(iv.) At

London.

London has always stood in a class by itself. Its wealth, dignity and commercial pre-eminence have enabled it with ease to outstrip its competitors, and to achieve a position that is unique among English towns. Its municipal development is therefore naturally marked by peculiar features, which appear to have no exact parallel elsewhere. It was not inferior to Bristol or Norwich in the degree of obedience which it exacted from the gilds, and the rules of the crafts were brought to the governing body for their ratification. The Articles of the Hatmakers were approved by the mayor and aldermen "at the suit and request of the men of the said mistery "1; and between 1487 and 1496 over forty companies submitted their ordinances to the civic authorities 2, when those rejected were cancelled and the leaves of the books, in which they were recorded, were cut out. The gilds were fined for any attempt to evade the control of the city; in 1438 the Pewterers "confessed that they had made ordinances among themselves without authority of the mayor . against the liberties of the city and against the common profit ". Accordingly the ordinances, which appear to be identical with those borrowed by the Pewterers of York in 1416 for the rule of their craft, were "annulled and utterly rejected", and a new body of rules substituted in their stead. In other directions also, we have evidence that the gilds were subordinate to the civic authorities. The ordinances of the Coopers were confirmed with a proviso, which expressly reserved the right of the authorities to make any amendments if necessary 5; the Cappers, the Cutlers, the Armourers submitted their wares for examination 6: and the Carpenters surrendered half their fines". London had, however, to face problems, the legacy of its past history, which taxed all its energies and resources. Originally it

1 Letter Book F, 173.

2 Letter Book L, pp. xvii, 246. ordinances in 1475: ibid. 128.

The Butchers were fined for their 3 Welch, Pewterers' Company, i. 9.

The ordinances of the York Pewterers (1416) which have survived were not drawn up separately, but borrowed from those of the London Pewterers. Miss Sellers has suggested that they are identical with those afterwards destroyed by the London authorities in 1438: York Memorandum Book, i. 211-213.

5 Firth, Coopers' Company, 14 (1440).

Letter Book D, 272 (Cappers); Riley, Memorials, 146 (Armourers); 218 (Cutlers). Jupp and Pocock, Carpenters' Company, 353

was only a bundle of communities, townships, parishes and lordships, of which each has its own constitution "1, and though this gradually gave way to a more consolidated municipal system, it still retained survivals of its old form of organization which were with difficulty absorbed into the civic constitution. It was brought into conflict in the thirteenth century with the Weavers' gild, and in the fourteenth century with the Fishmongers' gild, which had inherited pretensions of self-government and independent jurisdiction from the traditions of feudal liberties. At a time when London had not yet welded together the heterogeneous and autonomous elements out of which it was composed, these gilds had succeeded in establishing their own courts with a degree of strength that long defied all attempts at subjection. We have already devoted attention to the history of the Weavers; and that of the Fishmongers presents an instructive parallel. In the Iter of 1321, following upon a complaint raised in parliament the previous year at their monopoly 2, an indictment was framed against the Fishmongers that they claimed the right to hold a weekly court free from municipal control, and enforced in it regulations which were injurious to the interests of the community. "We have been given to understand that certain ordinances have recently been framed by London Fishmongers concerning the sale of fish

.. and that they hold among themselves for their own ends a certain court, which they call Halimot', in which they have made these ordinances and conspiracies" 3. The existence of a separate court made the Fishmongers practically independent, and enabled them to take any case in which their interests were concerned out of the hands of the civic authorities and try it in their own hallmote. It set up an imperium in imperio and reproduced on a smaller scale the conflict of jurisdictions between 1 Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 439. But more stress is now laid upon the existence of a strong centralized body", which "from the earliest times. could speak and act for the whole city": see Ballard, English Borough in the Twelfth Century, especially pp. 58, 62, and Appendix IV. 2 Rot. Parl. i. 370 b. Riley, Liber Custumarum, i. 397; Liber Albus, i. 379, 383; Herbert, Twelve Great Livery Companies, ii. 30.

Church and State. Under Richard II. the monopoly of the Fishmongers, which even a century earlier had been a source of dispute 1, divided the citizens of London into two great factions, the victualling gilds, Fishmongers and Grocers, on the one hand, and the non-victuallers, Drapers, Tailors, Goldsmiths, Mercers, Haberdashers and Saddlers, on the other 2. The Fishmongers were a more powerful body than the Weavers had been because they were entrenched in the very seat of municipal government. They controlled the mayoralty and the common council at different periods 3, and were able therefore to maintain unviolated their privilege of a hallmote and the exclusive monopoly of their trade. They refused to submit their charters to the authorities when ordered to do so in 13784, and the Jubilee Book of Ordinances, drawn up by their opponents to limit their powers, was set aside in 13875. So bitter was the animosity stirred up between the rival factions, that proclamation was made in 1391 that no one should pass any opinion upon the merits of the dispute. But with the downfall of Richard II., who had extended to them his support, their position was greatly weakened, and under the Lancastrians they seem to have forfeited many of the rights which they had claimed 7. The victuallers, while thus constrained to surrender their privileged position, were strong enough to retaliate upon their opponents by compelling the manufacturing gilds in their turn to submit their charters to the mayor and acknowledge his authority. The fourteenth century thus marks a period of transition in the history of the London gilds. It opened with the submission of the Weavers, and it ended with the submission of the Fishmongers and all the other crafts, whose wealth or prestige afforded them exceptional 1 De Antiquis Legibus Liber, 168 (1273). 2 Letter Book H, p. i. See also infra, p. 454. 3 For the list of fishmongers who were mayors see infra, p. 455 (n. 3).

of London at this period,
4 Letter Book H, 193.
6 Ibid. 526.

