Regulation of trade. 2 secured a similar concession 1, but even in the fifteenth century it was still struggling to protect its traders from distraint in other towns, as though the act of 1275 was either ignored or completely forgotten. II. An important department of town administration dealt with the strict regulation of trade, and a stringent control over all buying and selling became everywhere the normal feature of municipal activity. The mediaeval burghers were not convinced that man's self-love is God's providence, or that the economic interests of the individual and society necessarily and invariably coincide. They perceived that a collision of interests frequently arises, and, acting on the assumption that the welfare of the community constituted the primary purpose of commercial dealing, they did not hesitate to impose restrictions which in our own day would be condemned as harmful or futile. Their ordinances were often narrow, and sometimes defeated the objects they had in view, yet they were framed as a rule with the intelligible purpose of protecting the consumer as far as possible from the greed and fraud of unscrupulous dealers. The varied character of these ordinances can best be illustrated by concentrating attention on the following points: the assize of bread and ale, and regulations affecting wholesale and retail trading. The assizes of bread and ale established a sliding scale, which regulated the weight of bread according to the price of wheat, and the price of ale according to the price of wheat, barley and oats. At Beverley the keepers of the town elected three of their number to supervise the assizes for the year3, and at Southampton the assizes were ordered once a month or at least four times a year to "be well kept in all points according to the price of corn" 4. In London proclamation was made that every brewer or brewster' should sell the gallon of best ale for three halfpence, and the gallon of inferior ale for one penny, and no more, "and that they make and brew as good ale or better, as they were wont " 5. The diffi1 Ibid. 13th Rep. App. iv. 287. 2 See the citation from the town custumal, supra, p. 261. The date 3 Beverley Town Documents, 41. Riley, Liber Albus, i. 358. is 1486. ▲ Oak Book of Southampton, i. 43. culty of keeping the assizes may be gathered from the fact that in 1309 London contained more than 1300 brewers 1, while at Chester 121 brewers were fined in a single session 2. But the assizes were not merely a matter of local concern, for the central government early insisted on the uniformity of prices and measures throughout the realm. The constant travels of the king and his nobility from estate to estate serve to explain the active steps taken by them to curtail the opportunities of deceit, readily afforded by the diversities of local customs. The earliest enactments applying uniformly to the whole country dealt with the ordering of the assizes, and it was here that national legislation first came to supersede or at any rate to supplement municipal regulation. In 1202, according to Matthew Paris, the king caused general proclamation to be made that the legal assize of bread should be inviolably kept under penalty 3, and a statute ascribed to the reign of Henry III. (1266) fixed the price of ale and the weight of the farthing loaf of bread. But while these enactments emanated from the central government, they were enforced in the ordinary local courts. Hatred of the miller, the baker and the brewer was Unpopu larity of deeply engrained in the hearts of the mediaeval burgesses. victuallers. They were convinced that every miller stole meal and corn, that bakers gave false weight and took excessive charges for baking bread, and that brewers adulterated their ale and dealt short measure 5. It is difficult to determine how much truth there was in these accusations, and how far the stringency of the regulations forced upon provision dealers an inevitable recourse to evasion and fraud. Municipal ordinances must frequently have lagged behind the constant alternations in the market supplies, and the consumer was probably unable or unwilling to distinguish between a natural and an artificial scarcity. However this may be, the unpopularity of those who dealt in victuals is undoubted. The old Bristol chronicler, for example, praised Edward I. 1 Letter Book D, p. xix. 3 M. Paris, Chronica Majora, ii. 480. Millers 'steal meal and corn', and bakers 2 Morris, Chester, 430. the assize': A Chronicle of London, 1089-1483 (1827), 27. Bakers take excess: Records of Nottingham, i. 317. that he "redressed many enormities and especially the false dealing of bakers and millers "1. The occupation of brewing and selling ale was mainly in the hands of women, and a familiar figure in the Middle Ages was the fraudulent alewife, charged with a multiple of offences-breaking the assize of ale, buying corn before it came to the market and avowing the goods of strangers as her own 2. In the Chester Cycle the pageant of the Harrowing of Hell was entrusted to Cooks, Tapsters, Hoslers and Innkeepers, and the wail of the ale-wife sheds light upon her misdeeds. "Some time I was a taverner, A gentle gossip and a tapster, For such ill-doers so much amiss, Here shall they have their joy and bliss "3. Heavy penalties were occasionally inflicted on offenders who broke the assize of provisions. According to Domesday, any man or woman at Chester who gave false measure, or brewed adulterated ale, paid a penalty of four shillings or was placed in the 'cucking-stool' 4. Sometimes criminal bakers were drawn upon hurdles through the streets of the town with the defective loaf hanging round their necks, 'and otherwise punished as is practised in like manner with regard to such bakers in our city of London"". The seller of unsound wine was compelled to drink a draught of the wine which he sold, while the remainder was then poured over his head, a poetic form of justice. All fairs and markets 1 Adams's Chronicle of Bristol, 27. See also A Chronicle of London, 1089-1483, 274. Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich, 51. 3 Morris, Chester, 314. 5 Riley, Liber Albus, i. 265; Trans. Bristol 96 (Bristol charter, 1347). 4 Domesday Book, i. 262 b. and Glouc. Archæol. Soc. iii. • Riley, Memorials, 318. were required to have a pillory and a tumbril for corporal punishment, and where the lord substituted the milder but more profitable penalty of pecuniary amercement, he was liable to lose his franchise 1. We are inclined, however, to think that the elaborate system of punishments devised for breaches committed against the assizes was in practice largely illusory. In 1289 the total amercements assessed for various offences at Norwich 2 amounted to over seventytwo pounds, while the money actually paid into the court was only seventeen pounds; evidently it was one thing to levy fines and another to collect them. The bakers also evaded the penalties of wrong-doing, according to the London chronicler, by bribing the authorities to allow them to make deficient loaves at their pleasure a third or a quarter lighter in weight. It is, therefore, not surprising to be told that at Coventry "the commons rose and threw loaves at the mayor's head in St. Mary's Hall, because the bakers kept not the assize, neither did the mayor punish them according to his office". To all appearance, moreover, the punishment of a victualler carried with it no stigma or discredit. At Chester an alderman, William Ball, was fined for the sale of beer on holy days. The next year he was made mayor, and after his tenure of office was again fined for having sold beer on Sunday during his mayoralty 5. Breaches of the assize were in fact the commonest of mediaeval offences. Jurors constantly make presentments that all the ale-wives sell beer contrary to the assize, and that all the bakers have broken the assize of bread". Indeed at Chester one offender was presented continually for no less than twelve years 7. from Mediaeval distrust of the victuallers deepened when they Excluded began to fill municipal offices, for then the assizes were still municipal more apt to be honoured in the breach than in the observance. offices. To safeguard against illegal connivance of offences on the 1 Placita de Quo Warranto, 152-155; Patent Rolls, 1388-1392, p. 504. 2 Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich, p. xl. 3 De Antiquis Legibus Liber, 159; cf. also ibid. 122, 145. 4 M. D. Harris, "Laurence Saunders", in Eng. Hist. Review, ix. 635. 5 Morris, Chester, 430 (1567). Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich, 3, 5, 7 7 Morris, Chester, 414. Engross stalling and regrating. part of the magistrates, the Statute of York (1318) enacted that no officer responsible for the maintenance of the assize should engage in the victualling trade during his term of authority; and steps were taken to prevent the act from remaining a dead letter1. In 1382 the prohibition was renewed, but this time the statute was a mere device on the part of the non-victualling crafts in London to exclude their enemies from office 2. But in spite of these measures and renewed complaints victuallers continued to hold civic offices 3. Eventually in 1512 the statute of 1318 was repealed, and the reason alleged was that many cities, boroughs, and towns corporate within this realm of England be fallen in decay and ruin, and not inhabited with merchants and men of such substance as they were at the time of making of the aforesaid statute." There were now "few or none other persons of substance" in towns beyond brewers, fishmongers, vintners and other victuallers. Accordingly they were allowed to hold office, but two officials "discreet and honest persons" were to assess the price of victuals. This act appears to have been carried out, for in 1539 when a victualler was elected mayor of Coventry two men were appointed "to assist the mayor in fixing the price of victuals" 5. The system of assizes and uniform weights and measures ing, fore- represented an attempt to set up a recognized standard of quantity and quality; at the same time it was rendered necessary to adopt further means to protect the " poor commons" from extortion and "other corrupt practices against the common and merchant law"". To the mediaeval mind it was intolerable that dealers and middlemen should manipulate supplies with the avowed object of forcing up prices, and market regulations were framed to facilitate by 1 Statutes, i. 178. A commission was appointed to inquire into offences against the act: Patent Rolls, 1317-1321, p. 605. 2 Statutes, ii. 28. It was petitioned for by London (Rot. Parl. iii. 141 b) where the non-victuallers were in power: see infra, pp. 338, 454. 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. part i. App. 174 (Canterbury); ibid. Various Collections, i. 10 (Berwick, where in 1505 it was forbidden). 4 Statutes, iii. 30. Coventry Leet Book, iii. 738. But the prohibition against victuallers holding office is repeated at Oxford in 1536: Oxford Records, 139. • Patent Rolls, 1301-1307, p. 325. |
