Análisis de escenarios (por variables)

What was the practical outcome of these new arrangements? First, by opening the membership body of the St George’s guild to members of the Common Council, it opened what had been an exclusive organisation up to a much broader demographic.

One member list preserved in the papers of the guild shows names and city wards next to regnal years; these correlate to the years those men were elected to the civic common council, suggesting that councillors did take the opportunity to become brethren.⁵² Opening membership up to what once had been the exclusive preserve of the city’s wealthiest merchants must have been seen as a concession to the growing affluence of the city’s middling citizens. If there had been tensions previously, either between the St George and the Bachery, or over more intangible questions of social exclusion from the St George guild, then those issues were effectively cleared away with the Mediation.

The Ordinances for Crafts probably represented a cornerstone in the city’s strategy for maintaining public order in the city. Its 39 chapters outlined almost every conceivable aspect of how the city wanted the crafts to function, and can be grouped loosely under the following headings:

1. The freedom, craft membership, and craft translations

Medieval Town: A Reader in English Urban History 1200-1540, ed. by G. Rosser and R. Holt (London, 1990), 160-183.

52 NRO NCR 8g, miscellaneous list of brethren, c. 1496-1508.

2. The governance of the crafts and misterys 3. The role of wardens, and the search 4. Apprenticeships

5. Liveries, civic ceremony, and public presentation 6. Miscellaneous other topics

Some of the chapters no doubt formalised behaviour that was already

practised in the city. In other cases, the Ordinances for Crafts probably attempted to modify existing behaviour or create new precedents for future behaviour. But, as with any type of normative document, it is important to separate the idealised image from the reality. In practice many of its directives seem either to have never been fully implemented, or simply ignored. We should not read that document as a declaration of fact, but rather as a statement of intention. One example was the chapter that outlined rules for taking apprentices. Norwich had been trying to control apprenticeship since the start of the fifteenth century. The Composition of 1415 had attempted to instil limits on non-citizens holding apprentices and hiring servants.⁵³ This seems to have been largely ineffective. The Ordinances for Crafts in 1449 again tried to limit apprentice-holding to citizens, and again to force the enrolment of apprentices. This time, the responsibility for policing the policy was passed on to the guilds, yet again, it seems to have been largely ineffective. The enrolment of apprentices did not take hold until the 1510s.⁵⁴

The freedom

The Ordinances for Crafts reiterated the previous order of 1415 that stipulated entry to the freedom should be channeled through the crafts. This seems finally to have been successful: whereas the ‘Old Free Book’⁵⁵ originally had listed names in a simple, chronological list, from 1451 names were entered on pages dedicated to

53 Records, vol. 1, 106.

54 See page 211 below.

55 The ‘Old Free Book’s is the first of Norwich’s extant freedom registers. NRO NCR 17c, OFB.

Chapter 4. The crafts in Norwich 182

specific guilds. The Ordinances for Crafts also directed that men entering by

redemption must join a guild.⁵⁶ For the most part, this seems to have been successful.

After 1451, the number of unaffiliated entries recorded in the Old Free Book drops almost to nil. However, this initiative probably encapsulated a policy that was already underway. Even before the Ordinances for Crafts made craft membership a prerequisite of the freedom, the city had experienced a steady drop in unaffiliated freedom entries. The situation was similar in York, where unaffiliated freedoms were also falling.⁵⁷ The percentage of men who entered the freedom in Norwich with no stated craft, as shown in Table 4.1, fell from 72% in 1325 to 0.3% in 1500-1524.

Swanson attributes this trend in York to the city’s desire to ‘corral’ all craftsmen into a craft. It would be difficult to downplay these numbers, or to argue that the city did not find it advantageous to have its citizens be members of crafts, but this is not necessarily for the reasons presented by Swanson. There is no suggestion that Norwich forced non-citizens to join a craft, nor did it limit work in handicraft production only to citizens. If the city were indeed using the crafts as a control mechanism, it seems likely that there would have been a stronger push to enrol everyone in a craft, but as it stands, the crafts were mostly the preserve of the citizenry. It is more likely that the drive to enrol citizens in a craft was part of the city’s mandate to oversee production standards and safeguard quality in the provision of food and services. Furthermore, if journeymen were thought to be a source of problems, then having their masters be beholden to a craft was a means by which the city’s governors could pressure masters to keep their journeymen in check.

