which was done. Then the Aldermen were ordered to convene their ward motes, and to cause the people in each ward to elect six-and-thirty deputies, the Aldermen being absent; and these six-and-thirty men were ordered to appear in the hall of the Bishop of London. They were there put on oath; but they refused to make oath, alleging that by the laws of the City they ought not to make oath except upon a question of life or limb, or where land was to be lost or gained. The next day, at the Guildhall, the deputies still refused to take oath. Whereupon the King sent word that all he desired was to learn the truth; that he was willing to leave their franchises unimpaired, and that he desired to ascertain how his faithful people had been aggrieved in tallages and by whom. Then John Maunsell spoke pleasantly to the people, asking if they were not content with the promise of the King. And they shouted, “Yea, Yea,” “in disparagement,” says the Chronicler, who belonged to the City Barons, “of their own franchises, which, in fact, these most wretched creatures had not been the persons to secure.”

John Maunsell then proceeded to seize the City for the King, and to depose the Mayor, Sheriffs, and City Chamberlain. There was a trial at Westminster before the King; there was another Folk Mote, at which the people were persuaded by the silver-tongued John Maunsell to shout for the destruction of their own liberties, of which they understood little indeed. The Chronicler, in indignation, calls them “sons of divers mothers, many of them born without the City, and many of servile condition.” At that time, one observes, they were very far from the possibility of a democracy.

The popular cause never fails, in any age, to attract to itself leaders from the other side. William FitzOsbert, whose rise and fall we have already chronicled, had attempted to do for the commonalty, in King Richard’s reign, what Thomas FitzThomas attempted with greater success seventy years later. He was Sheriff during the sealed Roll business; his brother, Sheriff Matthew Bukerel, was deposed, and was replaced by a person whose name has already been mentioned, William Grapefig. William FitzRichard, another of the popular party, was made Mayor. In 1261-62, and in 1262-63, Thomas FitzThomas was elected Mayor, certainly by the people, as the names of the Sheriffs for the year imply that they had the upper hand for the time. His first year of office was marked by the stout resistance which he made to the Constable of the Tower, who attempted to take “prisage” of ships in the river. Now, one of the most important privileges of the City was the command of the river, so that no duties or tolls should be levied on ships coming up or going down the river except by themselves. FitzThomas was elected for a second year of office. And now you shall hear, what in the thirteenth century was thought by a merchant of the old school, of a man who could encourage the combination of trades and crafts.

“Be it here remarked9 that this Mayor, during the time of his Mayoralty, had so pampered the City populace that, styling themselves the ‘Commons of the City,’ they had obtained the first voice in the City. For the Mayor, in doing all that he had to do, ruled and determined through them, and would say to them, ‘Is it your will that so it shall be?’ and then if they answered, ‘Yea, Yea,’ so it was done. And, on the other hand, the Aldermen or chief citizens were little or not at all consulted in such matter; but were, in fact, just as though they had not existed. Through this that same populace became so elated and so inflated with pride that during the commotions in the realm, of which mention has been previously made, they formed themselves into covins and leagued themselves together by oath, by the hundred and by the thousand, under a sort of colour of keeping the peace, whereas they themselves were manifestly disturbers of the peace. For whereas the Barons were only fighting against those who wished to break the aforesaid statutes, and seized the property of each and that too by day, the other broke into the houses of the people and of other persons in the City who were not against the said statutes and by main force carried off the property found in such houses, besides doing many other unlawful acts as well. As to the Mayor, he censured these persons in but a lukewarm way.” (Chronicles of Old London, p. 59.)

Further, the barons, wishing above all things at this juncture to conciliate the citizens, desired that they would put in writing anything they might desire in augmentation of their liberties, and undertook, if the thing were reasonable, to bring it before the King and Council. Then this Mayor called upon the craftsmen and ordered them to make such provisions as should be to their own advantage. “Accordingly, after this, from day to day, individuals of every craft of themselves made new statutes and provisions, or rather such as may be called ‘abominations’—and that solely to their own advantage, and to the intolerable loss of all merchants coming to London and visiting the faire of England and the exceeding injury of all persons in the realm.”

This was the first trades union. Their rules were drawn up by the working men themselves. The memory of the old frith guilds had by this time perished, but there were fraternities, or religious associations, which would help them to some knowledge of the rules which they should lay down. Such as they were, the Chronicler tells us, they were not carried into effect.

In 1263-64 Thomas FitzThomas was again elected Mayor; but the King refused to receive him, being “for many reasons greatly moved to anger against the City.”

In the same year began the Barons’ War, in which the Londoners played a conspicuous, if not a noble, part. They reduced the castle of Rochester; they destroyed the palace at Isleworth, belonging to Richard, the King’s brother; they murdered five hundred Jews; they pillaged the property of the foreign merchants; and at the battle of Lewes they ran away.

Peace being made in the following year, Henry, now a prisoner, was made to hold a Court in St. Paul’s, where the Mayor, again Thomas FitzThomas, and the Aldermen swore fealty to him. A marginal note of the Chronicle completes the history of this oath. “Then those who were present might see a thing wondrous and unheard of in this age: for the most wretched Mayor, when taking the oath, dared to utter words so rash as these, saying unto his lordship the King in presence of the people, ‘My lord, so long as unto us you will be a good lord and King, we will be faithful and duteous unto you.’” The Mayor was four hundred years before his time.

After the defeat and death of Simon de Montfort at Evesham, there was great alarm in the City. Some proposed to close the gates and call together the adherents of the Barons’ cause; others proposed immediate submission. The latter course prevailed. Letters of submission were drawn up and sent to the King at Windsor. The messengers on the way met Sir Roger de Lilbourne, who told them that he was sent to declare the King’s pleasure to the citizens. The King’s pleasure was immediate and complete submission: the removal of all chains and posts in the streets as a mark of submission, and the despatch of the Mayor and principal men of the City to Windsor under letters of safe conduct. They went. FitzThomas, unluckily, was once more Mayor. The King disregarded the letters of safe conduct and clapped them into prison. All of them, except FitzThomas, were shortly afterwards released. Henry remembered the words by which FitzThomas had sworn a limited loyalty. FitzThomas never again appeared. He vanished. Perhaps the King ordered his execution; perhaps he caused him to languish for the rest of his life in prison. However that may be, FitzThomas was no more seen.

Henry came to London, his chief enemy in custody; he gave away sixty houses belonging to the principal citizens; he fined the City 20,000 marks. On the 6th of December of the same year (1265) John de la Linde, knight, and John Wallraven, clerk, were made seneschals, the Tower of London being delivered into their hands. On the same day there came to Westminster four-and-twenty citizens, who swore faithfully and safely to keep the City in the King’s behalf under their two seneschals.

The King gave, further, London Bridge, with its tolls, to Queen Eleanor, who allowed it to fall into decay. She then gave it back to the City.

FitzThedmar here remarks that some of the persons who had sided with the Earl of Gloucester took to flight, and there were among them some who, in the time of the late Mayor, FitzThomas, styled themselves the “Commons of the City.” On the election of a citizen “to attend to the duties of Sheriff of Middlesex and Warden of London,” the people clamoured for FitzThomas, who was probably by this time lying in his grave.

The citizens petitioned, but in vain, for the right of electing their Mayor and Sheriffs. In the following year, 1266, John Adrian and Luke de Battencurt were chosen Bailiffs instead of Sheriffs.

Out of the confusion and trouble of the time we can gather that the trade of London was brought to a standstill; that there were massacres of Jews; that there were riots in the streets, quarrels between trades, in one of which as many as 500 men went out armed and fought in the streets; that the trades continued to combine and to form companies, but without rule and supervision, so that they claimed work belonging to other trades, and caused ill-feeling; that there was no order kept in the wards, and no authority of the Aldermen. The Mayors, during the period following the Battle of Evesham, were appointed by the King. Fabyan says that there is uncertainty about this time, some being of opinion that there were no Mayors but only custodes. Fabyan also says that Thomas FitzThomas was released. He enters his name as Mayor for 1269-70. But his dates do not agree with those of Stow. In the latter year Prince Edward took the City into his own hands and appointed Hugh FitzOtho Constable of the Tower and Custos of the City. A few months of despotic and military rule smoothed the troubled waters of faction and restored order to the distracted City. The last years of King Henry’s reign were years of peace and rest. But he had done what he wished to do—he had deprived the proud City of its wealth, its liberty, and its rights.

The first phase of the contest between the oligarchy and the populace comes to an end. The former party is greatly broken up; the wards cease to be called by the names of their Aldermen.

In December 1269 an order was issued by the King that all those persons who, on the restoration of the City to him, had withdrawn, should be proclaimed publicly, and should be forbidden ever to return to the City under pain of life and limb. Their names were read out in the Guildhall and afterwards cried in the streets. There were fifty-seven of them; the list has been preserved by FitzThedmar. All, with a few exceptions, were craftsmen. Cofferer, Baker, Cook, Goldsmith, Ironworker, Fuller, Plumer, Broker, Butcher, Armourer, Chaloner, with a few mercers and others belonging to wholesale trades.

This act of justice accomplished, the citizens were once more granted the right of electing their Mayor and Sheriffs, but with the increase of the firma from £300 to £400.

They proceeded to exercise this right, apparently, with sadness and soberness, and with a compromise. The Mayor was John Adrian, of the aristocratic party; the Sheriffs were two craftsmen. The following year Walter Hervey, a man of the people, was Mayor, and two of the other side were Sheriffs.

The election of the Mayor of the following year is a most interesting and instructive story. Fabyan, we may observe, puts the election in the second year of Edward’s reign; Arnold FitzThedmar, one of the Aldermen concerned, and therefore an eye-witness, assigns it to the last days of King Henry and the earliest days of King Edward.

On the 28th of October, the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, the citizens met at the Guildhall for the election of the new Mayor. The Aldermen and the more “discreet” citizens—it is one of them who tells the tale—proposed the name of Philip le Tayllor. According to usage, their nominee ought to have been accepted; but the people in the body of the Hall refused to accept him, and cried out with a great tumult, “Nay, nay, we will have no one but Walter Hervey,” and against the will of the Aldermen—one pictures a good deal of hustling and pushing—they placed their own man in the seat of the Mayor.

It is not surprising that the same kind of accusations, which had formerly been brought against William Longbeard and Thomas FitzThomas, were now brought against Walter Hervey. He is said to have persuaded and promised the people that he would keep them free from all tallages, extortions, and tolls, and that they believed his word, and followed him by thousands, even in multitudes, without number. We remember that 50,000 are said to have followed Longbeard. The charge of gaining over the people by grand promises is very likely true; the demagogue has always resorted to the same methods of persuasion; in the end to the detriment or the ruin of the cause. One understands that the more popular leaders of London between 1190 and 1272 were men who desired, above all things, to render impossible the burden of unequal taxation, and to give the commons a voice in the management of their own affairs. This twofold aim is really one, because it was believed that the people, if they had the power, would exercise it wisely and justly. The leaders, however, did not realise that the average man understands by justice the shifting of his burden to the shoulders of some other man, and he is quite careless who that other man is.

Hervey, however, had the people with him.

The Aldermen, finding themselves thrust, in this rude way, out of power, repaired to Westminster to lay the matter before the King’s Council. They were followed by Hervey himself, accompanied by a vast multitude of his supporters. The case of the Aldermen was put with much ability: it was not the loss of their own power which they so much minded, as the chance that another civil war might be caused through the unruly pride of the populace.

“The Aldermen and their adherents, on coming before the King’s Council, as already written, showed unto them, with grievous complaints, how that this populace by force had violently and unjustly impeded their election, by those to whom the election of Mayor and Sheriffs in the City of right more particularly belongs than to any one else, and has always been wont to belong. They also duteously besought his lordship the King and his Council, that the King would be pleased to set his arm and his hand thereto, that so this populace, calling itself the ‘Commons of the City,’ and excluding the Aldermen and discreet men of the City, might not upraise itself against his peace and against the peace of his realm, as had happened in the time of the Earl of Leicester; namely, when Thomas Fitz-Thomas and Thomas de Pullesdon had so exalted the populace of the City above the Aldermen and discreet men of the City, that, when it was necessary so to do, they could not make such populace amenable to justice; through which, as a thing notorious to the whole world, a deadly war arose in England.” (Riley’s edit., FitzThedmar’s Chronicles of Old London, pp. 154-155.)

The people, without caring to answer these arguments, raised the cry: “We are the Commons. To us belongs the Election. We elect Walter Hervey.”

It was a time of great anxiety. The King was ill; he was now old—for that time, very old; the heir was in the Holy Land; it was most desirable that the peace should be maintained.

The Aldermen went on arguing. The same arguments were used before the passing of every successive Reform Act. The Aldermen pointed out that they were the heads, the people being only the inferior members, arms and legs; the Aldermen were also, by right of office, those who pronounced judgment in pleas moved within the City; they had a stake in the country; the populace, on the other hand, for the most part had neither lands nor houses, were of obscure and lowly origin, followed humble occupations, were rude and ignorant, and cared nothing about the City’s welfare. The people, however, kept up their bawling, which reached the ears of the King on his sickbed.

The Council, therefore, put the matter off. Hervey was told to go away and to return with no more than ten or a dozen followers. So for that day he went away.

On the morrow, after dinner, Hervey called all the people together, and, with them at his heels, went again to Westminster, and there, setting forth no reason, they kept up the same cry. The Aldermen were there before them. The Council told both parties that they must agree upon a Mayor, and that when they were agreed the King would admit him.

But they could not agree; there was no chance of an agreement. So, day after day, for a whole fortnight, viz. till the 11th of November, the people became more excited every day, and the Aldermen more dogged, and the same tumultuous scene was enacted in Westminster Hall.

As for Hervey, he affirmed—very likely he spoke the truth, for the situation was full of peril, and one could not forget the vanishing of FitzThomas—that he did not desire to be Mayor for his own sake, but solely for the love of God and from motives of charity; he was willing to endure that burden and that labour, that so he might support the poor of the City against the rich, who sought to oppress them in the matter of the tallages and expenditure of the City.

It speaks a great deal for the veracity of the historian that one who stood among the Aldermen and took part in the offices, seeing his authority and power suddenly taken from him, should have penned these words without casting a doubt upon the motives which actuated his enemy.

On the 11th of November the Council, who appear to have acted with strange weakness and irresolution, decided that as they could not agree, the King would take the City into his own hands and would appoint a Custos or Warden. Accordingly, Henry de Frowyk, one of the Aldermen (his Ward was afterwards called Cripplegate) was appointed Warden.

It was then agreed that each side should appoint five persons, and that this Committee of ten should elect the Mayor, both sides promising to abide by the decision.

The death of the King caused this agreement to be set aside. There was a fear lest the populace should take advantage of the confusion caused by the absence of the new King; FitzThedmar converts a vague anxiety into the discovery of a conspiracy against the property of the Aldermen. The Archbishop of York, with the Earl of Gloucester and other nobles, met the citizens at Guildhall, and, seeing the enormous number of Hervey’s followers, exhorted the Aldermen to elect him. They still refused; they would not, of their own free will, lay down their powers; they told Gloucester that the matter was referred to the Committee of ten.

The Earl, however, disregarding this arrangement, ordered a Folk Mote to be called for the next day at Paul’s Cross, met the Aldermen separately in the Chapter House, and begged them to yield and to suffer Hervey to be Mayor for one year, lest trouble should fall upon the City. They therefore gave way, and Hervey, after taking oath that he would not aggrieve or allow to be aggrieved, any who had been against his election, was presented to the people, amid their joyous acclamations, as their Mayor.

His year of office proved uneventful. FitzThedmar says that he took bribes from the bakers, so that they might make loaves under weight, but we need not believe this story; and that he would not allow any pleading, or very rarely any, in the Hustings of Pleas of Land. “The reason being that he himself was impleaded as to a certain tenement which Isabella Bukerel demanded of him by plea between them moved.” Arnold, we observe, still harbours resentment.

At the following election the Aldermen carried their own man, Henry Waleys, or le Waleys. He was one of the richest and most important merchants. He was again Mayor from 1280 to 1283. He had been Mayor of Bordeaux in 1275.

We have seen how, according to the Chronicler, the craftsmen made covins and combinations—in other words, trade unions, being exhorted thereto by Thomas FitzThomas. It appears that when Walter Hervey was Mayor he confirmed these combinations by Charters of his own granting regulation of trade for the common benefit. Now we have the first instance of a blackleg. One of the persons who had obtained, for his own benefit probably, such a Charter, came before the Mayor and citizens in the Guildhall with the complaint that a certain person of his trade was working in contravention of the statutes contained in the Charter, which he and his trade had obtained. From whom, he was asked, had they obtained that Charter? From Walter Hervey, when he was Mayor. “And here it is,” he said, producing a copy of the document. “It is true,” said Walter Hervey; “I granted that Charter by my authority as Mayor.” Then arose Gregory de Rokesley, Alderman, and one of the most “discreet” men in the city. “Such Charters,” he said, “have no force beyond the Mayoralty of the man who may grant them. Moreover, these Charters were only made for the benefit of the rich men in every craft, not for that of the poor: and they lead to the loss and undoing of the poor men as well as the loss of all other citizens and the realm.” Whereupon Walter Hervey sprang to his feet and there ensued a warm and personal discussion. Finally, Walter Hervey retired to St. Peter’s Church, Cornhill, where he convened the people and exhorted them to keep their Charters, which he would take care should be enforced; and the whole of that day and the next he went through the City haranguing the people, so that the Barons of the Exchequer and the King’s Council feared a popular tumult. Therefore they sent the Royal command to the City to take care lest, through the action of the said Walter Hervey and others, mischief should ensue. The City Magistrates interpreted this order to mean the arrest of Hervey. Which was done, but on the surety of twelve men he was released. This happened just before Christmas. After Christmas, the Mayor called a meeting in the Guildhall and ordered Hervey’s Charters to be brought to him. A fortnight later he caused them to be read, and explained that they would lead to the detriment and ruin of trade; that the Charters carried no weight and were worthless; that the men of every craft should resume their former liberty to follow their trade wherever and in whatever way they pleased; only that their work must be good and true. In other words, the Charters which Hervey had given them were intended to teach the people the necessity of order and discipline in order to gain their rights; and this Mayor led them gently back, under pretence of giving them liberty, to resume their old dependence. But they had not done yet with Walter Hervey. It remained to deprive him of his dignity as Alderman of Chepe. This was done full craftily. The greater part of the Ward of Chepe consisted of a market-place filled with sheds, selds, and shops. The sheds are explained by Stow to mean small, open shops, each with a “solar” or small upper chamber over them. One such “shed” remained till the other day close to Clare Market.10 The selds were wooden warehouses with shops. The tradesmen of this market, the greatest and most important in the kingdom, were the special friends of Hervey, his constituents, who had made him Alderman. Whereupon, in order to get rid of Hervey, these people must also be got rid of. The King’s Coronation suggested an expedient. Although the traders, butchers, fishmongers, and those of other callings, had paid large sums of money for the rent or permission to set up their shops in the market, the Mayor sent word that in order to clean the place of all refuse, when the King should ride through Chepe, they must all go and sell their wares in other places. Then, in the words of the Chronicle—

“On the morrow of Holy Trinity, the Mayor and citizens coming into the Guildhall to plead the common pleas, there came certain fishmongers, and more especially those who had been removed from Chepe. To whom answer was made by the Mayor, that this had been done by the Council of his lordship the King, in order that there might be no refuse remaining in Chepe on his arrival there. Walter Hervi, however, to the utmost of his power, supported the complaints of the said fishmongers against the Mayor and Aldermen: by reason whereof a stormy strife arose, in presence of all the people, between the said Mayor and Walter aforesaid. Hereupon the Mayor, moved to anger, together with some of the more discreet of the City, went to the Council of his lordship the King at Westminster and showed him what had then taken place in Guildhall. Accordingly, on the morrow, when the Mayor and Aldermen had come to the Guildhall, to determine the pleas which had been begun on the preceding day, a certain roll was shown and read before the said Walter and all the people, in which were set forth many articles as to the presumptuous acts and injuries, of most notorious character, which the said Walter had committed while Mayor, against the Commons of the City and in contravention of his oath: whereupon the said Walter was judicially degraded from his aldermanry and he was excluded from the Council of his City. Command was also given to the men dwelling in that aldermanry to choose a fit and proper man to be Alderman of Chepe in his place and to present him at the next Court in the Guildhall, which was accordingly done.”

