The name is absent

once or twice for temporary purposes,¹ no more is heard of
gild representation until 1376.

In the interval a contemporary Westminster chronicler,
John of Reading, reports serious discord between the popular es
and majores of the city in 1364,² apparently arising out of
the parliamentary statute of 1363 which in attempting to
suppress cornering of commodities by confining merchants
each to trade in one commodity defeated its own object
by creating monopolies which raised prices by one-third and
was repealed in 1365. In the next year the king’s sudden
supersession of the mayor, Adam Bury, caused a riot which
led, according to Reading, to the election of two hundred
periti from the wards to act as a council with the aidermen
for ardua agenda and to elect the city officers, “ accessu vulgi
prohibito et secluso sub gravi poena.” ³ The not very in-
telligent chronicler seems unaware that ward representation
for these purposes was the existing system and is obviously
wrong about the quota, but if he is otherwise correct, the
settlement of 1376 was anticipated in the abolition of any
distinction between the election assemblies and at any rate
the more important administrative meetings either in num-
bers or in mode of choice. Election had been used hitherto
only for deliberative assemblies.

The condemnation of leading citizens by the Good Parlia-
ment revived internal dissension in the city which resulted,
in August, 1376, in a definite change of electoral unit from
ward to mistery. In future every sufficient mistery was to
elect certain persons, the greater not more than six, the lesser
four or two according to their size, against the day (28th Oct.)
when the new mayor was sworn in and these and no others
were to be summoned for one year to elections and whenever
it might be necessary to take counsel with the commonalty
in the Guildhall. The misteries were to be ready to accept
whatever was done by the mayor and aidermen along with
their representatives.⁴ That no very democratic change was
intended is evident from the further provision which, while
declaring ordinances passed by mayor and aidermen alone
to be void, allowed the consent of a majority of the twelve
principal misteries to be sufficient, if no wider one could be

¹ Cal. of Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1323-64, p. 267 ; Cal. of Lelter
Book G, pp. 280-1.

² Chronica Johannis de Reading, etc., 1346-4γ, ed. Tait (1914), pp. 161,
317-                          ³ Reading, op. cit., p. 169 ; cf. pp. xi. 331.

¹ Cal. of Letter Book H, pp. 36, 39 f.

ʒɪɪ

had, and from the power given to the mayor of fixing the num-
ber of misteries to be represented according to the gravity of
the matter in hand.¹ As the scheme was completed on receipt
of an urgent royal order to come to a settlement, it may well
contain some trace of compromise.

In addition to the change of unit of representation, the
makers of the revised constitution retained or revived the
amalgamation of the representative machinery for elections
and for administration into a single body which, as we have
just seen, had been tried ten years before, but perhaps not for
long. Instead of the two kinds of assembly of the older system
differing in several respects and both normally called into
existence ad hoc when required, there was now only one body
elected for a year and bound to hold at least two meetings
in each quarter to consult about the common needs of the city.
A standing council was thus substituted for an occasional
assembly and from the first it was regularly known as the
“ common council,” though “ assembly ” (congregatio) was
not entirely dropped. An oath was administered to every
member which is essentially the common councillor’s oath as
it became stereotyped in the next century.² Councillors were
relieved of judicial and taxative duties.

The new constitution was intended to secure for the
commoners ³ a really effective share in the government of
the city, putting an end to that arbitrary action of the mayor
and aidermen of which they complained at the outset. Not
only was the change from ward to mistery expected to give
a body of representatives more independent of the aidermen,
but an attempt was made to break the aldermanic front
itself. One of the early steps of the new régime was to put
in force again ⁴ the long neglected rule of 1319 that prescribed
annual election of aidermen and forbade re-election until the

¹ Cal. of Letter Book H, pp. 36, 39 f. To the king, whose chief anxiety
was for the preservation of order, the object of the changes was naturally
explained as prevention of tumult arising from large gatherings (ibid.,
P- 36)■

²Ibid., p. 41; Munim. Gildhall. Land. i. (Liber Albus), p. 41. For
the minimum number of meetings, cf. Worcester practice in 1467 (Smith,
English Gilds, E.E.T.S., p. 380). The distinction between a representa-
tive assembly and a representative council may seem rather a refined
one, especially as the former had always existed to give the '' commune
consilium ” of the city, but it was a real distinction. The oath of the
representatives c. 1285 (above, p. 307) may point to an early conciliar
experiment.

³ See Additional Note, p. 338.

¹ Cal. of Letter Book H, pp. 59-60,

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