The name is absent

Exeter; corporation¹. At Exeter, where the merchant guild was not
one of the privileges originally granted, we find the mayor and
burgesses exercising or attempting to exercise supreme authority

Bristol. over the craft guilds ². At Bristol there had been a merchant
guild, but there, as at York, it had merged its existence in the
communal organisation; in the year 1314 there was an asso-
ciation of fourteen of the greater, men of the city, who were
Political stoutly resisted by the community ; the quarrel between the
troubles at          /                ^j                  .               ¹

Bristol. two bodies was one of the minor troubles of the reign of
Edward II, and was rather of a political than of a municipal
character, although the oligarchy of fourteen strengthened
themselves by alliance with the royal officers, and the com-
monalty, with the covert assistance of the opposition, carried on
a local war for some four years. Bristol was now the third,
if not the second, town in the kingdom, and it was probably
with a view of consolidating its constitution, as well as by
way of compliment, that Edward III in 13^l73 gave it a shire
organisation ³.

Towns in      In some towns which were part of the demesne or franchises

prelates. of prelates, the relation between the lord and the municipal
organisation gave a peculiar colour to the whole history. Two
Conatitution or three such cases may be mentioned here. Beverley was an
ancient possession of the see of York ; there the archbishop
retained his manorial jurisdiction until the Reformation, when
he exchanged the manor for other estates. But although he
retained jurisdiction, the townsmen in their guild, erected
under archiépiscopal charter and with royal licence, adminis-
tered the property and regulated the trade of the town, by
a body of twelve governours; on one or two occasions they
attempted, during vacancies of the see, to have some of their
governours appointed justices of the peace, but in this they
were defeated by the new archbishops. The constitution of a
council of twenty-four to assist the twelve was ratified by the
archbishops, and became a permanent part of the constitution,

‘ Rot. Parl. iv. 476, v. x21.

² Izaack’s Exeter, pp. 89, 91 ; Smith’s Gilds, pp. 297 sq.

³ See Seyer’s Charters of Bristol, p. 39.

XXi.]               Municipal History.                603

which, after the town became a royal borough, was completed
by the addition of a mayor and aidermen. In Beverley the
rights of the archbishop were older than that of the merchant
guild ɪ. In Ripon, another franchise of the archbishop, there Constitution
was no chartered merchant guild ; the jurisdiction was exer-
cised by the bailiffs in the manorial courts, and the elective
wakeman, an official of very ancient origin and peculiar to this
town, had certain functions in the department of police. In
both places there was generally harmony between the lord and
the town. At Reading it was otherwise². Reading had an andof
ancient merchant guild which claimed existence anterior to the
date at which the town was given to the abbey by Henry I.

There was in consequence a perpetual conflict of jurisdiction
between the mayor with his guild and the abbot with his courts
Ieet and baron. In 125:3 there was open war between the two Municipal
.                   ^x           .                         troubles at

bodies ; the abbot had seized the merchant guild and destroyed Beading,
the market ; under royal mediation the townsmen bought their
peace, their guild and corporate property, the abbot being
allowed to nominate the warden of the guild. In 1351 the
mayor, and the commons who had chosen the mayor, insisted
on their right to appoint constables ; this the abbot claimed as
appurtenant to his manor ; this dispute ran on to the reign
of Henry VII. The election of the mayor himself was another
bone of contention. The abbot had chosen the warden of the
guild from three persons selected by the brethren ; in 1460 the
abbot chose the mayor ‘ cum consensu burgensium.’ But in
1351 the right of choosing the mayor was claimed as an im-
memorial privilege of the burghers. An end was put to these
contests by the charter of Henry VII, which divided the town
into wards and prescribed the rights of the guildsmen. Similar
difficulties marked the earlier history of Winchester and other
towns where the bishops claimed not the whole, but a distinct
quarter. But these instances must suffice.

The first and perhaps the only distinct conclusion that can
be drawn from these details is that the town constitutions

¹ See Scaum’s Beverlac, i. pp. 149-321.
- Coates, History of Reading, p∣>. 49-56.

<<   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   >>

More intriguing information