56 Records, vol. 2, 293.

57 Around 25% of York’s freedom entries made between 1301 and 1350 were unaffiliated to a craft, but by 1451 to 1500 that figure was only 2%. Swanson, Medieval Artisans, 4.

Table 4.1: Norwich freedoms without occupational attributions, 1317-1524⁵⁸

Furthermore, the Ordinances for Crafts allowed some autonomy to the crafts in terms of enrolment. It directed that applicants to the freedom, who were entering via redemption — that is, those men who had neither apprenticed in Norwich, nor could claim entrance by right of their father’s patrimony — needed to secure the assent of the wardens of their craft: ‘that is to sey the wardeyns of the crafte that he shall be enrolled of shall come to the chaumbre and witnesse that it is here wyll that he shall be made citezein of their crafte’. This, again, may have been inspired by London’s example. In London, the charter of 1319 had set a precedent that citizenship by redemption required sureties from six established citizens.⁵⁹

The craft connection was not immutable once established, however. The Ordinances for Crafts also provided a clause on craft translations. This clause gave citizens a way to change their guild affiliations, ostensibly for political reasons. It guaranteed that anyone who had enrolled in a craft that had never previously generated a mayor, alderman, sheriff, or bailiff, but who ‘fortuneth be wisdom and good gouernaunce to growe to habundaunce of worldely godes and likly to ber worshipp and astate in the said cite’, should have the opportunity to ‘trade up’ to a craft of higher standing: that is, one that had been bestowed with greater social status by virtue of its record of civic office holding. The clause makes clear that wardens of such guilds are within their rights to allow such translations. The need for that proviso was likely added, both to quell complaints about guilds poaching members from each other, and to make it clear that this was only allowed in certain situations.

Freedom entries without craft affiliations

58 King, Borough Finances, Table 3.2.

59 The Historical Charters and Constitutional Documents of the City of London, ed. by W. De Gray Birch (London, 1887), 46.

Chapter 4. The crafts in Norwich 184

Craft translations were rare but not unknown. There are a few men who were noted in the Old Free Book as having changed their affiliations. Instances can be found in London as well as in other cities.⁶⁰ That some crafts were held in higher regard than others is made clear by an entry in the Assembly minutes from 1456 that made reference to ‘the 24 honourable crafts of the city’, but unfortunately without stipulating which crafts belonged to this group.⁶¹ Chapter 8 will consider the political realities of craft translations in greater detail, and will suggest, based on office-holding data, that implementation of this clause was less vigorously pursued as more crafts were represented on the common council.

As in other towns, the clauses in the Ordinances for Crafts that pertain to the freedom do advantage the children of existing citizens. The children of citizens could enrol their own citizenship from age 16, at no cost, provided that they did so as members of the same craft as their fathers.⁶² Ralph Wilkyns, for example, appears in the minutes of the city assembly, petitioning for the right to entry via the patrimony of his father Thomas Wilkyns, worsted weaver and alderman.⁶³ Though such a policy might seem to augur the formation of an urban patriciate, closed to outsiders and reliant on internal recruitment, the evidence from Norwich does not support this. An examination of the surnames of the aldermen in Table 4.2 reveals few duplicate names. Of the 130 surnames that appear among the 160 aldermen who held a seat between 1452 and 1530, 69% had unique, non-repeated surnames. Of the aldermen who did share a family name, at least three pairs were separated by a generation, some were very common surnames in Norwich (Broun, Clerk, Cook, and Sweyn, for instance), and six more groups likely included different kin groups, judging by their occupations.⁶⁴ Few lineal families produced more than one alderman, and there is little evidence to suggest that the hereditary preferences in the Ordinances for Crafts

60 For more on craft translations, see page 287 below.

61 Records, vol. 2, 92.

62 Ibid., 292.

63 NRO NCR 16c/1, 82r.

64 An example of this was William Sweyn the draper, who was probably unrelated to the three generations of Sweyn bakers.

encouraged the formation of familial dynasties. This pattern is equally valid for the wardens of the worsted weavers. No families dominated leadership of the guild, and the sons of successful weavers were just as likely to join other guilds as they were to stay in their fathers’ guilds.⁶⁵