5 Riley, Memorials, 494. (i.) In 1399 non-freemen were allowed to buy and sell fish and other victuals, wholesale and retail, notwithstanding the patent granted by Richard II. to the Fishmongers: Rot. Parl. iii. 444 a. (ii.) In 1462 the Fishmongers were ordered to submit their ordinances and to use no ordinances in future till they were confirmed: Letter Book L, 16.

8 Letter Book H, 193. This was during the mayoralty of Nicholas Brembre (1377-1378).

opportunities for resistance. Many of the London companies continued to hold a court with limited rights of jurisdiction over their members in imitation of the precedent set by the Weavers and Fishmongers, but they were one and all in complete subjection to the rule of the mayor.

From our survey of the position of the craft gilds in Summary different towns certain conclusions may be drawn. At first they appear to have been private and voluntary associations which struggled into existence in the face of vigorous opposition on the part of the municipal authorities, who regarded with jealousy their attempts to establish feudal immunities, and were apprehensive of an exclusive industrial monopoly which might prove detrimental to the welfare of the community. Subsequently, however, the authorities, impelled by the expansion of industry, changed their attitude and actively encouraged the formation of crafts and the development of the gild system, in order to tighten their hold over those engaged in trade and more effectively to exact a satisfactory standard of workmanship. It is worth while to notice that in the thirteenth century the gilds as a rule were founded by the municipality, and not-as in the former century-by the Crown, and on this account were the more amenable to its control. The craft gilds now became public bodies vested with semi-legal authority, an organic but strictly subordinate department of civic administration, supported and controlled by the municipal government, which always retained a reserve of power while delegating to them the supervision of trade and industry. Whatever degree of autonomy and separate judicial authority the gilds may have possessed, they were strictly subservient to the rulers of the town. We find the authorities electing gild officials, amending gild laws, punishing bad workmanship, interfering on behalf of the oppressed artisan 1, regulating wages 2 and fixing prices 3.

1 On these points, see supra, p. 329 seq. and infra, p. 350.

(i.) London: Riley, Memorials, 253 (1350). (i.) Chester: Morris, 409 (1576), 436 (1590). (iii.) Winchester: Archæol. Journal, ix. 77 (thirteenth century). (iv.) Dublin: Gilbert, Documents of Ireland, 235.

(i.) London: Riley, Memorials, 253 (1350). Coventry: Leet Book, i. 223 (1445); iii. 624, 646, 669 (1515-1520). Dublin: Gilbert, op. cit. 232. For assizes of bread, ale and wine, see supra, p. 266.

Constitutional significance of the craft gilds.

As the organs of commercial and industrial control, the crafts had thus a profound economic importance. Nor were they also without constitutional significance, for their influence reacted upon and modified the old burghal polity; they shifted the centre of political gravity and the possession of municipal offices from the landed to the mercantile interests. London especially was for a long time torn by the struggles of the crafts to obtain the control of municipal power. The aldermen of the city claimed the right to elect the mayor, but the privilege was contested in the thirteenth century by the commons. The Chronicle of London for the year 1263 describes how "this year Thomas Fitz-Thomas was again elected mayor by the populace, the aldermen and principal men of the city being but little consulted thereon "1. In 1272 the commons amidst great disturbances chose Walter Hervy for mayor, crying out, “We are the commons of the city, and to us belongs the election of mayor of the city "2. Hervy evidently represented the crafts, for he conferred upon them certain charters without the consent of the aldermen and in defiance of their wishes. Later the aldermen tried to annul these charters on the ground that they were "manifestly to the injury of all the city", and Walter "convened a great multitude of the people of those trades to which he had granted charters, telling them that the mayor and others wished to infringe their charters, but that if they would only adhere to him he would maintain them all in their integrity "3. Another conflict, as we learn from the Reading chronicler, broke out in the fourteenth century (1366), when Adam de Bury, the popular leader, was deposed despite the strong opposition of the people, who cried out that they would have no other mayor, and his successor was elected by a small body consisting of the aldermen and "the discreet citizens "4. The connexion between the craft gilds and the municipality grew increasingly more intimate, as membership of the craft became the chief avenue to citizenship. There were various 1 De Antiquis Legibus Liber, 58. • Ibid. 148. Ibid. 164 seq; Riley, Chronicles of London, 169 seq. Chronica Johannis de Reading, 169.