The London mayoral elections were hotly fought over until in 1285, when the aldermen began to act with the aid of an elected council in each of the twenty-four wards, which decentralized the government of the city. Each ward chose certain of its inhabitants to be councilors to the aldermen. This council was to be consulted by him and its advice to be followed. In 1291, the aldermen for the first time included a fishmonger. The Fishmongers were the only guild at this time, besides the Weavers, which had acquired independent jurisdiction by the transfer of control of their weekly hallmote from a public official to themselves. Craftsmen began to take other public offices too. By the reign of Edward II, all the citizens were obliged to be enrolled among the trade guilds. A great quarrel between the weaver's guild and the magistracy began the control of the city by the craft guilds or city companies. Admission to freedom of the city [citizenship] was controlled by the citizens, who decided that no man of English birth, and especially no English merchant, who followed any specific mistery [French word for a calling or trade] or craft, was to be admitted to the freedom of the city except on the security of six reputable men of that mistery or craft. No longer could one simply purchase citizenship. Apprentices had to finish their terms before such admission, and often could not afford the citizenship fee imposed on them. Only freemen could sell wares in the city, a custom of at least two hundred years.
As economic activity in London became more complex and on a larger scale in the 1200s, some craftsmen were brought under the control of other crafts or merchants. The bakers fell under the control of the wholesale grain dealers; the weavers became pieceworkers for rich cloth merchants; the blademakers and shearers were employed by cutlers; coppersmiths were controlled by girdlers; fullers were controlled by entrepreneurial dyers; and the painters, joiners, and lorimers were controlled by the saddlers. Guilds moved their meeting places from churches, which were now too small, to guild halls. The controlling officers of the large guilds met at the Guildhall, which became the seat of mayoral authority. London streets in existence by this time include Cordwainer, Silver, Cannon (Candlewick), and Roper. Lanes included Ironmonger, Soper, Spurrier, Lad (ladles), Distaff, Needles, Mede, Limeburner, and Hosier. Fighting among groups was common in London. There was a street fight on a large scale in 1327 between the saddlers and a coalition of joiners, painters, and lorimers (makers of metal work of saddles). Much blood was shed in the street battle between the skinners and the fishmongers in 1340. There was a city ordinance that no one except royal attendants, baronial valets, and city officials were to go about armed. Disputes among neighbors that were brought to court included the use and upkeep of party walls, blocked and overflowing gutters, cesspits too close to a neighbor's property, noisy tenants, loss of light, and dangerous or overhanging structures.
In 1275, a goldsmith was chief assay-master of the King's mint and keeper of the exchange at London. The king gave the Goldsmiths' Company the right of assay [determination of the quantity of gold or silver in an object] and required that no vessels of gold or silver should leave the maker's hands until they had been tested by the wardens and stamped appropriately. In 1279, goldsmith William Farrington bought the soke of the ward containing the goldsmiths' shops. It remained in his family for 80 years. A patent of 1327 empowered the guild to elect a properly qualified governing body to superintend its affairs, and reform subjects of just complaint. It also prescribed, as a safeguard against a prevailing fraud and abuse, that all members of the trade should have their standing in Cheapside or in the King's exchange, and that no gold or silver should be manufactured for export, except that which had been bought at the exchange or of the trade openly.
Some prices in London were: large wooden bedstead 18s., a small bedstead 2s., a large chest for household items 2s., feather beds 2-3s., a table 1s., a chair 4-6d., cloth gown lined with fur 13- 20s., plain coats and overcoats 2-8s., caps 2-8d., a pair of pen- cases with inkhorn 4d., a skin of parchment 1d., 24 sheets of paper 6d, a carcass of beef 15s., a pig 4s., a swan 5s., and a pheasant 4s. There was a problem with malefactors committing offenses in London and avoiding its jurisdiction by escaping to Southwark across the Thames. So Southwark was given a royal charter which put it under the jurisdiction of London for peace and order matters and allowed London to appoint its tax collector. London forbade games being played because they had replaced practice in archery, which was necessary for defense.
