“Also, because as well in times past, out of memory, as also in modern times, the City aforesaid is wont to be defended and governed by the aid and counsels as well of the reputable men of the trades-merchant as of the other trades-handicraft; and from of old it hath been the usage, that no strange person, native or alien, as to whose conversation and condition there is no certain knowledge, shall be admitted to the freedom of the City, unless first, the merchants or traders of the City following the trade which the person so to be admitted intends to adopt, shall be lawfully convoked; that so, by such his fellow-citizens, so convoked, the Mayor and Aldermen, aforesaid, being certified as to the condition and trustworthiness of the persons so to be admitted, may know whether such persons ought to be admitted or rejected; the whole community demands, that the form aforesaid, so far as concerns the more important trades and handicrafts, shall in future be inviolably observed, that so no person in future may against the provision aforesaid be admitted to the freedom of the City.” (_Liber Albus_, p. 425.) On the post and duties of the Coroner, Dr. Reginald Sharpe (_Letter Book B_) furnishes valuable information. The functions of Coroner were exercised by the Chamberlain and Sheriffs. The King’s butler, to whom the office of Coroner belonged, was generally made City Chamberlain. In December 1302 the King’s Writ notified the Mayor and Sheriffs that William Trente, his Chamberlain, to whose bailiwick the office of Coroner in the City belonged (_ad cujus ballivam officium Coronatoris ... pertinet_), being busy on affairs of State, had deputed John le Clerk to act as Coroner. More than once the citizens endeavoured to get the appointment of Coroner into their own hands. It was Edward the Fourth who, in consideration of a sum of £7000, gave the City a Charter which, among other things, enabled the citizens to appoint their own Coroner. “The customary procedure of holding an inquest on the body of any one who had died in the City, otherwise than by his rightful death (_ex alia morte quam recta morte sua_), was as follows:—After receiving notice of such a death having occurred, and of the body of the deceased lying in a certain house in a certain ward, the Chamberlain (or Coroner) and Sheriffs proceeded thither, and having summoned a jury (drawn partly from the ward in which the body was found, and partly from two, or sometimes three, of the nearest wards), set to work to diligently inquire (_diligenter inquisiverunt_) how the deceased came by his death. If the Chamberlain and Sheriffs failed to hold an inquest, or held an insufficient one, in cases where the Justices Itinerant thought an inquest necessary, they were amerced.