council in 1423,1 and of the common council in 1477.2 It seems as if the mayor's council might have its ancestry in the Twelve 3 lawmen or jurats who meet us at the gain of the Incorporation Charter, though at other times its numbers recall the Twenty-four and-on special occasions-the Forty-eight. While the common council having control over divers matters touching the community tends to supersede in the sixteenth century the large, irregular assemblies of the Wards. A difficulty arises with regard to the "general council," whereto reference is made in the so-called proclamation of John Leeder; what precise interpretation can be placed on the words it is impossible to determine; probably this council consisted of such as had borne office, and were therefore liable to receive the summons of the mayor, who was the pivot on which seems to revolve the whole constitution of the city.

The common council of Coventry, though roughly speaking it inherited the powers of the Forty-eight commoners, whom the leet of 1422 ordered the mayor to summon "from every ward a certain" to hear accounts and witness grants made under the common seal,' must be identified as far as personnel is concerned rather with the official Forty-eight,8 first heard of at the mayor's election in the following year. This second Forty-eight is something of an anomaly; a double Twenty-four, it consisted-in its inception at least half of the electoral jury and half of the mayor's nominees, strengthening the ruling body on its legislative side, and in no wise representing the controlling power of the

3 The mayor-lists (Corp. MSS. A 37, 43, 48 et passim) usually begin with the names of the twelve men who purchased the liberties in 1345.

See p. 572.

5 Perhaps there were occasionally summoned (see p. 626) "the most honest commoners of the city to the number of 48 persons or more."

This proclamation is written in Scribe A's hand, which is a hundred years later than John Leeder's time, and is probably later than 1450, since the order forbidding the carrying of weapons except in the case of a knight or squire, (p. 29) recalls a Privy Council ordinance of that year (Bateson, op. cit., II. xxxv ; Rymer, Fadera, xi, 262. A similar set of ordinances at Leicester and Worcester belong to 1467 (see Bateson, op. cit., II. 287). For the general council see above, pp. 31, 32.

7 See below, p. 42.

Ib. 44, 68-9. The members of the Forty-eight clearly were drawn from the official class; so also were the majority of those who formed the common council of 1477. Ib. p. 421.

On the first nomination (p. 44) the council is oddly arranged in companies of 11 (12 with the mayor) and 36. The number was not restricted to 48 absolutely; the expression 48 and more occurs (ib. 258); nor was the nomination of permanent character, cf. the lists on p. 44 and pp. 67-8.

community. Whether it was intended to act as a counterpoise to less officially constituted bodies, such as the obscure and apparently short-lived assembly of the Forty-eight commoners,1 or to the "hall" of the wardsmen, it is impossible to say, nor is it easy to trace its development throughout the sixteenth century, by reason of the gap in the leet records in the latter half of this period. At first, however, its business was legislative; the electoral Twenty-four of 1423 laid down as the special function of the Forty-eight that its members should "ordain and put in good rule all manner of good ordinances that are profitable to the said city";2 after 1445 this body transacted business through a quorum of twelve persons; 3 in 1477, however, when a new constitution had come into force, the Forty-eight was revived as a common council whose ordinances appear to have had the same validity as those of the leet.5 Later, in the early seventeenth century, we find the Forty-eight apparently split into two bodies again, and at warfare the one with the other, the omnipotent self-elected council-house of the mayor and aldermen evidently seeking to deprive the common council, then consisting of twenty-five members, of all initiative and proper control in the administration of the affairs of the city. After a short struggle the inferior council, utterly worsted in the conflict,

1 In York in the fourteenth century a body of Forty-eight was drawn from the artificers or crafts, Sellers, op. cit. v. ix. At Worcester the Forty-eight were commoners, Toulmin Smith, op. cit. p. 386. At Coventry the forty-eight auditors were occasionally summoned, see below, pp. 54, 65, 66, though it is not distinctly said that the mayor summoned commoners; later the practice of summoning forty-eight auditors appears to have died out, though the evidence is not conclusive, ib. 114, 116. See also ib. 633, where it is said that a company of forty-eight was chosen by the whole body of the city to view the common fields.