So vanishes the form of Walter Hervey. He takes off his Alderman’s gown; he steps down among the folk, a plain citizen, and I daresay that the craftsmen, next day, had forgotten all that he had tried to do for them. But the memory of those Charters survived.

And so they made a political end of this reformer. To him, however, belongs the credit of creating or reviving the spirit of union and incorporation of the trades. I say reviving, because one must not forget the “adulterine” guilds of Henry the Second’s time; and because, wherever there was a guild for religious and charitable purposes, the other trade guild for commercial and practical purposes was not far off.

We have seen how, within forty years from this time, the wards ceased to be named after their Aldermen and their proprietors. In this interval there took place a silent revolution, the steps of which it is now difficult, or even impossible, to follow. The nature of the revolution is indicated by the rapid rise of the companies in the next few years. The authority of the aristocratic party was broken, though not yet destroyed; the shadow of their old power in giving their names to the wards vanished also. We shall now find the government of London transferred from the Aldermen to the trades.

The memory of the three early reformers, William Longbeard, Thomas FitzThomas, and Walter Hervey, should be better known to those who care about the origin and the history of civic liberties. They appear to me to bear a striking resemblance to each other. All three belonged to the aristocratic class; all three deserted their own people, and were bitterly reviled in consequence; all three surrendered their own interests; all three were filled with that overwhelming passion for justice which makes martyrs and carries on a cause. It is to be hoped that while the first was dragged by the heels to the gallows, while the second was murdered in a dungeon, while the third was put out of office and deprived of the right to speak and the power to act, some vision of the future was vouchsafed to them; some voice whispered in their dying ears that their life’s work was not lost, but would yet bear fruit in the coming freedom of the people for whom they had worked and for whom they suffered.

The long continuance of these factions, the civil wars, the disorders of the last reign, could not fail to produce the worst effects in the condition of the City. The streets were full of murders, robberies, house-breaking, and violence of all kinds. The first attempt to restore order seems to have been the recognition that a strong and permanent hand was wanted. Accordingly, we find the office of Mayor filled for twelve years by two men taking the post each for two or three years together. They were merchants of the aristocratic party; they were personal friends holding the same views, and those not of a democratic kind; they were wealthy; they bestowed large benefactions upon the City; they were trusted by the King. Yet they did not succeed. Loftie is of opinion that they were too much occupied with their own affairs, and were compelled to leave much of their proper work to subordinates. On the other hand, they may have been very great merchants, yet not good administrators. The earlier pages of Riley’s Memorials are filled with cases of murder and violence. There were excellent laws made for the preservation of peace. Nothing could have been better than the following:—

(1) Every trade to present the names of persons practising that trade, where they dwell and in what ward. This ordinance proves that all the trades had their guilds or unions.

(2) The Aldermen to inquire as to lodgers in hostelries.

(3) To provide security for suspected persons.

(4) Two serjeants to stand at each gate to watch persons entering or leaving the City.

(5) Curfew to be rung in every parish church, taking the time from St. Martin-le-Grand.

At Curfew all the gates to be closed; the taverns to be shut; no persons to walk about the streets; six persons to watch in every ward.

(6) No one to cross the river at night.

(7) The serjeants of Billingsgate and Queen Hythe to guard the river, each with his boat and crew of four men.

Yet, in spite of these regulations, the condition of the City became worse instead of better. The case of Lawrence Duket in 1284, which ended in the hanging of seven men of good family, and the burning of one woman, caused general discontent and murmuring. Finally, Edward resolved upon taking the conduct of the City into his own hands. The way in which this was effected shows that the comedy was agreed upon beforehand, so that everybody’s dignity should be respected.

The Mayor was Gregory de Rokesley. He was ordered by the King’s Lieutenant to repair with the Aldermen and Sheriffs to the Tower, there to answer certain questions concerning the condition of the City. He obeyed, but left behind him in the Church of Allhallows Barking, the gowns and chains of office, excusing himself on the ground that the citizens only pleaded or answered pleas within their own boundaries. He was arrested and kept in the Tower, with the other officers, for a day or two. Meantime, as the City was technically without a Mayor, the King used the fact as a pretext for taking it into his own hands. He did so, appointing Sir Ralph Sandwich as Custos or Warden. The City was kept under the rule of Sandwich and his successor, Sir John Breton, for twelve years. They were, in fact, permanent Mayors, who could not be displaced by the citizens, yet who took the Aldermen into counsel. The rule of these two Wardens was remarkable for many reforms, including the definition of the wards, the cleansing of the Walbrook, the suppression of night fairs, the repair of bridges, the restoration of order. Trade was carried on freely and prosperously, the trade guilds had leisure to consolidate themselves, so that they became, long before they got their Charters, necessary for the business of the City; London had assumed a new face when, in 1298, Edward gave back the Mayor, and Henry Waleys once more assumed office. Not that violence altogether ceased, but that violence was less frequent and more likely to be punished.

We have seen how the opinions of Lollardy were wide-spread among the people during the fourteenth century. The history of John of Northampton and that of his rival, Nicholas Brembre, belong to the close of that century, and to the conclusion of the struggle between the employers and the craftsmen.

John was born at Northampton of respectable parentage, as is proved by the fact that he was received into the Drapers’ Company, always one of the most exclusive of the City Guilds; he was Alderman in 1376, Sheriff in 1377, one of the City members in 1378; in 1380 he was a Commissioner for the erection of some kind of tower; and in 1381 he was Mayor. The first thing he did as Mayor showed what his opinions were. He took into his own hands a great part of the duties belonging to the Bishop’s Court. He caused all those persons, men and women, who had committed acts of unchastity to have their hair cut short, and then to be carried in public through the City, preceded by trumpets and drums, for an open shame, the men being placed in pillory, the women in thewe. A second offence demanded a similar punishment. For a third offence they were expelled the City altogether. Next, he cut down the fees of the parish clergy. A mass for the dead was to be charged no more than a farthing; a baptism not more than forty pence; marriage not more than half a mark. Multiply these figures by twenty, at least, to represent modern values: we have then, a mass sung for five pence; a baptism for £3: 4: 8; and a marriage for very nearly seven pounds. Does the cheapness of the mass indicate an unbelief in its efficacy? He also signalised his Mayoralty by a persecution of the fishmongers, whose monopoly he suppressed. Their offence, one supposes, was the high price at which they retailed their fish. We must again remind ourselves that quite one-fourth of the year was a time of fasting, so that it was most important that fish should be cheap, abundant, and fresh. John not only took away these privileges from the fishmongers, but he degraded them. They were forbidden to sell fish in the country at all; they were forced to sell it in town at a price fixed by the Mayor; and they were not to be eligible for any office. John was re-elected Mayor in the following year, 1382-83, which passed quietly. His successor, 1383-84, was his enemy, Nicholas Brembre, by whom all the reforms of John were swept away. In January 1384, John was bound over to keep the peace in the sum of £5000; in the following month he was arrested by the Mayor. It was said that he went about followed by four hundred of his adherents; it was also said that he created a tumult. One of his men, Constantyn, a cordwainer, was hanged for his share in a riot, and John was sent to Corfe Castle. Thence he was brought to London, tried before a Council called by the King at Reading, and sentenced to death by the King. The sentence was commuted, at the Queen’s personal request, to imprisonment. So he was sent back to Corfe Castle. Then, for some unknown reason, he was brought to the Tower, and again informed that he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and again reprieved. He was then sent to Tintagel Castle, reflecting, no doubt, that while there is life there is hope, and that he had a friend in John of Gaunt who would not forsake him.

John of Gaunt did not forsake him. He renewed, from time to time, his efforts to effect his release; and he promised that John should not return to London if he were released. Then Nicholas Brembre, Mayor for four years running, asked the opinion of the Aldermen and Common Council as to the expediency of releasing this terrible prisoner. They all agreed that it would be dangerous to let him loose, even if he lived a hundred miles from the City. In 1389, however, he was allowed to return, and his property was restored to him. But the Mayor strictly forbade any discussions as to the quarrel between John of Northampton and Nicholas Brembre.

To go back for a while and trace the career of Sir Nicholas Brembre is now necessary. He was a wealthy grocer, son of Sir John Brembre, a knight and country gentleman of Kent. One of the many examples which the City affords of the country lad who was not a rustic, but a gentleman, coming to London to make his fortune (see vol. i. p. 216).

As he purchased estates in Kent in 1372, and became an Alderman in 1376, it seems reasonable to suppose that he was born about the year 1322. He joined the aristocratic party in the City, which strove to deprive the Craft Companies of any voice in the City, and was as strenuous a supporter of Courtenay as he was an enemy of John of Northampton.

In 1377, when Staple, the Mayor, was deposed, Brembre was appointed in his place. The year after Brembre was charged at the Parliament of Gloucester by Thomas of Woodstock, the King’s uncle, with negligence of duty on the occasion of a riot, when—

“Upon Cornhille in London, the men of that vicinity made assault upon the servants of the said Earl, and beat and wounded them, and pursued them, when flying to his hostel, and broke and hewed down the doors of the same with axes and other arms, the said Earl being then within and lying in his bed, and, by reason thereof, no little alarmed; to the grievous damage of the said Earl, and so pernicious an example to the whole realm; and all this, he alleged, had happened through the inexcusable slothfulness of the said Nicholas, and he requested that redress should be made to him for the same.” (Riley’s Memorials, p. 427.)

Brembre, however, offered a full and complete reply to the charge, and returned, says the contemporary authority, to his hostel with honour.

Thomas of Woodstock, however, neither forgot nor forgave, although Brembre gave him a hundred marks by way of conciliation. And there follows a very pretty passage, showing the spirit with which the City liberties were regarded:—

“Which transactions being thus related in order before the Mayor and the Common Council, each one of them gave hearty thanks to the said Nicholas; knowing for certain that it was for no demerits of his own, but for the preservation of the liberties of the City, and for the extreme love which he bore to it, that he had undergone such labours and expenses. Wherefore, with one accord, by the said Mayor, Aldermen, and all the rest of the Commoners, it was faithfully granted and promised, that the City should keep the said Nicholas indemnified as to the said 100 marks, and also all other expenses by reason of that matter by him incurred. And that the same might be kept in memory, orders were given to the Common Clerk that it should thus be entered.” (Riley’s Memorials, p. 428.)

Brembre then became one of the two collectors of customs for the Port of London, Geoffrey Chaucer being his comptroller. On the rising of the Commons, Brembre, with Philpot and Walworth, rode to Smithfield with the King, and was knighted for his services on that occasion.

It was after this that the great struggle between himself, as the leader of the aristocratic party, and therefore of the great companies, and John of Northampton, as the leader of the popular cause, took place. We have seen how John of Northampton acted as Mayor (1381-1383). In the latter year Brembre was elected Mayor, but it was by force of arms.

In January 1384 John was arrested, and, as we have seen, his follower, Constantyn, was hanged by Brembre. In 1386, petitions were presented to Parliament by ten of the City Companies, charging Brembre with tyrannical and oppressive conduct, and especially in securing the re-election by violence. For he filled the Guildhall with armed men, who ran upon those of the opposite faction with great noise, shouting, “Kill! kill! lour poursuyvantz hydousement.” Thomas of Woodstock, mindful of the old grudge, charged Brembre with plotting in favour of Suffolk. Yet he escaped, and was admitted by the King into his Council. In November 1387 he was again accused by Thomas of Woodstock with treason. The other four of the King’s Council were also charged with treason, viz. the Archbishop of York; Sir Robert Vere, Duke of Ireland; Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and Tressillian, the Lord Chief Justice.

The King replied that he had taken them into his own protection. Nevertheless, they all thought it prudent to fly in different directions.

The King sent for the Mayor. “How many archers and men-at-arms would the City provide in case of necessity?” The Mayor returned an evasive reply; he said that the citizens were only soldiers in defence of their City, as for himself, he begged permission to retire from office.

The King left Windsor and took up his residence in the Tower, thinking to have the City between himself and the Lords. But Thomas of Woodstock, now Duke of Gloucester, with the Earls of Arundel, Nottingham, Warwick, and Derby, hastened to London and demanded admission into the City. The citizens hesitated; at last, however, they yielded, and the Lords, with all their array, entered the City. It is significant of the condition of the City that the Lords offered to mediate in the trade disputes, but their offer was not accepted.

Meantime Brembre, who had fled into Wales, was captured and brought to London.

His trial took place as soon as Parliament met. There were thirty-nine charges brought against him as one of the King’s Council. He asked for delay to prepare his reply. This being refused, he offered wager of battle. All the Lords and Commons present threw down their gauntlets, but it was ruled that it was not a case for the ordeal by battle.

The trial was resumed the following day, the King, who was present, showing himself entirely in favour of the prisoner. The case was placed in the hands of a commission of Lords, who brought in a verdict of not guilty. But they were not going to allow Brembre to escape. They sent for the Mayor and Aldermen. Thus (I quote R.R. Sharpe):—

“One would have thought that with Nicholas Exton, his old friend and ally, to speak up for him, Brembre’s life would now at least be saved, even if he were not altogether acquitted. It was not so, however. The Mayor and Aldermen were asked as to their opinion (not as to their knowledge), whether Brembre was cognisant of certain matters, and they gave it as their opinion that Brembre was more likely to have been cognisant of them than not. Turning then to the Recorder, the lords asked him how stood the law in such a case? To which he replied, that a man who knew such things as were laid to Brembre’s charge, and knowing them failed to reveal them, deserved death. On such evidence as this, Brembre was convicted on the 20th February, and condemned to be executed. He was drawn on a hurdle through the City to Tyburn, showing himself very penitent, and earnestly desiring all persons to pray for him. At the last moment he confessed that his conduct towards Northampton had been vile and wicked. Whilst craving pardon of Northampton’s son, ‘he was suddenly turned off, and the executioner cutting his throat, he died.’” (London and the Kingdom, vol. i. p. 237.)

The history of Brembre shows that he was a strong man, at least, and fearless in a time when charges of treason were easily concocted and ruthlessly applied, when the King, his protector, was young and weak, and when the other side, which had with them the craftsmen of London, was strong and well-organised.

In looking upon the long struggle of the craftsmen against their employers, there are certain considerations which we must not forget.

It was really inevitable that the masters, the employers, would have the control, such as I have pointed out, in every trade. The men, quite ignorant of the very rudest principles of political economy, living from week to week, asking at most nothing but the weekly wage and cheap food, presently began to question. Why should the masters rule everything? Why should not the men command their own wages and their own hours? The questions, which we hear all around us at the present day, were asked six hundred years ago. The working men formed combinations, or unions, of their own; they kept on trying to form these combinations; the number of cases that have been recorded, which were certainly not the whole number, or anything like it, prove a deep and widespread discontent, and a sullen resolve of the working men to take, if possible, the management of their work into their own hands. They failed, however, and their failure was absolute and complete. They were brought before the Mayor and Aldermen; their combinations were dissolved; they were sent back to their company; no union, or association, or combination of working men was permitted to London outside the company. Let me take one case in illustration, that of David Brekenhof. This man, with half-a-dozen others, was brought before the Mayor, charged with rebellion against employers. They had broken off from the company; they had left the dwelling-places assigned to them; they had taken a house in another parish; here they had set up workshops for themselves; they called assemblies of other working men; they settled their own wages; they hustled and wounded one of the masters who went to expostulate with them; they rescued their companions from arrest when they were seized by the serjeants of the City. This, you will observe, was a very determined effort, coupled with assemblies of other working men, and backed by the appeal to arms. The sentence of the Mayor shows how seriously the danger was regarded. He did not dare to arouse a spirit of revenge among the working men. These offenders were left unpunished; they were simply told to give up their house; to go back to their company, and to resume work in obedience. And so David Brekenhof and his rebels vanish again and we hear no more of them. And until the nineteenth century there were no more combinations of working men in London.

With the ideas of the present day, this refusal to allow the craftsmen to combine seems tyrannical. We must go back, however, to the ideas of the thirteenth century. The assumption, the theory, the belief, that the working classes ought to have any voice in the management of their own affairs, if it lingered anywhere in London of the thirteenth century, was a survival of the Folk Mote, the Citizens’ Parliament, of Paul’s Cross. The Folk Mote still continued; it was used for party purposes; it had no real power, but it kept alive the memory of power. It ceased to be held after the thirteenth century; it died out when a Court of Common Council was formed, and it is significant that when the old Folk Parliament ceased to meet we hear no more of the revolt of working men against the companies.

What a citizen like Whittington thought and said was something like this: “In a great city the governing class should be wealthy, enlightened, and instructed. It should know the ports of trade, the demand for imports, the markets for exports, the limits of production, the figures which are needed to arrive at wages and retail price. It must also, in an age of artificial courtesy, understand good manners, and not be afraid to stand before kings. As for the men of the other class, who have no knowledge, save of a single trade, it is best for the State that they should be under rule and governance.” And to the best of his ability, Whittington, who was a stern Magistrate yet a just man, did keep the people under rule and governance. I believe that the mediÆval masters were, as a rule, and up to their lights, benevolent; they did look after their people; they gave them wages which allowed a higher standard of living than was possible for any other working men in the world; they looked after the old, and they brought up the young.

For myself, I cannot but think that had the craftsmen then obtained their desire, the result would have been disastrous to the fortunes of the City. London would have become another Ghent or Bruges; it would be, now, a city of deserted trade. The time was not yet ready for the rule of the people by the people. They wanted education, experience, suffering, before they were able to rule. As yet they understood nothing, absolutely nothing, about liberties; they wanted nothing but the control over their own work. I think, in a word, that Whittington’s views were right for a man of Whittington’s time.

CHAPTER VI
THE CENTURY OF UNCERTAIN STEPS

Whether the Mayor was elected immediately after the concession of the Commune, or a year or two later, as happened in certain French towns, matters very little. The point of importance is that even after his election, and that of the Council, his powers were ill-defined. During the reign of Richard the First, while he was not even recognised by the King, we can understand that a wise Mayor would not seek to magnify his office; it would be safer to allow the Commune to go on quietly, so as to accustom the King to its existence. This, I take it, was the policy of Henry FitzAylwin, the first Mayor, during his three-and-twenty years’ tenure of office.

