A highly unpopular measure was the work of the mayor himself. This ordinance looks simple enough, but there is possibly a deeper meaning underlying it. Before his indentures were made, every apprentice was ordered to pay twelve pence towards the common funds, have his name entered in a book prepared for the purpose by the town clerk, and "swear to the franchises" of the city.[427] The apprentices' friends might feel aggrieved at this new exaction; it is less easy to understand why the masters were inclined to resist the measure. That they were so inclined is shown by an order made some six months afterwards to the effect that those who still received apprentices contrary to the ordinance, and continued stubborn, were to be committed to ward and _find surety that they would in future obey all ordinances of leet_.[428] The corporation had some motive in binding the apprentices by a solemn oath and enrolling them in this methodical fashion; they evidently wished to keep a tight hold on them for some particular purpose. For a hundred years Coventry had been celebrated for clothmaking, and the sellers of cloth had been the richest men in the city, and members of their fellowship more frequently in office than those of any other occupation.[429] It was important that the merchants and drapers--and of these the corporation was chiefly composed--should be able to keep the _makers_ of cloth, weavers and fullers, well under control; and in attempting this, quarrels may well have arisen. The merchants, thinking they would again arise, determined to weaken the master-makers of cloth by keeping this tight hold over the apprentices, and making them responsible to the corporation. Certain practices, in all probability lately revived under this mayor or his successor, were particularly detested by the citizens concerned in clothmaking. Coventry was a great centre for the weaver's industry. For a long time past, in accordance with orders of leet, cloth had been sold on market days in the "Drapery," in S. Michael's churchyard, a house of which the Trinity guild had been possessed for the last 130 years.[430] There was a second selling place, the porch of S. Michael's church, which lay a few yards from the Drapery door. This had been in all probability the traditional sale ground for cloth before the Drapery was fixed on and passed into the possession of the guild. In the church porch the payment of stallage might be avoided, and it may be the makers did not fear for their workmanship the strict supervision of the craft of drapers. In 1455 the sale of cloth in the porch was forbidden by the leet;[431] yet no doubt, in spite of pains and penalties, the weavers or makers still drove their bargains, whenever it was possible, outside the walls of the Drapery. But the municipality resolved that the orders of leet should no longer be set at nought; cloth must henceforward be sold in the Drapery,[432] and not elsewhere.