270
ORIGIN OF TOWN COUNCILS
They may be more correctly viewed as an anticipation by
the Crown of the frequent interference in the government
of the city by the appointment of custodes in the following
reigns, though in this case the citizens are merely required
to amend the defaults of their rulers by elected representatives.
Summing up the evidence for the whole period of the
quarter of a century following the concession of the commune
in 1191, it is hardly possible to say more than that it seems
insufficient to justify a decision between the rival interpreta-
tions of the “ scivini et alii probi homines ” of 1193, except
in so far as the government of the city immediately after
appears to have been in the hands of the mayor and aidermen.1
Their rule provoked a popular resentment, which led to the
election of the twenty-four in 1206, and one would suppose,
though here we know nothing of the circumstances, to the
election of the twenty-five five years earlier. These, however,
were only temporary set-backs, and by the beginning of the
next reign the aidermen were firmly established as the council
with whose aid the mayor administered the affairs of the city.
2. Ipswich. That a governing body whose number was
fixed could be instituted without a mayor or any other formal
borrowing from foreign communes appears from what happened
at Ipswich in I2OO. A singular chance has preserved for us in
its case a unique description of the re-organization of a borough
which had received a royal grant of fee farm with permission
to elect its two bailiffs, hitherto Crown nominees, and also the
newly created four coroners who were to watch over the rights
of the Crown in the borough.2
Although not expressly authorized by King John’s charter,
the central feature of the new organization, which was very
deliberately brought into being during the summer months
of 1200, was the election of “ twelve Chief Portmen sworn
{Capitales Portmenni iurati) as there are in other free boroughs
in England.” 3 It was they who, for themselves and the town,
were “ to govern and maintain the borough, to render its
judgements and to ordain and execute all things which be-
hove to be done for its status and honour.” They were no
mere council of assistants to the chief officers of the community
but a governing body, in which were included not only the
1 As would appear from the story of FitzOsberfs rising. It would
be rash to suggest that Richard’s return in 1194 brought about a reactionary
change in the government of the city. On the contrary. See above, p. 182.
2 Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 116 fi.
s Sicut in aliis Iiberis burgis Anglie sunt, ibid., p. 117.
IPSWICH
271
bailiffs but all the other principal officers of the town. Apart
from their membership of this body the bailiffs had only one
defined duty, that of keeping the provostship (preposituram)
of the borough,1 i.e., of seeing that the farm of the town was
duly paid, though it appears incidentally that they presided
in the borough court and had administrative duties not directly
relating to the payment of the farm.2
Despite the fact that the new constitution, in accordance
with the charter, recognized the ultimate sovereignty of the
community, all officers (portmen included) being elected and
all ordinances drawn up by them submitted to the whole town
for approval, it was actually a close form of government that
was set up. As the eleven chief offices of town and gild were
concentrated in the hands of eight of the twelve portmen,
there does not seem to have been much freedom of election,
and in the case of the portmen direct election was avoided,
the bailiffs and coroners “ with the assent of the town ”
choosing four good and lawful men from each parish as electors
who were sworn to elect the twelve “ from the better, more
discreet, and more influential (potencioribus) of the town.”
Nothing is said of annual renewal, and as a matter of fact,
though these elections took place in June and July, only the
bailiffs, who by charter were removable, were re-elected in
September for the new municipal year.3
1 Gild Merchant, ii. 116. -Ibid., pp. 119, 121.
3 This remarkable account, of which the briefest summary is here
given, is only preserved in an early fourteenth-century transcript in the
“ Little Domesday " of Ipswich. There seems no reason to suspect serious
tampering with the original, but anachronistic interpolations are always
possible in medieval copies. Such in the opinion of the Rev. William
Hudson is the assertion that councils of twelve were common in free boroughs
in 1200 (Records of Norwich, ɪ, xxiii.). That there were not twelve " port-
men ” in other boroughs, as the passage taken literally implies, needs no
demonstration. The only other borough which ever had such portmen
is Orford, in imitation, no doubt, of Ipswich. It is, assuredly, incredible
that all free boroughs had a sworn council under any name at the end of
the twelfth century, in view of the very special circumstances in which one
was set up at Ipswich. If the statement is not a later interpolation, " alii ”
must be used in the sense of “some other.” In the charter the liberties
are those of " ceteri burgenses Iiberorum burgorum nostrorum Anglie,”
though not all shared by every borough (cf. p. 217). It is possible that
the title Capitales Portmenni has been interpolated. It has a later ring
(cf. Capitales Burgenses in many boroughs). In the borough custumal
drawn up in 1291 we hear only of “ twelve jurez ” and in a document of
1309 they are spoken of as the “twelve jurâtes” (Hist. MSS. Comm.,
Rept. IX, pt. i., App., p. 242). The first occurrence of the title portmen
in any document quoted by the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners is
in i325 (ibid., p. 246). That the suggestion of these interpolations is not
unjustifiable is shown by the description of Roger Ie Bigot in the copy of
an accessory document (Gross, op. cit., p. 124) as Marshal of England, a
title which only came to his grandson fifty years later.