What a citizen like Whittington thought and said was something like this: “In a great city the governing class should be wealthy, enlightened, and instructed. It should know the ports of trade, the demand for imports, the markets for exports, the limits of production, the figures which are needed to arrive at wages and retail price. It must also, in an age of artificial courtesy, understand good manners, and not be afraid to stand before kings. As for the men of the other class, who have no knowledge, save of a single trade, it is best for the State that they should be under rule and governance.” And to the best of his ability, Whittington, who was a stern Magistrate yet a just man, did keep the people under rule and governance. I believe that the mediæval masters were, as a rule, and up to their lights, benevolent; they did look after their people; they gave them wages which allowed a higher standard of living than was possible for any other working men in the world; they looked after the old, and they brought up the young.
For myself, I cannot but think that had the craftsmen then obtained their desire, the result would have been disastrous to the fortunes of the City. London would have become another Ghent or Bruges; it would be, now, a city of deserted trade. The time was not yet ready for the rule of the people by the people. They wanted education, experience, suffering, before they were able to rule. As yet they understood nothing, absolutely nothing, about liberties; they wanted nothing but the control over their own work. I think, in a word, that Whittington’s views were right for a man of Whittington’s time.
CHAPTER VI
THE CENTURY OF UNCERTAIN STEPS
Whether the Mayor was elected immediately after the concession of the Commune, or a year or two later, as happened in certain French towns, matters very little. The point of importance is that even after his election, and that of the Council, his powers were ill-defined. During the reign of Richard the First, while he was not even recognised by the King, we can understand that a wise Mayor would not seek to magnify his office; it would be safer to allow the Commune to go on quietly, so as to accustom the King to its existence. This, I take it, was the policy of Henry FitzAylwin, the first Mayor, during his three-and-twenty years’ tenure of office.
It may be assumed that the duties and the authority of the Guild Merchant were at once transferred to the Mayor and his Council. But what were the duties of that body? What were its powers? What were its limits? In order to show the uncertainty on this subject, remember that when Walter Hervey was Mayor he gave Charters to certain trades. It was not contended that the Mayor had no right to grant Charters, but that these Charters had no effect after his Mayoralty came to an end. The powers of the Mayor were as yet uncertain; it was not thought desirable to limit or to define them too closely. Therefore the right of the Mayor to grant Charters was not questioned. At the same time, it was no doubt felt, and quite rightly, that for any one Mayor to grant Charters without consulting the Aldermen and the more “discreet” citizens might impose intolerable mischiefs upon the City.
Yet, a hundred years later, we find the trades drawing up ordinances for the regulation of their own crafts, and praying that they might be accepted and placed under the protection of the Mayor and Aldermen. In the meantime, it is obvious, the power and the authority of the Mayor had been more clearly defined. The statutes placed under his protection were also placed under the protection of the Court of Aldermen.
One more point to illustrate the uncertainty introduced by the new order. In the year 1200, according to the book which will form the text of this chapter, a Council of twenty-five “of the more discreet men of the City” were sworn to assist the Mayor. Round, as we have seen (p. 18), shows that the number was not twenty-five, but twenty-four; he has discovered their oath, which did not in any way resemble the oath of an Alderman; and he has adduced other instances of such a Council. So that there can be no doubt whatever as to its existence. Now in the same book, which records its creation and carries the chronicle of the City down to the year 1273, there is not a single word said about this Council. We hear of the Aldermen, the more discreet citizens, and the principal citizens. But not one word about the Council. Either, therefore, which one can hardly believe, the Council was allowed to drop out of existence, or, which is much more likely, it was a purely civic body, not recognised by the Charters and with no legal powers; a body which acquired its importance from the Mayor of the year, and was more in evidence a kind of private advisory committee with which the Mayor could take counsel if he wished, or which he could neglect if he wished.
The book, which I have called the Text-book of the present chapter, is the Chronicle printed by the Camden Society from the Liber de Antiquis Legibus, by Arnold FitzThedmar. This book is, of all the mediæval documents connected with the history of London, perhaps the most important. For it is the work of a contemporary, one who took part in the events which he describes, a strong partisan yet fair to his enemies; evidently a man of the highest honour and principle, and as much a condemner of the common people as any old Tory of 1832.
His family history shows the ease with which foreigners were admitted in the twelfth century to reside in, to trade in, and to become citizens of, the City of London.