[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.