INTRODUCTION.

The opening words of the manuscript, a book of diverse memoranda concerning the city of York," tersely describes its contents. The resemblance between this volume and the Corporation House Books, which began a century later, is so striking, though the arrangement differs, that it may rightly be regarded as the first of the series. Thus, York possesses a record of municipal matters extending in unbroken continuity from 1376 to the present day. Ecclesiastical, municipal, industrial facts are crowded together without the slightest regard to similarity of subject or closeness of chronology. A topic of national importance will follow the details of a petty dispute between a handful of craftsmen about the payment of a few pence. The record of an event belonging to the fifteenth century will precede one of the previous century. But this very lack of arrangement and formality gives variety and movement that the mosaic might otherwise have lacked. In form, matter, and date, the volume corresponds very closely with Letter Book H of the City of London,1 which is considered one of the most important contributions to civic constitutional history that has appeared during the last fifty years.2 That there should be ample material for a comparison or contrast between the metropolitan and the second city of England during a period, early in time and fruitful in interest, is a happy accident for the historian. Few periods of history have been more fertile in national and municipal experiments than the last quarter of the fourteenth century. The Good Parliament, bent on financial reform, met in 1376, but its policy was reversed the following year. The searchlight of fearless criticism was being thrown on the arrogant claims of the priesthood, for in 1381 Wycliffe openly denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. The labour market, dislocated by the Black Death, had not yet recovered its stability, and the statute of labourers had aggravated the general discontent, which found its expression in the so-called Peasants' Rising

1.

2.

B

Calendar of Letter Books edited by R. R. Sharpe.

G. Unwin. "The Gilds and Companies of London," p. 129.

of 1381. The whole of English life, social, political, economic, ecclesiastical was in the grip of a universal feeling that great and momentous changes were at hand and this feeling is reflected in the Memorandum Book.

2

The central figure is of course the mayor, who with the constant help of the twelve and the twenty-four, and the occasional help of the forty-eight, governed the city. An important enactment with regard to the duration of the office of mayor was passed in 13711; by this ordinance no mayor was to hold office for two consecutive years and no mayor was to be re-elected until eight years should have elapsed and eight men filled the post. It is clearly stated that this is not an innovation, but the list of mayors does not bear out this contention, it was the rule rather than the exception that the mayors should hold office for several years in succession, during the previous century only twenty-eight mayors wielded authority in York. Nicholas de Langton was mayor from 1318 to 1332, and returned to office in 1337, for three more years. John de Langton, too, was mayor thirteen consecutive years from 1350 to 1363. During the eight years immediately antecedent to 1370, six men had held office and it was probably fear of a return to the earlier methods and the concentration of power in the hands of John de Gysburn that led to the re-enactment of the old rule. By the same ordinance the salary of a mayor was fixed at £20. Almost a century later the mayor of Chester only received £11 6s. 8d.3 as his emolument. Leicester in 13801 ordained that the mayor should receive yearly from the community of the town £10, out of this he had to pay 40s. for his feast, 40s. for the wages of his sergeant, and 20s. for the wages of his clerk.

In York the mayor the bailiffs and the chamberlains were elected officials; unfortunately no clear light is thrown on those by whom they were elected. Were the electors themselves "choosen"? did they represent the whole body of citizens? or did those in power co-opt those whom they thought suitable; was

3. R. H. Morris, Chester, p. 177.

4. M. Bateson, Records of Leicester, vol. II., p. 192.

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the municipal government broad based on the people's will or was it a narrow oligarchy? Analogy affords little help; in Norwich, election is clearly alluded to "Firstly, at the Common Assembly held the Friday in the week of Pentecost, in the 43rd year of our lord the King [1369], it was accorded by the whole community that the election of the Bailiffs should be made "duly from year to year by the advice of the bon-gents and the better of the crafts of the said City. Also that the twenty-four "for the assemblies for the whole year should be choosen in the same manner. Also that the Treasurer should be choosen in "the same manner." But of Leicester, which even in the 13th century had a council consisting of a mayor and four-and-twenty jurats or brethren, " neither in the fourteenth nor in the fifteenth century is it even hinted that this Council owed its existence to an election." York as it appears in this volume assimilates rather to Leicester than Norwich. "Tut la commonealte," all the commonalty, constantly figure as giving their consent to ordinances and as present at elections. But the difficulty of getting at what the fourteenth century chronicler meant by the phrase is great. Obviously it is impossible to take the words literally. The total population of York was probably in 1377 between 11,000 and 13,000; the taxable population 7,248.3 Sixty or seventy new freemen were added to the roll annually; it is expressly stated that all the commonalty constantly assembled in their gildhall, space definitely limits the number. Inherent improbability still further emphasizes the difficulty; the fourteenth century artizan would not be likely to forsake his work to attend meetings, many of which had little practical bearing on his own affairs; if the whole working male population attended these assemblies, the industrial life of the city must have been often at a standstill. But the ground becomes less firm, when the theory rather than the practice is approached. Theoretically it seems probably that all the citizens had the right of attending either personally or by deputy, and that when any question of

1. W. Hudson. Records of Norwich, vol. I., pp. xlviii., xlix.

2. M. Bateson.

3. E. Powell.

Op. cit., vol. II., p. xlvi.

