named one of two first eligors, and the commonalty the other,
and these two chose twelve approved persons, who co-opted
six others.¹ In 1376, however, a body of twenty-four coun-
cillors appears, described as “ lately elected in the name
of the whole community,” ² and this remained the common
council of the borough down to 1835. If the six assessors
of the mayor were regarded as a first council and the twenty-
four as a popular addition, Cambridge would share with
London the distinction of being the first to set up a common
council of this more usual type. But the assessors were
rather few to be considered as a council in the strict sense,
and the institution was always disliked as a mark of uni-
versity dictation to the town.® If there was actually no
superior municipal body until the number of the aidermen
was raised,⁴ it is conceivable that the establishment of the
council of twenty-four in 1376 was not the result of demo-
cratic pressure but of a more general movement against the
mayor and his unpopular associates. Fifty years later, in
1426, the whole government of the town is said to be in the
hands of the mayor and the twenty-four burgesses of the
more discreet sort ; no mention is made of the aidermen or
other assessors. There is nothing specially “ democratic ”
about the election of the twenty-four, when it comes into
view at this date. They were chosen by an even more
complicated arrangement than that for the election of officers,
and here, too, the commonalty’s part was confined to the
selection of one of the original two eligors.⁵ Still it was a
freer system than that which obtained later at Colchester
and elsewhere, and it was not until 1599 that the election of
the twenty-four, now all ex-bailiffs, was transferred to the
mayor and aidermen with power to displace and replace the
unfit.⁶

The most important inference to be drawn from these
municipal developments at Bristol, Exeter, Colchester,
possibly at Cambridge, and perhaps in other boroughs where
information is lacking, is that, so far as they go, and leaving
London out of account, they confirm the view that the
fourteenth century was not a period of much ^ζ, democratic ”
activity and advance in the English borough.

¹Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, i. 96, s. 1344.           ² Ibid. ɪ. ∏4.

³ Above, p. 277.                          ¹ Above, ibid.

" Cooper, ɪ. 174-5.                          ° Ibid. ii. 597.

APPENDIX II

List of Old Councils and Common Councils before 1550

Only those common councils are included which were added
to an older body, usually by the end of this period called
aidermen, as a representation of the commonalty. The list
is doubtless incomplete, as information is lacking for some
boroughs and for others it is confused and uncertain :—

Aidermen, etc. Common Council.

.     12        24 (before 1536)

12        36 (before 1456)

.     24        48¹ (before 1459)

.  8-J-∑6 ^a      16 (1462)

12        12 (1450-55 ³)

.    12       number undefined

12        24 (before 1520)

24        48 (1489)

12        24 (before 1520)

.    24 number variable ⁴ (1376)

24       27⁵(1420-21)

12         12 ⁶ (before 1491)

24       48 (1489)

24       60(1415)

35?       24 ⁷ (before 1519)

12        24 (before 1521)

24        48 (before 1463)

12        24 (1444)

16         18 ⁸ (1456)

24        48 (before 1467)

24        48 (before 1538)

¹ Reduced to 40 by the charter of 1506.

² The original 24 had split into a body of 8 aldermen and 16 councillors.
In one sense, therefore, Colchester had 3 councils from 1462.

³ After five years the two councils coalesced. See above, p. 333.

⁴ When their election was transferred to the wards in 1384, their number
was fixed at 96, but this was afterwards increased. See above, p. 313.

⁶Reduced to 18 by the charter of 1524.

^e See above, p. 322.

’Both numbers seem to have varied slightly. In 1518 a list of the
Consilium Maioris contains 37 names and that of the consilium commune
28 (Turner, Oxford Cily Records, 1509-83 (1880), pp. 20-1). But the num-
bers in 1523 were the same as in 1519 (iii<Z., p. 32).

⁸ Perhaps only a scheme, never put in force. See above, p. 322.

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