It may be assumed that the duties and the authority of the Guild Merchant were at once transferred to the Mayor and his Council. But what were the duties of that body? What were its powers? What were its limits? In order to show the uncertainty on this subject, remember that when Walter Hervey was Mayor he gave Charters to certain trades. It was not contended that the Mayor had no right to grant Charters, but that these Charters had no effect after his Mayoralty came to an end. The powers of the Mayor were as yet uncertain; it was not thought desirable to limit or to define them too closely. Therefore the right of the Mayor to grant Charters was not questioned. At the same time, it was no doubt felt, and quite rightly, that for any one Mayor to grant Charters without consulting the Aldermen and the more “discreet” citizens might impose intolerable mischiefs upon the City.

Yet, a hundred years later, we find the trades drawing up ordinances for the regulation of their own crafts, and praying that they might be accepted and placed under the protection of the Mayor and Aldermen. In the meantime, it is obvious, the power and the authority of the Mayor had been more clearly defined. The statutes placed under his protection were also placed under the protection of the Court of Aldermen.

One more point to illustrate the uncertainty introduced by the new order. In the year 1200, according to the book which will form the text of this chapter, a Council of twenty-five “of the more discreet men of the City” were sworn to assist the Mayor. Round, as we have seen (p. 18), shows that the number was not twenty-five, but twenty-four; he has discovered their oath, which did not in any way resemble the oath of an Alderman; and he has adduced other instances of such a Council. So that there can be no doubt whatever as to its existence. Now in the same book, which records its creation and carries the chronicle of the City down to the year 1273, there is not a single word said about this Council. We hear of the Aldermen, the more discreet citizens, and the principal citizens. But not one word about the Council. Either, therefore, which one can hardly believe, the Council was allowed to drop out of existence, or, which is much more likely, it was a purely civic body, not recognised by the Charters and with no legal powers; a body which acquired its importance from the Mayor of the year, and was more in evidence a kind of private advisory committee with which the Mayor could take counsel if he wished, or which he could neglect if he wished.

The book, which I have called the Text-book of the present chapter, is the Chronicle printed by the Camden Society from the Liber de Antiquis Legibus, by Arnold FitzThedmar. This book is, of all the mediÆval documents connected with the history of London, perhaps the most important. For it is the work of a contemporary, one who took part in the events which he describes, a strong partisan yet fair to his enemies; evidently a man of the highest honour and principle, and as much a condemner of the common people as any old Tory of 1832.

His family history shows the ease with which foreigners were admitted in the twelfth century to reside in, to trade in, and to become citizens of, the City of London.

His grandfather, named Arnald, or Arnold, or Arnulf, was a merchant of Cologne. He married one Ode, of the same town, with whom he lived for some years without children. Hearing, however, of the miracles performed daily by St. Thomas À Becket, the pair crossed the seas and made a pilgrimage to the shrine at Canterbury, imploring the favour of the Saint in the matter of offspring. This done, they went on to visit the famous City of London. Here the wife found that St. Thomas had heard, and had granted her prayers. The pair accordingly remained in London until the child was born. Then they bought a house and remained altogether in London. They had eleven children, of whom six died young. One of the surviving daughters was Juliana, who married a native of Bremen, also a resident merchant in London. The youngest son, Arnold, was the author of the Chronicle before us. A miraculous dream, he proudly tells us, accompanied his birth. Most mediÆval families were able to point with pride to miraculous interpositions and dreams. In this case, as Arnold himself says, the difference between the log of wood and the slab of marble which formed the dream was known to God only. And so we may leave it.

Arnold became a man of considerable wealth. He was an Alderman, and when the City was fined 20,000 marks by Henry and 1000 marks for his brother, Richard of Almaine, his tallage amounted to 132 marks, or nearly a hundred and fifth part of the whole. The way of assessment was as follows:—He first paid four marks and forty pence for his house; then 20 marks “by inquisition of his neighbours”; then an increase of five marks; after that an assessment of 100 marks in a lump sum by John Waleran, Constable of the Tower, and William Hazelbech, commissioner, for the assessment appointed by the King. After that, half a mark, and then fifteen shillings on his rent. From this assessment it appears that the principal part of the fine must have been paid by the wealthy sort. Arnold had a good deal of trouble over the business, being annoyed by Walter Hervey and by Henry Waleys in succession for not having paid enough. However, he obtained protection from King Henry first and King Edward next.

Let us now proceed to show, from Arnold’s book, the “uncertain steps” of the City during the century of the new order.

The office of Alderman was passing out of the hereditary stage; there was a strong sense among the people that the City offices were to be held during good conduct only. Thus, in 1216, Jacob Alderman (had he no other designation either of trade or of birth?), being Mayor, was turned out by the King and another Mayor appointed. We have seen that in 1233 Symon FitzMary was turned out of his Shrievalty for wasting the City property. In 1248 the same citizen was deprived of his Aldermanry for siding with Margery Vyel. In 1254, on account of the escape of a criminal, the Sheriffs were deprived of office. In 1257 eight of the Aldermen were deposed for alleged malpractices.

The list of sixty-two names given in Appendix III. rescues from oblivion almost as many Aldermen of the thirteenth century. If we look into the names we can pick out with some degree of certainty those which belong to the aristocratic party, including the old City families and some of those which had become naturalised. Thus, we have Aswy, Basing, Blunt, Bukerel, Farndon, or Farringdon, Fulk, Gisors, Hardel, Haverhill, de Lisle, Renger, Sperling, Rokesley, Tovy, Tidmar (one Arnold FitzThedmar), Vyel, etc., about one-third of the whole.

We then find certain names without surnames at all, such as Adrian, Edmund, Geoffrey, Matthew; we are surely justified in concluding that they belonged to crafts; names such as FitzMary and FitzAlice, which indicate a mother but not a father; names where the father’s is also a Christian name, as Thomas FitzThomas, who, we know from FitzThedmar, belonged to the popular party; names of trades, as Cordwainer, Ferrun, and Potter. These may all be assigned to the popular party, and they account for nearly another third. There remain about twenty-five names which are local, as William de Hereford, of whom it is difficult to pronounce with any certainty. It is, however, certain that in the thirteenth century a good deal had been already effected in the breaking down of the oligarchy and the entrance upon office of the popular side.

There can be little doubt that Henry throughout his whole reign was bitterly hostile to the City. On the other hand, the City, it must be acknowledged, with its turbulence and its claims of privilege and liberty, gave a despotic monarch a great deal of annoyance. Henry’s principal weapon of retaliation was to take the City into his own hands, i.e. to depose Mayor and Sheriffs, to deprive the Aldermen of their powers, and to appoint a Warden. In 1245, on a charge of harbouring a traitor, Henry took over the City, restoring the Charter after inflicting a fine of £1000. In 1247, during the famous case of Margery Vyel, the King again took the City into his own hands (see p. 46). Also in 1249, after the tumult of the populace against the Abbot of Westminster; in 1254, on the plea of mal-observance of the assize of bread, really in consequence of the quarrel between Richard of Almaine and the City; in 1259, when the City refused to pay the “Queen’s Gold”; in 1257, when the “Green” roll gave an occasion to make inquisition into the tallages; in 1263, after the Battle of Evesham; in 1265, the reason not stated; in 1266, after Gloucester had held the City. This is a considerable list of offences and punishments.

As regards the election to the City offices, there was a great deal of uncertainty with many changes. In 1265 only one Sheriff was allowed. In 1267 the City was ordered to elect, and to present to the King, six persons, from whom the King would choose two for Sheriffs.

The Folk Mote was used throughout this period as a weapon against the aristocratic party. The popular leaders, William Longbeard, Thomas FitzThomas, Walter Hervey, all made use of the Folk Mote. The King made use of it, notably after the Green Roll business, when he sent Maunsell to persuade the people as he pleased. It was at a Folk Mote in 1241, and at another in 1259, that the King took formal leave of the City before going to Gascony. It was charged against Thomas FitzThomas that he pampered the people, calling them the “Commons of the City,” calling them together at Folk Mote asking them what was their will without consulting the Aldermen at all. So that the people leagued themselves together, broke into the houses of usurers, removed encroachments, threw open rights of way; and in many other ways showed a rude, but resolute, desire to obtain justice. Again, in 1271, on the disputed election of Walter Hervey, the people raised the cry, “We are the Commons of the City. To us belongs the election of the Mayor.”

With all this apparent tyranny, it is quite certain that the King always recognised the importance of London. He stood by the City in their determination not to allow the Thames fisheries to be ruined; he granted their very reasonable request that Jews, “held in warranty by Writ of Exchequer,” should plead before citizens as to tenements in London, and that Jewish “cheirographs,” i.e. keepers of “starrs,” or deeds and covenants of Jews, should be tallaged like any other people. His brother Richard, although continually at variance with the City, wrote a most friendly and interesting letter on his reception in Germany. When the King introduced his new gold coinage, he took the advice of the City on the measure, and because they were opposed to it, he made it optional whether the people took the gold coinage or not. He granted the prayer of the City that pleas of the citizens relating to debt should be heard in the City only and before the Sheriffs. In 1268, when the King granted to his son Edward customs on everything that came into England or went out, and Edward had leased the grant to certain Italians, the City petitioned the Prince against a continuance of this burden. The Prince resigned the privilege, and so eased the City.

A great deal more might be extracted from this short chronicle. Enough, however, has been taken to show the uncertainty of the City during the first century of the new order: the people always ready to assert their rights, fancied or real, as the Commons; the Aldermen standing, as a rule, for the old rights; the King taking offence, often, one acknowledges, deservedly, and revenging himself by taking the City into his own hands, by fines, by depositions, by refusals to receive Mayor or Sheriffs; nothing settled as to the rights and methods of procedure in elections, or in continuance of office, or in the power and authority of the Mayor, while of the new Council of twenty-four, as I have said, not one single word.

In the next chapter we shall have to consider the City under its new form of government, after the powers of the various offices have been defined and the manner of election has been settled.

CHAPTER VII
AFTER THE COMMUNE

In the year of our Lord 1419, John Carpenter completed his great work on the temporal government of the City of London, the Liber Albus. It is in this work that we find the only complete description of the administration of the City as it was at the beginning of the fifteenth century, with all the officers, their duties, and their responsibilities, and the laws which governed the citizens.

The author was Town Clerk from the year 1417 to 1438. He was twice Member of Parliament for the City; he was executor to Whittington; and he was buried in the Church of St. Peter, Cornhill.

The book itself, and a copy made in 1582, are preserved in the Crypt of the Guildhall. Riley, who looked through the copy, says that it abounds in errors which have never been corrected. His own translation was made from the original, which has long since lost the purity of aspect from which it derives its title. Some one has written on the cover the following Latin lines:—

The design of the work is thus laid down by John Carpenter himself:—

“Forasmuch as the fallibility of human memory and the shortness of life do not allow us to gain an accurate knowledge of everything that deserves remembrance, even though the same may have been committed to writing, more especially, if it has been so committed without order or arrangement, and still more so, when no such written account exists; seeing, too, that when, as not unfrequently happens, all the aged, most experienced, and most discreet rulers of the Royal City of London have been carried off at the same instance, as it were, by pestilence, younger persons who have succeeded them in the government of the City have, on various occasions, been often at a loss from the very want of such written information; the result of which has repeatedly been disputes and perplexity among them as to the decisions which they should give; it has long been deemed necessary, as well by the superior authorities of the said City as by those of subordinate rank, that a volume—from the fact of its containing the regulations of the City, it might be designated a ‘Repertory’—should be compiled from the more noteworthy memoranda that lie scattered without order or classification throughout the books and rolls, as well as the Charters of the said City. And forasmuch as such design—for some cause unknown, unless, indeed, it be the extreme laboriousness of the undertaking—has not been heretofore carried into effect, a volume of this nature, by favour of our Lord, is now at length compiled, in the Mayoralty of that illustrious man, Richard Whityngton, Mayor of the said City; that is to say, in the month of November, in the year of our Lord’s Incarnation one thousand four hundred and nineteen, being the seventh year of the reign of King Henry, the fifth of that name since the Conquest; containing therein not only those laudable observances, which, though not written, have been usually followed and approved in the said City, to the end that they may not be lost in oblivion hereafter, but also those noteworthy memoranda which have been committed to writing, but lie scattered in disorder in manner before mentioned; that so, by their being ascertained, the superior authorities of the said City, as well as those of subordinate rank, may know henceforth with greater accuracy what in rare and unusual emergencies should be done.”

I purpose in this chapter to make such extracts, quotations, and abridgments from the book as shall serve to explain in general terms, avoiding the minute details with which the book is crowded, the nature of the government of the City in the time of Whittington.

The author treats first of the offices of Mayor, Alderman, and Sheriff. The office of Mayor, he says, ignoring the subtleties of shire law and commune, was originally called Portgrave or Portreeve; he was the King’s representative in the City, Escheator, Chamberlain, and Justiciar, as well as Portreeve. By the Charter of Henry III., the Barons of the City11 were confirmed in the Privilege of electing their own Mayor every year. The election of the Mayor was an event greatly feared on account of the danger of a riot if the people were allowed to rush tumultuously into the Guildhall. A custom grew up, therefore, for the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs to meet together some days before the election, and so order things as to meet the danger. They therefore selected certain discreet citizens, so many from each ward, and summoned them by name to be present at the election on the Day of St. Edward, King and Confessor, and on that day no one was allowed in the Guildhall who had not been summoned.

Disputes arose between the Aldermen and the commoners thus selected, the latter claiming the nomination of the Mayor. The Aldermen, however, refused to allow this claim, on the ground that they, too, were citizens, and therefore entitled to vote. They therefore arrived at a compromise by which the commoners, one end of the Hall, nominated two Aldermen who had already served as Sheriffs, and presented their names to the Mayor and Aldermen at the other end, who proceeded to elect one of them.

In the early years of the Mayoralty the same Mayor was often re-elected; the reason why this custom obtained, was that at first the office brought with it no expenses; when, however, the Mayor had to give liveries, to conduct ridings, to maintain servants, and to hold feasts, the expense was generally too great for one man to support for more than a year. When the practice had become common for the Mayor to retire after one year, then, and not till then, the Aldermen went through the form of offering him a second term as a compliment.

“The feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude being now come, about the tenth hour by the clock, it was the custom for the Mayor, all the Aldermen—arrayed in cloaks of violet,—and numerous commoners, to meet together at the Guildhall. Silence and attention being then enjoined by the Common Crier, in other words, the Serjeant-at-arms, and duly made, the Recorder, seated at the right hand of the Mayor, announced to the people that, in conformity with the ancient usage of the City, upon that day he who was to be Mayor for the then ensuing year was to take the oath. Then it was the custom also for him to compliment the outgoing Mayor upon such points as deserved commendation; and the Mayor, too, if he had anything to say, was duly heard. This done, the outgoing Mayor vacated his seat, and the Mayor-elect took his place; the past Mayor, however, sitting next to him, on his left hand. Then the Common Serjeant-at-arms, holding before him the book with the Kalendar, with the effigy of Him crucified on the outside thereof, and he in the meantime placing his hand upon the book, the Common Clerk read to him the oath that he was about to make on the morrow in the King’s Exchequer. When he had made the promise and duly kissed the book, the old Mayor delivered to him the Seal of the Statute Merchant, together with the Seal of the Mayoralty, enclosed in two purses. The new Mayor was also heard, if he had anything to say, by way of entreating the aid of his fellow-Aldermen during his time, as also the Sheriffs and substantial men of the community, for the better government of the City.”

On the day after, the Mayor took the oath at the Exchequer:—

“On the morrow of the Feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude, provided such day was not Sunday—in which case the ensuing Monday was substituted,—it was the custom for both the new and the past Mayor, and the Aldermen as well, in a like suit of robes, attended by the Sheriffs, and as many as were of the Mayor’s livery and of the several mysteries, arrayed in their respective suits, to meet on horseback upon the place without the Guildhall about nine by the clock, the sword being borne upright before the person nominated as Mayor. Departing thence, they rode together along Chepe, through the gate of Newgate, and then, turning into Flete-street, passed on to Westminster.

Upon their arrival there, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs alighted from their horses, and, preceded by the mace-bearers and Mayor’s sword-bearer, ascended to the room of the Exchequer, where were the Chancellor, Treasurer, Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal, and Barons of the Exchequer. The Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs then standing at the Bar, the Recorder stated how that the City of London, in accordance with its ancient customs and liberties, had chosen N. as Mayor for the year then next ensuing, requesting the Barons, on behalf of the City, to accept the individual so elected, who then and there appeared in person. Answer being made by the chief Baron, or his representative, that it was their pleasure so to do, the book was presented to the Mayor, placing his hand upon which, he was charged with the same oath that he had made at the Guildhall.”

This oath is given in full in Liber Albus, and we may compare it with that of an Alderman on p. 78.

“You shall swear, that well and lawfully you shall serve our lord the King in the office of the Mayoralty in the City of London, and the same City you shall surely and safely keep to the behoof of the King of England, and of his heirs, Kings of England; and the profit of the King you shall do in all things that unto you belong to do, and the rights of the King, in so far as unto the Crown they belong within the said City, you shall lawfully keep. You shall not assent unto the decrease, or unto the concealment of the rights or of the franchises of the King; and where you shall know the rights of the King or of the Crown, be it in lands, or in rents, or in franchises, or in suits, to be concealed or withdrawn, to your utmost power you shall do to repel it; and if you cannot do it, you shall tell it unto the King, or unto them of his Council, of whom you shall be certain that they will tell it unto the King. And that lawfully and rightfully you will treat the people of your bailiwick, and right will do unto every one thereof, as well unto strangers as to denizens, to poor as to rich, in that which belongeth unto you to do; and that neither for highness, nor for riches, nor for promise, nor for favour, nor for hate, wrong you shall do unto any one; nor the right of any one shall you disturb, nor shall you take anything whereby the King may lose, or by which his right may be disturbed. And that in all things which unto the Mayor of the said City it pertaineth to do, as well in the regulation of victuals as in all other things, well and lawfully you shall behave yourself.—So God you help, and the Saints.”

This done, it was the custom for the chief Baron of the Exchequer, on behalf of the King and the Lords, to charge the Mayor in especial to preserve peace and tranquillity in the said City; and then, to the best of his ability, so to exercise surveillance over the sellers of all kinds of provisions, as not to allow the public to suffer from excessive prices. And after this, it was the usage for the late Mayor there to present himself as ready to account for his office as Escheator; whereupon he also was sworn to render a good and faithful account of the said office, appointing there such person as he might think proper to act as his attorney in passing his accounts.

The Mayor also and Aldermen, in behalf of the City, appointed a member of the Exchequer as attorney of the said City, to challenge and claim their liberties, as and when necessity might demand; after which, upon receiving leave from their lordships, they withdrew. In like manner also, in the Common Bench, they appointed a member of that place to act as attorney for the City. But in the King’s Bench it was the custom for them to appoint two attorneys, jointly and severally, to claim the liberties and ancient customs of the said City, as and when necessity might demand. Which done, they returned, the commons preceding on horseback in companies, arrayed in the suits of their respective mysteries. Those, however, who were members of the mystery to which the Mayor belonged, as also those who were of his livery, proceeded next before the Mayor. No person, however, moved so close to the Mayor but that there was a marked space between, while the serjeants-at-arms, the mace-bearers, and his sword-bearer, went before him, with one Sheriff on his right hand, and the other on his left, bearing white wands in their hands. The Recorder and the other Aldermen followed next in order, and accompanied him through the middle of the market of Westchepe to his house, after which they returned home, as many, that is, as had not been invited to the feast.

