334
THE COMMON COUNCIL
It was partly composed no doubt of ex-bailiffs. This being
so, “ certain lovers of the borough ” carried through the
assembly a series of ordinances designed to limit the power of
the bailiffs and their brethren, which are fortunately set down
in great detail in the extant Oath Book of the corporation.
The town finances were transferred from the bailiffs to two
new officers, called at first receivers and later chamberlains,
who with the bailiffs and eight auditors were to administer
the revenue they received and to present accounts annually
in the presence of their colleagues and such of the community
as desired to attend. To exclude the influence of the ex-
bailiff class upon the election of these and the other officers,
a committee of eligors was established after the fashion of
Lynn and Exeter, but in this case not a mere body of nominees.
Four sufficient persons, one from each ward, chosen by the
advice of the whole community, were sworn to add to them-
selves twenty others, and the twenty-four, none of whom might
be an ex-bailiff, took an oath to choose fit and proper persons
as bailiffs, receivers, and auditors. No ex-bailiff could be ap-
pointed as receiver.1
A new council was a necessary part of the re-organized
constitution. The bailiffs and auditors were annually to co-
opt sixteen of the wisest and best of the wealthier burgesses
(ce aux que plus ount). The bailiffs and the twenty-four
councillors were to manage all the affairs of the borough, and
to make necessary ordinances for its common profit. They
were bound to meet at least four times a year.2 That these
changes were in no real sense democratic is plain from the
provision that any representations by the commonalty touch-
ing the common profit or damage must be made by bill to
the bailiffs at one council assembly, considered there, and
answered at the next. Clamorous interposition was forbidden
on pain of imprisonment.3 And so we hear of ordinances
made in 1425-26 “ by the bailiffs and the general Counseill
of the town at the request of the commune people.’’ i With
this restriction, the general or common council replaced any
wider assembly that may have existed before 1372, except
that in a constitutional crisis it was still open to the bailiffs
1 The Oath Book of Colchester, ed. W. Gurney Benham (1907), pp. 31 ff.
t Ibid., p. 33. For quarterly meetings of council as a minimum number
at London from 1384 and at Worcester, see above, pp. 311, n. 2, 314.
3 Oath Book, loc. cit.
4 Red Paper Book of Colchester, ed. W. G. Benham (1902), ρ. 49.
SINGLE COMMON COUNCILS
335
to summon the whole community to a meeting with the council.1
At elections all burgesses were entitled to appear, but men’s
children, apprentices, and others who were not full freemen
must not intrude.2
The distinction of status between the eight auditors and
the other sixteen councillors, ended in the separation of
the auditors as aidermen before 1443,3 a∏d was seemingly
increased four years later by the acquisition of the right
to have four justices of the peace in the borough, in addition
to the bailiffs.4 The offices of bailiff, justice, and coroner
were now confined to aidermen, who in turn were only to
be drawn from the councillors.8 The effect, of course,
was to restrict election within very narrow limits and to
pave the way for co-option. The charter of 1462 enlarged
the council by the addition of a second sixteen, but gave the
choice of these to the bailiffs, aidermen and first sixteen.8 In
1524 ordinances were made which, though enacted only “ for
a year and further if profitable,” show a continued tendency
to close up the corporation. The twenty-four eligors who
elected the aidermen (with other officers) were forbidden to
remove them without the consent of the bailliffs and remaining
aidermen.’ Also the aidermen and common council asserted
the right to appoint one of the chamberlains for life, leaving
the selection of the second chamberlain only to the eligors,
who five years later were limited in their choice of the four
serjeants of the town to eight persons named by the bailiffs
and aidermen.8
It is possible that a council which was instituted at
Cambridge in 1376 should be classed with the type of common
council we have been examining. Unluckily in this case
there is no more to go upon than a brief entry in one of the
borough books. Until the third quarter of the fourteenth
century, the mayor’s only assessors seem to have been the
two aidermen and four burgesses or councillors imposed upon
the town by Henry III in 1268, at the instance of the uni-
versity, for a special purpose, the preservation of the peace.8
These were elected along with the town officers by eighteen
eligors chosen in an even more complicated way than those
we have already met with. The mayor and his assessors
ɪ Oath Book, pp. 34-5.
3 Red Paper Book, p. 159.
iOath Book, p. 186.
’ Red Paper Book, p. 30 ; cf. 29.
3 Above, p. 277.
2 Ibid., p. 35.
4 Cal. of Chart. Rolls, vi. 84.
8 Above, p. 322.
8 Ibid., p. 31.