Chapter 9

FOOTNOTES:[360]Ashley,Econ. Hist.i. pt. ii. 53. The act was repealed in 1511-12. In 1522 an order of leet was passed in Coventry to the effect that the mayor should warn any baker, who had offended twice against the assize, not to bake any more in the city unless he could find surety that his fault should not be repeated, and further, no victualler or butcher was allowed henceforth to be on the jury of leet (Leet Book, 682).[361]The loaf varied in weight, but not in price, with the price of corn (Green, ii. 35).[362]Harl. MS. 6,388passim. It is difficult to determine the date of these risings, so great is the variation between the different lists of mayors; and so often do Coventry historians antedate events, owing to the confusion between the old and new styles. It is noticeable that the mayor in 1381 was Thomas Kele, one of the founders of the Trinity guild.[363]Corp. MS. F. 3. It is here said that the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty "was seized in their demesne as of fee" of the common lands in right of the community. There was much uncertainty among the lawyers of that time as to the entity possessing rights over the common lands.[364]Cicely de Montalt, in her grant to the prior of the manorial "waste" attached to the Earl's-half, reserves for all cottiers their reasonable pasture (Harl. MS. 6,388, f. 2). Walter de Coventre bequeathed to his fellow-townsmen and their heirs for ever his rights of pasture for all the cattle in all his lands (Ib.).[365]To pay for the expenses of the fee-ferm, etc. On enclosures to pay for pageants, see below.[366]I am indebted for the identification of this piece of land to Mr Beard, late town clerk of Coventry.[367]The land in question stretched from Whitley brook to Baron's Field, which was enclosed in 1845 as a cemetery.[368]Leet Book, 113.[369]Corp. MS. F. 4.[370]An obscure word.[371]Ear = plough.[372]Individual profit.[373]Get possession of.[374]Put in the pound.[375]Leet Book, 349.[376]Corp. MS. F. 3.[377]i.e.rehearsing.[378]i.e.petitioner.[379]i.e.slay.[380]Leet Book, 350.[381]Leet Book, 375.[382]Corp. MS. F. 3.[383]Leet Book, 376sqq.[384]Ib., 378.[385]Leet Book, 379-80.[386]Ib., 380.[387]Corp. MS. F. 4.[388]See Green,Town Life, ii. 315, for a similar case at Southampton. Here one "ancient" man was aged 104 years and more.[389]Baron's Field is now part of the old cemetery.[390]Corp. MS. C. 204. The varieties in the nomenclature of the various fields makes it difficult to pronounce decidedly whether Bristowe gained all he desired according to this arbitration.[391]Leet Book, 375.[392]Bristowe's case was again under discussion in 1475, see Corp. MS. D. 2. This time a verdict, given not by a Coventry jury, but by a jury of twenty-four knights from the vicinage of the city, was favourable to Bristowe, and acquitted him of the charge of assault, etc., brought against him by the corporation.[393]Leet Book, 156.[394]Laurence was a member of the "council of Forty-eight,"Leet Book, 521, and a member of both guilds (Sharp,Antiq., 235;Leet Book, 578). In 1495 Saunders was discharged from all attendance at the mayor's council, the common council, and all other councils to be taken within the city (Ib., 564). The common council is first mentioned in 1477. Probably the "Forty-eight" and the common council were identical. The "mayor's council" consisted apparently of such of the "Forty- eight" as he cared to summon. There is no evidence that these councillors were elected by wards.[395]The prior, in 1498, is said to have refused to pay it for twenty years (Leet Book, 592).[396]Ib., 430sqq.[397]Leet Book, 436sqq.[398]Leet Book, 348. "Cattle surcharging the common to be driven to the pound and distress taken." And yet this very year the corporation declared to the prior that the citizens always had driven their cattle "without number" on the commons.[399]Leet Book, 439. The meadows in question were the Prior's Waste and the close by the New Gate. See above, p. 176.[400]i.e."eyes."[401]Leet Book, 441.[402]Leet Book, 443sqq.[403]Mayor's reply,Leet Book, 457.[404]In the lord's outwoods, moors, and heaths, which were never under the plough, "he should not be stinted, for the soil is his" (Rogers,Six Cent.90). It is extremely doubtful whether the common lands of Coventry should be included in this category; many of them had been "under the plough."[405]Leet Book, 454.[406]Leet Book, 470.[407]Leet Book, 474.[408]Corp. MS. C 209.[409]Leet Book, 490.[410]Fineux, one of the prince's council, was deputed to examine the title deeds on behalf of the town, and Catesby on behalf of Bristowe.[411]Leet Book, 492.[412]Bristowe seems to have allowed his tenants of Whitley to share in his privilege of intercommoning with the people of Coventry. See above, p. 174.[413]Leet Book, 497.[414]Ib., 496.[415]Disputes concerning the common lands were usually settled by arbitration, and not before the judges of the King's bench, possibly because the "communitas" had no power to sue in law courts as a legal person (Green,Town Life, ii. 239).[416]Boteler filled the post of steward as well as that of town clerk.[417]Leet Book, 510-11.[418]Leet Book, 483.[419]It is noticeable that immediately after this the leet gave orders that some of the fields granted to the prior,i.e.the field by the New Gate, should be had again "in a perpetual ferm" of the convent.[420]He said "he had as much power as the mayor, and could arrest him at sessions sitting on the bench" (Leet Book, 520).[421]Unless he would submit to this condition and to take an oath at Candlemas—as the mayor did—he was to be dismissed. Boteler chose to submit.[422]Leet Book, 537.[423]The records are very meagre about this time. The fact that Laurence was a member of the Forty-eight is an indication that the corporation were well disposed towards him. The fact that the very same mayor who occasioned Boteler's disgrace enforced certain acts of leet against the bakers is also a proof that there was a change of policy in his time at least (ib., 518-9).[424]Leet Book, 554, 557.[425]Corp. MS. A. 6. Corpus Christi guild accounts.[426]Leet Book, 569. This order was re-enacted in 1497;Ib., 585. No tanner or butcher was "to make conspiracy ... contrary to this ordinance." Duddesbury had been a member of the Twenty-four, and was mayor in 1505.[427]Leet Book, 553-4.[428]Ib., 559. The continuation of this order shows how restive the people were becoming under the recent regulations, a like surety was to be taken from any one who would not obey orders of leet and be reformed by the mayor and council.[429]Lists of all the living craftsmen who had held office were compiled in 1449: 16 drapers, 13 mercers, 7 dyers, 2 wire-drawers, 2 whittawers, and 2 weavers are mentioned (ib., 246-52).[430]Drapery granted to the Trinity gild 1365-9 (Sharp, 131).[431]Leet Book, 281.[432]These words are almost identical with a gloss, written in the margin of one ordinance passed in 1495. For the profits arising from the Nottingham Drapery, seeNottingham Rec., iii. 62.[433]Corp. MS. B. 75.[434]Leet Book, 193. This order was passed in 1440.[435]In Coventry the wool buyers appear to have been the clothmakers. The dyers in 1415, who were "great makers of cloth," took "the flower of the woad" for their own use (Rot. Parl., iv. 75). In 1435 we hear of the clothmakers employing combers to card wool (Leet Book, 182), and in 1512 we find that a searcher examined the wool to see that it was free from filth for the clothier (ib., 636).[436]There are nonewordinances relating to the weighing of wool at this time. Most likely the ordinance of 1440 (see above) was often evaded, and it was resolved that a stricter supervision should be exercised.[437]i.e.Godiva.[438]Leet Book, 556-7. Laurence afterwards committed William Boteler to ward for breach of regulations of leet doubtless, but "without authority."[439]For Robert Barlow, see Corpus Christi guild accounts, Corp. MS. A. 6, f. 5.[440]Leet Book, 564.[441]Leet Book, 567. One of the pieces of "civic poetry" quoted by Sharp, 235.[442]Sharp,Antiq., 235.[443]Leet Book, 574; Corp. MS. A. 79, f. 14. The poverty from which Laurence suffered now had probably not afflicted him earlier in his career.[444]It is noticeable that this bishop sympathized with the unruly people of York. See Miss Sellers, "The City of York in the Sixteenth Century" inEng. Hist. Rev., ix. 275.[445]i.e.in prison.[446]Leet Book, 578. The MS. hasco'iensandco'ialtethroughout. Both sets printed in Sharp, pp. 235-6.[447]Leet Book, 578.[448]One of these, William Huet, probably a tailor or shereman, was one of the nine score wealthy men. In 1464, he—or one bearing this name—had been in trouble with the corporation (v.ante, p. 138). "Norfolk," the name of one other, was a regularweaver'sname in Coventry.[449]Corp. MS. A. 79, f. 19.[450]I am afraid that there is nothing further to be learned of Saunders. Professor S.R. Gardiner was so good as to make inquiries at the Record Office whether there were any Star Chamber records bearing upon his case, but none belonging to this period are in existence.