A royal inquiry into the state of the currency indicated much falsification and coin-clipping by the Jews and others. About 280 Jews and many Englishmen were found guilty and hanged. The rest of the Jews, about 16,000, were expelled in 1290. This was popular with the public because of the abuses of usury. There had been outbreaks of violence directed at the Jews since about 1140. The king used Italian bankers instead because he thought them more equitable in their dealings. The lepers were driven out of London in 1276. Exports and imports were no longer a tiny margin in an economy just above the subsistence level. Exports were primarily raw wool and cloth, but also grain, butter, eggs, herring, hides, leather goods such as bottles and boots, embroideries, metalware, horseshoes, daggers, tin, coal, and lead. Imported were wine, silk, timber, furs, rubies, emeralds, fruits, raisins, currents, pepper, ginger, cloves, rice, cordovan leather, pitch, hemp, spars, fine iron, short rods of steel, bow-staves of yew, tar, oil, salt, cotton (for candlewicks), and alum (makes dyes hold). Ships which transported them had one or two masts upon which sails could be furled, the recently invented rudder, and a carrying capacity of up to 200 tuns [about one ton]. Many duties of sheriffs and coroners were transferred to county landholders by commissions. In coastal counties, there were such commissions for supervising coastal defense and maintaining the beacons. Each maritime county maintained a coast guard, which was under the command of a knight. Ports had well-maintained harbors, quays, and streets. By 1306 there was an office of admiral of the fleet of the ships of the southern ports.
Women could inherit land in certain circumstances. Some tenants holding land in chief of the king were women.
Regulation of trade became national instead of local. Trade was relatively free; almost the only internal transportation tolls were petty portages and viages levied to recoup the expense of a bridge or road which had been built by private enterprise. Responsibility for the coinage was transferred from the individual moneyers working in different boroughs to a central official who was to become Master of the Mint. The round half penny and farthing [1/4 penny] were created so that the penny needn't be cut into halves and quarters anymore.
Edward I called meetings of representatives from all social and geographic sectors of the nation at one Parliament to determine taxes due to the Crown that would replace feudal aids. He declared that "what touches all, should be approved by all". He wanted taxes from the burgesses in the towns and the clergy's ecclesiastical property as well as from landholders. He argued to the clergy that if barons had to both fight and pay, they who could do no fighting must at least pay. When the clergy refused to pay, he put them outside the royal protection and threatened outlawry and confiscation of their lands. Then they agreed to pay and to renounce all papal orders contrary to the King's authority.
Edward I wanted to bring all his subjects undder hisimmediate aujthority by the process of bringing all together to the same assembly under his common presidency. So his Model Parliament of 1295 was composed of the three communities. The first were the lords, which included seven earls and forty-one barons. Because of the increase of lesser barons due to a long national peace and prosperity, the lords attending were reduced in numbers and peerage became dependent not on land tenure, but on royal writ of summons. The great barons were chosen by the king and received a special summons in their own names to the council or Parliament. Others were called by a general summons. The second community was the clergy, represented by the two archbishops, bishops from each of eighteen dioceses, and sixty-seven abbots. The third community was the commons. It was composed of two knights elected by the suitors who were then present at the county court, two burgesses elected by principal burgesses of each borough, and two representatives from each city. The country knights had a natural affinity with the towns in part because their younger sons sought their occupation, wife, and estate there. Also, great lords recruited younger brothers of yeoman families for servants and fighting men, who ultimately settled down as tradesmen in the towns. The country people and the town people also had a community of interest by both being encompassed by the county courts. The peasants were not represented in the county courts nor in Parliament. One had to have land to be entitled to vote in Parliament because the landowner had a stake in the country, a material security for his good behavior.
Parliaments without knights and burgesses still met with the king. But it was understood that no extraordinary tax could be levied without the knights and burgesses present. Ordinary taxes could be arranged with individuals, estates, or communities. The lower clergy ceased to attend Parliament and instead considered taxes to pay to the king during their national church convocations, which were held at the same time as Parliament. For collection purposes, their diocesan synod was analogous to the county court. The higher clergy remained in Parliament because they were feudal vassals of the king.