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

by Alice Stopford Green

Financial transactions on such a scale as this would in any case have given the guild control over a town government whose expenses were fast increasing, and which in every time of need turned to its coffers for money. But the company of the Holy Trinity exerted far more than an indirect authority over the corporation. It was in effect itself the real governing force in Lynn. By a charter of Henry the Third its alderman (who held office for life and was thus absolutely independent of popular control) was joined with the mayor in the rule and government of the borough: in case of the mayor’s absence or death he was appointed in his stead,[817] and in the election of a new mayor he took the leading part.[818] Moreover, the twenty-four jurats of the council, who had the control of all town business, and from among whom alone the mayor might be chosen, were bound to be brethren of the guild. Under these conditions the “Potentiores”—the “great men of the town”—as they were commonly called in the time of Edward the First, ruled without restraint, and with a high hand assessed taxes, diverted money from the common treasury, profited by illegal trading, used customs contrary to common or merchant law, and bought the king’s forgiveness if any complaint was made of their crimes. Against their despotism there was no protection for the burgesses of humbler station—the middle class which went by the name of Mediocres, and the yet lower layer of the people known as the Inferiores, traders and householders who were not burgesses, and whose prosperity, if fairly well established, was of a less brilliant character than that of the upper classes.

There was, however, a disturbing element in the history of the Lynn corporation which was absent in Southampton, Nottingham, or Norwich. The lord of the manor was close at hand, and the governing class had to reckon with his claims and expect his interference. Local disputes magnified his power. Thrown together as natural allies against the potentiores, the mediocres and inferiores were forced to rely mainly on the protection of the Bishop. He on his part, whether for the sake of developing the trade of his borough, or for the sake of increasing the population dependent on himself rather than on the rival power of the mayor, stipulated—and this at the very moment when Norwich was compelling all its traders and artizans to buy its freedom—that the mayor should not have power to force the franchise on any settlers old or new who might take up house in the town while preferring to remain free of the charges of citizenship. He won from the mayor, moreover, in 1309, a Composition for the protection of both mediocres and inferiores, which not only became the charter of all their future liberties, but was also the fullest recognition of his own authority.[819] From this time, in spite of efforts on the part of the municipality to evade the composition, the mean people, confident of their legal position and assured of the support of a powerful patron, formed a society differently compacted from that which we find in other boroughs, and played a part in the politics of Lynn which was perhaps unique in town history. The “community” of Lynn differed from the “community” of other boroughs in being made up, as is formally stated in 1412, not only of burgesses, both potentiores and mediocres, but also of inferiores[820] or non-burgesses.

The first detailed account of the constitution of Lynn is given in Letters Patent of Henry the Fifth in 1417, where the “ancient custom” which ruled the town was recapitulated.[821] When a mayor was to be elected the alderman of the guild appointed four “worthy and sufficient” burgesses, who added to themselves eight comburgesses, and this jury of twelve elected one of the twenty-four jurats as mayor, and appointed the other municipal officers for the coming year.[822] The council of twenty-four jurats, which was drawn wholly from the ranks of the merchant guild and elected for life, filled up its own vacancies, so that when any one of them died or resigned his office or was expelled, the townsfolk appeared as mere spectators in the hall, while the mayor and remaining jurats chose “one of the more worthy, honest, discreet, and sufficient” of the burgesses to fill the vacant place. If it became necessary to elect any other officers the mayor nominated four comburgesses, who named in their turn eight others to form a jury.

In later days it was supposed that so long as these ordinances were observed “mayor, jurats, burgesses, and community, rested happily under the sweetness of peace and quiet throughout the days of prosperous times.”[823] Prosperous times there had certainly been[824] if we judge by the growth of the town’s budget. In 1354 the corporation spent £176; in 1355 £94; in 1356 £266; in 1357 £92; in 1367 £165; in 1371 £163; in 1374 £249. The year 1377 was very costly to the burghers, whose expenses suddenly mounted to £874. It was the year of the quarrel with the Bishop of Norwich,[825] and Lynn had to give £318 15s. to the king, his mother, and others “labouring for the community” when the Bishop laid his complaint before the council “for a certain transgression done to him in the town”; and to pay £116 10s. for the expenses of the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses who went to London on the same business. They were required further this year to spend £113 on making an enclosure for the defence of the town; and £103 10s. on a town barge, doubtless fitted out at the king’s demand to serve as a war vessel. All this naturally ended in a heavy debt; the corporation had only been able to raise £650 6s. 2d. and had to borrow £160 from the guild, and to leave the salaries of the mayor, clerk, serjeants, and chamberlains unpaid. The next year, however, it made an effort to clear off its debt and actually spent nearly £773, paying off £241 10s. to its creditors. From this time expenditure grew fast. In 1380 it was £351, and in 1382 £204; in 1385 £304; in 1389 £394; in 1399 £461.[826] In 1403 the borough had to lend to the king over £333 which was not repaid till 1425.[827]

