Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
In London there were 4 royal princes, 6 great earls, 17 barons, 26
knights, and 11 female representatives of the peerage (counted in
1319). There was a wall with four towers surrounding the White
Tower, and this castle was known as the Tower of London. Another
wall and a moat were built around it and it has reached its final
form. Hovels, shops, and waste patches alternated with high walls
and imposing gateways protecting mansions. The mansions had
orchards, gardens, stables, brewhouses, bakeries, guardrooms, and
chapels. London streets were paved with cobbles and sand. Each
citizen was to keep the street in front of his tenement in good
repair. Later, each alderman appointed four reputable men to
repair and clean the streets for wages. The repair of Bishopsgate
was the responsibility of the Bishop because he received one stick
from every cart of firewood passing through it. Rules as to tiled
roofs were enforced. A 1297 ordinance required all taverns to
close at curfew, an hour that fluctuated. Prostitutes were
expelled from the city because the street with their bawdy houses
had become very noisy. Women huckster-retailers, nurses, servants,
and loose women were limited to wearing hoods furred with lambskin
or rabbitskin and forbidden to wear hoods furred with vair or
miniver [grey or white squirrel] in the guise of good ladies. An
infirmary for the blind was founded by a mercer, who became its
first prior.
The London mayoral elections were hotly fought over until in 1285,
when the aldermen began to act with the aid of an elected council
in each of the twenty-four wards, which decentralized the
government of the city. Each ward chose certain of its inhabitants
to be councilors to the aldermen. This council was to be consulted
by him and its advice to be followed. In 1291, the aldermen for
the first time included a fishmonger. The Fishmongers were the
only guild at this time, besides the Weavers, which had acquired
independent jurisdiction by the transfer of control of their
weekly hallmote from a public official to themselves. Craftsmen
began to take other public offices too. By the reign of Edward II,
all the citizens were obliged to be enrolled among the trade
guilds. A great quarrel between the weaver's guild and the
magistracy began the control of the city by the craft guilds or
city companies. Admission to freedom of the city [citizenship] was
controlled by the citizens, who decided that no man of English
birth, and especially no English merchant, who followed any
specific mistery [French word for a calling or trade] or craft,
was to be admitted to the freedom of the city except on the
security of six reputable men of that mistery or craft. No longer
could one simply purchase citizenship. Apprentices had to finish
their terms before such admission, and often could not afford the
citizenship fee imposed on them. Only freemen could sell wares in
the city, a custom of at least two hundred years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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