The East Anglia Rising, p. 123. W. Denton, England in the XV. Century, p. 98.

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great popular interest arose, they attended, not in their entirety but in a great and probably representative multitude. An analysis of the fifty meetings held between 1370 and 1399 gives the following results. The mayor is, of course, always present; twelve times" all the commonalty are there also,1 four times the more ambiguous term 'by common assent' is used. The chronicler has invented no stereotyped phrase to describe the smaller and selecter meetings. Nineteen of these gatherings are described, but a repetition of an identical expression to depict their members is unusual. The change is rung on various phrases with apparently the same meaning," with the consent of many valiant men," is used, but "honest men," "good folk," is the more general term though both "aldermanni" and the "twelve and twenty-four" occur.3 Nine times the bailiffs are specifically stated to have been present, the sheriffs once.5

The word communitas "6 which is of frequent occurrence seems to have been used with two distinct meanings, sometimes, the whole body of citizens are included but more often the most important are excluded, and the word refers only to the less influential class. One example will be sufficient to make the distinction clear. An important meeting was called to discuss the action of the brethren of St. Leonards in inclosing the common pasture. In the opening lines of the entry the whole council is called "the communitas," but later in the same entry the clerk becomes more specific, the assembly is said to have been composed of maior, vicecomites, probi homines et tota communitas,' obviously the first communitas covers the whole assembly, the second refers only to a restricted and less important section of it. The fourteenth century did not trouble itself about exactness of terminology, but in some cases in the early period, when an attempt is made to differentiate the divisions of the council,

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1. Mem. Bk., pp. 12, 14, 16 bis, 17, 20, 30, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44.

2.

Mem. Bk., pp, 39, 40, 43, 164.

3. Ibid., pp. 44, 30.

4. Ibid., pp. 28, 31, 32, 40, 41, 46, 251, 172, 173.

5. Ibid., p. 44. York did not become a county until 1397. 6. Mem. Bk., p. 179. W. Hudson, op. cit., p. xxxiii.

"This word

communitas is best translated community, when it means the whole body of citizens, commonalty when it is restricted to the commons as distinct from a select body."

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2

the twelve are called the aldermanni, the twenty-four and fortyeight are apparently classed together as "the probi homines," and the communitas seems to refer to the general body of citizens assembled in the hall, for if it referred to the forty-eight the expression "in multitudine copiosa," would be quite inappropriate.1 But one entry is quite clear and definite in its phraseology, in the jury of twelve men called to deal with the case of Thomas de Lounesdall in 1392, four were members of the twelve, quatuor virorum fidedignorum de duodecim probis hominibus," four of the twenty-four, and four of the communitas, apparently of the forty-eight. When, however, in 1379 the relative importance of the members of the assembly is expressed in terms of money, a different phraseology is adopted. The twelve councillors pay as fines for unpunctuality twelve pence each, the twenty-four eight pence, the artificers, probably the forty-eight, four pence. In this last case however the twelve and twentyfour are classed together as "bones gentz," the artificers stand as a class alone. Still the fact that the craftsmen attended the meeting a sufficient number of times to make it necessary to impose a fine for unpunctuality, tends to prove that they were a more integral part of the government than some historians are willing to admit. But the very clear picture given of the scheme of civic government in its practical working, amply compensates for the tantalizing haze that surrounds the manner in which the governing body was called into existence.

3

The most complete account is given of an assembly called on 4th July, 1379, to discuss the perfunctory manner in which the chamberlains discharged their duties; an ordinance by which a heavy fine was to be inflicted in case of any repetition of the negligence was then passed. A list of eighty-three names is given and a space for the insertion of another name is left at the end of the folio. Undoubtedly, on this occasion, the full complement of members, the twelve, the twenty-four and the forty-eight were

1. Mem. Bk., pp. 33, 119.

2. Ibid., p. 173.

3. Ibid., p. 39, cf. W. Hudson, op. cit., p. xlix,

4. Ibid., pp. 33, 35.