WHEN the craft guilds became powerful enough to control the election of the city officers, the old system was about to die. Its work was done, but it died hard. By the end of the fourteenth century it was gone. It had arisen in a state of things so different from that which saw its end, that we realise it with difficulty. The small Saxon population which settled within the deserted walls of what had been Roman London, found a wide and empty space crossed by two great paved highways. Their first division of this space was into holdings or estates, some of which may have been of considerable size. Such a space on the north side of the Cheap, was the site of the king's residence.[1]  A similar space upon Cornhill belonged to the bishop. By the river side the holdings were smaller, but comprised spaces equal to two or three parishes. These divisions appear to be older than the parochial divisions, and do not always coincide with them. The two systems were formed independently. When I

One reason for this opinion may be found by comparing land in London with land elsewhere. In London the holdings are partly in one parish, partly in another. The parishes were partly in one ward, partly in another. The connection between the ecclesiastical and civil institutions is very slender. But in the country, the church and the hall form part of the same range of buildings; the squire has the gift of the benefice, and his estate is the parish. The two old divisions of manor and parish are almost always conterminous.

The subdivision of London parishes presents some peculiar features. So often do we find churches of the same dedication in close proximity, that it is difficult not to conclude that some large parishes were broken up into smaller parts, each part retaining the old name with a distinguishing addition. Here, no doubt, the influence of property was felt. The alderman or owner of the estate built a new church, and had a portion of the old parish assigned to it. Thus, in the ward of Queenhithe closely adjoining each other, are the three parishes of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary Mounthaw, and St. Mary Somerset.[2]  St. Mary Mounthaw is known to have been at first the chapel of the Norfolk family of Montalt. Two other parishes are also in Queenhithe, and both are dedicated to St. Nicholas. Two in Cordwainers' ward are dedicated to St. Mary. All Hallows seems to have been a large parish in ; but, at some period

There are probably a few other examples of this kind: one of a different kind is found in Bassishaw, or Basinghall, a ward which is remarkable as being conterminous with the parish of St. Michael, and as one of those which retains the name of its ancient owners. The Basings were evidently of Saxon origin. [5]  Their settlement is at a considerable distance from the river, but forms the smallest ward north of Cheap. That it was long kept open, perhaps in a kind of park or large garden, appears from its having been selected at a later time for the site of a number of trade or craft halls, no fewer than four of the companies having had their headquarters in Bassishaw, together with one of the

Of those wards which retain the old family names, the most prominent are the two Farringdons, Without and Within. In , William Farringdon purchased the estate of Ralph le Fevre, which is described as the ward of . About the same time he also bought the reversion of the " ward of Anketill de Auvern," which comprised Fleet Street and the parish of St. Bride's. [8]  It is not very easy to ascertain what he bought, whether, that is, he became owner of the land, or of the incumbency of the office of alderman. By the end of the thirteenth century the great estates must have been in part broken up. It is hardly credible that one man should have been able to buy an estate which comprised the

In addition to the great estates, which gradually became wards, there were certain sokes, or liberties, in London, which survived a few years as exempt jurisdictions. Some of them actually became wards, others were absorbed. They were of the nature of wards or manors, but were not endowed with the same privileges of self-government till long after the great estates of the aldermen had become wholly free. One of them became eventually the ward of Cornhill, but was at first the soke of the bishop of London. The standard-bearer had a liberty at Castle Baynard. The knighten-guild had a soke outside , which subsequently became Portsoken and a ward. The queen, Maud, or Matilda, had another. The cathedral church of St. Paul had a small liberty, comprising the precincts.[13]  The priory of St. Bartholomew seems to have had a similar liberty, as we read in of their "sokenreve." It appears to have been absorbed in Farringdon Without. The word "soke " is very loosely employed by old writers, and sometimes appears interchangeably with " ward." The heads of wards had sac and soc, or the rights composing baronial jurisdiction, and the proprietors of sokes as distinguished from wards, had the same. The steward or bailiff of the bishop had probably the government of Cornhill. In , the bishop made a declaration of his rights in the soke, and obtained recognition of them from the citizens, the chapter of St.

