PREFACE.

My most cordial thanks are due to Miss M. T. Martin, who undertook the task of transcribing the MS. The illegibility and many textual corruptions increased the difficulty of her extremely arduous labours-but any inaccuracies or errors that may be discovered are entirely owing to me.

The Surtees Society were fortunate in possessing transcriptions of many of the Gild Ordinances made more than forty years ago by Mr. Skaife; these I collated with the original text, but their clearness and accuracy rendered my task almost superfluous.

I am exceedingly grateful to Sir George Warner, late Keeper of MSS. in the British Museum, for his assistance in many ways.

Mr. William Brown has given me considerable help, especially in making abstracts of those passages which were not of sufficient importance to merit verbatim transcription.

It is difficult for me to express adequately my gratitude for all the help Mr. G. G. Coulton has given me; in dealing with the text I made ceaseless demands on his knowledge of Anglo-French and medieval Latin; and although the introduction has not been seen by him, it owes much to his suggestion.

I am deeply grateful to Professor Unwin, of Manchester, who looked through the transcript of the MS.; his intimate knowledge of the London gilds made his advice as to form of publication especially valuable.

I am also much indebted to the Lord Mayor and City Council of York for permission to use the MSS., and especially to Mr. Craven, Town Clerk, for his courtesy in facilitating my work in every way in his power.

M. S.

37, ST. MARY's, York,

June 10th, 1912.

INTRODUCTION.

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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. 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.

2

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

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

B

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 13804 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

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 991 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."2 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. Op. cit., vol. II., p. xlvi.

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