2 See below, p. 44.

3 The members of the Forty-eight were the most sufficient men "at home" on any given occasion; disobedience to their ordinances was punished by a fine of 7s. 6d., ib. 157, 421, 520. The position of the Forty-eight was probably strengthened by the charter, dated July 7, 23 Hen. VI, which contained a proviso allowing the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty to amend, correct, make, ordain or add to any custom. Cf. the letter of Richard III, ib. 523, for a further confirmation of this. See also Hudson, op. cit. liv-v.

There seems to be no new charter about this time, but a royal letter is addressed to the "mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, and common council," see p. 420. See also p. 421 for the common council.'

See p. 681, where the business under a leet heading is continued "at this common council day.' On another occasion (ib. 661) it was agreed that the mayors' council should dispose of overstanding leet legislative business. Earlier we find the leet asked to confirm the ordinances of the Forty-eight, ib. 258.

In reality into two bodies of Thirty-one (electoral jury) and Twenty-five (common council), ib. 836.

sank, by the terms of James I's charter of 1621, into a mere advisory committee and thereafter into nullity, no common council having been summoned by the executive, say the Municipal Commissioners of 1835, for over two hundred years.1

CHAPTER III

ORDERS OF LEET

The leet at Coventry the nucleus of municipal activity-By-laws on sanitation-Morality-Treatment of the poor-The school-Relations with the Church-The holy cake-Resistance of the crafts-The gild of the Nativity --Proceedings in courts Christian-The barbers-The dyers-The victualling crafts and foreign competition-The position of women.

Ir was the court leet of Coventry, not as in some other towns the assembly, the common hall 3 or the meeting of the gild merchant, which became in the fifteenth century the centre for the legislative activity, which is so marked a characteristic of urban life at this period. Some of these by-laws--such as those forbidding the bearing of weapons, more than three day's exposure of meat, the indulgence in sport, gaming, or too costly apparel-were but the echo of legislation in parliament or of ordinances passed by the Privy Council.5 More often the orders of leet were the outcome of local needs, representing the nice adjustment of various

1 Report of the Municipal Commissioners (Meridew, Coventry), p. 11. See below, pp. 835-7, and Second Leet Book, Corp. MSS. A 3 (b) ff. 37, 51, for details of this struggle between 1605 and 1617. The common council in 1605 were elected by the mayor and his brethren, the bailiffs and "a certain number of the commonalty (thereunto called)," at the great leet-the Michaelmas leet, which, as this record shows, then elected all officials-members being removable by the mayor and his brethren with the common council's consent. The council had a certain amount of control over the disposal of the city lands; took part in the election of the mayor; and one of their members had the key of the chest containing the common seal. Some of these powers were subsequently curtailed, even before the 1621 charter, by the provision whereof the common council became entirely dependent on the council-house, which body appointed and could remove the members.

2 For the assembly (congregatio) at Northampton, see Northampton Rec. I. 241 et passim.

3 Bateson, op. cit. II. 287 sqq.

Toulmin Smith, op. cit. pp. 376-409 (Worcester). The gild was a centre of burghal activity in the towns of mesne lords, where the borough courts were not under the control of the burgesses: see Gross, Gild-merchant, 1. 62, 90. 5 Biteson, op. cit. II. xxxiv. See also below, pp. 630, 690.

local interests, and touching every department of a citizen's life, his food, his work, his conduct. The order against bearing of weapons, hard to enforce in those troublous times, aimed at ensuring the preservation of the peace,1 and the frequently repeated provisions to ensure a clean river,2 an unobstructed water-supply 33 and the proper disposal of refuse, even if they failed sometimes of their object, at least indicate a desire for wholesome surroundings. Streets were to be lighted at night-time 5 and watch duly kept; pavements and wells to be repaired when necessary; while there were provisions made to guard against outbreaks of fire, and obstruction in the streets.10