The history of the ward named Portsoken, which contained two of these liberties, is not so brief. , there is reason to believe, was not one of the original or Roman gates of the wall. In what year it was opened we cannot say, perhaps in the reign of Edgar, perhaps in that of Edward the Confessor. It was certainly in existence by the time of . when queen Maud made the bridge over the Lea at Stratford. Adjoining this gate she had a "soke." To the northward was another estate or soke, that belonging to the knighten-guild already mentioned. In a canon of St. Augustine opened a house at the gate near a church dedicated to the Holy Cross and St. Mary Magdalene, which had been built by one Syred [16]  some time, we do not know how long, before. In the following year, the preaching of the Augustinian, whose name was Norman, began to attract great attention; the queen, whose confessor he became, granted him her property in the gate itself and the soke adjoining, to found a house of which he was to be the first prior, and

The most interesting point to be noticed here is that the prior became alderman of the Soke of the Port: but when is not known. In , Prior Eustace, holding that a regular priest had no call to act in temporal matters, delegated his authority to a bailiff, as the bishop had done in Cornhill; but few of his successors seem to have been of his mind, and Stow describes the prioralderman as sitting in court and riding with "the mayor and his brethren the aldermen, as one of them, in scarlet or other livery as they used."

After the reign of . the great landowners of the city had no longer any place as such in the governing body. The aldermen no longer owned their wards. The names are fixed, the offices purely elective. The constitution of the city, in fact, had undergone a complete change ; [21]  We have now to witness the victory of the craft-guilds over that mercantile element.the oligarchy was broken up; the danger which at one time threatened, that London would fall first into the hands of some local tyrant and then into that of the king, as in the case of the great

The history of the city companies is much complicated by that of guilds. A " frith-guild " existed as early as the time of Athelstan. The knighten-guild which . recognised was in existence at a very early period-so early that tradition assigned its foundation to king Edgar. What the guilds were may to a certain extent be ascertained. Some were religious, some were merely social. But those of greatest importance were mercantile. They were comprised in the " town guild " at the Guildhall, and controlled or endeavoured to control the whole policy of the city. It was to counteract the oligarchical action of the town-guild that Hervey gave organisation to the "craft-guilds." The original guild was undoubtedly "an institution of local self-help,"[22]  and of the highest

The institution of mercantile guilds is also very ancient. Their constitution is recognised by Glanville. Writing in the reign of ., he uses the phrase "commune, in other words a gyld," meaning a town whose corporation had set up a guild. London must have been such a town, as is proved by the existence of a guildhall. If a countryman came into such a town and resided there undisturbed for a year and a day, and was received into the " commune, otherwise gyld " (communiam, scilicet gyldam), he became a freeman and could not be recalled into "villenage." [25]  Mercantile guilds existed at, Leicester, Preston and other places before the end of the twelfth century.

The third kind of guild was that of the handicrafts-men

It has usually been asserted [26] that on this occasion the " adulterine " guilds, as they were called, were suppressed. It is true we do not hear of them very often; but the same record which gives us their names when they are first made to pay, mentions them again a few years later. [27]  They were eighteen in number, and paid sums varying from the forty-five marks of the goldsmiths to the half mark of "the guild whereof Hugo Leo is alderman." It has yet to be proved that these were in any sense trading companies, or that their aldermen had any municipal rank as such. [28]  The word alderman was often used of any one who was senior officer of an association. The guilds of were presided over by men of whom we hear little or nothing in the city annals. If they had been aldermen in the modern sense they would appear as

It was perhaps in consequence of this verdict that the old corporation of the weavers resolved itself or was divided by a higher power into its constituent elements, and we henceforth hear of the drapers, tailors, and others, but no more of the weavers till long after. There is, however, absolute silence on the subject in the works of

How far these guilds, now organised as companies, influenced the final division of the wards it is impossible to tell. The question turns on whether we are to regard the aldermen named in the list of adulterine guilds as

It is not impossible to localise certain trades. The goldsmiths were always seated in the ward of Alders-gate. Ralph Flael, their alderman in the reign of ., is said to have " held the ward in demesne." [37]  The drapers were now unsettled, but the mention of their houses at St. Mary "Boathatch, " a lock-gate or

