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ORIGIN OF TOWN COUNCILS
its own members and then together assessed the community
{communalte}. The common seal was in the keeping of the
mayor, bailiffs, and twenty-four, but they could not enfeoff
any man or woman with land or tenement without the assent
of the whole community of the city.1
It is just possible that the twelve citizens of Dublin who
in 1222 or 1224 had, on behalf of the Universitas of the city,
lent over £300 to the justiciar of Ireland to be used against
the rebellious Hugh de Lacy, and who in 1229 were to be
reimbursed by the citizens, whose resulting claim upon the
Crown was set off against the cost of the new charter,2 re-
present an earlier council. Dublin had been granted in fee
farm to its citizens by King John in 1215,3 and its governing
body may date, as at Ipswich, from that change in its status.
6. Berwick. The constitution of this border town was
strongly affected by its proximity to England, long before its
annexation to the southern kingdom. It already had a mayor,
unlike other Scottish boroughs, when in 1249 an ordinance of
the town prescribed that its common affairs should be adminis-
tered by twenty-four good men of the better and more discreet
and trustworthy of the borough elected for this purpose along
with the mayor and four reeves.4 Possibly, as in the case of
other Statuta passed at the same time, the ordinance merely
confirmed unwritten practice.
7. Oxford. From a petition of the “lesser commune” of
the town to the king against their treatment by the maiores
burgenses, which is endorsed with the date 1257 in a hand
of Edward IPs time, we learn that Oxford was governed by
a mayor and fifteen iurati. Together they passed ordinances
and levied tallages. The jurats are spoken of, without the
mayor, as judges of the town court, and are said to have
chosen the two bailiffs, who were responsible for the royal
farm, yearly from among themselves.3 Allowing for ex parte
colouring, all this, except for their number, is normal enough,
but the presence of the university introduced a disturbing
* Gilbert, Historical and Municipal Documents of Ireland (Rolls Series),
p. 267. , Ibid., pp. 92-3. 3 B.B.C., p. 231.
4 " Statuimus insuper per commune consilium quod communia de
Berwico gubernentur per xxiiii probos homines de melioribus et discretiori-
bus ас fidedignioribus eiusdem Burgi ad hoc electos una cum maiori et
quatuor prepositis ” (Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 236). The mayor of this
year had been mayor in 1238 (John Scott, Hist, of Berwick (1888), p. 478).
3 Cal. Inq. Mise, i, no. 238. The endorsement is : “ inquisitiones et
extente de anno, etc.," and as the document is neither of these, the date
may possibly be that of an inquest and not of the petition.
OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE
277
complication. At its instance and in its interest, a royal
writ of 1255 ordered that there should be four aidermen
(instead of two) and that eight of the more discreet and lawful
burgesses should be associated with them, all of whom should
swear fidelity to the king and give assistance and counsel
(“ sint assistentes et consulentes) to the mayor and bailiffs
in preserving the king’s peace, in keeping the assizes of the
town (sale of bread and ale), and in detecting malefactors
and disturbers of the peace and night-walkers and receivers
of robbers and malefactors, and should take their corporal
oath to observe all the premises faithfully.1 Owing to a gap
of nearly two centuries in our information as to the municipal
constitution, it seems impossible to decide whether this body
imposed from above, superseded the fifteen jurats or merely
took over the delicate relations between town and gown,
leaving the fifteen to deal with matters which concerned the
burgesses alone. When the extant municipal records begin
in the second half of the fifteenth century, there is no trace
of either, the “ mayor’s council ” consisting of thirty-five
persons.2
8. Cambridge. In the case of the sister university there is
the same difficulty. An order was sent in 1268 3 identical
with that to Oxford thirteen years before, except that the new
body was to be only half as large, two aidermen and four
burgesses. Here there is no record of a previous council,
though there was a mayor as early as 1235. The history of
the body set up in 1268 is, however, better known. In 1344
provision was made for their election with other officers,4
and they still appear in the middle of the sixteenth century.
The stringent oaths administered to them by the university 5
were resented, and in 1546 the two aidermen and four burgesses
(called councillors in 1344) refused to take them; this, on
the complaint of the vice-chancellor of the university, brought
down upon the townsmen a severe royal rebuke, whereupon,
though “ with some Stomache ” the required oath was taken.®
Between 1344 and 1546, however, the town had added some
seven aidermen to the original two, and the four councillors
were perhaps included in the common council of twenty-four
1 B.B.C. ii. 367-8.
2 Salter, Munimenta Civitatis Oxonie (Oxi. Hist. Soc.), p. 232. The
same number in 1519 (W. H. Turner, Records of Oxford, 1509-83, p. 22).
8 B.B.C. loc. cit. ; Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, i. 50-1.
4 Ibid., p. 96. 6 In what was known as the " Black Assembly.”
β Cooper, op. cit. i. 441-2 ; ii. 65.