CHAPTER 3
The Monopolisation of Office
Notes
1 Introduction and chapter 2.
2 Glover (op.cit., 80), for example, appears shocked by the fact that of the 202 (sic) mayoralties in Lynn 1400-1600, only 131 men held mayoral office - this he interprets as a particularly bad case of monopolisation.
3 See appendix II, table 3.
4 This aspect of the subject of monopolisation will be discussed later in this chapter; see also chapter 4 regarding willingness, and chapter 5 regarding age, as limiting factors.
5 Tait, op.cit., 271; Reynolds, op.cit., 121.
6 C.Cl.R. 1364-68, 30.
7 KL/C7/4 f.137.
8 Black Domesday ff.73b-74. On this whole episode see Alsford, "Thomas le Rente," 106-08.
9 Red Parch. Bk., 32; Black Domesday f.74b; White Domesday f.18; Records of Norwich, I, 86-87, 95, 192; C.P.R. 1554-55, 97; Swinden, op.cit., 492-93; KL/C7/4 f.30; Add.Ms. 37791 ff.48b, 50.
10 There are indications in Norwich and Ipswich of some men being quickly re-elected to executive office once the interval had elapsed. See also Petchey's (op.cit., 168-69) comments on the sequence of office-holding in post-medieval Maldon.
11 Chapter 1.
12 On these issues see particularly J. Edwards, "'Re-election' and the medieval parliament," History, II (1926), 204-10; N. Lewis, "Re-election to parliament in the reign of Richard II," E.H.R., XLVIII (1933), 364; J. Muir, The Personnel of Parliament Under Henry IV, (London M.A. thesis, 1924), 106-19.
13 McKisack, Parliamentary Representation of English Boroughs, 21-22, 100ff.
14 Lawson, op.cit., 247; Roskell, op.cit., 50-51; Houghton, op.cit., 134; G. Rickword, Notable 'Parliament Men' in Essex, (1902), 81.
15 See appendix III.
16 Compare with figures drawn: from 39 towns by J. Edwards, "The personnel of the commons in parliament under Edward I and Edward II," Essays in Medieval History presented to Thomas Frederick Tout, (Manchester, 1925), 202; from 31 towns by Lewis, op.cit., 370; and from all represented towns by Muir, op.cit., 105. Viz. tempore Ed.I and Ed.II: 35% re-elected, 9% elected 4 or more times; tempore Ric.II: 36% re-elected, 12% elected 4 or more times; tempore Hen.IV: 20% re-elected, 5% elected 3 or more times.
17 McKisack, Parliamentary Representation of English Boroughs, 37.
18 Add Ms. 20152 f.50; Red Parch. Bk., 32-33; Records of Norwich, I, 36, 97-98; KL/C2/29; KL/C4/11; D/B 3/1/1 f.31b; Swinden, op.cit., 499.
19 Records of Norwich, I, l-li.
20 N.B. that conciliar titles such as "the 24" are often found to represent only an approximation of the actual numerical size of the council.
21 KL/C2/29.
22 Red Reg. ff.88, 105b-106, 136b; C.P.R. 1350-54, 143, 1354-58, 80, 206, 299; C.Cl.R. 1349-54, 458; Rot.Parl., II, 457.
23 KL/C2/29. Even infirmity was reluctantly accepted as cause for retirement; Edmund Westhorp continued to be listed among Lynn's jurats up to 1491, two years before his death, despite the fact that he had been unable to attend congregations, even to renew his annual oath of office, since October 1486.
24 The 1444 custumal specified that ex-bailiffs could not be appointed to lesser offices (except that of M.P.); D/B 3/1/1 f.31b.
25 The choice of periods here and in the other towns is dictated largely by the survival of lists of conciliar personnel.
26 Y/C18/1 f.13b; Ms. Gough Norfolk 20 f.1.
27 Swinden, op.cit., 171, 492.
28 White Domesday f.17b; C219/16/5; very few complete lists of portmen are extant from the medieval period.
29 Records of Norwich, I, 102, 274.
30 C.P.R. 1554-55, 97; D/B 3/1/2 f.12b; D/B 3/3/4 m.6r; Wilkinson, op.cit., 54, 56; Hammer, op.cit., 8; A. Rogers, "Late medieval Stamford: a study of the town council 1465-1492," Perspectives in English Urban History, (London, 1973), 19.