Table 4.2: Frequency of shared surnames among the Norwich aldermen, 1450-1530

It should be noted that Norwich, like other towns, could not sustain its population without immigration. Towns could alter the terms of enfranchisement when they wished to expand or restrict numbers. In Exeter, the cost of admission was raised when civic officials wanted to slow immigration.⁶⁶ In Wells, by contrast, the offer of free entrance by patrimony was extended to apprentices to bolster citizen numbers, and may have been enacted to encourage young men to enter the franchise sooner than they would otherwise have done.⁶⁷ The most successful sons from Norwich were always drawn to the opportunities that beckoned in London.⁶⁸ It is

Surnames

65 Davies found similar results among the members of the London Tailors. Davies, The Tailors of London, 141-4.

66 Kowaleski, ’The Commercial Dominance of a Medieval Provincial Oligarchy: Exeter in the Late Fourteenth Century’, 186-9.

67 Shaw, The Creation of a Community: The City of Wells in the Middle Ages, 150-1.

68 Examples of this can be seen in the deed rolls. For instance, the brothers John and Henry Gilbert, sons and heirs of the Norwich alderman John Gilbert, both moved to London. NCR

Chapter 4. The crafts in Norwich 186

entirely possible that hereditary clauses in documents such as the Ordinances for Crafts were meant to encourage sons — and their accumulated capital wealth — to remain firmly at home in Norwich.

Guild governance

The internal structure of the Norwich guilds was fairly uncomplicated. Heading up the guild were the masters or wardens. There is no indication that the Norwich crafts ever had anything like a Court of Assistants, as was common in the London

companies. Also dissimilar to London was the fact that Norwich craft wardens served the dual role of guild master and guild searcher. The Composition of 1415 had allowed each craft to select two wardens or masters each year, who simultaneously acted as its searchers. The Ordinances for Crafts extended this in 1449 by allowing the larger crafts to select up to four wardens each.⁶⁹ The worsted weavers, of course, had been selecting four wardens since at least 1441; occasionally, other guilds posted more than two wardens, such as the woollen weavers did in 1443/4.⁷⁰

The Ordinances for Crafts also added the provision for each craft to annually select a governing common council of twelve from among its members. The

Ordinances for Crafts laid out a process of selection by co-option.⁷¹ Outgoing wardens were to select four men for the coming year’s council, who would then choose eight more representatives. The new council of twelve would then, among themselves, select the next year’s wardens. At a minimum, the selection process endured, at least within the worsted weavers. Several loose fragments have been

1/19, Roll B, m. 5d, (8 Edward IV); NCR 1/19, Roll C, m.2, (9 Edward IV). Henry Asshewell, son of Norwich alderman William Asshewell, also became a citizen of London. NCR 1/19, Roll D, m.1, (10 Edward IV).

69 The Ordinances for Crafts has a chapter dedicated to directing wardens how and when to make search of their crafts. Records, vol. 2, 282-3. See also the oath of the craft masters, whose first charge was to keep peace and tranquility within the craft, and whose second charge was to make ‘gode and trewe serche’. Ibid., 315.

70 The woollen weavers that year appointed John Nocton, John Arnold, John Coupere, and William Coket as masters. NRO NCR 16a/1, f. 45.

71 The financial offices of the municipal government were selected by co-option, as was the common council of the Guild of St George. Gild of St George, 38.

bound into the end of the Second Book of the Worsted Weavers that record the results of elections, such as that of John Wattys, Edward Cosyn, William Harte, and Peter Marlyng.⁷² Twelve men are named as having chosen these four as the wardens for the ‘yere next to come’; a second list names those who witnessed the election, ‘wt many mo[re]’ appended to the bottom.