On the same day, after dinner, it was the custom for the new Mayor to proceed from his house to the Church of Saint Thomas de Acon, those of his livery preceding him; and after the Aldermen had there assembled, they then proceeded together to the Church of Saint Paul. Upon arriving there, at a spot, namely, in the middle of the nave of the Church, between the two small doors, it was the custom to pray for the soul of Bishop William, who, by his entreaties, it is said, obtained from his lordship, William the Conqueror, great liberties for the City of London; the priest repeating the De Profundis. They then moved on to the churchyard, where lie the bodies of the parents of Thomas, late Archbishop of Canterbury; and there they also repeated the De Profundis, etc., in behalf of all the faithful of God departed, near the grave of his parents before mentioned. After this, they returned through the market of Chepe (sometimes with lighted torches, if it was late) to the said Church of Saint Thomas, and there the Mayor and Aldermen made an offering of one penny each; which done, every one returned to his home, and the morning and the evening were one day.

We come next to the office of Alderman. The Aldermen had of old not only the style and title of Barons, but were buried with baronial honours:—

“For in the church where the Alderman was about to be buried, a person appeared upon a caparisoned horse, arrayed in the armour of the deceased, bearing a banner in his hand, and carrying upon him the shield, helmet, and the rest of his arms, along with the banner, as is still the usage at the sepulture of lords of baronial rank. But by reason of the sudden and frequent changes of the Aldermen, and the repeated occurrence of pestilence, this ceremonial in London gradually died out and disappeared. From this, however, it is evident what high honour was paid to the Aldermen in ancient times.”

The election of an Alderman was after the manner following:—

“It is the custom for the Mayor to proceed to the Ward that is vacant, and, at the place where the Wardmote of such Ward is usually held, to cause to be summoned before him by the bedel all the Freemen who inhabit such Ward, should he think proper: and there forthwith, if they are willing and able, or else on a given day, the Alderman is to be elected by the greater and more substantial portion of them, provided always, that fifteen days do not expire before making such election; for in such case, the Mayor is bound, and has been wont, with the counsel of his fellow-Aldermen, to appoint some man who is honest, rich, and circumspect, to be Alderman of such Ward. It is the duty also of the men of such Ward, when they have made their election, in manner already stated, to present the person so elected to the Mayor and Aldermen for admission.

And if the person elected, after he has been admitted, shall refuse to accept or undertake such charge, by custom of the City he shall lose his freedom; and he is not to be readmitted to the same without making a notable fine and ransom. But if the person so elected is duly admitted, in such case he shall take the oath that is entered in the Second Part of Book III. of the present volume, folio 125; provided always, that if the Mayor and Aldermen, for some notable cause, shall not think proper to admit the person elected, the Ward shall proceed again to make a more suitable election. But if the Wardsmen shall refuse to do this, or if, from malevolence and pride of heart, they shall elect some other person whom the Court, taking into consideration the advantage and honour of the City, cannot so far demean itself as to accept, it is the usage for the Mayor and Aldermen, as in the former case, after waiting fifteen days, to elect and admit another.” (Liber Albus, pp. 35-36.)

This is the form of oath taken by the newly elected Alderman:—

“You shall swear, that well and lawfully you shall serve our lord the King in the City of London, in the office of Alderman in the Ward of N, wherein you are chosen Alderman, and shall lawfully treat and inform the people of the same Ward of such things as unto them pertain to do, for keeping the City, and for maintaining the peace within the City; and that the laws, usages, and franchises of the said City you shall keep and maintain, within town and without, according to your wit and power. And that attentive you shall be to save and maintain the rights of orphans, according to the laws and usages of the said City. And that ready you shall be, and readily shall come, at the summons and warning of the Mayor and ministers of the said City, for the time being, to speed the Assizes, Pleas, and Judgments of the Hustings, and other needs of the said City, if you be not hindered by the needs of our lord the King, or by other reasonable cause; and that good lawful counsel you shall give for such things as touch the common profit in the same City. And that you shall sell no manner of victuals by retail; that is to say, bread, ale, wine, fish or flesh, by you, your apprentices, hired persons, servants, or by any other; nor profit shall you take of any such manner of victuals sold during your office. And that well and lawfully you shall (behave) yourself in the said office, and in other things touching the City.—So God you help, and the Saints.” (Liber Albus, p. 267.)

Formerly, says the author, the wards were called after their Aldermen, as the Ward of Anketill de Auvern, the Ward of Henry le Frowyk, and others; but afterwards the Aldermen were called after their wards.

The person of the Alderman was sacred. If a man struck an Alderman he had his hand struck off; if he defamed an Alderman he was pilloried and imprisoned.

The Alderman held his office for life. He was the magistrate, almost despotic, of his own ward; he had his officers or serjeants to attend him; and he presided at the Court called the Ward Mote, by which inquiry was made into the condition of the ward.

The Sheriffs were elected on the Day of St. Matthew, the 21st of September.

“As concerning the election of sheriffs,—the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen and Commons, are to be assembled on the day of Saint Matthew the Apostle [September 21], in such manner as is ordained on the election of the Mayor; and in the first place, the Mayor shall choose of his own free will, a reputable man, free of the City, to be one of the Sheriffs for the ensuing year; for whom he is willing to answer as to one-half of the ferm of the City due to the King, if he who is so elected by the Mayor shall prove not sufficient. But if the Mayor elect him by counsel and with the assent of the Aldermen, they also ought to be answerable with him. And those who are elected for the Common Council, themselves, and the others summoned by the Mayor for this purpose, as before declared, shall choose another Sheriff, for the commonalty; for whom all the commonalty is bound to be answerable as to the other half of the ferm so due to the King, in case he shall prove not sufficient. And if any controversy arise between the commons as to the election, the matter is to proceed and be discussed in such manner as is contained in the article upon the ‘Common Council’ in the 13th Chapter of this First Book.

And if any one of those then chosen to be Sheriffs shall refuse or absent himself, so as not to be ready at the Guildhall in the Vigil of Saint Michael next ensuing, at ten by the clock, there to receive his charge, there shall be levied forthwith from the goods, lands, and tenements of him who so absents himself, one hundred pounds; one-half to the use of the Chamber, and the other half to the use of him who shall be then suddenly elected and charged by reason of such default. And if the second person elected shall refuse the charge, all his goods, lands, and tenements, shall be arrested, for all expenses touching that office.

And the old Sheriffs shall come to the Guildhall, at eleven by the clock at the very latest, and shall deliver to the Mayor (at the latest, at the Mayor’s general Court that is held after the Feast of the Epiphany) all records of pleas touching freeholds pleaded before them in their time, with all other memoranda touching recoveries suffered by any person, under a penalty of one hundred shillings, to be levied from each of them and to be paid to the use of the Chamber. To do which, the Mayor shall warn them the day on which they shall receive their charge. And then the Mayor shall deliver the Cocket12 to such Sheriff as he himself shall have chosen, and the records to the Chamberlain for safe custody.” (Liber Albus, Riley’s translation, pp. 39-40.)

The following was the oath of the Sheriffs:—

“You shall swear, that you shall be good and true unto N, the King of England, and his heirs, and the franchise of the City of London you shall save and maintain, within the City and without, according to your power; and that well and lawfully you shall keep the Counties of London and of Middlesex, and the offices which unto the same Counties appertain to be done, well and lawfully you shall do, according to your wit and power; and that right you shall do as well to poor as to rich; and that no good custom you shall break, or evil one maintain. And that the assizes of bread, and of ale, and all other assizes which unto you pertain, within the franchise of the City and without, well and lawfully you shall keep and shall cause to be kept. And that the judgments and executions of your Court you shall not delay without reasonable cause, nor any right disturb; and that the Writs which unto you shall come, touching the state and the franchise of the City, you shall not return before you have shown them unto the Mayor, for the time being, and unto the Council of the City, and of them have advice. And that ready you shall be, at reasonable warning of the Mayor, for keeping and maintaining the peace and state of the City. And that all other things which pertain unto your office and the keeping of the said Counties, lawfully you shall do, by you and yours, and the said City shall keep from harm, according to your wit and power. And that the County of Middlesex or the keeping of the Gaol of Newgate you shall not let to ferm.—So God you help, and the Saints.” (Liber Albus, pp. 266-267.)

When the Sheriffs were sworn all their servants had to take oath: their serjeants, clerks, valets, bailiffs of the customs and of Middlesex, and the gaoler of Newgate and his clerk; and the same day the Sheriffs were to go to Newgate and to take over the prisoners there; observe, by the terms of their oath, that they were not allowed to let the gaol “to ferm” nor the County of Middlesex.

Other officers were the Recorder, who was to be, on appointment, a barrister of less than sixteen years’ standing, the Chamberlain, the Common Serjeant-at-Law, and the Common Clerk. And there were inferior officers, clerks and serjeants.

Leaving the officers, John Carpenter goes on to show how the Barons and the community must behave towards the King and his Justiciars: in other words, he speaks of the method of receiving the King’s Writs and the Pleading of the Pleas of the Crown. Let us pass over these points, which are curious to the antiquary, and come to the methods of hearing criminal cases:—

“It is to be observed that, in accordance with the ancient liberties and customs of the City of London, there are three purgations in Pleas of the King’s Crown, by means whereof persons appealed, charged, and accused, are in duty bound to acquit themselves. The first of these is employed in cases of homicide or murder; such purgation being called the ‘Great Law.’ The second kind of purgation bears reference to mayhem, and is known as the ‘Middle Law.’ The third purgation is employed in cases of assault, battery, rapine, wounding, blows, bloodshed, and other injuries of a like nature, inflicted at the season of Our Lord’s Nativity and in the weeks of Easter and Pentecost; such purgation being styled the ‘Third Law.’

When a person is bound to clear himself by the Great Law, the mode of proceeding according to such law is as follows:—He who is so appealed, charged and accused, has to make oath in his own behalf six times, in his own proper person; to the effect, that is to say, on each occasion, that he is innocent and guiltless of felony and breach of the peace of his lord the King, as also of all crime so laid to his charge,—‘So God may help him and those holy Gospels.’ After this, six men are to make oath that, to the best of their conscience and understanding, the oath that he has so sworn is a sound oath and a safe,—‘So God may help them and those holy Gospels.’ And this proceeding shall be repeated until the number of six-and-thirty jurors is exhausted; due care being taken that on each occasion the person accused makes oath first, in form before stated, and then, after him, six men, until the number before mentioned is completed.

In selecting these six-and-thirty men, the procedure, according to the ancient usage of the City of London, is wont to be, and should be, as follows:—The person accused being absent, eighteen men must be chosen from the East side of Walebroke and eighteen men from the West side of Walebroke, persons who are not kinsmen, cousins, or members of the family of the accused, nor yet connected with him by marriage or in any other way, but only trustworthy men of the franchise of the City. The names of these persons are to be read to the accused; who, upon hearing them, shall show unto the Mayors and Barons of the City the names of such among them as he holds suspected. And if he shall show reasonable cause against them, the names of such persons shall be struck out of the written list, and others shall be chosen in their stead, to complete the aforesaid number and duly to be read before him. And when the accused shall be content with the names so entered, and shall have put himself upon them for clearing himself of the said accusation, then, by counsel of the City, he shall appear before the Justiciars of his lordship the King, at a certain time and place, to wage and make his law. But in accordance with the ancient usage of the City, such person shall have respite for making his law for a term of forty days at the least complete. And the names of the six-and-thirty men so chosen shall be delivered unto the Justiciars of his lordship the King.

In making the Middle Law, the procedure is as follows:—The person, namely, who is charged and appealed of mayhem has to take oath in his own behalf three times, in his own proper person; to the effect, that is to say, on each occasion, that he is innocent and guiltless of that felony, and of breach of the peace of his lord the King, as also of all crime so laid to his charge,—‘So God may help him and those holy Gospels.’ After him also, six men are to make oath that the oath that he has so sworn is a lawful oath and a safe, to the best of their conscience and understanding,—‘So God may help them and the holy Gospels.’ And this proceeding shall be repeated until the number of eighteen jurors is exhausted; due care being taken that on each occasion the person accused makes oath first, in form before stated, and then, after him, six men, until the number before mentioned is completed.

In selecting such eighteen men, the same procedure is to be observed as is set forth above in all matters relating to the Great Law before mentioned.

In making the Third Law, the procedure is as follows:—A person accused of assault, battery, rapine, wounding, blows, bloodshed, and other injuries of a like nature, inflicted at the holy seasons before named, has to make oath once in his own behalf, in his own proper person; to the effect that he is innocent and guiltless of the misdeed laid to his charge, and of breach of the peace of his lord the King at the holy seasons above mentioned,—‘So God may help him and those holy Gospels.’ After him also, six men are to make oath that the oath that he has so sworn is a lawful oath and a safe, to the best of their conscience and understanding,—‘So God may help them and those holy Gospels.’ And be it known, that these six men should be chosen of the venue in which the person so accused is dwelling; provided always, that they are not cousins, or kinsmen, or members of his family, nor yet connected with him by marriage, or in any other way, but only trustworthy men of that venue and of the franchise of the City. And the names of such persons shall be read to the accused, etc., as above stated under the Great Law.”

The old custom of holding the Folk Mote was still kept up though the Common Council now performed its most important functions:—

“There are three principal Folkmotes in the year. One is at the feast of Saint Michael, to know who shall be Sheriff, and to hear the charges given. The second is at Christmas, to arrange the Wards. The third is at the feast of Saint John (24th June), to protect the City from fire, by reason of the great drought. If any man of London neglects to attend at one of these three Folkmotes, he is to forfeit forty shillings to the King. But, by the Law of London, the Sheriff ought to enquire after him whom he shall think proper, that is to say, whether he is there or not. And if there be any one who is not there, and he is there enquired after, such person ought to be summoned to the Hustings, if he is bound to abide by the law of the city. If the good man says that he was not summoned, the same must be known through the bedel of the Ward. If the bedel says at the Hustings that he was summoned, even where it is proved that the bedel has no other witness, no witness needs he have, save the great bell that is rung for the Folkmote at St. Paul’s.”

The most important Court was that called the Hustings:—

“Be it made known, that all lands, and tenements, rents and services, within the City of London and the suburbs thereof, are pleadable at the Guildhall in the same city, at the two Hustings; of which the one Hustings is called ‘Hustings of Pleas of Land,’ and the other Hustings is called ‘Hustings of Common Pleas’; which Hustings are holden in the said Guildhall, before the Mayor and Sheriffs of the same city, upon the Monday and Tuesday in each week; that is to say, upon Monday, for demanding appearance of demandants, and for the award of nonsuits, and the allowing of essoins; and upon Tuesday, for the award of defaults, and for pleading—certain seasons and Feast-days excepted, as well as other reasonable causes; at which times no Hustings can be held, by usage of the city aforesaid. It should also be known, that the Hustings of Pleas of Land must be held one week apart by itself, and that of Common Pleas the next week apart by itself, upon the days aforesaid; but the enrolments and titles of the said Hustings make mention of Monday only.”

I am indebted to Dr. R. Sharpe’s Introduction to his Calendar of Wills for the following additional notes on the “Court of Husting.” (1) To begin with, it was the single institution which the Saxon borrowed from the Dane. “Husting” = Hus-thing, the cause or case pleaded in the House, instead of in the open air.

The Court of Husting is mentioned in the Laws of Edward the Confessor as the place where the Court of the King is held every Monday. It is the oldest Court of record in the City, and at one time constituted the sole court for settling disputes between citizen and citizen. After the establishment of the Mayor’s and Sheriff’s Court for the settlement of actions merely personal, all actions affecting laws were heard in the Court of Husting. It was a Court of appeal for the Sheriff’s Court, while appeal from the decisions might be heard by certain commissioners at St. Martin-le-Grand. There was, after this, final appeal to the House of Lords.

The Court sat for a long time on Monday only. Thus it became the custom to sit on Monday for purposes of demanding the appearance of defendants, the award of nonsuits and the allowing of essoins, i.e. excuses for non-appearance. The sitting of Tuesday was for the award of defaults and for pleading. Eventually the Monday sitting was discontinued.

During the fairs of Boston and Winchester, and during harvest-time, the Court did not sit.

The judges in the Court of Husting were the Mayor and Sheriffs, the Recorder sitting as assessor for the examination of witnesses and for preliminary judgment. As the Court could not be held in the absence of the Mayor, and great inconvenience was sometimes so caused, an Act was passed in 1584 providing that, if the Lord Mayor was prevented from attending by sickness, any Alderman who had passed the Chair might act for him. But as early as the thirteenth century it had become a custom for any Aldermen to be present in the Husting and to act as Judges.

It was the custom for the officer who summoned the Aldermen to the Court to show his respect for them and for the Court by riding a horse valued at a hundred shillings at least.

The Town Clerk was Registrar.

The Counsel employed in the Court were the four City pleaders; the attorneys were those of the Mayor’s clerk.

The reader is referred to Dr. Sharpe’s pages for details of the Common Pleas and Writs used in this Court.

Aliens could be admitted to the freedom of the City only by this Court.

Disputes as to building were decided by this Court.

It was even a place for public penance. Perjury was punished by imprisonment until the next Husting, when the offender was placed upon a high stool before all the people while his crime was read aloud. After this, he was set at liberty.

In this Court deeds and wills were enrolled.

In this Court land was conveyed by a method “described by Blackstone as a kind of real contract, whereby the bargainer for some pecuniary consideration bargains and sells, that is, contracts to convey the land to the bargainee, and becomes by such bargain a trustee for, or seised to the use of the bargainee, and then the Statute of Uses completes the purchase; in other words the bargain first vests the use, and then the statute vests the possession.” (Calendar of Wills, i. 23.)

Probate of Will naturally belonged to the Court which enrolled Wills.

The Court undertook the guardianship of orphans. The citizen of London had the right of devising part only of his property; a certain part of it going, with or without his wish, to his widow and children. This restriction was only removed by the 2nd Act of George the First. The widow, for instance, by the custom of the City, was entitled to one-third of his estate, the children to another third, the residue was at the free disposal of the testator and was known as the legatory or the dead man’s portion.

Among the wills enrolled in the Court of Husting, Sharpe mentions the following:—

“1. John de Kyrkeby, Bishop of Ely, who endowed his see with houses, vines, and gardens situate at Holborn, whose gift is remembered at the present day by the names of Ely Place, Vine Street, and Kirby Street, and whose gardens, part and parcel of the gift, call to mind the well-known lines put into the mouth of the Duke of Gloucester by Shakespeare (Richard III., Act iii. sc. 4):—

‘My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,

I saw good strawberries in your garden there.’

2. William de Farndon, Alderman of Farringdon Ward, to which he gave its name, and Nicholas [le Fevre?], who married his daughter, took his name, and became Alderman of his Ward, which he afterwards disposed of by will to John de Pulteneye, although the latter appears never to have been de facto Alderman of the Ward.

FACSIMILE OF HEADING OF ACCOUNT, 1575-1576, SHOWING COOPER AT WORK
From Coopers’ Company Illustrations.

A larger image is available here.