The German merchants kept to the river's bank, where they had their own house, the Steelyard. Stow quaintly speaks of the " Haunce of Almaine," but the word Hans is old English and means, literally, guild.[40]  Their house was close to the mouth of the , in the ward of , and surrounded with quays and stores. The head was termed an alderman, though he was certainly not alderman of a ward. We read of the Easterlings at a very early period as living together under strict regulations, and considering themselves a

Another very ancient society was that of the saddlers. Their guild seems to have been connected with the church of St. Martin-le-Grand, and to have been wholly religious. An agreement between Ernald, their alderman, and the canons of St. Martin, which makes mention of the antiquity of the society, cannot itself be much later than the reign of John.

Such are the chief indications of the organisation of guilds and companies before the accession of . The civic revolution, which is described at the close of

The mayoralty of Walter Hervey terminated in the usual way, and a member of the aldermen's party was permitted by the commons to succeed him. Henry le Waleys, or Galeys, a merchant trading with Bordeaux, of which city he was mayor a year later, was elected. He had hardly taken the oaths, when a disagreeable incident occurred. His sheriffs, Cusin and Meldeburne, men belonging to his own party, were convicted, one of having taken a bribe from a dishonest baker, the other of conniving in the fraud. The customary contest as to jurisdiction between the government at and the City authorities took place, but the precedent of Simon FitzMary having been adduced, the citizens deposed their sheriffs, and elected in their stead two men of the oldest and proudest families, by apparently such a reaction as constantly occurs in public opinion. In conjunction with the mayor, they immediately attacked the charters of the craftsmen. Occasion was easily found. The charters had been disobeyed: "a certain person " had worked in contravention of the statutes contained in the charter which he and the men of his trade had obtained. They came into the Guildhall, where the mayor and the aldermen, including Walter Hervey, alderman of Cheap, were assembled. The complainants were asked where they obtained their charter. From the late mayor, Walter Hervey, was the reply. Hervey boldly acknowledged the authorship, not only of the charter in question, but also of a number of others. The mayor kept silence, but Gregory Rokesley, an old and wealthy alderman, afterwards, " Master of the Exchange," ambassador to Flanders, and mayor after Waleys, rose and expressed his opinion that Hervey's charters only

On New Year's day, , the mayor and citizens met once more in the Guildhall, and Hervey's charters were brought in by the tradesmen and impounded by the mayor, who, a fortnight later, in open hustings, had them read, their alleged dangerous character explained, and the injury they would cause described, after which it was ordered, with the assent of the people present, that the members of the different trades should follow their crafts as before, and that the charters should be held of no weight.

It is evident that some intimidation was used to obtain the consent of the people to the loss of their charters. But still more high-handed proceedings were about to be taken.

The great market-place of Westcheap was, as we have seen, covered with booths, arranged in order according to the nature of the wares exposed for sale. The whole of the ground now occupied by Wood Street, Milk Street, Friday Street, Honey Lane, Ironmonger Lane, and so on, was then like a country fair. "I read," says Stow, " of no housing otherwise on that side of the street, but of divers sheds." Such for many centuries was Cheap, the Forum of London, Warda Fori, [46] as it is called in the old records. The roadway of which Stow speaks, ran along the edge of the market place, whence it obtained its name of Cheap-side. In the centre stood the great church of St. Mary "le Bow," so called on account of its stone vaulting. Before the church was a tilting ground, but all the rest of the open space was let out from time to time for the sheds of various provision dealers, arranged by their trades. They did not live in their booths, [47] and the permanent population of Cheap must have been small. It was, no doubt, these tradesmen who had made Walter Hervey their alderman, and at this, the constituency of their enemy, the patricians determined to aim their next blow. An edict went forth announcing that the young king was coming home, that the city must be in order to receive him, and that, as a step in this direction, the market-place must be cleared. [48] 