FOOTNOTES:

[360]Ashley,Econ. Hist.i. pt. ii. 53. The act was repealed in 1511-12. In 1522 an order of leet was passed in Coventry to the effect that the mayor should warn any baker, who had offended twice against the assize, not to bake any more in the city unless he could find surety that his fault should not be repeated, and further, no victualler or butcher was allowed henceforth to be on the jury of leet (Leet Book, 682).

[361]The loaf varied in weight, but not in price, with the price of corn (Green, ii. 35).

[362]Harl. MS. 6,388passim. It is difficult to determine the date of these risings, so great is the variation between the different lists of mayors; and so often do Coventry historians antedate events, owing to the confusion between the old and new styles. It is noticeable that the mayor in 1381 was Thomas Kele, one of the founders of the Trinity guild.

[363]Corp. MS. F. 3. It is here said that the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty "was seized in their demesne as of fee" of the common lands in right of the community. There was much uncertainty among the lawyers of that time as to the entity possessing rights over the common lands.

[364]Cicely de Montalt, in her grant to the prior of the manorial "waste" attached to the Earl's-half, reserves for all cottiers their reasonable pasture (Harl. MS. 6,388, f. 2). Walter de Coventre bequeathed to his fellow-townsmen and their heirs for ever his rights of pasture for all the cattle in all his lands (Ib.).

[365]To pay for the expenses of the fee-ferm, etc. On enclosures to pay for pageants, see below.

[366]I am indebted for the identification of this piece of land to Mr Beard, late town clerk of Coventry.

[367]The land in question stretched from Whitley brook to Baron's Field, which was enclosed in 1845 as a cemetery.

[368]Leet Book, 113.

[369]Corp. MS. F. 4.

[370]An obscure word.

[371]Ear = plough.

[372]Individual profit.

[373]Get possession of.

[374]Put in the pound.

[375]Leet Book, 349.

[376]Corp. MS. F. 3.

[377]i.e.rehearsing.

[378]i.e.petitioner.