3. William de Elsing, the founder of Elsing Spital, on the site of which was afterwards built Sion College with its almhouses, one of the few picturesque relics of Old London which till lately remained to us, but now vanished.

4. William Walworth, whose prowess when Mayor against the rebel Wat Tyler at Smithfield is sufficiently well known.

5. Sir John Philpot, who was appointed joint treasurer with Walworth for receiving the subsidy granted to Richard II. on his accession, and who received the honour of knighthood with Walworth, Nicholas Brembre, and others.

6. John Northampton and Nicholas Exton, so long rivals of one another, the latter supporting Nicholas Brembre in his endeavour to sustain the monopoly enjoyed by the free fishmongers of the City, in opposition to the former.

7. Richard Whityngton, four times Mayor of London, whose munificent gifts and charitable acts need not be recorded here, as they are already household words.

8. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, Sir Andrew Judde, Sir Andrew Laxton, and many others whose names are associated with the cause of education, not only within the City of London, but in all parts of the country.

9. Sir Martin Bowes, the wealthy and charitable goldsmith, whose almhouses at Woolwich still bear witness to his generosity, and who bequeathed to the Mayor of the City of London for the time being and his successors a goodly cross of gold set with pearls and precious stones to hang at the collar of gold worn by the Mayor at high feasts, ‘as mentioned in the Repertory.’

10. And, lastly, Sir Thomas Gresham (not to mention numerous others), the founder of the College within the City which still bears his name, and to whose munificence the merchants of the City were indebted for their first bourse, or Royal Exchange.” (Calendar of Wills, ii. 2-4.)

The Courts of the City, therefore, were the Folk Mote and the Court of Husting, which gave the City a sense of unity though as yet there was no collective governing body and no Head or Chief to stand for the City.

There was, next, the Ward Mote, for the local business of each ward.

“The Wardmote is so called as being a meeting together by summons of all inhabitants of a Ward, in presence of its head, the Alderman, or else his deputy, for the correction of defaults, the removal of nuisances, and the promotion of the well-being of such Ward. The meetings that we call ‘Wardmotes,’ the Romans called plebiscita; the same in fact that were styled folkesmot by the Saxons in ancient times. The Aldermen were in the habit also, by virtue of warrants by the Mayor for the time being to them directed, to hold their Wardmotes, twice at least, or oftener, in the year; on which occasions enquiry used to be made as to the condition and tranquillity of the Ward, and such defaults as were presented were corrected by the Alderman, as hereafter will be shown.

The process of holding a Wardmote in London has customarily been as follows:—The Alderman, after receipt of the warrant, is to command his bedel to summon all such men as are householders, as well as all hired servants, in his Ward, to appear before him at a certain day and hour on the morrow of such summons, in a certain place within the same Ward, for the purpose of holding such Wardmote. These names, after the persons have been duly summoned, the bedel is to have entered in a certain roll, those of the freemen, namely, of the City who dwell in that Ward, by themselves, and those of the hired servants and non-freemen, by themselves. And when at the hour appointed they have duly met together, the Alderman having taken his seat with the more opulent men of the Ward, each in his proper place, the clerk of the Alderman is to enjoin the bedel, in behalf of such Aldermen, to command attention; which done it is the clerk’s duty to read aloud the warrant before mentioned, and then to read to the bedel the names that are entered in the roll; while the bedel in his turn proclaims aloud that every person who shall not, there present, answer to his name, and shall make default therein, shall be put down and amerced in the sum of four pence at the least. After this, the bedel is to present to the Alderman a panel, arrayed by the Constables of the Ward, of those reputable men of such Ward by whom Inquisition should be made; which array, if the Alderman shall deem it expedient, he shall be at liberty to amend. This done, the jurors are to have read to them all the articles touching such Wardmote. After this, a certain day for making their presentment is to be given by the Alderman to the jurors. On which day the jurors are to present their verdict indented, one part of it to remain in possession of the Alderman, and the other with the Ward. It is the duty also of the Alderman to present his part to the Mayor, at the sitting of his next General Court; to the end that, after it has been seen and enquired if there is any matter the correction of which pertains unto the Mayor and City, the aforesaid indenture may be redelivered to him, to be acted upon in other respects, etc.

And at the said Wardmote, there ought to be elected by the Alderman and reputable men of the Ward, as also by the jurors, the Scavagers, Ale-conners, Bedel, and other officials; who, at the General Court before mentioned, shall take the oaths befitting their respective offices. The Alderman also used to be specially certified by the bedel as to the names of such hostelers, brewers, bakers, cooks, victuallers, and auctioneers as dwelt within the Ward. Bakers also were to have their stamps there, the impressions of which were to be entered upon the Alderman’s paper; for doing which, every baker had to pay the Alderman four pence, unless it so happened that he had previously paid for an impression being taken of his stamp before the same Alderman of the Ward, no change of Alderman having taken place. It was the usage also for the Aldermen to seal the measures and weights in their respective Wards, and to condemn such as were not sealed, receiving a remuneration for such sealing to their own proper use, in the same way that the City Chamber now receives it. For every Ward had its own measure, made of brass, and corresponding with the royal standard of the City. At such Wardmote also, those persons who are not free of the City, and who have not previously been sworn there to that effect, ought to be put upon frank-pledge, notwithstanding that in other Wards they have been already received therein; on which occasion they are to take the oath for persons about to be admitted to frank-pledge. Every person also who is about to be so received is to give one penny to the clerk for his entrance; and if any such person shall absent himself at such Wardmote, he shall pay four pence to the Alderman; unless indeed such person be a Knight, Esquire, female, apprentice-at-law, or clerk, or some other individual who has not a permanent abode in this City.

The Alderman ought also, in his own person, to supervise and correct all defaults and nuisances presented by the jurors at the Wardmote aforesaid, unless perchance any matters of difficulty should arise, and of a nature bearing reference to the Chamber; matters of which description the Mayor and Chamberlain, aided by the Sheriffs and other officials, shall take in hand. Also, if the Alderman shall find the officers under him remiss or negligent, he shall warn them to amend their conduct; which if they neglect to do, he shall reasonably punish and chastise them, or else report the same to the Mayor, whose duty it is to provide a condign remedy for the same.” (Liber Albus, Riley’s translation, pp. 32-35.)

The Common Council—of which we have seen the beginning in the election of the Twenty-four—was now a fully organised body with definite duties, and methods of procedure laid down and established.

“The manner of holding a Common Council is as follows:—The day before the meeting thereof, the Mayor and Aldermen are to cause summons to be made by the serjeants of the Chamber, for sixteen, twelve, eight, or four (according as the Ward is great or small) of the wisest and most wealthy persons of each Ward to appear on the morrow at the Guildhall; and [further, to give notice] that no one is to appear unless summoned, or presume to be present at such Council, under pain of imprisonment, according to ancient usage, as also, by recent enactment, under a certain penalty and chastisement named in an ordinance made in the Mayoralty of Nicholas Wottone. All the commoners, too, that are summoned are to be called over one by one, by a serjeant of the Chamber standing aloft; and as to those who make default, they are to be noted by a clerk of the Chamber in a roll which he holds in his hands, in which are entered the names of those who have been summoned.

And as to those who duly appear, they shall then form a congregation; and if any matter of great difficulty or doubt shall arise, upon which they cannot agree, they shall be severally examined by the Serjeant-at-Law of the Common Clerk and of the Common Serjeant-at-Arms, upon the oath by which they are bound unto the City, etc. And observe, that the business of the City is not to be delayed for the arrival of the men of a Ward or two, supposing that they have been duly summoned; but it must be proceeded with, the presence of the persons so absent not being waited for. Every one, too, of the persons so summoned who does not appear is to be amerced in the sum of two shillings on each occasion, etc.

The oath of the men elected to the Common Council is as follows:—

You shall swear that you shall be trusty unto our lord the King N, and unto his heirs; and shall quickly come, when you are summoned to the Common Council of this City, if you be not reasonably excused; and good and true counsel you shall give, after your wit and cunning; and that for favour of any man you shall maintain no singular profit against the public or common profit of the said City; and that after you come to the Common Council, you shall not from thence depart, without reasonable cause or the Mayor’s license, until the Mayor and his fellows shall have departed; and that what shall be spoken in the Common Council you shall not disclose,—So God you help, and God’s Holy Gospels.

In the Mayoralty of John Warde, the after-mentioned ordinance was entered as to the election of Commoners for the Common Council of the City, to the effect that, whereas heretofore such Commoners had been elected by the Wards, in future the Commoners for the Common Council of the City should be elected by the respective Mysteries, and not by the Wards; that is to say, six by some of the Mysteries, by some four, and by some two. And for the purpose of so doing, bills were sent by the Mayor, not to the Aldermen, but to the rulers of the respective Mysteries. But so long as this ordinance continued in force, tumults increased among the people, and the great were held in contempt by the small. Consequently, great disputes and divisions arose among the citizens, as was seen at the elections of Nicholas Brembre, John Northamptone, and other Mayors, etc. After this, however, the more discreet and more worthy persons of the said City being called together, a long discussion was held as to the amendment of the said ordinance; and at length it was determined that, in accordance with the approved and established practice of ancient and praiseworthy usage, the Common Council should thenceforth be formed by the Wards only, and not by the Mysteries. And this usage, in reference to the great meetings in Common Council, is continued and observed to the present day.” (Liber Albus, Riley’s translation, pp. 36-37.)

Upon the Sheriff’s Court was laid a great quantity of work and responsibility.

There was also the Bishop’s Court for questions connected with Church property and the claims of the Church.

The officers of the City consisted of the following:—

First the principal officers—

Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs.

The Court of Common Council.

The Recorder, the Chamberlain, the Common Serjeant-at-Law, the Common Clerk.

The Common Serjeant-at-Arms or the Common Crier, the Clerks of the proceedings, the Serjeants of the Mayor and the Chamberlain, the Constables, the Scavagers, the Bedels, the Brokers, the Ale-Conners, the Under-Sheriffs and the Clerks of the Sheriffs, the Sheriffs’ Serjeants, the Serjeants’ Grooms, the Bailiffs of the Market, the Wardens and Bailiffs of the Bridge, etc.

There was great jealousy as to admission to the freedom of the City.

“Also, because as well in times past, out of memory, as also in modern times, the City aforesaid is wont to be defended and governed by the aid and counsels as well of the reputable men of the trades-merchant as of the other trades-handicraft; and from of old it hath been the usage, that no strange person, native or alien, as to whose conversation and condition there is no certain knowledge, shall be admitted to the freedom of the City, unless first, the merchants or traders of the City following the trade which the person so to be admitted intends to adopt, shall be lawfully convoked; that so, by such his fellow-citizens, so convoked, the Mayor and Aldermen, aforesaid, being certified as to the condition and trustworthiness of the persons so to be admitted, may know whether such persons ought to be admitted or rejected; the whole community demands, that the form aforesaid, so far as concerns the more important trades and handicrafts, shall in future be inviolably observed, that so no person in future may against the provision aforesaid be admitted to the freedom of the City.” (Liber Albus, p. 425.)

On the post and duties of the Coroner, Dr. Reginald Sharpe (Letter Book B) furnishes valuable information.

The functions of Coroner were exercised by the Chamberlain and Sheriffs. The King’s butler, to whom the office of Coroner belonged, was generally made City Chamberlain. In December 1302 the King’s Writ notified the Mayor and Sheriffs that William Trente, his Chamberlain, to whose bailiwick the office of Coroner in the City belonged (ad cujus ballivam officium Coronatoris ... pertinet), being busy on affairs of State, had deputed John le Clerk to act as Coroner.

More than once the citizens endeavoured to get the appointment of Coroner into their own hands. It was Edward the Fourth who, in consideration of a sum of £7000, gave the City a Charter which, among other things, enabled the citizens to appoint their own Coroner.

“The customary procedure of holding an inquest on the body of any one who had died in the City, otherwise than by his rightful death (ex alia morte quam recta morte sua), was as follows:—After receiving notice of such a death having occurred, and of the body of the deceased lying in a certain house in a certain ward, the Chamberlain (or Coroner) and Sheriffs proceeded thither, and having summoned a jury (drawn partly from the ward in which the body was found, and partly from two, or sometimes three, of the nearest wards), set to work to diligently inquire (diligenter inquisiverunt) how the deceased came by his death. If the Chamberlain and Sheriffs failed to hold an inquest, or held an insufficient one, in cases where the Justices Itinerant thought an inquest necessary, they were amerced.

The jurors were practically both judges and witnesses, and gave evidence as to all the facts connected with the deceased’s death, so far as they could be ascertained. The corpse was then viewed, and if its appearance tallied with the evidence given, and the jury were decided as to who caused the death, a precept was issued for the arrest of the felon (if not already in custody), and his goods were valued, for which the Sheriffs were answerable. The discoverer of the corpse, as well as those who witnessed the felony, and two or four neighbours, were usually attached by sureties to appear, if required, before the Justices Itinerant at their next coming to the City.

Not only was the discoverer of the corpse bound to raise the hue and cry so that the neighbours (patria) might come and assist in the capture of the felon, but every one who saw the felony committed was bound to do the same, and to lose no time in giving notice to the Chamberlain and Sheriffs, or risk imprisonment on the appearance of the Justices.” (Letter Book B, p. xii.)

The custom of deodand, which was kept up until very recently, was curious. The thing which caused the death of any person by misadventure became forfeited to the King by way of deodand, or gift of God. In course of time not the thing itself, but its value, was the deodand. Thus, if a horse, a boat, a beam, caused the death of any one, its value was forfeited and paid to the Sheriffs for the Mayor and Corporation.

The laws by which London was governed are too long for quotation; they are explicitly set forth in Liber Albus. In the year 1191 it was provided that a body of twelve Aldermen should be elected in full Husting, in order to decide all questions that might arise over the enclosure of land; they also had the power to prevent the erection of any wooden house; the walls, either party wall or outside wall, were to be sixteen feet high at least, and three feet thick; and the roofs were to be of tiles or slate instead of thatch. The law, like so many mediÆval laws, was sensible and necessary. It fell through, as did all mediÆval laws, for want of police to execute it. In London there were thousands of houses at that moment built of wood with roofs of thatch. There does not appear to have been any attempt made to replace wood with stone. That, indeed, would have been impossible on account of the cost; but, at least, as houses fell down, and many of them in the narrow courts were only wattle and daub, an attempt might have been made to replace them with more substantial houses having roofs of tiles. The mediÆval way was to understand very clearly what ought to be, then to pass a law commanding that thing to be, and then to sit down, with the feeling that duty had been done.

The general regulations which governed the daily life are given under the heading of “Inquisitions at the Ward Motes”:—

“You shall present if the peace of his lordship the King has been broken, or any affray made within the Ward since the last Wardmote, and by what person or persons the same was done: or if any covin or assemblage against the peace of his lordship the King has been made.

Item, if there is any one resident or harboured within the Ward, who is not a lawful person, or not of good fame, or not under frank-pledge.

Item, if any woman of lewd life, or common scold, or common bawd, or courtesan, is resident within the Ward.

Item, if there is any oven, furnace, or defective reredos within the Ward, whereby it is likely that there may arise misadventure by fire; or if any persons use other fuel than wood or charcoal, against the Ordinance of the City.

Item, if any taverners, brewsters, hostelers, or chandlers, sell without measures sealed with the seal of the Alderman or of the Chamber of the Guildhall; and if any one of them sells against the Assize made thereon by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City; and if any one of them receives gamesters or other riotous persons after the hour forbidden by the Ordinance of the City; and if there are any persons in the Ward who are outlawed.

Item, if there is any huckster in the Ward.

Item, if any house in the Ward is covered with any other roofing than tiles, lead or stone, and none with reeds or straw.

Item, if there is any one whose practice it is to place filth in any streets and lanes within the Ward, and offensively before the doors of others.

Item, if any swine or cows are reared within the Ward, to the annoyance of the neighbours.

Item, if any leper is resident in the Ward.

Item, if any bargain of usury has been made within the Ward since the last Wardmote.

Item, if any purprestures are made in the streets or lanes, or upon the walls or fosses, of the City, or upon the Thames or other common soil within the Ward.

Item, if any baker of tourte bread bakes white bread, or the converse.

Item, if there are any persons in the habit of wandering within the Ward after forbidden hours, and in manner forbidden by the Common Council of the City.

Item, if any officer of the City has made extortion or affray within the Ward under colour of his office, to the wrong and detriment of any person; and what it is that has been so done, and how done; or if any person is a maintainer or champertour of litigation that is carried on within the Ward.

Item, if any person pays, or gives as wages unto, masons, carpenters, daubers, tilers, or any other labourers whatsoever, more than is ordained.

Item, if the ale-stake of any tavern is longer or extends further than is ordained.” (Liber Albus, Riley’s translation, p. 290.)

Then follows the regulation of various trades. The baker comes first, subject to so many rules and prohibitions that one is surprised to find any one willing to practise the mystery. Millers, brewers, and sellers of ale, are also taken under paternal surveillance. Usury is strictly forbidden—the frequency of the prohibition shows how powerless the law was to prevent it. The companies had Hall Motes, or meetings of their members, twice a year, at which their ordinances were to be read. No one was to take more than two or three apprentices, and then for a term of at least seven years. No one was to be wandering on the streets after curfew, unless he was a man of repute or his servant. No one was to carry arms in the City. Every Alderman was to keep a good watch on his Ward. None but free men were to be admitted to the freedom of the City. Wager of battle does not lie between persons free of the City, unless they consented thereto.

In addition to the Courts already mentioned, there were the Courts of the Sokes; that is to say, of those places which were outside the jurisdiction of the City; such were the places called afterwards Liberties.

The Iter, or Eyre, was a holding by the Justices Itinerant of the Pleas of the Crown, at which the citizens received, and had to answer a series of questions on, their Privileges, Customs, Liberties, and Rights. It was a Court which could be held in a day or two, without giving much trouble, or it was a Court which could be vexatious and oppressive to the highest degree.

John Carpenter is as full and explicit on the subject of the Iter as can be desired. He contemplated that it would be got through in a day or two. But it was a solemn and important function. The Justices sat in the Great Hall of the Tower; on the day appointed, all the laymen of the City were bound to meet at All Hallows at Barking, properly arrayed—“all the laymen”—does this mean the whole body of merchants, traders, and craftsmen? That might mean a company of 40,000 men! During the holding of the Pleas, no shop, seld, cellar, or solar was to be kept open, and nothing was to be sold. Evidently, therefore, the Iter was not expected to take long:—

“Also, upon the same day, by sanction of the Common Council of the City, there should be sent from Berkyngecherche six or more of the more serious, honourable, and discreet Barons of the City; who are to enter the Tower for the purpose of saluting and welcoming his lordship the King, his Council, and his Justiciars, on behalf of the City; begging of them that, if it so please his lordship the King, they may safely appear before them in the said Tower, saving all their liberties and customs unto the Mayor and all other citizens. For his lordship the King and all his predecessors, Kings of England, and their Justiciars, have always preserved unto all the citizens their liberties safe and unimpaired.

