There are signs that about this time Laurence was looked upon with more
favour by those in power.[423] In 1494, however, a change of policy,
owing perhaps to the influence of the mayor, a grocer, named Robert
Green, caused him to take up his old position. In those days the matter
of enclosures was but one among many sources of trouble. In the first
place, in that same year, the corporation, perhaps suddenly roused to
the doings of the various crafts, thought that they had enjoyed in the
past few years more liberty than they were disposed to allow. They
turned their attention to the pewterers' and tanners' fellowships.[424]
Complaint being made concerning "discevable" pewterers' ware, the leet
ordained,--that all such as "maken and medle metailles within this
cite, as vessels of brasse, peauter and laten," should sell true goods,
"medled be due proporcion," and to such merchants as had served an
apprenticeship to the craft. Furthermore, the master of the fellowship
received orders to seize any faulty vessels and bring them before the
mayor and council; the maker, in the event of the charge being proved,
was condemned to forfeit the sum of twenty shillings. Then the tanners
felt the effects of the energy of the leet. Certain of the craft were
wont to buy raw hides "in grete," with the intention, no doubt of
selling them at a profit. This practice the court forbade, under pain
of a forty-shilling fine, to be taken from buyer and seller alike.
The irritation these ordinances called forth among certain members
of these fellowships can be illustrated from the records of the leet
held the following year. It was then enacted that John Duddesbury,
a tanner,[425] and John Smith, a pewterer, for their repeated
ill-behaviour to "men of worship," were to be put "under surety from
session to session,"[426] until their submissive behaviour should
content the justices of the peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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