[379]i.e.slay.

[380]Leet Book, 350.

[381]Leet Book, 375.

[382]Corp. MS. F. 3.

[383]Leet Book, 376sqq.

[384]Ib., 378.

[385]Leet Book, 379-80.

[386]Ib., 380.

[387]Corp. MS. F. 4.

[388]See Green,Town Life, ii. 315, for a similar case at Southampton. Here one "ancient" man was aged 104 years and more.

[389]Baron's Field is now part of the old cemetery.

[390]Corp. MS. C. 204. The varieties in the nomenclature of the various fields makes it difficult to pronounce decidedly whether Bristowe gained all he desired according to this arbitration.

[391]Leet Book, 375.

[392]Bristowe's case was again under discussion in 1475, see Corp. MS. D. 2. This time a verdict, given not by a Coventry jury, but by a jury of twenty-four knights from the vicinage of the city, was favourable to Bristowe, and acquitted him of the charge of assault, etc., brought against him by the corporation.

[393]Leet Book, 156.

[394]Laurence was a member of the "council of Forty-eight,"Leet Book, 521, and a member of both guilds (Sharp,Antiq., 235;Leet Book, 578). In 1495 Saunders was discharged from all attendance at the mayor's council, the common council, and all other councils to be taken within the city (Ib., 564). The common council is first mentioned in 1477. Probably the "Forty-eight" and the common council were identical. The "mayor's council" consisted apparently of such of the "Forty- eight" as he cared to summon. There is no evidence that these councillors were elected by wards.

[395]The prior, in 1498, is said to have refused to pay it for twenty years (Leet Book, 592).

[396]Ib., 430sqq.

[397]Leet Book, 436sqq.

[398]Leet Book, 348. "Cattle surcharging the common to be driven to the pound and distress taken." And yet this very year the corporation declared to the prior that the citizens always had driven their cattle "without number" on the commons.

[399]Leet Book, 439. The meadows in question were the Prior's Waste and the close by the New Gate. See above, p. 176.

[400]i.e."eyes."

[401]Leet Book, 441.

[402]Leet Book, 443sqq.

[403]Mayor's reply,Leet Book, 457.

[404]In the lord's outwoods, moors, and heaths, which were never under the plough, "he should not be stinted, for the soil is his" (Rogers,Six Cent.90). It is extremely doubtful whether the common lands of Coventry should be included in this category; many of them had been "under the plough."

[405]Leet Book, 454.

[406]Leet Book, 470.

[407]Leet Book, 474.

[408]Corp. MS. C 209.

[409]Leet Book, 490.

[410]Fineux, one of the prince's council, was deputed to examine the title deeds on behalf of the town, and Catesby on behalf of Bristowe.

[411]Leet Book, 492.

[412]Bristowe seems to have allowed his tenants of Whitley to share in his privilege of intercommoning with the people of Coventry. See above, p. 174.

[413]Leet Book, 497.

[414]Ib., 496.

[415]Disputes concerning the common lands were usually settled by arbitration, and not before the judges of the King's bench, possibly because the "communitas" had no power to sue in law courts as a legal person (Green,Town Life, ii. 239).

[416]Boteler filled the post of steward as well as that of town clerk.

[417]Leet Book, 510-11.

[418]Leet Book, 483.

[419]It is noticeable that immediately after this the leet gave orders that some of the fields granted to the prior,i.e.the field by the New Gate, should be had again "in a perpetual ferm" of the convent.

[420]He said "he had as much power as the mayor, and could arrest him at sessions sitting on the bench" (Leet Book, 520).

[421]Unless he would submit to this condition and to take an oath at Candlemas—as the mayor did—he was to be dismissed. Boteler chose to submit.

[422]Leet Book, 537.

[423]The records are very meagre about this time. The fact that Laurence was a member of the Forty-eight is an indication that the corporation were well disposed towards him. The fact that the very same mayor who occasioned Boteler's disgrace enforced certain acts of leet against the bakers is also a proof that there was a change of policy in his time at least (ib., 518-9).

[424]Leet Book, 554, 557.

[425]Corp. MS. A. 6. Corpus Christi guild accounts.

[426]Leet Book, 569. This order was re-enacted in 1497;Ib., 585. No tanner or butcher was "to make conspiracy ... contrary to this ordinance." Duddesbury had been a member of the Twenty-four, and was mayor in 1505.

[427]Leet Book, 553-4.

[428]Ib., 559. The continuation of this order shows how restive the people were becoming under the recent regulations, a like surety was to be taken from any one who would not obey orders of leet and be reformed by the mayor and council.

[429]Lists of all the living craftsmen who had held office were compiled in 1449: 16 drapers, 13 mercers, 7 dyers, 2 wire-drawers, 2 whittawers, and 2 weavers are mentioned (ib., 246-52).

[430]Drapery granted to the Trinity gild 1365-9 (Sharp, 131).

[431]Leet Book, 281.

[432]These words are almost identical with a gloss, written in the margin of one ordinance passed in 1495. For the profits arising from the Nottingham Drapery, seeNottingham Rec., iii. 62.

[433]Corp. MS. B. 75.

[434]Leet Book, 193. This order was passed in 1440.

[435]In Coventry the wool buyers appear to have been the clothmakers. The dyers in 1415, who were "great makers of cloth," took "the flower of the woad" for their own use (Rot. Parl., iv. 75). In 1435 we hear of the clothmakers employing combers to card wool (Leet Book, 182), and in 1512 we find that a searcher examined the wool to see that it was free from filth for the clothier (ib., 636).

