Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2

569

Davies, 36. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 100.

570

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

571

The outlay of the town in this year was £383 9s. 7d. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3. 141-2.)

572

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

573

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

574

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

575

Davies’ Southampton, 163.

576

Hist. MSS. Com. Report xi. Appendix 3. p. 43.

577

Ibid. 44.

578

Possibly in 1217, certainly in 1237. Davies, 170.

579

Gross, ii. 220-5.

580

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

581

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

582

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

583

Gross, ii. 214. Davies, 163.

584

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

585

Davies, 154, 238.

586

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 42.

587

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 45.

588

Ibid. pp. 46, 81, 84, 87, 106.

589

Gross, ii. 222-5.

590

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

591

Gross, ii. 220, 223, 225.

592

Gross, ii. 220-3.

593

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

594

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

595

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

596

Davies, 63, 71-2, 125.

597

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

598

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

599

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 12, 91, 113.

600

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

601

Davies, 164, 165.

602

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

603

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 11.

604

Ibid.

605

Davies, 71-2.

606

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

607

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

608

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

609

Davies, 53.

610

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

611

Davies, 52.

612

Davies, 57-8.

613

Davies, 58-59.

614

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

615

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

616

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

617

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

618

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

619

See Louis XI. et les Villes. Henri Sée.

620

See pp. 447-8.

621

Nottingham Records, ii. 34-6.

622

Nottingham Records, ii. 222-238.

623

Ibid. i. 269.

624

Nottingham Records, iii. 412, 62, etc. 39.

625

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

626

Ibid. ii. 102, 242; iii. 349-52.

627

Ibid. ii. xi. xii.

628

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

629

Nottingham Records, ii. 147.

630

Bekynton, i. 230.

631

Nottingham Records, iii. 113.

632

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

633

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

634

Ibid. ii. 178.

635

Ibid. iii. 18, 20, 28, 83, 180, 499.

636

Nottingham Records, ii. 284 et sq.

637

Ibid. ii. 389.

638

See Ibid. iv. 259. Similar entries become very frequent.

639

Nottingham Records, ii. 246, 248, 254, et sq.; iii. 414, 416.

640

Ibid. iii. 65, 68.

641

Ibid. i. 120.

642

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

643

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

644

Ibid. iii. 362.

645

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

646

Ibid. iii. 414, 416.

647

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

648

Ibid. iii. 421.

649

Ibid. ii. 331.

650

Ibid. iii. 237.

651

Nottingham Records, iii. 239, 245.

652

In 1461 the chamberlains’ expenditure for the whole year came to £124. Ibid. iii. 418. In 1486 they render account for £440 11s. 4d. Ibid. 266.

653

Ibid. i. 1.

654

Nottingham Records, i. 8.

655

Ibid. i. 22, 24.

656

Ibid. i. 40-46.

657

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

658

Nottingham Records, i. 78-80.

659

Ibid. ii. 2-10.

660

Nottingham Records, ii. 186.

661

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

662

Ibid. i. 56.

663

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

664

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

665

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

666

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

667

Ibid. ii. 424.

668

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

669

Ibid. iv. xi.

670

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

671

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

672

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

673

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

674

Ibid. iv. xii. xv.

675

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

676

Ibid. ii. 227.

677

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

678

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

679

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

680

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

681

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

682

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

683

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

684

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

685

Ibid. iii. 344.

686

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

687

Nott. Rec. iii. 438.

688

Ibid. iii. 338-40.

689

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

690

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

691

Nott. Rec. iii. 341-2.

692

Ibid. iii. 342-3.

693

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

694

June 1513 to Dec. 1514. Again in 1520.

695

Nottingham Records, iii. 342, 463.

696

Ibid. iii. 423, 463-4.

697

Ibid. iii. 357. He apparently neglected their entreaties. 358.

698

Nott. Rec. iii. 359.

699

Nott. Rec. iii. 358-60.

700

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