348 EARLY MUNICIPAL HISTORY IN ENGLAND
just the period at which similar bodies were coming into
existence in less prominent English boroughs.
When Ipswich, in I2OO, received a charter granting to
the burgesses the fee farm of the borough with the right to
elect bailiffs and coroners, they decided to elect twelve sworn
chief portmen “ to govern and maintain the said borough
and its liberties, to render its judgements and to ordain and
do what should be done for the state and honour of the town,”
and they took an oath to that effect. As soon as the port-
men were elected and sworn, they exacted from the assembled
burgesses an oath upon the book to be loyal and assistant
to their bailiffs, coroners, and twelve portmen. The unique
record from which this is taken ɪ may only seem to assert
the existence in I2OO of such bodies in all the other free
boroughs of England, but the Ipswich case was clearly not an
isolated one, and it is a new institution which is in question.
The whole proceedings at Ipswich, of which the election of
the portmen was only part, are strongly reminiscent of sworn
communal organization abroad. In the case before us the
councillors bore a neutral name, but similar bodies appear
not long after with the significant title of jurés or jurats.
The oath of the twenty-four jurés of Leicester, for instance,
was almost identical with that of the twelve portmen of
Ipswich. Add to this that before the end of John’s reign
a dozen of the most important English towns had instituted
civic magistrates with the French name of mayor, a number
largely increased under Henry III, and we come to the con-
clusion that the influence of foreign civic progress on England
at the end of the twelfth century has probably not yet been
fully appreciated.2
Until comparatively recently little was known of these
sworn bodies of twelve or twenty-four during the thirteenth
century, and there has consequently been a disposition to
post-date the rise of town councils, but the publication of
municipal records has revealed the existence of at least
thirteen.3 The Ipswich example shows that, except in such
a special case as arose in London in I2θ6, the creation of such
select bodies was left to the voluntary action of the burgesses,
and so, save for an occasional appearance in preambles, their
existence would hardly be suspected from royal charters.
ɪ Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. xι6 fi. See above, p. 271.
s See further above Chapter IX and Арр. I.
, See above, pp. 265-80.
EARLY MUNICIPAL HISTORY IN ENGLAND 349
In the personality of the mayor and bailiffs, who repre-
sented the communities in their relations with the central
power, the Crown took a closer interest. Yet, if we may
judge from the silence of many charters, express licences to
appoint mayors and bailiffs were not always required. They
had, however, commonly to be presented to the king or his
representative for approval.
In days not yet remote the gild merchant was very gener-
ally held to have been the germ and vital principle of the
constitution of the medieval borough. This error was dis-
pelled once and for all by the late Charles Gross, whose epoch-
making monograph appeared no longer ago than 1890. It
was an error which illustrated the worst features of English
historical amateurishness, unjustifiable generalizations from
partial and misunderstood evidence, and incapacity to grasp
a complicated problem as a whole. Those who held it managed
to ignore the fact that towns of the first importance, London
itself and Norwich, never had the institution which they re-
garded as the source of municipal structure. Cases like that
of Leicester, where the personnel of the borough court and of
the gild was apparently the same, and the town’s business
done in the latter was on the whole more important than that
which came before the portmanmoot, seem to have hyp-
notized even so good a local antiquary as James Thompson.
It is not strange that in a community predominantly com-
mercial the newer and more flexible organization of the gild
should sometimes have been preferred to a court which was
primarily judicial and greatly tied by ancient precedent.
In the words of Gross “ this fraternity was not the germ of
the English municipality, but only a potent factor in its
evolution.” How potent in the twelfth century before elec-
tion of officers and councils was secured he did not realize.1
The thoroughness with which Gross executed his task is
λyell illustrated by the fact that, though Ballard and others
have ransacked all available sources for fresh charters during
the last thirty years, only three towns possessing merchant
gilds have been added to his list : Brecon, Exeter, and
Pembroke.2 We may add that Gross was misled by Summers,
the historian of Sunderland, into the attribution to that town
of a gild to which it was not entitled. Henry Ill’s “ new
1 See above, pp. 222 ff.
2 Rawlinson MS. 465 {Bodl. Lib ), f. 230 ; B. Wilkinson, Medieval
Council of Exeter (1931), p. xviii. ; Cal. of Pat. R. 1377 81, p. 107.
AA