[436]There are nonewordinances relating to the weighing of wool at this time. Most likely the ordinance of 1440 (see above) was often evaded, and it was resolved that a stricter supervision should be exercised.

[437]i.e.Godiva.

[438]Leet Book, 556-7. Laurence afterwards committed William Boteler to ward for breach of regulations of leet doubtless, but "without authority."

[439]For Robert Barlow, see Corpus Christi guild accounts, Corp. MS. A. 6, f. 5.

[440]Leet Book, 564.

[441]Leet Book, 567. One of the pieces of "civic poetry" quoted by Sharp, 235.

[442]Sharp,Antiq., 235.

[443]Leet Book, 574; Corp. MS. A. 79, f. 14. The poverty from which Laurence suffered now had probably not afflicted him earlier in his career.

[444]It is noticeable that this bishop sympathized with the unruly people of York. See Miss Sellers, "The City of York in the Sixteenth Century" inEng. Hist. Rev., ix. 275.

[445]i.e.in prison.

[446]Leet Book, 578. The MS. hasco'iensandco'ialtethroughout. Both sets printed in Sharp, pp. 235-6.

[447]Leet Book, 578.

[448]One of these, William Huet, probably a tailor or shereman, was one of the nine score wealthy men. In 1464, he—or one bearing this name—had been in trouble with the corporation (v.ante, p. 138). "Norfolk," the name of one other, was a regularweaver'sname in Coventry.

[449]Corp. MS. A. 79, f. 19.

[450]I am afraid that there is nothing further to be learned of Saunders. Professor S.R. Gardiner was so good as to make inquiries at the Record Office whether there were any Star Chamber records bearing upon his case, but none belonging to this period are in existence.

CHAPTER XIII

The Companies of the Crafts

Themen of Coventry, a city which, in later mediæval times, stood fourth among the wealthy towns of England,[451]gained a livelihood by the buying and selling of wool and the making of cloth.[452]As early as 1398 the traffic in the frieze of Coventry[453]extended beyond the modest limits of the city itself. In that year two hundred pounds' worth, the export of one merchant, lay in the port of distant Stralsund, on the Baltic Coast,[454]and in London and other places the cloth was in great request during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

The men of mediæval Coventry naturally attached great importance to the maintenance and extension of the cloth trade in view of the wealth it brought. Special buildings were set apart for the staple traffic of the city. The Drapery and the Wool-hall, both in Bayley Lane, under the shadow of S. Michael's Church, were the recognised selling places for the raw and finished material; and a small illicit market went on in the porch of the church itself.[455]Hard by stood the Searching-house, a place devoted to the examination of all the cloth made by the city workpeople. Two weavers and two fullers,specially appointed for the purpose, overlooked the handiwork of their fellow-craftsmen; while six drapers were appointed to superintend these weavers and fullers, so as to guard against any exhibition of partiality or slackness in the execution of the task. If the material were sufficiently fulled and well woven, the city seal was attached to it in token of its genuine quality; but the searchers were straitly charged to warrant no piece thatfell short of the standard excellence, and bad wares were returned to the owner to make therewith as good a bargain as he could.[456]

TRINITY LANE

An order of leet passed in 1518 gives very precise directions for the searching process.

ARMS OF CITY OF COVENTRY

"Hit is to be had in mynde that for a trueth of Clothmakyng to be had in this cite as foloeth, if it myght be folowed, and the execucion of the same to be don schortly, or els the cite wolbe so fer past that it wolbe past remedie to be recouered to eny welth or prosperite, hit is thought hit were good to have ij wevers & ij walkers sworn to make true serche of the wevers doyng & also of the walkers & to present the trueth; and also to be chosen vj drapers to be maisters, & ouerseers of the doyng of the serchers, that if some of them cannot a lesour to be at the serchyng at the dayes of the serchers, yet some of these vj maisters schall euer be ther. And by cause it were to great a besynes for the serchers to go to every mannes howse, hit is enacted at this lete to haue a howse of the gilde,[457]or of some other mannes nyghe the drapery doore, to be ordeyned well with perches to drawe ouer the clothes when they be thykked, and also weightes & ballaunce to wey the cloth, and when it cometh frome the walkers, the walkers to bryng it to the serchyng house, and to serche it, & to se it ouer a perche, and if it be good cloth as it owght to be in brede & lengh, that the cite may have a preise by hit & no sklaunder, then to sett upon hit the Olyvaunt in lede,[458]and of the bak of the seall the lengh of the cloth, by the which men shall perceyveand see it is true Coventre cloth, ffor of suerte ther is in London & other places that sell false & untrewe made cloth, & name hit Couentre cloth, the which is a gret slaunder to the cite than it deserveth by a gret partie. And if there be eny man that hath eny cloth brought to the serchyng house, what degre so ever he be of, if it be not able for the worschip of the cite to be let passe, let hym pay for the serche & lett hym do his best with hit, but set not the Olyvaunt upon it.

"And this serche to be made also this fourme,[459]that is to sey ij days in the weke, Tewesday & Saturday, and ij of the serchers to be ther from viij of the clok to a xi, and frome on to iiij of the clok; and a sealer to be ordeyned & sworne to stryke the cloth and seale hit, and wrete hit, and fynde leed, & to have a peny for his labour; and the sealles to be put in a cofre with ij keys, the master of the vj drapers to have the on, and the serchers the other, and for the serche of every cloth to the serchers to have j d. and it is to be thought every good man schal be gladde of that payment."

