254 MERCHANT GILD, FEE FARM, COMMUNE
ordinance would have told the municipal historian nothing,
had not some cities and boroughs required special treatment.
To meet their case the general rule that each subordinate
commune should have one constable was qualified by the
following clause :
“ In civitatibus vero et burgis ubi major communa fuerit
Constituantur Constabularii plures vel pauciores secundum
quantitatem civitatis vel burgi una cum majore et constabu-
Iario castri quod ibi fuerit ; eodem modo in burgis ubi prius
communa non fuerat Constituantur Constabularii cum con-
Stabulario castri si ibi fuerit.”
There are two points of importance for us here, first the
precise meaning of a commune which some urban centres
already possessed in 1205, while others did not, and, secondly,
the evidence that despite the absence of any trace hitherto
of royal authorization or approval of their institution, mayors
were now fully recognized local officials, (ɪ) The statement
that cities and boroughs “ ubi major communa fuerit ” were
to have several constables, according to their size, might seem
to imply that major communa merely meant a large commune,
but this interpretation seems to be precluded by the rest of
the clause which prescribes the same treatment of boroughs
“ ubi prius communa non fuerat.” They were ex hypothesi
large nor could they be denied the name of communa or com-
munitas in the sense in which it was applied in the twelfth
century to any administrative or economic group. It would
appear that communa in this clause means more than that,
and the suggestion seems allowable that major communa
should be translated : “ greater (or more advanced) com-
mune.” (2) The suggestion gains support from the fact
that every city and borough where there was a major communa
is assumed to have had a mayor. We remember that there
was a sense in which London itself had not a communa until
1191, and that Ipswich regarded itself as a Communitas in
a new and fuller sense after the charter and reorganization
of 1200. It is true that if the mayoralty was an integral
part of a “ greater commune,” Ipswich and more important
boroughs than Ipswich did not possess it. In fact its possessors
must have formed a very select class indeed. We do not
know for certain of more than four towns that had mayors
by 1205 : London, Winchester, Exeter, and Lincoln.1 All
these, of course, had royal castles which the town with a
1 See below, p. 291.
EXTENT OF CONTINENTAL INFLUENCE 255
“greater commune” is also assumed to have. But it is
hard to believe that John and his advisers were consciously
drawing the line quite so high as that. It is perhaps more
reasonable to suppose that they exaggerated the number of
towns that had mayors. Medieval officials were often ill-
informed on local conditions and chancery clerks sometimes
addressed writs to the mayors of towns which had no such
head officer. However, if Lynn was not the only borough
which set up a mayor proprio motu 1 uncertainty rather than
carelessness may have been the cause of such errors.
The ordinance of 1205 is not without its bearing upon the
question whether the new communal movement in England
with its sworn association, mayors and town councils owed
anything to the influence of the contemporary continental
commune. Dr. Stephenson maintains that the French com-
mune had no more influence upon municipal development in
England at this juncture than it had exercised at any time
since the Norman Conquest.2 The new form of commune
was, he holds, a purely natural development from what had
gone before. “ Mayor ” was a foreign title, indeed, but no
more than a new name for an existing type of magistrate.3
This is surely an untenable position. Before the creation of
mayors there were only reeves whose first duty was to the
king, and aidermen who were legally only heads of trade
associations, though, as we have seen, they sometimes assumed
the character of quasi-communal officers. The mayor as
legal head of the community in all its aspects filled a place
in the English town which had not been hitherto occupied,
but which was normal in the foreign commune. It is true
that the sworn association had a precedent in London under
Stephen, and very likely in Gloucester and York where
Henry II suppressed “ communes,” though Dr. Stephenson
is inclined to conjecture other than municipal aims for
these.4 The idea was not new, but when it was at last
allowed to be put in practice, some reference to those foreign
models which had originally inspired it was inevitable.
Even if the “ ski vins ” of the communal oath of the citizens
of London in 1193 were only the aidermen, the use of a foreign
title of which there is no other instance in English borough
ɪ B.B.C. ɪi. 362. 2 Borough and Town, p. 184.
• Ibid. p. 173.
lIbid. p. 184, n. 2. The York case had clearly nothing to do with
those of communication with the king’s Flemish enemies.