Again, to quote from Round:—
“For the first time we learn that the government of the City was then in the hands of a Mayor and échevins (skevini). Of these latter officers no one, hitherto, had even suspected the existence. Dr. Gross, indeed, the chief specialist on English municipal institutions, appears to consider these officers a purely continental institution. But in this document the Mayor and échevins do not exhaust the governing body. Of Aldermen, indeed, we hear nothing; but we read of ‘alii probi homines’ as associated with the Mayor and échevins. For these we may turn to another document, fortunately preserved in this volume, which shows us a body of ‘twenty-four’ connected with the government of London some twelve years later (1205-6).
Sacramentum xxiiijor factum anno regni regis Johannis vijo.
Quod legaliter intendent ad consulendum secundum suam consuetudinem juri domini regis quod ad illos spectat in civitate Lond[onie] salva libertate civitatis et quod de nullo homine qui in placito sit ad civitatem spectante aliquod premium ad suam conscientiam reciperent. Et si aliquis illorum donum aut promissum dum in placitum fatiat illud nunquam recipient, neque aliquis per ipsos vel pro ipsis. Et quod illi nullum modum premii accipient, nec aliquis per ipsos vel pro ipsis, pro injuria allevanda vel pro jure sternendo. Et concessum est inter ipsos quod si aliquis inde attinctus vel convictus fuerit, libertatem civitatis et eorum societatem amittet.” (Round, pp. 237-238.)
“Of a body of twenty-four councillors, nothing has hitherto been known. To a body of twenty-five there is this one reference (Liber de Antiq. Leg. Camden Soc. p. 2):
Hoc anno fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis, et jurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.
The year is Mich. 1200-Mich. 1201; but the authority is not first-rate. Standing alone as it does, the passage has been much discussed. The latest exposition is that of Dr. Sharpe, Records Clerk to the City Corporation (London and the Kingdom, i. 72):
Soon after John’s accession we find what appears to be the first mention of a court of Aldermen as a deliberate body. In the year 1200, writes Thedmar (himself an Alderman), ‘were chosen five-and-twenty of the more discreet men of the City and sworn to take counsel on behalf of the City, together with the Mayor. Just as, in the constitution of the realm, the House of Lords can claim a greater antiquity than the House of Commons, so in the City—described by Lord Coke as epitome totius regni—the establishment of a Court of Aldermen preceded that of a Common Council.’”
But they could not have been Aldermen of the wards, simply because the number do not agree.
To find out who they were, we must turn to the foreign evidence. At Rouen the advisers of the Mayor were a body of twenty-four annually elected.
This oath on election was as follows. It will be seen how closely it resembles that of the English Commune—