Several orders of leet touch the question of morality; any one entertaining a woman of ill-fame and refusing to put her away on due warning should lose, so the order ran, 20s. at each default, half to the church and half to the bailiffs: 11 while a late mayor "slandered in the sins of avowtre, fornication or usury" and refusing to amend his ways, was to be deprived of his cloak and council, and never rise to be master of the Trinity gild.12 It was a fear, no doubt, that single women living alone might betake themselves to ill-ways of livelihood, which caused the leet to issue such stringent orders that they should go to service,13 or take a chamber with "an honest person," who would answer for their good behaviour; while the orders against daily and weekly bowling by poor craftsmen "leaving their business at home that they should live by," or against the habits of the poorest sort, who, according to an order of 1547, "do sit all day in the ale-house drinking and playing at the cards and tables, and spend all they can get prodigally upon 1 See below, pp. 28, 29. The chief place for disposing of refuse was outside the gates, particularly at the Grey-friar gate, the "town's-end," ib. 191, 425; see ib. 552 for the weekly coming of the refuse cart and the quarterly rate. Cf. ib. 194, 234, 389, 555 et passim. There were two great sewers, one from Much Park Street, by Grey-friar Lane to Jordan Well, and another from the "Peacock" in Broad-gate to WestOrchard.

5 Ib. 234, 777.

2 Ib. 720-1 et passim.

• In. 253, 707, cf. the case of Chester quoted Sellers, op. cit. xiii.

"'14

3 Ib. 105.

9 It was ordered that houses were not to be thatched with straw, see below, p. 389; for provision of fire-buckets, ib. 549.

292.

10 Order against ducks going in the streets, ib. 27, cf. Bateson, op. cit. II, See also below, p. 803; and for slaughtering of cattle, ib. 32.

14 Ib. 656. For encouragement of archery, and regulations against "koyttyng and boollyng" see ib. 661, 572.

themselves to the high displeasure of God and their own impoverishing, whereas if it were spent at home in their own houses their wives and children should have part thereof," 1 display a zeal for the moral and economic welfare of the people, that would provoke great resentment nowadays were it embodied in legislation.

A section of orders of leet deal with another important social question, the case of the wandering and impotent poor. Enclosures, the decay of tillage, so marked in the midland districts, and the disbandment of bodies of retainers by the nobility after the Wars of the Roses were mainly answerable for the Tudor problem of the sturdy beggar. The policy of the leet with regard to vagabonds, who first made their appearance, as far as Coventry was concerned, under Edward IV, as a political rather than a social inconvenience, 2 was simply that of expulsion; 3 "vagabonds and beggars" "mighty in body" must void the city, the order ran, within three days after the proclamation of this ordinance. Nevertheless the practice obtained of discriminating between these, and the "impotent and needy," the latter being suffered to ask alms, and to have, in testimony of this permission, "a token of their bag of the sign of the Elephant," i.e. the arms of the city. Meanwhile every effort was made both by public authority and private charity to combat two special factors of poverty, dearth and unemployment, by ploughing up the commons and sowing them with corn, by loans to manufacturers," the purchase of unsaleable cloth; and in 1547 --by means of a census taken by the aldermen of all the inhabitants of every ward, their families, length of residence and capacity for labour-to find employment for the workless; the incorrigibly idle, it was decreed, should suffer banishment, but those burdened by age, impotency or a multitude of children" should be relieved out of the town chest.9

8

1 See below, pp. 786, 808. The restrictions with regard to licensing at Coventry were in advance of the legislation of the day, ib. 771, 781.

2 Ib. 374.

3 For search made for "hazarders, dicers and carders," see ib. 538-9.

4 Ib. 568, 652, 658; constables are ordered to search for and "avoid" out of the city all "vagabonds and mighty beggars," ib. 712.

5 Ib. 677. This custom of giving a special licence to beg was adopted in Coventry rather than Norwich, where it followed on the legislation of 22 H. VIII, c. 12. See Tingey, Norwich Rec. II. xcviii.

See below, pp. 630, 719.

7 lb. 658-9.

8 Ib. 791.

9 Ib. pp. 783-4. Cf. the census taken in 1520 (ib. 674-5), when corn was dear. See also Tingey, Norwich Rec. II. xcvii. for the provision of a stock of wheat by the aldermen of that city during dearth.

This was 12 years after a collection in churches for the poor was made