After 1420, when the graphic chronicle contained in the _Leet Book_[137] begins to be available for our researches, a glimpse is given of a fully evolved constitution in working order. On January 25, the feast of the Conversion of S. Paul, the mayor, chamberlains, and wardens were annually elected, the permanent officials, the recorder, legal adviser of the corporation, and the coroner re-appointed, the justices of the peace selected, while the bailiffs, according to ancient custom, received nomination at the Michaelmas assembly of the court leet. The justices of the peace--with the exception of the recorder--served also as key-keepers of the chest containing the common treasure. The court of portmanmote, mentioned in Ranulf's charter, still survived under various names, and in it pleas for debt were tried by the presiding officers, the mayor, and bailiffs. At quarter sessions the mayor, recorder, and three other late mayors, justices of the peace, dealt with criminal offences, and it was, probably, the activity of these comparatively recently created officials,[138]that brought about the degeneration of the leet or view of frankpledge, normally a court of justice for the trial of minor criminal offences, particularly evasions of the assize of bread and beer.[139] By the fifteenth century, the Coventry leet had retained little or nothing of its judicial functions, and merely survived as a court wherein by-laws, binding on the whole community, and grounded on petitions of grievances, received the sanction of the jurats of the leet. Another body, which also possessed legislative functions, was the mayor's council of forty-eight, later known as the common council. While it is from a small select body called the council-house, of which the mayor and aldermen appear to have been ex-officio members, that there sprang the close, corrupt corporation of later times. [Illustration: COURTYARD, ST MARY'S HALL, COVENTRY]