31 Records of Norwich, I, 34, 39-40.
32 C.Ch.R. 1427-1516, 54.
33 W. Benham, ed., Colchester Charters and Letters Patent, (Colchester, 1903), 38; Red Parch. Bk., 39; Red Paper Bk., 356; Tait, op.cit., 335. Stamford's case is similar; Rogers, op.cit., 20.
34 Despite what Mrs. Green, op.cit., II, 251, thought.
35 Gross, op.cit., II, 162.
36 Red Reg. f.82b. The private responsibilities of a chamberlain for public monies received would make his executor a logical choice as replacement.
37 KL/C7/3 f.50; regarding Style and Waryn, see chapter 2.
38 For the coincidence of family and individual wealth in Yarmouth, see Saul, op.cit., 210-12.
39 See for example E179/242/42, Add.Ch. 10119.
40 E179/242/42; Hervey, op.cit., 5, 163; R.R. 9-10 Ed.III m.1d; C.P.R. 1358-61, 27, 312, 1361-64, 497; E122/50/33; I/C2/25/12, 17. Female members of the line married into the Horold, Westhale, Curteys, and Whethereld families.
41 Howlett, op.cit., 56, 65; C.Cl.R. 1318-23, 144; C.P.R. 1354-58, 148, 285, 308; KL/C37/3 m.1r; E122/94/12-15. I find no evidence to support the hypothesis of Cozens-Hardy and Kent, op.cit., 17, that Richard Drewe the bailiff/mayor of Norwich was a member of this family.
42 E122/93/5; KL/C37/1 m.16r; Red Reg. ff.90, 92b; Davies, op.cit., 605; C.P.R. 1330-34, 424, 1334-38, 54, 74, 256.
43 See appendix II, table 4.
44 Chapter 2, p.52. C.Cl.R. 1313-18, 443, 1318-23, 480.
45 Saul, op.cit., 232-33, believes that the plague had a great impact. However, in my opinion the economic decline of the town, of which Dr. Saul is himself the most eloquent historian, was the main cause of the change in personnel - a problem only exacerbated by the plague. Britnell, op.cit., 475-77, also sees the Black Death as the end of one administrative phase and the beginning of a new, in terms of official personnel. Periodization can be a convenient device, but can obscure the process of gradual change, which is more fundamental to history than is cataclysm.
46 This phenomenon is also said to be true regarding the late medieval aristocracy; Denholm-Young, op.cit., 22.
47 Meech and Allen, op.cit., 115.
48 E.g. Edmund Westhorp (mayor of Lynn tempore Edward IV) finished his apprenticeship in 1433, but remained abroad until 1450 when he became a freeman; he did not marry until c.1456 and his wife died in 1469, after which he appears to have remained single; there were no male heirs, but possibly one daughter. KL/C7/3 ff.35, 277; C.P.R. 1452-61, 456; PROB 11/5 qu.30, 11/9 qu.27.
49 Thrupp, Merchant Class of Medieval London, 191-206; Platt, op.cit., 99, 101.
50 Only those sons born after their fathers became freemen were entitled to free entrance themselves.
51 See Saul, op.cit., 221, for example.
52 Feudal Aids, III, 469-70; E40/8028; Saul, op.cit., 99, 234; Palmer, Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, II, 117.
53 Meech and Allen, op.cit., 222-23.
54 Tanner, op.cit., 58-61.
55 Meech and Allen, op.cit., 221.
56 Campbell xxiii, 14. The fact that the son's will was registered in Colchester's court rolls - unusual for a cleric - owes much to the fact that his appointment kept him in town.
57 Saul, op.cit., 238; C.P.R. 1324-27, 26, 33; Bodl.Norf.Ch. 722.
58 C.P.R. 1321-24, 27; E122/50/12.
59 E356/2 m.11d; E356/3 mm.3r, 6-8, 26r; E122/50/12-17; E179/180/6 m.30d; Davies, op.cit., 605; Hervey, op.cit., 6, 19; KB 27/275 mm.58, 154d; R.R. 1-2 Ed.III m.2r, 8-9 Ed.III m.1d, 14-15 Ed.III m.2r, 8-11 Ric.II m.3r; G.C.R. 16-17 Ed.II m.2d.