The shopmen had in many cases paid handsome sums of money for the privilege of selling their goods at what they regarded as permanent stalls in Cheap. The mayor, backed, no doubt, by superior power, asserted in reply to their remonstrances that the sheriffs who had given leases had done so on bribery. He ruthlessly carried out, apparently in one day, the removal of the sheds. The king's eye must not be offended, he said, by the sight of any refuse lying about; and his severity fell with peculiar weight on the fishmongers and butchers. They appealed to Guildhall on the morrow. The mayor and aldermen were assembled to "plead the common pleas." The complaint of the unfortunate salesmen was laid before them, and the reply of the mayor is very significant. He had evidently been consulting with the council, and knew how far he would be supported; at the same time he did not scruple, in order to crush the plebeian rising, to surrender, and to acknowledge virtually that he had surrendered, the liberties of the city. For he made answer that what he had done he had done by order of the king's council, thus endeavouring to shield himself.

Hervey, we may be sure, made the most of this admission. The king's council had no jurisdiction over the chief magistrate of London. Again a " wordy strife," says the chronicler, ensued. The mayor was openly reproved by Hervey before all the people. At length, stung by his reproaches, he broke up the meeting and betook himself to his friends at . Here the final course of action was resolved upon. Hervey's supporters had been dispersed to their houses out of the city and into various other wards, by the clearing of Cheap; and now, without further delay, Hervey himself must be silenced.

The object of the mayor in clearing Cheap was soon apparent. In the depopulated ward a new election would ensure the return of an alderman very different from Hervey, and the mayor had no difficulty in obtaining a vote deposing Hervey, and ordering the "aldermanry " to choose a successor.

From this time Walter Hervey disappears from the city annals. What became of him we cannot tell. The work he did lived after him. Twenty years later he was spoken of as an improver of the city, [50] but his struggles for the handicraftsmen were forgotten in a new order of things. He may have lived to see the partial triumph of his efforts when, in , at the return of Edward from his Scottish campaign, the citizens assembled by their trades to give him welcome. He may even have survived to see the first royal charters given to the companies by . By imparting corporate life to the old crafts he had conferred on them a political consistence not easily destroyed. To him they owed their ultimate victory over the old oligarchy. Within a few years their place among the ruling powers of London was fully established, and a list still extant among the earliest records of the city preserved in the Guildhall shows us the wards reorganised, and marks the completion of the civic revolution he had initiated. That he was so soon forgotten, is not to the credit of his successors in London. It is not very clear why this should be. It is not because of the remoteness of the time at which he lived and worked. Richard Whittington is a modern hero, yet he

[1] Gutter Lane, formerly Guthrum's Lane, has sometimes been said to commemorate Guthorm-Athelstane, Alfred's Danish godson. Sir F. Palgrave, in his curious little work the ' Merchant and the Friar,' speaks (p. 188) of "the lane of Guthrun (sic) the Dane, otherwise Gutter Lane in the ward of Cheap." Unfortunately, Gutter Lane is in Farringdon Within. The cases cited throughout the volume must be looked upon as more or less fictitious. See below, the story of Simon Frowyk.

[2] Somershithe.

[3] Newcourt, i. 250.

[4] Ibid., p. 377-379

[5] But Heath ('Account of the Grocers' Company,' p. 82) considers them to have been Italians, as they are mentioned among the Lombards, in the 'Hundred Rolls' of 2 Edward I . So are Gregory Rokesley and others; and the reference is too late to prove anything. A Lombard was probably by this time a money-lender, not a native of Lombardy.

[6] ' Liber Albus,' p. 30.

[7] The ward of Cheap was that of Henry le Frowyk; Vintry, of Henry le Covyntre; Bridge, of John Horn; Cordwainers, of Henry le Waleys; Langbourne, of Nicholas de Wynton; Aldgate, of John de Northampton; Wallbrook, of John Adrian; Broad Street, of William Bukerel; Aldersgate, of John de Blakethorn; Billingsgate, of Wolmar de Essex; Bread Street, of William de Durham; and other examples might be given before 1280. -See Riley's ' Memorials,' passim.

[8] Joyce FitzPeter, sheriff in 1211, appears to have had this ward before Anketill. See a very curious paper by Mr. Palmer in the 'Reliquary,' xvii. 36, notes K and L. He witnesses a deed relating to "Sholand" or Shoe lane as Joc. Filio Petri tunc Aldermano warde, then alderman of the ward-which ward still remained anonymous.