The person who consistently reaped the greatest benefit from this activity was the draper, the merchant of cloth. Within the city his fellowship ranked next to that of the mercers, or merchants proper, who traded in wool as members of the Staple of Calais, or trafficked in wine and wax, which they brought in barges from Bristol.[460]None but the well-to-do could enter into the ranks ofthe drapers' craft.[461]Some of its more fortunate brethren were able to purchase estates and take rank among the county gentry. Thus John Bristowe, draper, sometime mayor and justice of the peace in Coventry, became possessed of land at Whitley; and his son William spoke of his "manor" in those parts, and frequently described himself as a "gentleman." And John, grandson of Julian Nethermill, a city dignitary of the same craft, held lands in Exhall, and had his arms blazoned among those of the great county folk.[462]Many members of this fellowship have left a name showing the great power for good or ill that they possessed within the city. There was John Bristowe, mayor in the early fifteenth century, who, as the oldest inhabitants declared, "after he had boron office within the cite of Couentre thynkyng that the common people of the seid cite durst nor wolde contrarie his doyng, claymed unlawfully" to have certain rights over the common pasture. John Haddon, another draper-mayor, has left a better reputation; it was he who came to the rescue of the poverty-stricken clothiers of the city in 1518,[463]and by a timely loan enabled them to continue work. While John Bond, who, as his epitaph declares, gave "divers lands and tenements for the maintenance of ten poore men, as long as the world shall endure," is yet remembered as the founder of the Bablake hospital.

The near connection between these great cloth merchants and the corporation is one of the most striking features of municipal life in Coventry during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The marks of the drapers' influence in civic affairs are continually before our eyes. It was in a draper's mayoralty that ordinances were firstmade respecting the searching of cloth.[464]And when the system of overlooking was perfected in 1518, a few years later, it was to six men of this craft, that the task of superintending the searchers' investigations was assigned. Just as, about a hundred years before that time, when an unsuccessful attempt was made by the town rulers to exercise complete control over the dyers' craft, it was suggested that two drapers as well as two dyers, in either case nominees of the corporation, should keep watch over the dyers' movements, and "present" them for any "fault or confederacy" at the court of the mayor.[465]

Measures framed by this body in the interest of any particular craft or class were doubtless found oppressive by those who had no lot or part in their enactment. Thus while the yea or nay of the fullers had little weight in municipal councils, the wealth of the drapers gave them a control over the local trade to an extent which we can hardly realise. The reason of this supremacy is not far to seek. The mercers and drapers in their character of wealthy men usually occupied the principal official posts in the city.[466]No one, unless he were possessed of a certain amount of wealth, could rise to a high place in the corporation. Men were ranked according to the amount of property in their possession, and to speak of a citizen as "of the degree of a mayor" or "bailiff," conveyed as definite an idea as the assertion that "So-and-so has a fortune of £20,000 or £30,000," would convey to our minds at the present date.

This body of wealthy merchants, in whose hands was vested all control over the city trade, could and didmake and unmake regulations of the deepest significance to the various crafts. By an ordinance of the city leet they could completely alter the conditions regulating the work of salesmen or artificers, as they had an absolute control over all workers, since by the craft system all who practised the same calling were compelled to obey the same regulations. Nominally the regulations were drawn up by the crafts. In reality, as certain members of the corporation overlooked them, amending and annulling at their pleasure, this power of the crafts was held at the will of the municipal rulers.[467]And the corporation did not let their power lie idle. In the interests of the general public they forced the crafts to embody in their rules the ordinances framed by the court leet. Thus the cloth-workers were compelled to bring the cloth they had woven to be measured and examined by the searcher,[468]the fullers to adopt the custom of using a special mark whereby the work of every individual craftsman could be recognised and known,[469]the dyers to abstain from using a certain French dye of inferior consistency,[470]and, much against the wills of this community, to admit another member into their craft.[471]It was not only as regards the working of their cloth, but in all other matters the crafts had to bow before the will of the corporation. Appeals to courts spiritual to punish for oath-breach any who disobeyed the ordinances of the fellowship were looked coldly onby the municipal rulers, and the practice suppressed. In 1518 the mysteries were compelled to make the mayor the arbiter of all cases of dispute between offenders and the wardens of their respective fellowships. If anyone committed a fault against the fellowship, he must be asked to pay a "reasonable" penalty, and "if he deny and will not pay ... according to the ordinance ... within three or four days, let the master ask it of him again ... and if he deny it eftsoons and will not pay it, let the master of the craft and three or four honest men of the craft come to master mayor and show unto him the dealing of that person." Whereupon the mayor and justices, should he refuse to pay double the original sum to the craft, were bound to commit him to ward until he promised obedience. The offender on his release was to make submission to the master entreating him to be "good master" to him during his year of office, and "his good lover" in time to come.[472]

We may follow in detail the dealings of the corporation with several of the crafts. The fullers seem to have combined with the tailors to form the guild of the Nativity some time in the reign of Richard II., but were prevented from acting under the terms of their charter. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Henry VI. the royal licence was renewed.[473]But the guild was a singularly ineffective body, holding little if any property, and soon after, possibly at municipal instigation, the two crafts who formed it were separated, though the tailors obtained a third renewal of their licence in the twenty-eighth year of Henry VIII. Thedyers appear to have been more stubborn. Early in the reign of Henry V. they combined together to increase the price of dyeing of cloth by one-half, and to have the flower of the woad for their own use.[474]In 1475 they attempted, perhaps, to renew their old combinations of sixty years back; and five years later Laurence Saunders, a member of their calling, became the leader of the opposition which prevailed during the close of the century within the city.[475]In 1496 all the thunders of the leet ordinances launched against those who, of their "froward wills," refused to contribute to the furnishing of the pageants played on Corpus Christi day, failed to make the dyers join with the other crafts in paying their share.[476]When the municipality desired to thrust a new member into theircraft, the dyers forbade the journeymen to work for him, and it was only by circumventing their tactics that the town rulers could compel the admission of the new candidate into their ranks.