And further, the men before named should show unto his lordship the King, and unto his Council and his Justiciars, that, on behalf of his lordship the King, they ought to forbid any person to presume to keep ward at the doors or gates unless he be one of their own fellow-citizens, and by them thereunto appointed. Nor should any marshal or crier appear among their fellow-citizens unless he be one of their number, and acting by desire of the said citizens. For, in accordance with the liberties of the City, they ought, and of usage are wont, to have no porter, usher, marshal, or crier, except of their own number, and such persons as they shall think fit. All the gates and doors are to be kept open to the Barons and to all the citizens, so long as the Pleas of the Crown are being holden, to the end, that they may have free ingress and egress. For so it ought, and of usage is wont, to be.

After this, three men, discreet and moderate, should be chosen; one of them is to present unto his lordship the King, and unto his Council and Justiciars, in due order, such haps and mishaps concerning the Crown of his lordship the King as have occurred within the City, from the time when the pleas were last holden down to the present time: while the other two men are to remain standing by the said presenter, the one namely on his right hand and the other on his left. And if it should so happen that while thus making the presentment he becomes fatigued, one of these is to continue such presentment. And if by any chance he should commit an error in making the presentment, he must in a low voice be corrected by the two who are standing by, it being understood that no other person shall in any way presume to disturb or to correct such presenter, but only the two who are standing by him, in manner already mentioned. No tumult, no murmur, no strife, no debate with one another, is to be going on among the people while such presentments are being made; but all persons are to keep themselves quiet and without litigation, as they would preserve the honour and the liberties of the City, and to the end that the presenter may be heard by all and duly understood in peace.

It should also be known and kept in memory that, in the case of all things charged against the Barons and the community of the citizens, the answer to be made by the City is this—That although they may be fully instructed and certified how to make answer, still, they will not advisedly make answer thereto; but, after holding counsel and conference together thereupon, they will make answer by the Common Council, saving always the liberties of the City. And for the purpose of preparing such answers, four-and-twenty persons or more must be chosen from the Common Council, who shall forthwith proceed to hold a Common Council of the City for ensuring the safety and protection of the whole body of the citizens. And no stranger shall thrust himself among them, to hear the counsels of the City, so long as they shall be thus holding conference together thereon.

After the Justiciars of his lordship the King shall have handed and shown unto the Mayor and Barons of the City the articles pertaining unto the Crown, they shall immediately demand a fitting day, for the purpose of making due preparation and taking counsel thereon, to the end that they may be able safely to make answer to the said articles upon the day so granted unto them by the Justiciars; and that in the meantime they may be enabled discreetly to enrol and brief the same articles and their answers thereto.

From the four-and-twenty men or more before mentioned, four persons or more should be selected, of the Common Council of the City, to be associated with the Mayor for the purpose more especially of making answer to the charges and articles aforesaid. Also the Mayor’s Clerk, together with the Common Clerk of the City and the Sheriffs’ Clerks, shall be seated before them for the purpose of noting by way of memorial all such charges that are made; lest the same, through default of being so noted, should be lost in oblivion. And one of such persons must act as prothonotary; from whose notes all the others are to take copy, in setting down as well the King’s charges as the answers made by the community.

Also, as concerning the Sheriffs and Aldermen, provision must be made as follows:—The Sheriffs are to have their serjeants there present, and all the Aldermen the bedels of their Wards, becomingly and fairly arrayed and shod, prompt and ready to perform and fulfil the commands of the Mayor and Barons of the City, according to such injunctions as may be given to each; their capes, too, and cloaks laid aside, they are to be fairly arrayed in coats and surcoats, bearing straight white wands in their hands. Of these, too, four or more, as may be necessary, must be assigned to the office of keeping the gates and doors; as also two criers, and certain others who are to act as marshals, in fulfilling such duties as may be enjoined them. And if perchance any one of these should be an aged man, weak or infirm, or have sore eyes, then, at the common expense, another person must be substituted in his place, and of the same ward, efficiently to perform such duties. And as to such men, due precautions should be taken that they be seemly and proper persons, newly shaven and shorn.”

The following are “Articles touching his lordship the King”:—

“Of default made in appearing before the Justiciars. Of those who are at the King’s mercy, and have not been amerced. Of old Pleas of the Crown which have been formerly holden before the Justiciars, and have not been determined. Of new Pleas which have since arisen. Of youths of high parentage and of damsels, who are, and who ought to be, in the wardship of his lordship the King: in whose wardship they are, and through whom, and what is the value of their lands. Of escheats of his lordship the King; what such lands are, and who hold them, and through whom, and what is the value thereof. Of demesnes which are in the gift of the King, what they are, and who hold them, and through whom, and how much the lands thereof are worth. Of churches which are in the gift of the King, whether the same are vacant or not; which are such churches, and who holds them, and through whom. Of purprestures made upon the King, by land or by water, or elsewhere; what they are, and who has made them, and through whom. Of measures made throughout the realm; whether the same are observed in such manner as was commanded, and if any one has given reward to the wardens of such measures, that by measures they may sell or buy; and this is to be understood of all measures, as well of wine as of corn, and all measures (of length). Of wines sold contrary to the assize, and who has sold the same. Of treasures-trove, what they are, and who found the same. Of Christian usurers who have died, who they were, and what chattels they had. Of chattels of French or of Flemings, or of enemies of the King, that have been seized; what the chattels are that have been so seized, and who holds the same. Of chattels of Jews who have been slain, and of their debts, and deeds, and securities; who such Jews were, and who holds their securities or deeds. Of those who hold of the Honour of Pevrel in London and of Pevrel in Dover; who they are, and what land they hold, and by what service. Of outlaws, and burglars, and fugitives, and other malefactors, and of those who have harboured them. Of the seaports; if the same have been well-guarded, and if any one has carried corn or other things to the territories of the King’s enemies for sale. Of those who have taken lack of the thirteenths; who they are, and how much they have taken, and from whom. Of serjeants of hundreds or others who have taken reward from men on account of the thirteenths; who they are, and how much, and from whom. Of those who are wont to do injury in parks and piscaries; who they are, and where they have done so, and in what parks and piscaries. Of fugitives, if any one has returned since his flight. Of prises taken by Sheriffs or Constable, or by any Bailiff, against the will of those whose chattels were to be taken. Of forgers and clippers of the coin.”

But in the Iter of 4 Henry the Third there were only eighteen questions put to the citizens. Both questions and answers turn on points of law. It will readily be understood that such an inquisition was at all times irksome, and might be made tyrannical and intolerable. The Iter of 1321 was such an occasion. It was made to last for six months. One cannot suppose that shops were shut and nothing bought and sold for the whole of that time. The articles and questions submitted to the citizens were more than a hundred in number, and many of them required an investigation of more than twenty years back. In a word, the Justices had come to the Tower with instructions to make themselves as disagreeable as possible, to prolong the inquiries, raise objections, and make difficulties. They carried out these instructions, the citizens becoming more and more indignant. It was intended to prove that the City had been guilty of irregularities, such as to warrant the King’s taking it into his own hands.

Six months after the commencement of these proceedings, however, an insurrection was threatened in Wales. This made it desirable not to exasperate the Londoners any more, and the Iter was brought to a sudden close.

Let us, at this point, consider briefly the relations of London with the King. London, as we know already, except for a very brief period, had no over-lord except the King himself. This, one of her greatest privileges, caused the personal character of the Sovereign to be even more strongly felt by the citizens of London than by the rest of the Kingdom. In London, far more than in the rest of the country, the cause of order and authority rested upon the personal character of the King. If he were strong, the City was well-ordered; if he were weak, the City fell into disorder and confusion. Edward the First, when the City was manifestly beyond the control of the officers, deposed the Mayor for a time and governed the City by his own Warden till order was re-established. This power of the King over the City was not considered usurpation; it was part of the recognised order of things; every citizen knew that he was a servant of the King. On this point let me quote certain wholesome words of Cunningham (Hist. of Trade, p. 131):—

“Of all the cant which is current in the present day about history, none is more pernicious than that which despises the story of real personages and real events and busies itself about abstractions, which tells us that it is not concerned with kings and battles, but with the life of the people. It is true indeed that in modern times the life of the people can be treated apart from the consideration of the personal character of George IV. or William IV. But in the Norman reigns this was not the case; security for person and property, intercourse with other nations and commercial advance were directly connected with the personal character of the King; the life of the people was most deeply affected in every way by the strength or weakness of his disposition.”

The King’s revenue was made up of many distinct branches: (1) there were the Royal domain, manor, and estates scattered about the country and let to tenants; (2) there were the fines paid on great occasions; (3) pre-emption, that is, the right of buying what he pleased at his own price; when his purveyors bought goods exposed for sale this was called “prise”; (4) military tenures, by which for each five tithes of land the King might demand a knight’s services for forty days; (5) aids and fines, as on great occasions, such as the marrying of the King’s daughter; (6) the wealth of the Jews who were the King’s property; he was heir to their estates, and could without question seize on all they had; (7) Danegeld, which William continued; its name was changed but the tax remained; (8) tallages, which were aids in time of special need.

All the taxes were at first on estate. Henry the Second introduced taxation on movables. Sometimes it was a fifteenth. The nature of this tax may be imagined by supposing it to be imposed upon a trader’s stock at the present day. His stock is worth, suppose, £9000; he would pay £600 upon it. But he has a house with furniture, plate, pictures, and books which have accumulated for two or three generations. The contents of the house are worth, say, £3000. He would have to pay £200 on this account. He has £12,000 invested; he must pay £800 on the investments. He would have, then, to pay at one call £1600 in taxes. These taxes were not imposed all at the same time, nor on the same class; one year the clergy were called upon, another the knights, on another occasion the City of London would be taxed. It seems to us an arbitrary method; but then we have lost the sense of kingly authority. To our ancestors, whom we must not consider as prophets, it was a right and proper thing that a man should be called upon by the King at any moment to surrender a great slice of his property.

It was the first proof of a bad King that he demanded these aids too frequently. It was another proof that in spite of his aids he allowed the country to fall into disorder. At such times the hapless trader found it impossible to carry on his business in a country infested by robbers and over seas infested by pirates. Yet, even then, the King was still demanding more and more. The best, the only hope of the citizens was, not to be free from the King, but that the King should make his authority felt over them as well as over the country. They wanted a King like Henry the First, Henry the Second, or Edward the First. It was the greatest blessing to London that their Kings were, with one or two exceptions, strong and clear-headed men.

The King also exercised authority over the Moneyers and the Mint. Formerly there were mints in many places; we have seen how Henry the First treated those who debased the coin. Henry the Second kept the Mint in London, where he could control it more effectually. He also set up an office in the Mint for the exchange of foreign money: a great convenience to foreign merchants.

In the year 1312, letters were sent by the King, Edward the Second, to the City of London concerning the safe keeping of the City. The method of reception of a Royal Communication by the Mayor and Aldermen may be learned from Riley’s Memorials (p. 93). The following is the letter:—

“Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord, etc., to the Mayor, and Aldermen, and all the commonalty of our City of London, greeting. Forasmuch as we do confide very much in the loyalty that is among you, and the affection which you have towards ourselves, such as you ought to have for your liege lord; and, more especially, for the love which we have, and at all times have had, towards you, as you well know; we do pray you affectionately, and do command and charge you, strictly enjoining, on the fealty which unto us you owe, and as you wish to save your bodies, and your heritages, and whatsoever you have, from penalty of negligence as regards us, that you cause our City of London right safely and surely to be kept, in behalf of ourselves and of our heirs; that so no damage or peril may befall it—the which God forbid—for default of good and sufficient guard; and that our lordship and our estate be there saved in all points, without any manner of blemish, as we do especially trust in you, and as you would eschew peril unto yourselves. And understand so well this our command, and have it so tenderly at heart, that we may be able to praise you for the same, and that nought of our right, or of our lordship, in our City be lost, on peril of losing whatsoever unto us you may forfeit. Given under our Privy Seal, at York, the 21st day of January, in the 5th year of our reign.”

In addition to this general letter, the following letter was sent separately to the leading citizens, viz.:—

“To John de Gisorz. To John de Lincoln. To Thomas Romain. To Henry de Durham. To William Servat. To John de Wengrave. To William Trente. To Richer de Refham. To William de Leyre. To John de Burford. To Simon Corp. To William de Forneis. To William Walrain. To William Bidik. To Robert de Keleseye. To Stephen de Abyndone. To Ralph le Balancer. To Hamond Godchep. To Robert le Callere. To Edmond Lambyn.”

“Edward, etc., to our well-beloved John de Gisorz, our Mayor of London, greeting. As we have sent word unto you, to the Aldermen, and to the Commonalty, of our City of London, that among you and them, in whose loyalty we do greatly trust, for the affection which you have towards ourselves, as towards your liege lord, especially for the love which we have, and at all times have had, towards you and those of the said City; and as you would yourselves save your bodies, your heritages, and whatsoever you have to save, from penalty of negligence as regards ourselves, you do cause our said City right safely and surely to be kept in our behalf; that so no damage or peril may befall it—the which God forbid—and that our lordship and our estate may there be saved in all points, without any manner of blemish; and as we do know that you are the man in London by whose counsels is guided the manhood thereof, and are persuaded that the manhood of our said City will charge itself with the safe-keeping of the same our City, and most willingly would save it to the use of us and of our heirs, as is right; we do command and charge you, on the fealty which unto us you owe, and as you would wish to eschew the penalty aforesaid, that you use all diligence and all counsel as towards the said manhood of the City, and towards all those of our said City, who shall be most available towards the safe-keeping thereof, that they undertake such safe-keeping, and cause the same our City so safely and surely to be kept, in behalf of us and our heirs, that nought of our right, or of our lordship, be lost therein; and that so we may be able to perceive the diligence that you shall have employed herein; for the which we may be the more especially beholden to you. Given under our Privy Seal, at York, the 21st day of January, in the 5th year of our reign” (pp. 94-95).

In consequence of these letters, John de Gisors, the Mayor, called together the Aldermen and some of the commonalty of each ward on the Saturday after the Purification, i.e. on the 2nd of February. It is remarkable that only seventeen Aldermen are named in the list; that eight did not appear at the meeting; and that, of those to whom the separate letters had been written, only three obeyed the King’s special invitation.

However, at the meeting certain ordinances were passed for the repair and the safety of the walls and the gates and the quay. Elsewhere these and similar orders have been set forth.

These regulations passed, the Mayor sent a letter to the King:—

“Whereas, Sire, you have demanded of us by your letters that we should cause to be guarded and safely kept your said City in behalf of yourself and your heirs, according as is in your mandate contained; know, Sire, that of the same wish we ourselves are, and at all times have been, and always will be, to the best of our lawful power, if God so please. And we do let you know that your said City is in good condition, may God be thanked; and your people set in good array, according as the times demand; and that ordinance has been made to strengthen and to repair the gates, and the defaults in the walls, and divers other things which pertain to the safe-keeping of the said City, so speedily as ever the same may be properly done. Unto God, our most dear Lord, we commend you, and may he save you and keep you; and may he grant unto you a good life, and a long” (p. 97).

To this letter was appended a very singular and suggestive rider, which the bearer was instructed to lay before the King:—

“Under the first head:—that the murage which our Lord the King has granted to the City, and wherewith the old walls of the City ought to be repaired, strengthened and amended, is now spent upon the new wall behind the Friars Preachers at Castle Baynard, towards the Thames, by your command and nowhere else.

(Gisors’ Hall, Basing Lane, otherwise denoted Gerrard’s Hall Inn, the residence of Sir John Gisors, Mayor of London in 1245, 1246, and 1259; it descended to another Sir John Gisors, Mayor and Constable of the Tower, in 1311-1314; and was possessed by several of that family until 1386, when it was alienated by Thomas Gisors.) From Londina Illustrata.

Also, that such outlays and costs, which are great, and are hastily expended upon so many repairs, whereas in justice they ought to be levied from all those who have rents, and tenements, and moveables, within the City, commonly fall upon one part of the citizens only, and not upon persons of the religious Orders, and others who have franchises by charter and in almoigne13; to the amount indeed of the third part of the rental of the said City. And such persons are not willing to give any portion thereof, or any aid or contribution, or any assistance, thereto, although they are saved just as much throughout the said city as the rest of the citizens. And if the King shall see fit, and deem it good that they should aid therein, the people of the City will be the better comforted, and the better strengthened, and the more speedily will they have the City put in due repair.”

So that the new piece of wall outside the Black Friars, and between their House and the Fleet, was not built by the Friars at all as is sometimes stated, but out of the murage granted by the King, and it will also be observed that so early as 1312, before the new ideas had been started, there were grumblings at the exemption of the Religious from taxation and a complaint that their property amounted to a third part of the rental of the whole City.

The comparative wealth of London at the time of the Conquest is shown by the fact that the City was assessed for Danegeld at 1200 hides: that Westminster was assessed at 118 hides; and Middlesex at 853-1/2 hides; that London paid £120, Middlesex £85: 0: 6; and, one supposes, on the same scale, Westminster £11: 16s.

Though London was never separated in feeling or in fact from the country, though the sons of the country gentlemen came up to London and were there apprenticed, trade was carried on between London and the country with as many laws, restrictions, and regulations, as if the towns were in a foreign state. This was not due to jealousies of the City or the towns, but mainly in consequence of the authority of the over-lord. For instance, the customs of Chester with reference to “foreign” merchants—those of London were foreign—show three separate jurisdictions in the City: that of the King, that of the Earl, and that of the Bishops. Trade with the interior was chiefly conducted at the fairs. During the fair, the people came from all the country round, including those who, like the Friars in later years, roamed about the villages and farms selling small things.

Let us make a special inquiry into the contribution of London to the Royal treasury. There were the customs dues of the Port; the customs tolls of the City Gates and the City Markets, the “Stallages” of the tradesmen, the fines of foreigners, the dues of Billingsgate and Queen Hithe; some of these were paid to the Corporation and some to the King’s officers. Whenever the money was paid into the Exchequer, it was weighed and assayed. Thus, on one occasion the Sheriffs paid in £245 odd on account of money due. The coin was assayed and found 13d. in the pound short. On a second trial it was found 12d. in the pound short. Thereupon the Sheriffs demanded a third trial. The accounts were kept by means of tallies, and for counters they used Venetian shillings and gold besants.

Apart from the customs and the Crown lands, the King’s revenues were largely increased by Fines, Amercements, “Misericordia,” Aids, Scutage and Tallage, all of which were methods of profound interest to the City. As regards fines, there were fines for everything. They were inflicted in the shape of money, horses, wine, hawks, dogs, lampreys, robes, Flemish caps and other things. In the pages of Madox one may read how men paid fines for becoming an Alderman, for the right to succeed to a property, for the King’s help in recovering debts from the Jews, for permission not to plead except in a certain manner, for permission to plead at all, for permission to summon a man, for permission for a jury of matrons to inquire whether a certain woman has or has not borne a child, for an inquiry whether a man was out with John in rebellion, to examine into a pedigree, to inquire into old customs, for permission to move that certain persons ought not to sit on a Jury, for an inquiry whether a certain man was accused unjustly or not, for petitioning the King that the Itinerant Justices might visit a town, for speeding a cause, for delaying a cause, for leave to hold office, for leave to quit office, for leave to marry, for leave (for a woman) to remain unmarried if she pleased (for life, or for five years—a very great number of widows desired to remain unmarried), for leave to marry a certain woman (Geoffrey de Mandeville paid a fine of £20,000, certainly equal to half a million of our money, for leave to marry Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, with all her estates), for leave to form a Guild, to import and export, for the concord of a duel, for leave to have a servant.