[9] See below, chap. xxii. Also the very curious preface to the 'Liber de Antiquis Legibus,' by Thomas Stapleton (Cam. Soc. 1846).

[10] See the family legend in the ' Chronicle of Mayors and Sheriffs,' p. 201.

[11] The mayor ranks as an earl (Norton, p. 260), and was so assessed under Richard II. In the city he ranks immediately after the sovereign, but at the Duke of Wellington's funeral Prince Albert, as representing the Queen, preceded the Lord Mayor.

[12] See Stubbs, iii. 561.

[13] There is a curious reference to it in Pepys's 'Diary,' iii. 348 (Bohn).

[14] The whole document appears as an interpolation in the ' Liber de Antiquis Legibus.' See Riley's 'Translation of the Chronicles of Mayors and Sheriffs,' p. 210. And Brentano, in Toulmin Smith's 'English Gilds,' p. 59, where there is an account of a " soke " belonging to the bishop of Worms.

[15] There is a very lively account of lord Fitzwalter's claim and its rejection in the ' Merchant and the Friar,' p. 149.

[16] Syred, or Sired, was a canon of St. Paul's T. R. E., and is mentioned in D. S.

[17] After the Dissolution this house and church wholly disappeared. The church of the convent of Minoresses has been confounded with it by Cunningham and others. There is a cartulary of the Priory of Aldgate among the archives of the university of Glasgow. See Third Report, Historical MSS. Commission. A new church of St. James, Duke's Place, was consecrated in 1623, but has since been removed.

[18] Stow and others, deceived by the name, have endeavoured to give a very ancient origin to Aldgate.

[19] They " gave seisin to the prior on the land itself through the church of St. Botolph, which is built on it, and is, as they said, the head of that same land."-Stevens, Continuation of Dugdale,' p. 75.

[20] Their names are given as Ralf, son of Algod, Wimard le Doverlishe, Orgar le Prude, Edward Hupcornhill, Blakstan and Albyn his kinsman, Albyn and Robert his brother, the sons of Leostan, Leostan the goldsmith, and Wizo his son, Hugh the son of Wlgar, Algar Secusun, Orgar the son of Dereman, Osbert Drinchepyg, Adelard Hornpiteson. A charter of William Rufus is recited by Stow and another of Henry to the men of the knighten-guild, in which they are granted, " the guild that belonged tothem and the land that belonged thereunto, with all customs " as they had the same in the time of king Edward and king William. This was the soke conveyed to the church in 1125 by Ralf and his companions. The list of their names is curious. It contains a very early mention of Cornhill, one of the brethren being Edward " Hupcornhill." There are two Leostans mentioned; one of them a goldsmith, whose son Wizo is with him; the other, whose trade is not given, and whose two sons Albyn and Robert are among the brethren. There is also a son of Dereman, no doubt the same Deorman to whom William the Conqueror had given the Essex charter still preserved in Guildhall. See above, p. 87.

[21] Mr. Stubbs ('Const. Hist.,' i. 407) seems to think that a previous civic revolution took place on the " disappearance of the portreeve, the conversion of the knighten-guild into a religious house," and other changes before the reign of Stephen. It is elsewhere (p. 630) described as a victory of the mercantile over the aristocratic element.

[22] Miss Toulmin Smith, 'English Gilds,' p. xiv. In the sketch attempted here I have occasion frequently to use the words of this remarkable essay.

[23] Cunningham, Palgrave, and others derive the name of Nightingale Lane from the Knighten Guild. It is well to look with suspicion on these plausible derivations. Miss Strickland's "Chere Reine" Cross is an example. Nightingale Lane is not in Portsoken, and was much more probably called from the birds which sang in it or from an ale-house sign. Stow makes special mention of the rural aspect of this district in the sixteenth century.

[24] Frith-guild means an association for a peaceful purpose.

[25] The case of Simon Frowyk is detailed in the ' Merchant and the Friar,' p. 140. Frowyk is a bondsman of Alan, Lord Zouche, who endeavours in vain to detain him when he finds him on his glebe after he has become a citizen of London. The story is partially fictitious.