The municipal debt of course grew as fast as the municipal expenditure, and in 1408 the corporation owed the guild between £400 and £500.[828] The council of jurats borrowed generously from the fraternity in their capacity of town councillors, and lent as generously to the corporation in their capacity of members of the guild. The inevitable abuses which belong to financial administration conducted on this system presently made themselves felt. Perhaps there was an attempt at reform when in 1402 changes were made in the manner of keeping and auditing accounts, and each of the four chamberlains had to return a separate statement of receipts and outgoings.[829] But if so the remedy was ineffectual, and for the state of Lynn, as for far bigger states, the question of finance ended in a question of revolution, or was at last the pretext of revolution. The angry discontent of the community finally broke out in 1411, when the people demanded the repayment into the town treasury of a sum of £458, which the last five mayors had spent without the consent of the community in litigation with the Bishop, to the serious prejudice and extreme depoverishment of the town. The five mayors on their side, at the head of the potentiores, retorted by claiming from the town £280 to repay losses which they had incurred in its service during their terms of office.

Thus the traditional “sweetness of peace” was at an end, and Lynn was presently plunged into the excitement of a revolution. Fortunately for the people the ruling body found itself face to face with all its enemies at once; for the mediocres and inferiores, alike excluded from places of honour and power, were as of old drawn into close relations and were together thrown on the protection of their lord the Bishop for the defence of their rights; while the Bishop himself, with whom the municipality had been dragging on a long quarrel for the last thirteen years, was probably in no conciliatory mood. Everything, however, was conducted on strictly constitutional lines. By common consent a committee of eighteen men of the town was appointed to deal with the grievances of the state, and every section of the town society was required to give pledges of obedience to its decision. The mayor and twenty-two potentiores bound themselves in sums of £100 each to submit to the decrees of the eighteen; eighty-four of the mediocres pledged themselves in sums of £50 each; and sixty-six of the inferiores in sums of £5 11s. 2d. On the committee itself each of the three classes that made up the community was represented. There were twelve burgesses, of whom seven were potentiores and five mediocres, and six non-burgesses or inferiores.

At first all seemed to go well for the popular party. The decisions of the committee were eminently satisfactory. The compensation money which the late mayors had claimed was altogether refused; and they were ordered to repay to the town treasury the £458 illegally spent without consent of the community. A decree was made that henceforth the mayor should only have, according to ancient custom, £10 for his year’s fee and whatever the community might put by for his reward having regard to his merit or demerit; and that he should answer to the town for all arrears of contributions during his mayoralty. It was declared that the non-burgesses had been deprived of the privileges secured to them by the composition of 1309, and an order was made that from this time they “shall have and use all rights to the said inferiores granted.” This was a declaration of ancient law and custom; but the committee went further and began the process of “mending the constitution” by issuing a decree that for the future each mayor should choose and take to himself a council consisting of three potentiores, three mediocres, and three inferiores, which nine persons together with the mayor should have full power to deal with the rents, etc., of the community.[830] By these ordinances which mark the triumph of the alliance between the mediocres and inferiores with the lord of the manor behind them, just as the composition of 1309 had marked their triumph a century before, the non-burgesses were formally given a share in the actual control of administration—a circumstance which so far as published records go has no parallel in the history of any other borough. The decrees were agreed to (how reluctantly was to be proved later) by the corporation on April 8, 1411, and signed by persons chosen from the three orders of inhabitants;[831] in November, 1412, they were confirmed by Henry the Fourth; and once more on April 10, 1413, by Henry the Fifth.[832]

At the same time, in 1411, the important question of elections was raised; and for the sake of securing to the commonalty a due share of power along with the alderman and his brethren, it was suggested that “certain new ordinances and constitutions concerning and about the elections of the mayor and the rest of the jurats, and officers, and ministers,” might be drawn up. The commons were to meet together a week before the day of election, and choose from among themselves a common speaker—a prolocutor he was called in Lynn. All burgesses who desired it might freely come to the guild hall for the election, and the congregation having been made, after public proclamation that none but a burgess or minister might give his vote,[833] they should choose two names from among the jurats, and from these two names the mayor and jurats were to select one as mayor. Throughout this proceeding the prolocutor and clerk were practically set to act as spies[834] on one another in the interests of their several parties, the prolocutor guarding the people’s interest, and keeping watch at the elbow of the common clerk (the nominee of the mayor and jurats) as he went from burgess to burgess in the hall to inquire for whom they wished to vote, or as he carried the nominations to the mayor, and wrote down the decisive votes of the upper chamber “severally and secretly.” In like manner the election of the other officers was also regulated;[835] and above all, the burgesses were, for the first time, given a share in the election of the council of twenty-four, being allowed at every vacancy to nominate two candidates; if these were rejected they were again to choose two other names, and so on until the jurats were satisfied. In its new constitution Lynn, like Norwich, decided to shape its system after “the manner and form in which it was used in the city of London;” but in Lynn there were special difficulties, and the new scheme could only be brought “at least to the greatest possible conformity with them of London, forsomuch that in the aforesaid town there are not had aldermen, wards, recorder, nor divers other things as in the city of London.”[836]