Now and then the list of fines makes one wonder what story is hidden behind them. For instance, why was the wife of Hugh de Nevill fined for permission to stay one night with her husband? Was he in prison? Again, Reginald de Tewarden is fined twenty marks for permission to keep his lands after he had undergone the ordeal of hot iron unsuccessfully, and had abjured the country. He was proved guilty apparently. And was the fine of twenty marks thought the kind of penalty that would meet the case? William de Thievespathe—ominous name!—makes the same request for the same cause and with the same result. The iron, therefore, was sometimes hot. Another man, one Gospatric, pays twenty marks as a fine to escape the ordeal of hot iron. William of Sixteen Tale pays the large fine of £80 for wounding a priest: Robert, son of Hugh, gets off with £7: 2: 9—enough, however, to break a craftsman—for wounding “a man”; observe the difference between a man and a priest. Lawrence the Priest has to pay twenty marks “pro homine ementulato.” Who, again, was “Jeremy of London”? He took sanctuary, he refused to come out, they fined him a hundred shillings, and then? There is no more. Margaret FitzRoger has to pay a fine of £1000 before she can get at her inheritance, to wit, her father’s estate, her husband’s, her own dower, which her son has got, and be released from certain debts to the Jews. Sometimes the fine took the form of a bribe, as when Nathaniel Leveland, hereditary keeper of the King’s houses at Westminster and on the banks of the Fleet, sent in a fine of sixty marks for permission to keep that office, and Osbert de Longchamp paid the same fine for permission to take over those offices.

Every fine, whatever the amount, was either increased by a small sum or contained that small sum, which was called Aurum ReginÆ, the Queen’s Gold. Thus when Thomas FitzAnther was forgiven his fine of ten marks, the Aurum ReginÆ was at the same time remitted. In the year 1253 the City of London was called upon to pay up the Aurum ReginÆ, part of the fine for receiving back their liberties, and in 1254 the Sheriffs were ordered to distrain for the amount.

Now the method of promoting virtue and filling the coffers was by the misericordia or amercement. I cannot understand the difference between the two. But that matters little, they both meant a fine. By studying the long list of cases furnished by my authority, Madox,14 I arrive at a theory, not a conclusion, that the amercement was a punishment for offences which could not be tried in a criminal court, yet were real offences. Thus, for false or unjust accusations or plaints, a man was amerced, or for unjust detainer, for offences in the forests, trespass, etc., for making a man fight two duels in one day, a thing manifestly unfair, for “ill keeping” a duel, i.e., not observing all the rules respecting duels, for claiming to be a free man when one was but a villein, for detaining sheep, for harbouring a man who was not in frank-pledge, for making again a dyke which the King had caused to be levelled, for using twice in ordeal an iron which had been heated only once, gross injustice to the second man, for burying a drowned man without the view by the King’s servant, for putting a man to the ordeal of water (was it then forbidden?), for trespass, and in the case of a rebellious bride, for not coming to be married on the day appointed. For these, and similar offences, the citizens suffered amercement and misericordia.

More formidable than any of these, more dreaded than fine, amercement, or misericordia, were the Aid, the Relief, the Scutage, and the Tallage.

There were three principal kinds of aid. (1) The aid pur fille marier, or the occasion of the marriage of the King’s daughter. Henry the First took for his daughter’s marriage three shillings on each hide. Henry the Second, for his part, imposed a tax under this name of one mark for every knight’s fee. As great lords might hold many knights’ fees, the tax was considerable. (2) The aid pur faire chevaler, on the occasion of conferring knighthood on the King’s son. This tax was the same in amount as the preceding. The third kind of aid was the raising of money if necessary for the King’s ransom.

Reliefs were simply arbitrary sums exacted by the King. The relief of the knight’s fee in the reign of Henry the Second was five pounds; that of a baron one hundred pounds. Scutage was, as its name denotes, an assessment of the knights’ fees.

Tallage corresponded more closely with our modern taxes. The City, ordered to make up so much money, assessed its lands separately at so much, which the Aldermen of each portion was bound to collect by assessing all the free men in his ward. In some cases, private merchants, those known to be wealthy, were separately assessed. Thus in one tallage Hugh de Basing is assessed at twelve marks, Thomas de Plaines at ten marks, William FitzAdam at a hundred shillings. Sometimes the King’s officers are separately assessed, as when the moneyers of London, Archard, Lefwine Besant, and Ailwine Finch, were ordered to pay respectively a hundred shillings, five marks, and two marks.

The tallage of the City in the year 1226 has been preserved. I copy it here from Thomas Madox (History of the Exchequer):—

“William filius Benedict, r. c. de xxxv. marcis, de Warde Fori. Andrew Bukerel, r. c. de xxx l. xvii s. viii. d., de Warde sua. Michael de Sancta Elena, r. c. de C & vii. s. & x. d., de Warda sua. Joceres Fitz Petri, xxxii. l. xviii. s., de Warda sua. Robertus filius Johannis (debet), iiij l. xvij s. & iiij d., de Warda sua. Johannes Viel (debet), xxj l. & xiij s., de Warda sua. Ace le Mairener, r. c. de xxvij l. & xx. d., de Warda sua. Rogerus Blundus, r. c. xxviij l. xi. s. & v. d. & ob., de Warda sua. Stephanus le Gras Waleran (debet), xi. l. & xij. s. de Warda sua.

Warinus filius Nicholai, r. c. de xiiij l. & xiij s., de Warda sua. Ricardus de Russye (debet), xj l. & iiij s., de Warda sua. Ricardus Raynger, r. c. de xiiij l. x. s. & iiij d., de Warda sua. Radulfus Sperling, r. c. de ix. l. & viij s., de Warda sua. Radulfus Steperingg, r. c. de vj l. & vj s., de Warda sua. Gilbertus filius Fulconis (debet), xix. s., de Warda sua. Walterus de Insula, r. c. de L xxiiij s., de Warda sua. Portsoken (debet), xxiiij s., de Warda sua. Johannes Travers, iiij l. xvj. s., de Warda sua. Petrus filius Rogeri, iiij l. xviij s., de Warda sua. Jacobus Blundus, viij l. xj s. & x. d., de Warda sua. Bassushag, xxxiij s., de Warda sua. Rogerus Burserius, r. c. de L s., de Warda sua. Johannes de Solarijs (debet), xxviij s. & iiij d., de Warda sua.” (Note 5, vol. i. p. 709.)

We also find the City disputing the right of the King to tallage them. Madox relates the story:—

“In or about the 39th year of King Henry III. it was provided by the King’s Council at Merton, that the King should tallage his Demeanes in England towards the great Expenses he had been at in foreign Parts. The citizens of London being called before the King and his Council at Merton about tallaging the City, Ralf Hardell, the Mayor, with several others came, and the King demanded of them a Tallage of three thousand Marks. When they had consulted with their Fellow-citizens, they came and offered two thousand Marks by way of Aid, saying, They could not, nor would give more. Upon this the King sent his Treasurer, Philip Lovell, with others to St. Martin’s to receive of the City a fine of three thousand Marks for Tallage, in case they would enter into such Fine, and if they would not, then they were ordered to assess the Tallage per Capita. The City refusing to enter into that Fine, the Treasurer and the other Commissioners were about to assess the Tallage per Capita, ordering the Citizens to swear concerning the Value of each other’s Chattells. The Citizens refused to make such Oath, or to declare upon the Faith they owed to the King the Value of each other’s chattells. So the Treasurer and other Commissioners came back re infecta. Afterwards the Citizens came before the King and his Council at Westminster on the Sunday after Candlemas. It was there disputed whether this should be called a Tallage or an Aid. The King ordered Search to be made, whether the Citizens had formerly paid Tallage to the King or his Ancestours. Upon Search, it was found both in the Rolls of the Exchequer and of the Chancery, that in the 16th year of King John, the Citizens were tallaged at two thousand Marks, to have the Interdict taken off; that in the 7th year of King Henry III. they were tallaged at one thousand Marks; that in the 26th year of the same King, they paid one thousand Marks by way of Tallage; and that in the 37th year, they gave one thousand Marks and xx Marks of Gold by way of Tallage. Afterwards, on the Morrow, the Mayor and Citizens came and acknowledged, that they were talliable, and gave the King three thousand Marks for Tallage.” (Vol. i. p. 711.)

In this chapter I have shown, by the aid of John Carpenter, that by the end of the fifteenth century the days of “Uncertain Steps” were passed away. The New Order, which gave the power and authority of the City more and more into the hands of the Commonalty, has now become well defined and established; it is the constitution of the City; the old feuds have vanished; the old City families have disappeared; the craftsmen no longer go about bellowing that they are the Commons; they are reduced to order every one in his own Company, and every man knowing his place in his Company; the place of the craftsman is one of obedience; he has been educated by the Company, apprenticed by the Company, made a freeman of the Company; he works in accordance with the rules of the Company; he is paid according to its rules; when he is old he will be a pensioner in the Company; should he die young his widow and children will be the care of the Company. And instead of the former government of the City by hereditary right, the City is now governed by the forms of popular election, with safeguards, by elected Aldermen, elected Sheriffs, elected Common Council, and elected Wardens as Masters of the Companies. And as to the share which the craftsmen possessed in the elections the less that question was raised the better it was for the order and the security of the City.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CITY COMPANIES

We have next to consider the origin, growth, and development of the City Companies.

On the origin and antiquity of Guilds I have already spoken (vol. i. p. 204). It is impossible to conceive of any time, after men had begun to live in villages and towns, after arts and crafts had arisen, after some attempt at order had been made, when there were no such associations as those we call guilds. Those of the same trade were compelled to band together for the use of tools, for instruction, for the regulation of the output, for protection of all kinds. In the fifth century there were “consuls” or chiefs, of the Locksmiths; the bakers of Paris act as a body in the reign of King Dagobert; in Lombardy they had colleges of artisans; in Ravenna in the tenth century there was a college of fishermen; there was a chief of the Corporation of Traders; a chief of the Corporation of Butchers. In Paris in the year 1162 there were dues payable by the Corporation of Tanners, Shoemakers, and Pursemakers.

The oldest Guild-Statutes extant in this country are the laws of three Guilds, those of Abbotsbury, Exeter, and Cambridge. The general principles of the three are thus summed up by Brentano:—

“According to the latest investigation into the origin of Gilds, the drawing-up of all these statutes took place in the beginning of the eleventh century. In the case of one of these Gilds, there is no doubt whatever as to the accuracy of this date. This Gild was founded and richly endowed by Orcy, a friend of Canute the Great, at Abbotsbury, in honour of God and St. Peter. Its object, according to the statutes, appears to have been the support and nursing of infirm Gild-brothers, the burial of the dead, the performance of religious services, and the saying of prayers for their souls. The association met every year, on the feast of St. Peter, for united worship in honour of their patron saint. Beside this, there was a common meal: and in order that the poor might also have their share in the joys of the festival, they received alms on the day of the feast; for which purpose the Gild-brothers were obliged to furnish, on the eve of the day, contributions of bread ‘well boulted and thoroughly baked.’ Guests were only admitted to the common meal by permission of the Master and Steward. Insults offered in a malignant spirit by one brother to another, were punished on the part of the Gild, and had also to be atoned for to the insulted. He who had undertaken an office, but had not properly discharged its duties, was severely punished.

The Exeter Gild, whose statutes have likewise been preserved, was of altogether the same character. Here, however, association for the purpose of worship and prayer stands out more prominently as the object of the brotherhood than in the former case. Three times a year the Gild-brothers assembled to worship together for the well-being of their living and dead fellow-members. Here, also, every such service was followed by a meal in common. When any brother died, every member was obliged to perform special devotions for the departed soul. The mutual care of the Gild-brothers was, moreover, shown by money contributions in case of death, and in the support of those who went on a journey, as well as of those who had suffered loss by fire. Punishments were decreed for insults offered by the Gild-brothers to each other, as well as for not fulfilling the duties imposed on them by the Gild.

The statutes of the Gild at Cambridge show that its main object was altogether different from that of the two already mentioned. At the very outset, in the oath which every member had to take on the relics of the patron Saint of the Gild, they swore faithful brotherhood towards each other, not only in religious, but also in secular matters; and though the statutes secured for the Gild-brothers the same support in case of sickness and death as those of Exeter and Abbotsbury—and, like those, contained regulations with reference to alms, divine worship and feasts—yet all these objects were but insignificant in comparison with the measures for the protection of the members of the Gild against criminals, and even against the evil consequences of their own wrong-doings. The following may be considered a first principle: ‘If one misdo, let all bear it; let all share the same lot’; and for carrying this out, a complete organisation existed. If one of the Gild-brothers required the help of his fellow-members, the inferior officer of the Gild living nearest to him had to hasten to his aid; should the officer neglect this, he became liable to punishment, and in like manner the head of the society, should he be remiss in affording help. If a Gild-brother was robbed, the whole Gild had to assist him in obtaining compensation from the law-breaker. So also every Gild-brother was obliged to help, if a member himself had to make atonement for killing a man. If, however, he had no justifiable motive for committing the act, if he had not been provoked to it in a quarrel, if he was not under an obligation to execute vengeance, but had slain the man merely from malice, he himself had to bear the consequences of the deed. If one Gild-brother killed another, he had first to reconcile himself with the kinsmen of the murdered man, and had moreover to pay eight pounds to all those belonging to his larger family, namely, the Gild; failing which, he was shut out of the society, and the members of the Gild were forbidden to hold friendly intercourse of any kind with him. In like manner, an insult offered by one Gild-brother to another was severely punished. The solidarity of the society was even shown in the case of violence and damage to property, which one member might have suffered from the servant of another; the master of the servant was answerable for him, and was sued by the society for compensation. It was, moreover, a leading principle of the society, to which every member had to bind himself by oath, always to support him who had right on his side.

The essence of the manifold regulations of the statutes of these three Gilds appears to be the brotherly banding together into close unions between man and man, sometimes even established on and fortified by oath, for the purpose of mutual help and support. This essential characteristic is found in all the Gilds of every age, from those first known to us in detail, to their descendants of the present day, the Trade Unions. According to the variety of wants and interests at various times, the aims, arrangements, and rules of these unions also varied. As a rule, the Gild-brothers periodically assembled together for common feasts.” (English Gilds, p. lxv, Toulmin Smith’s edit.)

Stubbs divides the English Guild into three kinds—the Religious Guild, which had a social side; the Frith Guild; and the Merchant Guild.

I. Let us set forth the ordinances, already summed up, of the Exeter Guild, which belongs to the first kind.

“First, this Society is assembled in Exeter for God’s love and their souls’ profit, both in regard to the prosperity of this life and the future, which we wish for ourselves in God’s judgment.

1. There shall be three meetings in the year, the first at Michaelmas, the second at the feast of Our Lady after midwinter, and the third at the feast of All Saints after Easter.

2. Each brother shall contribute two sextarii of malt, and each cniht one and a portion of honey.

3. The priest shall celebrate two masses, one for the living friends, the other for the dead, at each meeting; and each brother of lay estate shall recite two psalters, one for the living friends, the other for the dead. This altogether will make six masses and six psalters, there being three general meetings.

4. At each expedition ordered by the King every brother shall contribute five pence.

5. At a house-burning each brother shall contribute a penny.

6. If any brother neglect an appointment for a meeting on the first occasion he shall pay for three masses, on the second occasion for five, and on the third occasion no allowance shall be made for the neglect unless it be through infirmity or his lord’s business.

7. If any brother neglect the appointment of paying his subscription or contribution let him compensate for it two-fold.

8. If any man of this fellowship revile another, let him compensate for it with thirty pence. In conclusion the document prays ‘for God’s love, that every man of this assembly justly observe what we have justly ordained. God assist us therein.’”

As, formerly, each family was a company allied against the world, so a Guild was the extension of that principle, and was the association of many families to form one. Thus, to quote Brentano once more (p. 5):—

“The family was, according to these historians (Waitz and Lappenberg), a community of all-comprehending importance, and its care provided completely for nearly all the wants of the individual. This it was able to do in consequence of the then simplicity of life. The minor found in it his protection; the insulted, the natural friends who sympathised with him most keenly in every injury inflicted, and who helped him to procure satisfaction. He who would engage in those pursuits which alone in that age were worthy of a freeman, and which at the same time promised riches and fame—in chase, feuds, and war—found in the family his natural allies. Naturally, he who fell into poverty, or sickness, or any other kind of distress, obtained from the family the necessary help; and it provided of course for the burial of the dead, whose heir it was. These are indeed the first, and are even nowadays the practical results of the family union. For the murdered, there arose from the midst of his family an avenger; to the robbed it gave the necessary help to prosecute and punish the thief, and to obtain restitution of the plunder. Further consequences of the nature of the family compact were, that the members were obliged to maintain peace amongst themselves; that they were not entitled to appear against each other in a court of justice; and, on the other hand, that they were called upon to punish members, especially women, who had violated the right of the family. Before the community, too, it became answerable for its members. The payment of the forfeited wergild was, in all cases of offence—which according to ancient usage and custom claimed revenge—the concern of the whole family. The family appeared as such an intimate union of its members, that this responsibility of the whole body for the individual member commended itself to the sense of justice of the people as a matter of course. But as it answered for the compensation, and took part in the payment thereof, and assisted the guilty in order that he might not forfeit life and limb to his antagonist, so it supplied the accused also with compurgators from among its members to ward off an unjust condemnation. In former times this family bond comprehended all relatives without limitation of degree; but in later days it became restricted to the nearer kinsfolk.”

The regulations of the Guilds resembled each other. Every Guild provided for its own masses and church services, and for the burial of its members, bringing the body to be buried, and providing wax lights, alms, and masses. Such of the Guilds as could afford it maintained their own Chaplain; women as well as men were admitted to membership. Sometimes the Guilds were composed of quite plain and simple folk; Worcester, it is known, had Guilds of Joiners and Carpenters, and perhaps of others; Bristol, among others, those of Fullers and Ringers; Holbeach, of Shepherds; Lynn, of Shipmen; Norwich, of “Peltyers”; Ludlow, of “Poor Men.” On the other hand, the Town Guild, or Merchant Guild, contained all the wealthier traders in the town. Sometimes it happened that men of different trades belonged to the same Guild. Thus Chaucer:—

Some of the Guilds were very popular, and had an immense roll of members. That of the Corpus Christi, York, is said to have numbered more than 14,000 members. Its popularity, however, is accounted for on the ground of the important part it took in the pageants of the City. The members took an oath of obedience on entrance. There was an entrance fee and an annual subscription of “housefee,” the amount varying from place to place, and from time to time. There were also calls upon the members for burials or for help in case of a member falling into poverty, and there were legacies. There were special days appointed for meeting together; the members were summoned by the Dean or by the common bellman. On the day of meeting they appointed officers, made agreements, and did other necessary things. On one day in the year, their Saint’s day, they all put on red hoods and livery, assembled together, marched to Church, bearing wax tapers, heard mass, made offerings, and going to the Guild house, or to the house of a brother, they feasted together in love and good fellowship.

