3i6
THE COMMON COUNCIL
Act and later legislation greatly widened the franchise for
parliamentary elections.1
Thus by the close of the middle ages the assembly of
nominees, which in the thirteenth century normally repre-
sented the mass of the citizens in the government of the
city, had definitely split into two distinct bodies, both
elected,2 though on different electoral systems. London
stood alone in the evolution of a separate electoral assembly.
On the other hand, the common council, which was supple-
mentary to the court (or congregation) of the aidermen,
corresponded to the similar but proportionately smaller
bodies of the same name which in many boroughs replaced
the general assembly of the commonalty, whether primary
or nominated, and formed second councils alongside the
older bodies of twelve or twenty-four, membership of which,
like that of the court of aidermen in London, was now en-
joyed for life. In London, however, and nowhere else, except
for a time in one or two boroughs whose constitution was
modelled upon hers, the common council remained elective.
Everywhere else, sooner or later, it became as close as the
twelve or the twenty-four.
2.
In the development of its elected common council from
a select assembly the capital was exceptional as in much else.
The common councils which during the next two centuries
were substituted in many boroughs, voluntarily or under
royal compulsion, for the ancient communal assemblies were
specially created and, unless London was copied, not elective.
Imitation of London is best illustrated in the case of Norwich.
Although, as we have seen, Norwich had received the liberties
of London from Richard I, its earlier constitution differed in
some important respects from that of its mother city. Until
1404, when it was made a shire, it had no mayor, and until
1417 no aidermen, by that name. Its chief executive officers
were four bailiffs, assisted in administration, as early apparently
as the beginning of the fourteenth century, by twenty-four
1 An act of 1850 and the reform act of 1867 also extended the quali-
fication for electors of aidermen, common councillors, and ward officers
in the wards (Norton, op. cit., pp. 249 fi.). Until then it was confined to
freemen householders.
2 Indirectly, of course, in the case of the electoral body, the liverymen
being appointed by the companies.
NORWICH
317
elected by the community. As at London, however, the normal
assembly of the community was not democratic, being mainly,
if not wholly, composed of some thirty to fifty of “ the better
and more discreet ” of the city, summoned by the officers from
tbe four Ieets into which it was divided, twelve, ten, or eight,
according to their size.1 A penalty of 2s. for non-attendance
shows that, as at London again, even this limited number was
difficult to maintain. By the middle of the fourteenth century,
the burden of compulsory attendance seems to have been con-
fined to twenty-four persons, elected by the community from
the leets, who were perhaps identical with the twenty-four
assistants of the bailiffs.2 Somewhat later, in 1369, there is
evidence of an anti-oligarchic opposition operating here, as
in London, through the misteries or gilds.3 A resolution of
the assembly ordered that the city officers and the twenty-
four “ pur les assemblez ” should be elected by u lavis des
bones gentz et les melliores des metiers de la cite.” The
twenty-four 4 were not to make grants of tallages, mises, or
common lands without the concurrence of the better of the
crafts. The resolution was not entered on the assembly roll,
but the mention on the roll of 1372 of craftsmen bound to
attend assemblies, on pain of half the sum levied on absentee
members of the twenty-four, seems to prove that the gilds
won their point, if only for a season.8 Six years later the rulers
of the city, on the ground that many of the commune of the
town had been of late “ grauntement contrarions, ” petitioned
the king to empower the bailiffs and twenty-four to make such
ordinances and remedies for the good government of the
town as they should consider to be needed,6 and this was
allowed by charter in 138θ.7 The deliberate omission of the
words “ with the assent of the commonalty ” from a clause
of the London charter of 1341, otherwise copied verbatim,
remained unknown to the commons, they asserted, until,
at the beginning of Henry V’s reign, they came into conflict
with the twenty-four and other gens destat over the election
of mayors.8 A compromise was arranged by arbitration
1 W. Hudson, Records of Norwich, i. 191. 2 Ibid., p. 269.
3 Ibid., pp. xlviii-lii, 195, 268.
4 It is not clear from the terms of the resolution that these were the
same persons as the twenty-four “ pur les assemblez,” but the recorded
attendances seem to leave no other conclusions open (ibid., p. 1.), unless,
indeed, the names of the latter who attended were not recorded on the
rolls.
5 Ibid., p. 269. 6 Ibid. i. 64 f. ; Rot. Part. iii. 41.
7 Ibid. ; Hudson, op. cit., p. 30. » Ibid., pp. 66 fi.
Y