[26] Stubbs, iii. 574, for example. The word "adulterine," by the way, was also applied to castles erected without a licence.-Stubbs, i. 333.

[27] Madox, 'Hist. Exchequer,' i. 390.

[28] Ralph Flael is said by some to be the alderman who sold a ward to William Farringdon. This is a mistake of Flael for Fevre. In any case Flael could hardly have been alive in 1297.

[29] Both these points have been assumed of late. In Herbert the question is further complicated by carelessness. He says there were " four gilds de Ponte, or of the Bridge, Thomas Coke, alderman." If we turn to the record, however, we find, it is true, four gilds "de Ponte"; but they have four aldermen, of whom " Thomas Cocus " is only one :-" Gilda de Ponte, unde Thomas Cocus est aldermannus, debet j marcas. Gilda de Ponte, unde Ailwinus Fink est aldermannus, debet xv marcas. Gilda de Ponte, unde Robertus de Bosco est aldermannus, debet x marcas. Gilda de Ponte, unde Petrus Filius Alani fuit aldermannus, debet xv marcas." Thomas Cook was therefore not the head of four local guilds, but only head of one, and that the poorest. Mr. Stubbs (iii. 561) speaks of three " as aldermen of the Gilda de Ponte," as if there was but one guild. It is a serious thing to differ with Mr. Stubbs, but the facts are plain.

[30] So at least I understand the " fuit" in the record.

[31] The weavers were everywhere important. See Toulmin Smith, ' English Gilds,' 120, and Stubbs's ' Const. Hist.,' iii. 572.

[32] Mr. Stubbs oddly observes (iii. 574) that at the end of the reign of Edward III . the guilds had increased to forty-eight, but that " the weavers were not in the first class: the grocers, mercers, goldsmiths, fishmongers, vintners, tailors and drapers being evidently richer." But the tailors must be identified with the telarii or weavers, who would otherwise have unaccountably disappeared, since they are not named at all, even among the inferior companies.

[33] Not necessarily makers of armour.

[34] It is wholly unproved, and indeed against all probability, that Henry FitzAylwin, the first mayor, was a member of the guild and left them houses. In fact, it was at the commencement of his term of office that the transaction already described took place, when the weavers out-bribed the authorities of the Guildhall

[35] Stubbs, iii. 574, 575.

[36] The identification of the adulterine guilds with the later companies is scarcely possible. The goldsmiths, of which Ralph Flael was alderman, may have developed into the wealthy company of that name. o, too, the piperarii may have become grocers, and the butchers have survived to be chartered. But it is with doubt that I would suggest the identity of the later company of merchant-tailors, at whose head was, not an alderman, but a pilgrim, with the " Gilda Peregrinorum, unde Warnerius le Turnur est Aldermannus." There were eighteen guilds, and four being in one locality, the number of wards represented, if wards were represented at all by the aldermen of the guilds, would be but fifteen. This is more than improbable.

[37] Herbert, ii. 127.

[38] See a curious account of the vicar-general's tyrannical proceedings in Stow, p. 67 (ed. Thorns), quoted below, chapter x. p. 309.

[39] There are frequent entries in the rolls of payment for the "Bolengarii."

[40] Stubbs, i. 411.

[41] See above, chapter iv.

[42] Herbert, i. 10.

[43] Riley, 'Memorials.'

[44] An interesting account of the English nation at Bruges in the fifteenth century is given by Mr. Blades, ' Life of Caxton,' chapter iii.

[45] The writ is so worded that the aldermen may have thought themselves justified in arresting Hervey-though they are not directly commanded to do so.

[46] Letter-book A., p. 116, and Lansdowne MSS. 558, fo. 205.

[47] Fitzstephen.

[48] The proclamation recorded in the 'Chron. Mayors and Sheriffs,' p. 173, only mentions two trades; but it is clear from a consideration of the whole passage that all the others suffered.

[49] Finsbury Moor (Riley).

[50] Riley, ' Memorials,' p. 25, where mention is made of his having rebuilt the bridge over Wallbrook, at the eastern extremity of his ward.