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.
It will, naturally, now be asked: What became of these “twenty-four,” who formed the Mayor’s council in the days of John? Mr. Loftie, we have seen, held that they became “identified with the Aldermen”; my own view is that, on the contrary, they were the germ of the Common Council. The vital distinction to be kept in mind is that the Alderman was essentially the officer in charge of a ward, while the Common Council, as one body, represented the City as a whole. In questions of this kind little reliance can be placed on late commentators; but the formulæ of oaths are usually ancient, and often enshrine information on the duties of an office in the past. Now the oath of a member of the Common Council contains significant clauses:
Sacramentum ... hominum ad Commune Consilium electorum est tale: ... bonum et fidele consilium dabis, secundum sensum et scire tuum; et pro nullius favore manutenebis proficium singulare contra proficium publicum vel commune dictæ civitatis; et postquam veneris ad Commune Consilium, sine causa rationabili vel Majoris licentia non recedes priusquam Major et socii sui recesserint; et quod dictum fuerit in Communi Consilio celabis, etc.[499]
It is not only that this is essentially the oath of one whose function it is to be a councillor: the striking point is that it contains three provisions in common with those which bound, at Rouen, the “Vingtquatre.” The councillor was (1) not to be influenced by private favour; (2) not to leave the Council without the Mayor’s permission;[500] (3) to keep secret its proceedings.[501] I do not say, of course, that there is verbal concordance; but when we turn to the oath of the Alderman, we see at once how much less resemblance his duties have to those of the “Twenty-four.”[502] It presents him as primarily the head of a Ward, responsible for certain matters within the compass of that Ward. He has to take part with the Mayor in assize, pleas, and hustings;[503] but his functions as councillor obtain only a brief mention in his oath (“et que boun et loial conseil durrez a ley choses touchantz le comune profit en mesme la citee”).
If any doubt is felt on the subject, it should be removed by turning to the case of Winchester. There, as in London, according to the ancient custumal of the city, we find the Mayor closely associated with a council of “Twenty-four,” which, in that case, continued to exist down to 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 deivent estre vint et quatre jurez esluz des plus prudeshommes e des plus sages de la vile e leaument eider e conseiller le avandit mere a franchise sauver et sustener.[504]
It is clear, to me, that “the Twenty-Four” were no more elected by the Wards (as is persistently believed) in London than at Winchester, but by the city as a whole, though we must not define the Franchise. The Winchester Aldermen, on the contrary, were distinctly district officers, as in London, “whose functions related chiefly, but not wholly, to the police and preservation of order, health, and cleanliness within their several limits.”[505] Moreover, they retained at Winchester, down to a late period, their distinct character and existence. According to Dean Kitchin:
The aldermen, in later days the civic aristocracy, were originally officers placed over each of the wards of the city, and entrusted with the administration of it.... It was not till early in the sixteenth century that they were interposed between the mayor and the twenty-four men.[506]