Not only the workers in cloth, but all the fraternities were forced to bow to the corporation's will. In 1436 the attention of the leet was drawn to certain malpractices which had arisen among the workers in iron. A bill, drawn up no doubt by some member of the ruling class and presented by him to the court, shows the full extent of the evil and suggests certain measures of reform. Certain workers in iron, we are told, by employing labourers of the four allied crafts of smiths, brakemen, girdlers, and card-wiredrawers, had acquired entire control over the trade, and were able to pass off ill-wrought iron upon their customers. It was suggested that labourers of but two occupations should be employed by one master instead of those of four occupations as had been the custom hitherto.

"Be hit known to you," the bill runs, "but yif certen ordenaunses of craftes withe in this cite ... be takon good hede to, hit is like myche of the kynges pepull, and in speciall poor chapmen and clothemakers, in tyme comeng shullen be gretely hyndered, and as hit may be supposed the principall cause is like to be amonges hem that han all the craft in her own hondes, that is to sey, smythiers, brakemen, gurdelmen, and card-wire drawers, for he that hathe all thes craftes may, offendying his conscience, do myche harme." A negligent smith, the bill continues, might heat the iron by "onkynd hetes," so that it became unfit for future use. "Never the later for his own eese he will com to his brakemon and sey to hym: 'Here is a ston of rough iron the whiche must be tendurly cherysshet.'" When the brakeman has done his task, the metal comes to be sold for making fish hooks. "And when hit is made in hokes and shulde serve the ffissher to take fisshe,when hit comythe to distresse then for febulnes hit all-to brekithe, and thus is the ffisher foule disseyved and to him grete harme." And if the iron be used for making girdles, the master passes it to the girdleman with these words: "'Lo, here is a stryng or ij (two) that hathe ben misgouerned atte herthe, my brakemon hathe don his dever; I prey the, do now thyne.' And so he dothe as his maister biddethe hym." Or it may be passed on to the cardmaker, who finds that it "crachithe and farithe foule; so the cardmaker is right hevy therof, but neverthelater he sethe be cause hit is cutte he must nedes helpe hym self in eschueing his losse, [so] he makithe cardes[477]ther of as well as he may, and when the cardes ben solde to the clothemaker and shuldon be ocupied, anon the tethe brekon and fallon out, so the clothemaker is foule disseyved. Wherefore, sirs," is the conclusion of the bill, "atte reverens of God in fortheryng of the kynges true lege peapull, and in eschueng of all disseytes, weithe (weigh) this mater wysely, and ther as ye see disseyte is like to be, therto settithe remedy be your wyse discressions." For, as the petitioner suggested, if the two crafts of smiths and brakemen, and these only, were united on the one hand, and the two crafts of girdlers and card-wiredrawers, and these only, on the other, "then hit were to suppose that ther shuld not so myche disseyvabull wire be wrought and sold as ther is." For if the crafts were severed in this manner, it was argued, then the girdlers and cardmakers would buy their wire from the smiths, and look well to their bargain. "And if the card-wiredrawer," the petitioner proceeds, "were ones or thies disseyved withe ontrewe wire, he wolde be warre, and then wold he sey vnto the smythier, that he bought that wire of: 'Sir, I hadde of you late badde wire, sir, amend your honde, or in feithe I will no more bye of you.' And then the smythier, lest he lost hiscustemers, wold make true goode; and then withe the grase of godd (God) the craft shuld amend and the kinges peapull not disseyved with eontrewe goode."[478]

The mayor, we learn, on this important occasion sent round to all the worthy men of the leet to take their advice upon the matter. Either the corporation sought an occasion of humbling the workers in iron, or the common sense expressed in this bill was irresistible; for the leet fell in with the arrangement of severing the crafts. A number of master smiths agreed to employ only journeymen of this occupation and brakemen, while the cardmakers on the other hand undertook to find occupation for girdlers and cardmakers only. Furthermore, the leet decreed that their two last-named crafts should by "no colour ne sotell imagynacion 'sell or buy' no cardwyre ne mystermannes wyre, the whiche may be hynderying or grevying to the kinges lege pepull 'under pain of £20.'"

The craftspeople, however, occasionally resented municipal interference, and endeavoured by all means within their power to get the control of the industry in which they were engaged into their own hands. Any temporary weakness or disorganisation on the part of the corporation was taken advantage of by these fraternities. It was in 1456, when the finances of the city were in some disorder, owing to the expense of entertaining the Court and the active support given by the city to the Lancastrian cause, that the craftspeople took occasion to sue in spiritual courts offenders who had broken the rules observed by members of fellowships.

