Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Alice Stopford Green

Canterbury was originally governed by a portreeve appointed by the king; but at least as early as the thirteenth century the portreeve was replaced by two bailiffs, who were assisted by a council of twelve aldermen, or “wisest men,” and by thirty-six “probi homines” or “jurati.” There is reason to believe that the bench or chamber of twelve exercised from the first the powers which belonged to them in the fifteenth century. They were sworn to keep the law days twice a year, to preserve the memory of the limits and bounds of their aldermanries, and to give good counsel to the mayor; they received all the accounts of the money in the cofferer’s keeping; and with them rested the power to make all bye-laws. (See the cofferer’s oath in muniments of city. A. 1.)

There were some peculiar features about this upper council. The six aldermanries of which the city consisted had been originally held by the Crown “in capite,” but when Henry the Third granted the city to the citizens to hold in fee-ferm the offices were annexed to the fee-ferm, and the owners from that time held of the citizens. The wards, however, still remained the property of certain families in the county of Kent, estates which could be bequeathed by will, and which descended for generations from father to son. Their hereditary governors need not be either freemen or inhabitants of the city, and might moreover make their profit if they chose by leasing out the post. At one time S. Augustine’s held an aldermanry at Canterbury (Madox, 252); and at the inquisition of 1285 it was proved that William de Godstede, who held the aldermanry of Westgate from the community of the city at a rent of 3s. 4d., had leased it to the rector of Sturry, two miles away, for 100s. a year. At the same time their position in the city was most influential, for not only had they the usual police control of their wards as in other towns, but they were ex-officio members of the chamber of twelve, who formed the counsellors of the mayor in the government of the town. There they claimed superior place and privileges to their brethren, ranking in dignity next to the mayor and above the other six members of the chamber; the fine for reviling the mayor being 100s.; for the aldermen, 60s.; for the men of the chamber, 40s.; and for the thirty-six men of the council, 20s. The council of thirty-six may possibly have arisen out of the necessity of securing the attendance at the burghmote of a sufficient number of freemen. Their duties as defined by the oath customary in 1456 were very limited in character. “This hear ye, mayor, that I will be true to King Edward and his heirs, and true attendance make to the mayor of the city or his deputy at such times as I shall be desired or called, and keep the days of the burghmote, and truly keep the counsel of the said burghmote, and all other things do as one of the common council.” They seem to have had no control over the town treasure, nor any power to propose laws, and at first had apparently no power even to reject them. It would appear that juries were chosen among their body at the burgh court, and they took part in the election of the bailiffs.

A violent dispute broke out in 1445 as to the right mode of electing the bailiffs, and when Cardinal Beaufort visited the city bribes were used to win his influence in settling the quarrel. The matter ended by the grant of a new charter to the city in 1448, by which the bailiffs were replaced by a mayor. By this charter, the king gave power to hear pleas and to collect such tallages as the mayor and aldermen may consider necessary for the maintenance of the city, but of the council of thirty-six there was no mention. As early as 1429, however, its share in the government seems to have been recognized. The name “common council” was recognized in the oath used in 1456; and that it represented the people at large is clear from the statement in 1489 that the thirty-six were “sworn to the council of this city by the assent of all the commonalty of the city.” Finally in 1474 it was decreed that every act or ordinance made by the mayor and aldermen “with the assent of such of the thirty-six citizens for the commonalty of the said city chosen as it shall like the mayor and aldermen” was to be enrolled in the common chamber; and in this same year ordinances were made by the mayor, five aldermen, the sheriff of Canterbury, and two chamberlains; seven names are then given (who may possibly have formed the rest of the chamber of twelve with the five aldermen already mentioned), and thirty-six citizens (not mentioned by name) elected by the community for the public good of the city. In 1497 certain business in London was said to have been done by order of the mayor, aldermen, council, and commonalty. (Records of Burghmote Court. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 140, 146, 167, 169-173. Hundred Rolls, i. 49-55.)