60 C1/17/89.
61 C.P.R. 1324-27, 143; Red Parch. Bk., 49, 52, 55,56; Britnell, op.cit., 358, 361; Col.C.R., II, 219; C146/205, 1038.
62 The Wyth family had produced merchants in Lynn from the time of Edward I. Philip Wyth, chamberlain and jurat of the 1340s, was particularly wealthy; after the early death of his son Philip junior (chamberlain 1359/60), Philip senior's several properties in Lynn passed to his brother John de Wormegay (jurat 1357-76) and thence to John's son, the Philip here discussed. SC8/3850, SC8/12878; C.P.R. 1334-38, 449; KL/C5/2 m.8r; Red Reg. ff.97b-98; Liber Lynn ff.16b-18.
63 Cal.Inq.Misc. 1377-88, 127.
64 C.F.R. 1377-83, 261-62; Liber Lynn ff.1, 9b, 20-27b; Red Reg. f.122. There is no evidence to connect this family with the Wyths found in fifteenth century Lynn, although one of the latter was a brasier whilst some of the former were farriers.
65 Red Reg. ff.125, 165; KL/C38/10.
66 Add.Ms. 30158 f.22b; I/C9/10/1 m.2r; C.P.R. 1452-61, 123.
67 C.P.R. 1358-61, 473; C.Cl.R. 1369-74, 494; Cal.Inq.Misc. 1348-77, 328.
68 E122/51/29, 39; PROB 11/2 qu.48.
69 Arundel Castle Ms. MD 1477; C.P.R. 1374-77, 502; KL/C5/3 m.1d; Red Reg. f.187; KL/C38/9.
70 C.P.R. 1364-67, 235, 323, 1370-74, 89; KL/C5/3 m.1d; Academies Lubeck, Die Recesse und Andere Akten der Hansetage, von 1256-1430, (Leipzig, 1870-89), III, 414. In 1371 Thomas had to re-export rye which he had imported from Prussia but had not been able to sell profitably.
71 KL/C10/2 ff.38b, 39, 44b.
72 Allowing for exaggeration, we may believe these complaints, despite the fact that Ipswich, c.1399 and 1402, jumped on the band-wagon, trying to obtain a reduction in its fee-farm on almost identical excuses. Cal.Inq.Misc. 1377-88, 54; C.P.R. 1408-13, 96-97, 1461-67, 262, 1467-77, 250; C.Cl.R. 1396-99, 225; Rot.Parl., III, 438, 447, 514; M. Rose, Petitions in Parliament under the Lancastrians from, or Relating to, Towns, (London M.A. thesis, 1926), 62; Swinden, op.cit., 390.
73 Cal.Inq.Misc. 1348-77, 5-7. Piracy might well have received a mention too, but perhaps the townsmen - as much the culprits as victims in this sphere of activity - were too embarrassed.
74 Palmer, Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, I, 203; Saul, op.cit., 233, 237. See the latter, pp.133-37, for the effects of shipping losses on other townsmen.
75 C.Cl.R. 1349-54, 479, 537, 1354-60, 549.
76 Red Reg. ff.75-76, 87b-89; C.P.R. 1343-45, 560; Bodl.Norf.Ch. 239.
77 Martin, Borough and Merchant Community of Ipswich, 180.
78 Power, op.cit., 114.
79 KL/C17/15 m.5; E122/94/12, 14, 15.
80 C.P.R. 1354-58, 151; C.Cl.R. 1341-43, 553-54; KL/C12/1 mm.3r-4r; Red Reg. f.158b; Arundel Castle Ms. MD 1478 m.2r. Andrew de Couteshale was probably the mayor of c.1270.
81 E122/193/33; E122/51/29; Col.C.R./54 m.20d, /67 m.21r.
82 See above.
83 P.P.R. 15-16 Ed.I(b) m.4d; R.R. 11-12 Ed.III m.2d, 17-18 Ed.III m.2d, 20-21 Ed.III m.1r; C.P.R. 1317-21, 512, 1321-24, 55, 1343-45, 200, 332, 1381-85, 395; Add.Ch. 2006; E179/180/12 m.13r; C.Cl.R. 1327-30, 402; Rot.Parl., II, 14; Ipswich Abatement Roll, 3 Ed.III m.1r; H. Riley, ed., Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis: Liber Albus, (London, 1859), 437-44.
