Usurped
riglιts,
The lawsuit
between the
city and the
weavers’
guild.
592 Constitutional Hidory. [chap.
the citizens offered the king sixty marks ‘ pro gilda telaria
delenda ita ut de cetero non suscitetur 1∙, The guild however
outbid the citizens, and the king confirmed their privileges,
raising their annual payment to twenty marks of silver. In
1223, in fear that the citizens would seize and destroy their
charter, they lodged it in the treasury of the Exchequer. Not-
withstanding these perils they grew stronger and more inde-
pendent, obtained a fresh charter from Edward I, elected
bailiffs to execute their regulations2, and, going beyond the
letter of their privilege, established courts and passed by-
laws, which they enforced to the hurt of public liberty ; in
particular, they persecuted the guild of burrillers, a sort of
clothworkers who interfered with their interests, and attempted
to punish offenders against their rules by a verdict of twenty-
four men of the guild3. Although there is no positive evidence
to connect them and their fellow-guildsmen with the factions of
Thomas Fitz-Thomas and Walter Hervey, or with the later
troubles under Edward I, it is not at all unlikely that their
struggle with the governing body was a continuous one.
Edward ɪ seems to have encouraged the development of the
guild jurisprudence, and may have been induced to do so by his
hostility to the magnates of the commune ; under his son the
whole case came before the royal courts. In the 14th year of
Edward II, on a plea of ‘ quo warranto,’ the citizens, before
Hervey de Staunton and his companion judges, called on the
weavers to show by what authority they exercised the right of
holding courts, trying offenders, enforcing their sentences, and
assuming, as they did, complete independence of administration.
The guildsmen produced their charter, and the verdict of the
jury, impannelled to determine the question of fact, was, that
they had gone beyond their charter t ad damnum et dispendium
populi4.’
1 Madox, Excli. p. 279. 2 Liber Custumarum, i. p. 126.
j Herbert, Livery Companies, ɪ. 20.
i Liber Custumarum, i. 416-424 ; Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 285. Tlds
is only one of the contests waged by the weavers’ guild for the control of
trade and exclusion of fore⅛n workmen; others occurred in 1352, and
1409 ; ibid. pp. 192 sq., 283 sq. ; Hot. Parl. iii. 6oo, iv. 50.
City Companies.
XXI.]
593
It is possible that this trial was only one sign of the growing Freedom of
importance of the trades. In the regulations for the govern- quired7on°
ment of the city, confirmed by Edward II in 1318, occurs rfmSèrs
an order that no native merchant of certain mystery or office ° crafta4
shall be admitted to the freedom of the city except on security
given by six good men of certain mystery or office1. This
order may be construed as implying either that the trades had
such hold on the city as to exclude all claimants of the freedom
who were not able to produce six sureties belonging to a craft,
or tlɪat the governing body was so jealous of admitting any
tradesman to the freedom that it required six sureties for his
good behaviour. But this obscurity does not long embarrass the Victory of
τ. 1 . 1 . , p1 , . tɪɪθ trading
subject ; the article, with another oɪ the same code ordering the companies,
annual election of the aidermen, soon acquired a very definite
application ; for before the end of the reign of Edward III the
victory of the guilds or companies was won ; but it was won by
the greater guilds for themselves rather than for the whole body
of the tradesmen.
The guilds had increased and multiplied since Henry II had Muitipii-
. ɪ j cation of
crushed the ‘adulterine aspirants to independence. Theretrading
were now forty-eight, and of these the weavers were not in the ɪ' °'
first-class : the grocers, mercers, goldsmiths, fishmongers,
vintners, tailors and drapers being evidently richer and more
influential bodies2. All had been liberally inclined towards the
king, and he probably saw that, in allowing them to remodel
the city constitution in their own way, he would gain strength
in the cityaιιd make friends in that class from which all through
his reign he had contrived to raise supplies.
By an ordinance of 1346 the deliberative council of the city Bepresenta.
had been made strictly representative ; each ward, in its annual in the city,
moot, was to elect, according to its size, eight, six, or four
members, who were to be summoned to consult on the common
* Liber Albus, i. p. 142.
2 The twelve great companies, later called the Livery Companies, are
the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Dishinongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, AIer-
chant Taylors or Linen Armourers1 Haberdashers1 Salters1 Ironmongers,
Vintners, and Clothworkeis. Of these only the !fishmongers have charters
as early as the reign of Edward I. They were however of much greater
antiquity as guilds.
vol. 111. Q q