On this day the richer Guilds got up processions, shows, ridings, pageants, and miracle plays. The internal administration of the Guilds was by a Master—“Gruuman” or Alderman, stewards or warders, Dean, and Clerk, the two latter being paid officers. Every Guild had its own livery. Those Guilds which were purely religious were, like the Corpus Christi of York, whose purpose was the conduct of a great and solemn procession, to celebrate one of the most important of Church doctrines. There were also Guilds for the performance of religious plays, as the Guilds of St. Elene, of St. Mary, and Corpus Christi at Beverley. There were Guilds for the repair of bridges and the building of chapels. There were Guilds of priests, especially the wide-spread Guild of Kalenders, so called because they, the members, met on the Kalend or first of every month. This Guild in some places, as at Bristol, maintained a school. Other Guilds, as that of St. Nicholas in Worcester, and that of Ludlow, maintained schools. All these Guilds were eventually swept away with the Dissolution of the Religious Houses.

II. The second kind of Guild was the old Saxon Frith Guild. There remains the complete code of a Frith Guild of the reign of Athelstan. In this

“May be recognised a distinct attempt on the part of the public authorities to supplement the defective execution of the law by measures for mutual defence ... if it be indeed the act of a voluntary association, it forms a serious precedent for the action of the Germanic leagues and the Castilian hermandad of later ages.” (Stubbs.)

After the ordinary rules of the Religious Guild there follow others connected with the distinct objects of the Society. Every member pays fourpence, which constitutes an insurance against theft; the Guild provides one shilling toward the pursuit of the thief. The members are arranged in bodies of ten, one of whom is the head man; these again are classed in tens under a common leader, who, with the other head man, acts as treasurer and adviser of the hundred members. The objects of the Society are the pursuit and capture of criminals and the exacting of compensation. As regards the body called the Cnihten Guild, it is dealt with elsewhere.

III. We next come to the Merchant Guild. This was simply the whole body of merchants organised for regulation of trade. In a mercantile city such a Society would of course be extremely powerful.

The statutes of the London Guilds were reduced to writing in the time of King Athelstan. From them Brentano thinks that the Guilds in and about London were united into one Guild, and to have framed common regulations for the better maintenance of peace, for the suppression of violence—especially of theft, and the aggressions of the powerful families,—as well as for carrying out rigidly the ordinances enacted by the King for that purpose.

It has already been stated that there are grave difficulties concerning the Merchant Guild of London. We find all the other towns in the country petitioning for the Merchant Guild unless they have already such an institution. But there are no documents at all which show the operation or the functions of the Merchant Guild of London. Some historians are of opinion that the Merchant Guild ruled the whole trade of the City, and that it was a body apart from the Portreeve or the Mayor and his Aldermen.

Whatever it was before the creation of the Mayor, there can be no doubt that after that important step all the functions of a Merchant Guild were discharged by the Mayor and Aldermen. These functions were, in brief, the regulation of trade. Now, in Riley’s Memorials we have a great number of trades approaching the Mayor and Aldermen with petitions not to regulate their trade for themselves; but that the Mayor and Aldermen would be pleased to regulate it in a certain manner; to bestow upon them certain powers; and to allow them to hale offenders, not before any court of their own, but before the Mayor and Aldermen. What is this but the authority of the Merchant Guild?

We have seen the rules of the Religious Guild. Let us now consider the ordinances submitted to the Mayor and Aldermen by a Craft Company. The following are those of the Pewterers. They are not the Articles of Association framed when the Company was founded, but the rules by which the Company regulated its own work:—

“Unto the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London pray the good folks, makers of vessels of pewter in the same City, that it may please them to hear the state and the points of their trade; and as to the defaults, for the common profit, by good discretion to provide redress and amendment thereof; and the points which are proper for folks who are skilful in the trade, and are duly ordained, to support and maintain.

In the first place—seeing that the trade of pewtery is founded upon certain matters and metals, such as copper, tin, and lead, in due proportions; of which three metals they make vessels, that is to say, pots, salt-cellars, esquelles,15 platers, and other things by good folks bespoken; which works demand certain mixtures and certain alloys, according to the manner of vessel so bespoken; the which things cannot be made without good knowledge of a pewterer, well taught and well informed in the trade; seeing that many persons, not knowing the right alloys, nor yet the mixtures or the right rules of the trade, do work and make vessels and other things not in due manner, to the damage of the people, and to the scandal of the trade; the good folks of the trade do pray therefore that it may be ordained that three or four of the most lawful and most skilful in the trade may be chosen to oversee the alloys and the workmanship aforesaid; and that by their examination and assay, amendment may speedily be made where default has been committed. And that if any one shall be found rebellious against the Wardens and Assayers, the default may be shown, with the name of the rebellious offender, unto the Mayor and Aldermen; and that by them he may be adjudged upon, in presence of the good folks of the trade, who have found such default. And be it understood, that all manner of vessels of pewter, such as esquelles, salt-cellars, platters, chargers, pichers squared, and cruetz squared, and chrismatories, and other things that are made square or ribbed, shall be made of fine pewter, with the proportion of copper to the tin as much as, of its own nature, it will take. And all other things that are wrought by the trade, such as pots rounded, cruetz rounded, and candlesticks and other rounded vessels that belong to the trade, ought to be wrought of tin alloyed with lead in reasonable proportions. And the proportions of alloy are, to one hundred weight of tin 22 pounds of lead; and these are always called ‘vessels of pewter.’ Also, that no person shall intermeddle with the trade aforesaid, if he be not sworn before the good folks of the trade lawfully to work according to the points ordained; such as one who has been an apprentice, or otherwise a lawful workman known and tried among them. And that no one shall receive an apprentice against the usage of the City. And those who shall be admitted therein, are to be enrolled, according to the usage of the City.

Also—that no person, freeman, or stranger, shall make or bring such manner of vessel of pewter into the City for sale, or offer it for sale, before that material has been assayed, on peril of forfeiture of the wares. And if the material be allowable upon assay by the Wardens made, then let the wares be sold for such as they are and not otherwise. And that no one of the trade shall make privily in secret vessels of lead, or of false alloy, for sending out of the City to fairs and to markets for sale, to the scandal of the City, and the damage and scandal of the good folks of the trade; but let the things be shown, that shall be so sent to sell without the City, to the Wardens of the trade before. And no one shall do any work in the trade, if he will not answer as to his own workmanship, upon the assay of his work, in whatever hand it be found. And if any one shall be found from henceforth carrying such wares for sale, to fairs or to markets, or elsewhere in the kingdom, before it has been assayed, and, before the Mayor and Aldermen, shall be convicted thereof, let him have his punishment at their discretion, according to his offence, when he shall be so convicted at the suit of the good folks of his trade.

Also—if any one shall be found doing damage to his master, whether apprentice or journeyman, privily in the way of larceny, under the value of ten pence, the first time, let amends be made unto the master by him or by his surety in the trade; and if he offend a second time, let his punishment be inflicted by award of the trade; and if he offend a third time, let him be ousted from the trade.

Also—as to those of the said trade who shall be found working in the trade otherwise than is before set forth, and upon assay shall be found guilty thereof; upon the first default let them lose the material so wrought; upon the second default let them lose the material, and suffer punishment at the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen; and if a third time they shall be found offending, let them forswear the trade for evermore.

And also—the good folks of the trade have agreed that no one shall be so daring as to work at night upon articles of pewter; seeing that they have regard among themselves to the fact that the sight is not so profitable by night, or so certain as by day—to the profit that is, of the community. And also—that if any one of the said trade shall be found in default in any of the points aforesaid, he shall pay forty pence for the first default; for the second, half a mark; and on the third default, let it be done with him at the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen; and of these payments let there be given one-half to the Chamber, to maintain the points aforesaid, and the other half to the Wardens of the said trade, for their trouble and their expenses. And that no one of the trade, great or small, shall take away the journeyman of another man, against the assent and the will of his first master, before he shall have fully served his term, according to the covenant made between them, and before the said journeyman shall have made amends to his master for the offences and misprisions committed against him, if he has in any way so offended or misprised, at the discretion of the Wardens of their trade; and whosoever shall do to the contrary of this ordinance, let such person have his punishment at the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen.

Also—that no one of the said trade shall be so daring as to receive any one to work at the same trade, if he have not been an apprentice or if he be not a good workman and one who can have the testimony of his master, or of good folks of good condition; and can show that well and lawfully he has served his trade for the time assigned among them. There were chosen and sworn to oversee the Articles aforesaid—Stephen Lestraunge and John Syward, peautrers.

On Thursday next after the feast of Allhallows (1st November) in the 23rd year of the reign of King Edward the Third, etc., it was witnessed before Walter Turk, Mayor, and the Aldermen, that Stephen Lestraunge was dead, and that John Syward could not work; wherefore the reputable men of that trade chose Nicholas de Ludgate and Ernald Schipwaysshe, pewterer, who were sworn to keep the Articles aforesaid.” (Riley’s Memorials, p. 241.)

These are the main points. No one can complain that they are drawn up in the interests of the masters only. It is, however, to be remarked that the regulation of wages, hours, and prices is not attempted. The omission was doubtless designed as leaving such points fluctuating from day to day by arrangement between masters and men.

In the chapter on City Factions it is shown that, a hundred years before the date of their ordinances (1348), Thomas FitzThomas, the Mayor, had allowed the trades to draw up statutes for themselves, and had given them Charters which the following Mayors disallowed. These statutes, we are told in contemporary authority, had caused “intolerable loss” to merchants frequenting London. It is reasonable to conclude that they were drawn up by, and in the interests of, the craftsmen, and not by those who were able to take a wider view of trade than protection and high wages.

I have drawn up a list of the trades whose ordinances, as given by Riley, were submitted to the Mayor and Aldermen in the fourteenth century, with the dates of the regulations so drafted, and the subsequent date of the corporation as claimed by the present companies.

This document, like others in Riley’s Memorials, is most interesting as marking a definite stage. The trades have now learned, after a great deal of quarrelling, vague jealousies and suspicions, to formulate what they call the “points” of their craft. That their careful and judicious regulations, such as those I have quoted, were drawn up by the leading men of the craft, the masters and employers, cannot be doubted. They are not the work of ignorant men: they bear the impress of shrewd and experienced employers, whose conclusions and recommendations were drawn up for them by clerks skilled in the arrangement.

What is it that the Pewterers ask?

1. That the Mayor and Aldermen will consider the points of their trade, and that they will provide redress for faults.

Observe that they have no authority of their own such as they afterwards obtained as a company.

2. An assay of the material.

3. Admission, by apprenticeship, “according to the usage of the City.”

4. Protection against “foreigners,” i.e. persons not freemen of the City.

5. No secret profits by making vessels of false alloy for export to country fairs and markets.

6. The responsibility of every workman for his own work.

7. Penalties for damaging a master’s goods and for infringing the rules of the craft.

The triumph of the crafts was completed in the reign of Edward the Third. At the same time it was a triumph which needed constant watchfulness. This necessity is shown by the case of the rich Pepperers, who seceded in 1345 and set up a company of their own. They were so rich that they commanded the Market. A petition was presented to the King complaining that—

“Great mischief had newly arisen, as well to the King as to the great men and commons, from the merchants called Grocers (grossers), who engrossed all manner of merchandize vendible, and who suddenly raised the prices of such merchandize within the realm; putting to sale by covin, and by ordinances made amongst themselves, in their own society, which they call ‘the Fraternity and Gild of Merchants,’ such merchandizes as were most dear, and keeping in stores the others until times of dearth and scarcity.” (L. Brentano, History and Development of Gilds, 1870.)

It was, therefore, ordered that in future all “artificers and people of mysteries” should choose each his own mystery, and should then practise no other.

What was the power of the incorporated Company? The keynote of the difference between the Company and the Fraternity was that the former had authority and the latter had none.

By their new powers, the Companies took over into their own hands the complete control of their trade. Henceforth the function of the Mayor was to compose disputes and settle differences between the Companies, especially in those cases where trades overlapped. The wardens, or the master and wardens, called meetings of the Livery; at these meetings regulations were passed; it was the duty of the wardens to enforce the execution of their own laws. They had the right, which the Fraternities had obtained of the Mayor, to examine the work and to destroy all that was “false.” In all matters concerning the Guild the master and wardens formed the only court: there was no Court of Appeal; their decision was final. There were certain exceptions to their power; the Mayor and Aldermen kept in their own hands the sale and the price of bread, meat, drink and fuel. The punishments were, for light offences, fines, either of money, of wax, or of beer and wine. For serious offences expulsion from the Guild was the worst and last punishment. A man so expelled could not any longer practise his trade in the City. We hear also of ’prentices being flogged for acts of dishonesty or immorality. Every man who practised any trade in the City must needs belong to the Company of this trade. There would have been no power, otherwise, to enforce their laws. What would be the good of calling order for the execution of good work if a colony of workmen set up in the City and refused to obey those laws or to enter their company? It was for self-preservation that this rule was enforced. Afterwards it became a weapon of oppression when the number of members was limited.

The care with which the Companies provided for good work was equalled by the jealousy with which they regarded the admission of new members. They looked to the moral character of a workman as well as his mastery over the craft. They made him serve an apprenticeship varying from seven to ten years. They received the boy in a manner calculated to impress upon his mind the importance of the duties upon which he was entering. At the close of his time he was, with like solemnity, received as a member of the Company, and, therefore, a free man of the City.

Next to looking after the young men, the Company looked after the tools. These were to be inspected regularly; they were to be “testified as good and honest.” The hours were fixed: no one was to work longer than from the beginning of the day till curfew, nor at night by candle-light. One Company, that of the weavers, forbade any work between Christmas and the Purification (Feb. 2). No one was to work on Sunday, or on festivals, or on the eve of a double feast, or on Saturday afternoons. The working men lost their Saturday half-holiday by the Reformation; it has taken them 300 years to get it back again.

As for the ordinances which regulated the conduct of members toward each other, I may pass them over. They were wise; they did what was possible to prevent over-reaching, underselling, taking good servants from a brother member, selling to one member indebted to another member, and, in a word, creating and keeping alive the feeling of brotherhood. Provision was made for those who fell into poverty. As long as any member remained out of work no member was allowed to employ any non-member; and the wife and children of a member might work at the trade with the husband or the father.

In course of time, very speedily in fact, abuses crept in. The trades began to limit the number of members; the richer members seceded and formed other companies—the shoemakers left the cobblers, the tanners left the shoemakers; masters withheld their wages from the workmen; journeymen were not allowed to work on their own account; nor could they become masters; there were strikes among the men, especially in the building trade; the journeymen formed companies of their own which they used for the purpose of raising wages; in the year 1383 a proclamation forbade the combination of workmen. Among the combinations so suppressed were those of the “yomen” saddlers and the “yomen” tailors.

The ground thus cleared, the masters could use the Companies entirely for their own profit and advantage. They endeavoured more and more to restrict the number of members, and to make the handicrafts of London the monopoly of a few families; in this attempt they were only too successful; in the sixteenth century Bacon calls the City Companies “fraternities of evil.” The masters made the apprentices swear that they would not carry on trade on their own account without the masters’ consent. The weakness of the law is shown in the failure of Henry’s law (1537); fixing the entrance fee of an apprentice at 2s. 6d., it rose to 40s., to £10; in the time of James the First to £20, £60, and £100; and in 1720 to £500 and more.

As to the further degeneration and the final ruin of the Craft Guilds, I refer again to Luigo Brentano.16

“As the Craft-Gilds everywhere had sunk down to mere societies for the investment of capital, and as their dividends depended entirely on the exclusion of competition, it was unavoidable that the spirit of gain should lead them to restrictions which became always more oppressive for the public. The annoyances they caused were considerably increased by a process which, after the sixteenth century, was of frequent occurrence in all countries; those Craft-Gilds namely, which had hitherto comprised kindred crafts, split up into several, according to the individual trades. These then watched each other with the utmost jealousy in order to prevent encroachments on their mutual rights, and continually fought each other in endless lawsuits. Thus, for instance, the Fletchers and Bowyers in London separated themselves into two corporations in the reign of Elizabeth. One might wonder that, on the one hand, the workmen, whose position was so much deteriorated by the degeneration of the Craft-Gilds, did not at once overthrow their dominion, as the Craft-Gilds had formerly superseded the degenerated Gilds of the patricians, and that, on the other hand, the State did not, in the interest of the public, take any steps towards the abolition of the Gilds, which had already been desired so often. But as to the working-men, though their position, and especially their prospects, had been greatly deteriorated by this degeneration of the Craft-Gilds, their interest was rather a reformation, than the abolition, of those bodies. The Craft-Gilds maintained a number of regulations, which protected the working-men, and in consequence of which their material position appears comfortable and free from cares, if compared with that of the factory hands at the beginning of this century, when these regulations no longer existed. Uprisings of working-men are therefore to be found in those days only in consequence of infringements of Gild-regulations. But as for a reformation of the Craft-Gilds according to the interests of the working-men, the latter were not powerful enough to carry it out against their masters. These still held strongly together in their Gilds, and did not yet, as in later times (and as formerly the patricians), rival each other in weakening competition. The State also had changed, and no longer consisted, as before, of an organisation of many smaller states. As, after the sixteenth century, the State became in all countries continually more centralised by its kinds, it was not possible for the journeymen to act with the same facility as the craftsmen had acted in former times in the towns. Moreover, owing to the men’s isolated method of working, they had not yet acquired the same feeling of solidarity, or the same consciousness of the power of masses, as our factory hands since have. And as to the State abolishing the Craft-Gilds, Kings used the bourgeoisie as a support; first, as Henry VII. in England, against the nobility; and then, because they needed them for pecuniary reasons.... The causes of the overthrow of the Craft-Gilds arose in the bourgeoisie itself. These causes were, the rise of large capital, and its investment in manufacture. The 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary already indicates the commencement. After stating that ‘the rich clothiers do oppress the weavers, some by setting up and keeping in their houses divers looms, and maintaining them by journeymen and other persons unskilful; some by engrossing of looms into their hands, and letting them out at such unreasonable rents as the poor artificers are not able to maintain themselves by, and much less their wives and families; some again by giving less wages for the workmanship of cloth than in times past, whereby they are forced utterly to forsake their occupations, etc.; it is enacted that no clothier, living out of a city, burgh, or market-town, shall keep more than two looms, nor more than two apprentices,’ etc. In short, the Act endeavours to protect the small masters against the competition of the rich capitalists. But neither this Act nor all the other attempts of the corporations could restrain the process of development, which, especially in consequence of a series of technical discoveries, threw manufacture altogether into the hands of the large capitalists. Handicrafts, and the corporations together with them, lost continually in importance, and only made themselves hated and despised in their endeavour to arrest the natural progress of event.”

Let us sum up the origin and development of the Guild.

1. We have the family united for the protection of all its members, standing by each other, liable for each other.

2. Next we have the association of neighbours together, of many families, to form guilds of religion and brotherly love and mutual protection.

3. The crafts are found uniting for trade purposes, regulating the production, jealously watching the standards of work, fixing hours of work and prices, excluding foreigners, and importing raw material. These trade unions had no powers other than those obtained by common agreement.

4. The formation of a Merchant Guild.

5. The rise of a City aristocracy who usurp the power, own the City land, impose taxes, and are insolent towards the craftsmen.

6. The revolt of the crafts against the aristocracy and their ultimate victory after a long struggle.

7. The creation of trade or craft companies, not guilds, solely for trade purposes, under ordinances approved by the Mayor.

8. The conquest of power by the new companies.

9. The complete subjection of the craftsmen for five hundred years to their own companies.