"Discord daily falleth in this city among the people of divers crafts"—such are the words of an order of leet passed in 1457—"because that divers masters of crafts sue in spiritual courts divers people of their crafts, affirming they have broken their oaths made in breaking divers their rules and ordinances, which rules ofttimesbe unreasonable, and the punishment of the said masters over excess, which, if it continue, by likelihood would cause much people to void out of the city." The masters were thenceforth forbidden to bring "any manner suit, cause or quarrel in any court spiritual against any person of their craft," until "the mayor for the time being have heard the matter and variance ... and have licensed the suit to be had."[479]But though defeated in this scheme, the crafts doubtless did not give up the battle. The dyers' attempt in 1475 to form confederacies happened in a time of great division within the town respecting the enclosure of the common pasture. And the same disputes agitated the community twenty-one years later, when a member of the party of discontented craftsmen nailed up inflammatory verses on the church door, taunting the corporation with injustice and inveighing against the rules they had made for the buying of wool and selling of cloth.

NEW STREET

And indeed it may have been well that persons high in authority curbed the self-seeking spirit of the crafts. These bodies, formed early in the thirteenth century for mutual help and preservation, had since degenerated into close corporations eager to exclude competition at any price.[480]Fettered as they were by ordinances fixing price, hours of labour and the like, there was so little free play allowed the craftsman in the management of his business, that the difficulty of acquiring wealth must have been great. Each company of craftsmen practically monopolised all the traffic or business connected with their special calling in the district in which they lived,and were bound to take good heed that the numbers of those who formed their body should not be greatly increased, lest the individual profits should be reduced. They were resolved at all hazards to guard against competition. The trade of the town might support ten tanners for instance, but the admission of an eleventh or twelfth into the craft might endanger the older members' prosperity. Thus, in 1424, the weaver showed a distinct dislike to allowing their members to take any number of apprentices,[481]who were potential masters of the craft; and the cappers who in the fifteenth century had risen to be a very important body, allowed each master to take but two apprentices only, and when one departed before his serving-time of seven years was accomplished, the master was forbidden to take another in his place, without licence from the keepers of the craft, until the allotted time should be past.[482]The corporation, however, wished to break down this exclusiveness, and in 1524 declared that any member of what craft soever might receive what number of apprentices he would "notwithstanding any ordinance to the contrary."[483]Some twenty years later, finding perhaps that this sweeping measure aroused too much opposition, the leet tried to thrust a modified form of it on the cappers.[484]Twice within a few months [1544-5] they decreed that any master of the fellowship might take an extra apprentice when one of them had served five and a half of the allotted seven years and they repeated the order after a few years' space.[485]

The craftspeople had another method for keeping would-be members out of their ranks. They demanded on admission such fines as could only be paid by the well-to-do. And it was owing to their jealousy that precautions were taken to ensure the payment of these admission fines. Trouble came about, we are told, because new members departed from the town just when the fine was due, a year after setting up their shop. They were henceforth to be compelled to pay half their fine at setting up, and to put in two sufficient sureties that the second half should be paid at the end of the first year.[486]

It was part of the policy of the town rulers to recognise the apprentice's possible future citizenship, and withdraw him somewhat from his master's authority. The lad was therefore forced by the ordinance of 1494[487]to take the oath "to the franchises," and bring his twelve pennies to the steward for the town use when his term of service began. We see from the list of those who took the oath in 1495 that the apprentice lived in his master's house, serving him usually—though not invariably—for seven years' space. He earned a nominal sum, perhaps a shilling, or even 4d., the first six years, and a larger one, perhaps 10s. or 13s. 4d., during the seventh. Thus the son of John Preston, of Stafford, "gentleman," who was apprenticed to a grocer, earned 12d. a year, the wages of his last year of service—the ninth—being unfixed; while another lad, learning the same trade, received 13s. 4d. as his last year's earnings. The son of a Durham "husbandman" took from his master, a hat-maker, 4d. a year for six years, and 6s. 8d. during the seventh. The crafts seem to have made it their business to see that the boys were properly cared for. If any one of them complained that his master did not give him sufficient "finding,"i.e.food and raiment, the offender was to receive first an "admonition," and on the repetition of the offence to pay a reasonable fine; if matters did not mend, the lad was to be removed and placed elsewhere.[488]The master exercised a superintendence over the apprentice's moral well-being. In an early indenture of the time of Richard II. the lad promises to haunt neither taverns nor houses of ill-fame, nor hold illicit intercourse with any of the women of the household.[489]

No doubt the number of apprentices was limited partly in order to prevent any one master from engrossing more than what was deemed his fair share of trade and profits. The craftspeople were very sensitive on this point. Thus, in 1424, quarrels arose between a certain John Grinder on the one side and his fellow-members of his craft of weavers on the other. The fact that Grinder wove linen as well as cloth, and had two sets of looms for the purpose,[490]had aroused the jealousy of the other weavers of the city. It may be remarked that this weaver was a man wise in his generation. He gained his cause and made his fortune, and filledthe post of bailiff some time before 1449, being apparently the only man of his calling during the second quarter of the fifteenth century who ever occupied a high municipal office. Many precautions were taken to prevent undue rivalry between brethren of the same fellowship. It was usual among the artisan crafts for the member to report the closing of a bargain to the master or keeper of his fraternity.[491]And no other member of the calling could come between the contracting parties until the work was finished.[492]But among the more powerful craftsmen means were often taken to defraud their brethren of the poorer sort. By collusion between butchers and tanners the latter were able to buy raw hides "in grete," or wholesale, with the intention, no doubt, of reselling them at a profit to others of the craft, a practice the corporation forbade under a penalty of forty shillings, to be taken from buyer and seller alike.[493]When any excessive profit was to be made, the public, then as now, was fair game. In Coventry, as elsewhere, ale-wives gave short measure, and used an unsealed cup. The clothmakers stretched out broadcloth to the "high displeasure of God and deceit of the wearers" to a length the material could ill bear. Of all these matters the corporation took cognizance, inflicting fines, punishing by the pillory, or in extreme cases by loss of the freedom of the city.