In Shrewsbury, before the plague, twelve men were chosen who apparently elected the bailiffs, and presented their accounts yearly to six men chosen by the commonalty. In 1380 the town was torn by dissensions, and apparently some change had been made in the municipal constitution, for the commonalty under the direction of the Earl of Arundel now agreed to return to the form of government practised at the time of the plague. This lasted till 1389. Discords and debates still, however, continued, and the commonalty met in 1389 in the presence of the abbot and various lords to find a remedy for the misgovernment of the town. It was agreed that the bailiffs should nominate a council of twenty-five, which council in its turn should elect for the coming year the bailiffs, the coroners, and six cessors. The cessors were to oversee the spending of town moneys and to make up their accounts for six auditors chosen by the commonalty. All burgesses were to be present at elections. The bailiffs only appointed the serjeants. The collectors of murage might be dismissed during their year of office for any fault. Any burgess who resisted these ordinances or gave his opinion in the common assembly was to be punished. Ordinances were to be read openly every year.

A new composition made in 1433 gave the council of twenty-five right to choose a serjeant in addition to the two appointed by the bailiffs; he was to collect the rents due from burgesses for the ferm of the town. Further, the commons’ rights in electing the six auditors were affirmed and protected from encroachment “in deceit of the said commons.” The members of Parliament were also to be elected by the whole of the commons. All the burgesses were ordered to attend at the guild hall when summoned, and the common seal was to be kept by four men chosen by the commons. Lastly, the bailiffs and commons were to elect twelve worthy men who were to serve as continual assistants to the bailiffs for the term of their lives. In case of death the bailiffs and commons were to elect another councillor. The burgesses entreat that this composition shall be confirmed by Parliament because in the case of previous accords the commonalty could not bring action against the bailiffs for contravention of them.

In 1444 the council of twelve were given the name of aldermen. The common council was to act for the whole body of burgesses, who in the assemblies at the guild hall were no longer to answer in their own persons, but to show their advice to the twenty-four who were then to consult among themselves and to elect a speaker who was to declare their will to the bailiffs and aldermen.

At the same time the nomination of the electing jury of twenty-five was taken out of the hands of the bailiff; henceforth they were to elect two of the common council, and these two were to appoint the twenty-five electors, as well as the six auditors and the coroners. The commons were also to choose a chamberlain or treasurer. (Owen’s Shrewsbury, i. 168-174, 207-9, 212, 216.)

In Winchester “of the heads of the city should be four and twenty sworn instead of the most good men and of the wisest of the town for to truly help and counsel the mayor”; and the mayor was to be “chosen by the common granting of the four and twenty sworn, and of the commune, principal ‘sosteynere’ of the franchise.” The mayor and the twenty-four then nominated four men to serve as bailiffs, and two of these were chosen by the commons. For levying taxes six men were chosen “by the common granting and sworn, three of the four-and-twenty and three of the commune.” This was in and before the fourteenth century. At a later time the twenty-four named two men for mayor and the mayor chose one; while for the two bailiffs the twenty-four chose four men and the commonalty selected one of them, and in their turn chose four more, of whom the twenty-four selected one. The common seal was kept in a large coffer with two locks; one of the twenty-four was chosen to keep one key, and one of the commons to keep the other. (Eng. Guilds, 349-50, 356. Kitchin’s Winchester, 164-5.)

In the early fifteenth century laws, etc., were made by the mayor and his peers and all the community of the city. (Gross, ii. 258-9.) The “full assembly” of 1477 mentions the mayor and fifty-seven of his peers then present (Ibid. 262). It is a matter for inquiry whether the thirty-three citizens added to the twenty-four were specially summoned householders, and whether Winchester followed in its common council the type of Leicester or of Norwich.

Leicester had originally a council of twenty-four; and the commons had a right at first to gather at elections or at a Common Hall and watch the proceedings of the council. They had, however, no right to interfere with business, and in 1467 a fine was imposed on any who cried out or named aloud one of the mayor’s brethren to the office of the mayoralty. In the fifteenth century there were rumours and speech of ungodly rules and demeanings among the people, and in 1489 “whereas such persons as be of little substance or reason, and not contributors, or else full little, to the charges” still continued “their exclamations and headiness,” they were excluded as a body from the Common Hall, and the mayor, bailiffs, and Twenty-four, were ordered only to summon forty-eight and no more of the most wise and sad of the commoners after their discretion. In the later part of the fifteenth century orders were made by the mayor and “his brethren called the Twenty-four and the whole company of the Forty-eight, then and there assembled, for and in the name of the whole body of the corporation of the town.” (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 423; Thomson, Mun. Hist. 55-6, 80-84.)