The story of Coventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

"Discord daily falleth in this city among the people of divers crafts"—such are the words of an order of leet passed in 1457—"because that divers masters of crafts sue in spiritual courts divers people of their crafts, affirming they have broken their oaths made in breaking divers their rules and ordinances, which rules ofttimes be unreasonable, and the punishment of the said masters over excess, which, if it continue, by likelihood would cause much people to void out of the city." The masters were thenceforth forbidden to bring "any manner suit, cause or quarrel in any court spiritual against any person of their craft," until "the mayor for the time being have heard the matter and variance ... and have licensed the suit to be had."[479] But though defeated in this scheme, the crafts doubtless did not give up the battle. The dyers' attempt in 1475 to form confederacies happened in a time of great division within the town respecting the enclosure of the common pasture. And the same disputes agitated the community twenty-one years later, when a member of the party of discontented craftsmen nailed up inflammatory verses on the church door, taunting the corporation with injustice and inveighing against the rules they had made for the buying of wool and selling of cloth.

NEW STREET

And indeed it may have been well that persons high in authority curbed the self-seeking spirit of the crafts. These bodies, formed early in the thirteenth century for mutual help and preservation, had since degenerated into close corporations eager to exclude competition at any price.[480] Fettered as they were by ordinances fixing price, hours of labour and the like, there was so little free play allowed the craftsman in the management of his business, that the difficulty of acquiring wealth must have been great. Each company of craftsmen practically monopolised all the traffic or business connected with their special calling in the district in which they lived, and were bound to take good heed that the numbers of those who formed their body should not be greatly increased, lest the individual profits should be reduced. They were resolved at all hazards to guard against competition. The trade of the town might support ten tanners for instance, but the admission of an eleventh or twelfth into the craft might endanger the older members' prosperity. Thus, in 1424, the weaver showed a distinct dislike to allowing their members to take any number of apprentices,[481] who were potential masters of the craft; and the cappers who in the fifteenth century had risen to be a very important body, allowed each master to take but two apprentices only, and when one departed before his serving-time of seven years was accomplished, the master was forbidden to take another in his place, without licence from the keepers of the craft, until the allotted time should be past.[482] The corporation, however, wished to break down this exclusiveness, and in 1524 declared that any member of what craft soever might receive what number of apprentices he would "notwithstanding any ordinance to the contrary."[483] Some twenty years later, finding perhaps that this sweeping measure aroused too much opposition, the leet tried to thrust a modified form of it on the cappers.[484] Twice within a few months [1544-5] they decreed that any master of the fellowship might take an extra apprentice when one of them had served five and a half of the allotted seven years and they repeated the order after a few years' space.[485]

The craftspeople had another method for keeping would-be members out of their ranks. They demanded on admission such fines as could only be paid by the well-to-do. And it was owing to their jealousy that precautions were taken to ensure the payment of these admission fines. Trouble came about, we are told, because new members departed from the town just when the fine was due, a year after setting up their shop. They were henceforth to be compelled to pay half their fine at setting up, and to put in two sufficient sureties that the second half should be paid at the end of the first year.[486]

It was part of the policy of the town rulers to recognise the apprentice's possible future citizenship, and withdraw him somewhat from his master's authority. The lad was therefore forced by the ordinance of 1494[487] to take the oath "to the franchises," and bring his twelve pennies to the steward for the town use when his term of service began. We see from the list of those who took the oath in 1495 that the apprentice lived in his master's house, serving him usually—though not invariably—for seven years' space. He earned a nominal sum, perhaps a shilling, or even 4d., the first six years, and a larger one, perhaps 10s. or 13s. 4d., during the seventh. Thus the son of John Preston, of Stafford, "gentleman," who was apprenticed to a grocer, earned 12d. a year, the wages of his last year of service—the ninth—being unfixed; while another lad, learning the same trade, received 13s. 4d. as his last year's earnings. The son of a Durham "husbandman" took from his master, a hat-maker, 4d. a year for six years, and 6s. 8d. during the seventh. The crafts seem to have made it their business to see that the boys were properly cared for. If any one of them complained that his master did not give him sufficient "finding," i.e. food and raiment, the offender was to receive first an "admonition," and on the repetition of the offence to pay a reasonable fine; if matters did not mend, the lad was to be removed and placed elsewhere.[488] The master exercised a superintendence over the apprentice's moral well-being. In an early indenture of the time of Richard II. the lad promises to haunt neither taverns nor houses of ill-fame, nor hold illicit intercourse with any of the women of the household.[489]

No doubt the number of apprentices was limited partly in order to prevent any one master from engrossing more than what was deemed his fair share of trade and profits. The craftspeople were very sensitive on this point. Thus, in 1424, quarrels arose between a certain John Grinder on the one side and his fellow-members of his craft of weavers on the other. The fact that Grinder wove linen as well as cloth, and had two sets of looms for the purpose,[490] had aroused the jealousy of the other weavers of the city. It may be remarked that this weaver was a man wise in his generation. He gained his cause and made his fortune, and filled the post of bailiff some time before 1449, being apparently the only man of his calling during the second quarter of the fifteenth century who ever occupied a high municipal office. Many precautions were taken to prevent undue rivalry between brethren of the same fellowship. It was usual among the artisan crafts for the member to report the closing of a bargain to the master or keeper of his fraternity.[491] And no other member of the calling could come between the contracting parties until the work was finished.[492] But among the more powerful craftsmen means were often taken to defraud their brethren of the poorer sort. By collusion between butchers and tanners the latter were able to buy raw hides "in grete," or wholesale, with the intention, no doubt, of reselling them at a profit to others of the craft, a practice the corporation forbade under a penalty of forty shillings, to be taken from buyer and seller alike.[493] When any excessive profit was to be made, the public, then as now, was fair game. In Coventry, as elsewhere, ale-wives gave short measure, and used an unsealed cup. The clothmakers stretched out broadcloth to the "high displeasure of God and deceit of the wearers" to a length the material could ill bear. Of all these matters the corporation took cognizance, inflicting fines, punishing by the pillory, or in extreme cases by loss of the freedom of the city.