84 E179/107/10, 12, 17, 54; E179/149/9; E179/180/1, 6, 11, 12; E179/242/40, 42; Rot.Parl., I, 229-36, 243-65.
85 Bacon, op.cit., 82.
86 Cutts, op.cit., 127; Parker, op.cit., 1; Clarke and Carter, op.cit., 429.
87 Saul, op.cit., 1, estimates a pre-1349 population of at least 4500. Geoffrey Martin is certain that the rows were made more crowded by infilling at a time later than the Middle Ages.
88 Green, op.cit., II, 409.
89 Swinden, op.cit., 170; Red Paper Bk., 7; Add.Ms. 30158 passim.
90 J. L'Estrange, Calendar of the Freemen of Great Yarmouth, (Norwich, 1910), 1-8.
91 For purposes of disciplining, social control, and guarantee of contribution to communal financial obligations.
92 E.g. at Norwich in 1415 the electors of the Common Council were to be only freemen householders; Records of Norwich, I, 98-99.
93 Platt, op.cit., 119, 121-22; H. Harrod, Report on the Deeds and Records of the Borough of King's Lynn, (King's Lynn, 1874), 63; Add.Ms. 30158 f.7b; G.C.R. 19-20 Ed.III m.2r. In Lynn tempore Henry VI the corporation was exerting itself to expand the freeman population, not trying to limit its size.
94 Gross, op.cit., II, 121; G.C.R. 39-40 Hen.III mm.4d, 5d.
95 Col.C.R., II, 47, III, 63, 97, 105.
96 Red Paper Bk., 79.
97 G.C.R. 1 Ed.I m.1r, 8-9 Ed.II m.1r, 11-13 Ed.II m.5r. Financial interests may have been responsible for the inception of more records series than is generally realized.
98 Add.Ms. 30158 ff.6b, 7b; Records of Norwich, I, 94; Red Parch. Bk., 35. Minor bureaucratic officials were frequently chosen from non-burgesses (i.e. non-freemen). At Maldon, however, where the number of suitable candidates was particularly low, the community was on one occasion obliged to look beyond its freemen for as important an officer as its constable (William Rason).
99 Twiss, op.cit., 128; KL/C37/1 m.13r; Harrod, Report on the Records of King's Lynn, 91-92.
100 KL/C37/1 mm.13-15.
101 But it may not be great: in 1373/4 it was specifically recorded that Robert de Bryselee had left town to avoid being assessed; KL/C39/33 m.2r.
102 KL/C37/7.
103 C.P.R. 1313-17, 57.
104 Depending on how one interprets cancellation of some entries.
105 KL/C39/48 m.9r; KL/C6/3 passim; KL/C6/5 mm.15-16; KL/C7/4 ff.74-75; Red Reg. ff.156, 163b, 164, 168.
106 C.P.R. 1343-45, 323; Saul, op.cit., 49
107 White Domesday ff.8-9; I/C1/1/2/6.
108 C.P.R. 1317-21, 366, 474-75, 1324-27, 146; Col.C.R. passim; Red Paper Bk., 79-84.
109 C.Cl.R. 1399-1402, 489.
110 Martin, Borough and Merchant Community of Ipswich, 180; Hammer, op.cit., 2; Parker, op.cit., 16.
111 Of the 168 Yarmouth freemen entrants 1429-61, 33 held the office of bailiff, chamberlain or M.P. before 1470, and doubtless many others served in the Common Council. Petchey, op.cit., 170-71, suggests a similar 20% regarding Maldon participation in the sixteenth century. The hypothesis of Bridbury, op.cit., 62, that the proportion of freemen in the community rose after 1349 is based on the unproveable and unlikely assumption that all immigrants entered the franchise.
112 KL/C9/1 ff.20b-22b; one of the chamberlains of the year is missing although certainly alive and a freeman.
113 Tait, op.cit., 321, accused that the popular basis of Lynn's Common Council was not broad, since the electorate of each constabulary was small. Analysis of the turnouts 1425-61 show an average of 166, with a high of 269 and a low of 119, but no detectable pattern; this suggests that individual inclinations plus particular issues of the year may have been influential. If we take the maximum single attendance of each of the nine wards 1438-45 (a period of relatively high turnouts) we can reconstruct a potential electorate of 278 persons. It must be remembered that: a) the jurats did not vote; b) the electorate of the lower council included non-freemen. There seems no reason to doubt that all men who wished to vote could and did. On the open quality of borough government see also Petchey, op.cit., 168-70.
