In some towns special civic officials were appointed to supervise the tensers. At Chester the "leave-lookers" were among the most important of the borough officers. The word _leve_ or _leave_ has very much the same signification as the word _cense_ or cess. It is the English "levy," and was the fee or toll for permission to trade. The "leve-lookers" were the officials who exacted the levy or toll which unfree tradesmen were obliged to pay. At Chester they were "appointed annually by the Mayor for the purpose of collecting the duty of 2_s._ 6_d._ claimed by the corporation to be levied yearly upon all non-freemen who exercise any trade within the liberties of the City." Their duties are described as having been "to give Licence and compound with any that came either to buy or sell within these liberties contrary to our grants;" "if any did dwell within the city that were not free, if they did ever buy or sell within the liberties, they did likewise compound with the _Custos_ and _Mercator_ [Custos Gilde Mercatorie] by the year ... the Leave-lookers do gather two pence halfpenny upon the pound, of all Wares sold by Forraigners within the City." (Gross, II. 42.) The same name is found at Wigan, where the duty of the "gate-waiters or leave-lookers" was to see that all "foreigners" paid their fines for licence to reside and trade in the town. (Sinclair, _Wigan_, _passim_.) It is not easy to define the exact status of the tensers. They were certainly considered as an inferior body of burgesses, and might comprise three classes. Firstly, those not willing or not able to enter one of the gilds; secondly, traders waiting to be admitted burgesses; thirdly ex-burgesses fallen from the higher state through misfortune.