BUTCHER ROW

There was one point, however, on which all employers were agreed, and that was on the advisability of checking unions and combinations among their workmen for the purpose of obtaining better wages. The journeymen's, or, as they were called, "yeomen's" guilds, which seem to have been fairly universal at the close of the fourteenth and during the fifteenth century, appear in Coventry withgreat frequency and persistence. Three several times the corporation obtained patents against the formation of guilds other than those already existing in the city.[494]The patent for the suppression of the first of these combinations that comes before our notice, the fraternity of S. Anne, is addressed to the mayor and bailiffs, in 1406, and relates how it had come to the ears of the government that a certain number of youths, serving men of the tailors and other artificers working by the day called journeymen, gathered together in the priory, or the houses of the friars, and formed a fraternity called the fraternity of S. Anne, to the end that each might maintain the other in their quarrels. This action was likely, in the opinion of those in authority, to breed dissensions in the city, do great harm to the societies founded of old time, namely, the Trinity and Corpus Christi guilds, and hence bring final destruction upon the townsfolk. The meetings were declared unlawful, and all who persisted in assembling to hold them after the patent had been openly proclaimed were to be arrested, and their names certified to the King, who would have them punished according to their deserts.[495]But, in spite of this warning, the journeymen did not give up the conflict, for the fraternity had again to be crushed in the first year of Henry V.,[496]only to reappear in 1425 under the title of the guild of S. George.

Connected with this last movement was the discontent which affected the journeymen weavers in the year1424. Indeed it is possible that the whole company of journeymen within the city were at that time making demand for higher pay. The weavers had a bond of union in a common fund which they apparently appropriated to the furnishing of altar or processional lights, a pretext possibly like that of the journeymen saddlers in London in the time of Richard II., who, under "colour of sanctity" and religious meetings, "sought only to raise wages greatly in excess."[497]The movement among the Coventry weavers assumed all the forms of a modern strike. The men not only refused to serve at the usual wages, but hindered others from filling their place. The corporation took the matter in hand, and the question was finally settled by arbitration. The men were forbidden to hinder any of their fellows from working for their masters as they had done aforetime, and a regular rate of wages was established, whereby the journeymen took a third of the sum paid to their employers for the weaving of each piece of cloth, while the masters were ordered to exact threepence and no more from their workmen as a fine for each "contumacy," being, however, forbidden, under colour of this rule, to oppress their servants.[498]

Nearly a hundred years later we find that the fraternities of journeymen were still in existence, albeit jealously watched by the masters of the crafts. In 1518 all initiative was taken from them. "No journeymen of what occupation or craft soever," runs the order of leet, shall "make or use anycaveor bylaw, or assembly, or meetings at any place by their summoner without license of the mayor and the master of their[499]occupation" upon pain of 20s. at the first fault; at the second the offender's "body to prison," there to remain until the master and six honest persons of his occupation would speak for him.[500]At the same time the workers'fraternities were ordered to bring in the rules already made for the mayor's inspection. But the attempts on their part to form closer unions in order to facilitate concerted action still continued, and in 1527 we find the dyers' serving men assembling together for the apparently pacific purpose of attending marriages, betrothals, and burials, as if "they had been a craft or fellowship." These meetings served most likely as a cloak to more serious proceedings, and they were forbidden by the leet.[501]Nor was the movement entirely confined to the workers of the crafts; it spread among those outside the guild organization. In 1518 the daubers and rough masons were forbidden to form a fellowship of themselves, but were henceforth to be common labourers, "and to take such wages as are limited by statute."[502]

In other matters we may see the discontented attitude of the workfolk. Thus the journeymen cappers objected to the lengthening of the hours of their working day, which in 1496 had been fixed to last from six till six, but which by 1520 was further increased by two hours in the summer-time, thus lasting from five in the morning to seven in the evening.[503]Six years later it was enacted that, unless they kept these hours, it was permitted to any master to "abridge their wages according to their time of absence." Any rivalry in trade between masters and men was crushed whenever the masters' power availed to do so. Thus in 1496 the journeymen cappers carried on a contraband trade, and scorning to be content with the permission to "scour and fresh old bonnets" for that purpose, made new caps for sale; nor did the imposition of a fine of twenty pence at every default avail to check their activity. Therefore according to the rules of 1520, members of the craft were forbidden to give any work to those who knitted thejourneymen's caps, or to the spinners who span for them, thus indirectly checking this illicit competition. In other ways the journeyman was made to feel the weight of the master's hand. Among the carpenters none could be set to work unless he had served for seven years as apprentice to the handicraft;[504]and a journeyman capper was compelled to certify the cause of leaving his late master to the satisfaction of the masters of the craft.[505]

These are some points connected with the life of mediæval craftsmen. Although so much has been written on the economical, social, and religious aspects of the subject, we are still very ignorant as to the actual workings of the craft system. Modern industry seems to have entirely passed through, and, as it were, forgotten this immature phase of its existence. The companies in Coventry which were able to survive the shock of the suppression of the guilds and chantries under Edward VI., and have lasted to our own day—the mercers, drapers, cappers, fullers, clothiers, and worsted weavers—possess none of the powers or organization of their predecessors, and are mere survivals of a bygone time, "the shadows of a great name."

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