The idea of the guild common councils was presumably modelled on the example of the London Courts of Assistants, and was likely intended to provide the same type of administrative oversight provided by them. In practice, however, the Norwich councils probably differed quite a bit from their antecedents in London. The membership of the Courts of Assistants included some of the eldest and most

experienced members of the London guilds. Unwin believed that court members, once selected, held their seats for life.⁷³ The courts of the larger London companies held sessions on a regular basis and transacted a considerable amount of business, including directing their extensive financial investments, arbitrating in disputes between members, and overseeing their charitable activities.⁷⁴ As some of this type of business appears in the minutes of the worsted weavers’ craft presentments, it is unlikely that they needed to hold additional court sessions, or that there was enough guild business to justify convening an additional, full-fledged craft court. In any case, there are no surviving medieval court minutes from any Norwich guild.

The city and county wardens of the worsted weavers were formally presented after the Mayor’s yearly riding⁷⁵ every spring.⁷⁶ The wardens took an oath binding them to fair and just enforcement of city and guild policies, and the mayor formally

72 NRO NCR 17d/8, unpaginated. No year is given, but judging from the names that appear, it was likely 1518 or 1519.

73 Unwin, The Gilds and Companies of London, 217.

74 Sutton, The Mercery of London, 180; Davies, The Tailors of London, 156-60.

75 This took place on the Tuesday immediately following Trinity Sunday, making it an unfixed date. In the Western liturgy, Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost or Whit-Sunday, making it the 8th Sunday after Easter. The earliest date of Trinity Sunday is May 17th and the latest is June 20th.

76 Most of the lists of craft masters in the fifteenth century have been lost with the missing folios of the Mayor’s Court. The lists re-commence in the second Mayor’s Court book in 1510⁠.

NRO NCR 16a/1; NRO NCR 16a/2.

Chapter 4. The crafts in Norwich 188

granted them authority to make search in their craft.⁷⁷ This public swearing of oaths helped highlight the accountability of the new searchers to the corporate body of the community as much as it publicised the authority wielded by the wardens.⁷⁸

In the case of the worsted weavers, the mastership was a fairly fluid position.

Some men held the role for several years at a time, while others moved in and out of the role quite frequently. The number of men who passed through the role in the worsted weavers makes it seem quite evident that there was little fixed hierarchy, and that the role was far more open than it was in London. The role of guild master will be considered further in Section 7.2.

The search

Scholars who work on craft guilds like to speculate about the reason for their emergence. Epstein, for instance, argued that cities bestowed a formal role on craft guilds in order to better control apprenticeship.⁷⁹ Swanson described the crafts as vehicles of municipal control.⁸⁰ However, it is the topic of the search that appears throughout the Norwich documentation, from the early Customal in 1308, right through the end of the Middle Ages. As Dobson noted regarding York, ‘To an extent now hard to appreciate and often unduly neglected by historians of craft guilds, it was this power of search which probably did more than anything to bind the craft together.’⁸¹

Whereas the Custumal had allowed the city’s ruling bailiffs to select searchers on behalf of the city, the Composition of 1415, as noted above, provided more structure to the process by allowing each craft to select searchers-cum-wardens for itself. Presentment hearings were held before the mayor, at which the wardens could

77 Records, vol. 1, 105.

78 For the importance of public oath-taking, see C. V. Phythian-Adams, ’Ceremony and the Citizen: The Communal Year At Coventry, 1450-1550’, in The English Medieval Town, ed. by R.

Holt and G. Rosser (London, 1990), 241-244.

79 S. R. Epstein, ’Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe’, The Journal of Economic History, 58 (1998), 684.

80 Swanson, Medieval Artisans, 113.

81 Dobson, ’The Tailors of Medieval York’, 25.

put forth defective goods for judgement. Fines were levied with the assistance of

‘oyer mo suffisant men of ye same craft’.⁸² Presumably, these men were expected to act as ad hoc juries, both to provide the specialist knowledge necessary to render judgement, and to offset any accusations that the wardens were acting unilaterally, or taking advantage of their positions. And, unlike London, the role of searcher and warden were combined into the same role, which lends further support to the idea that much of the justification for the institutionalisation of the crafts was motivated by a desire to better manage the search.

Because of the loss of most of the Mayor’s Court records prior to c.1510, there is no way to guess how often presentment hearings were held in the fifteenth

century. Once the books recommence, there are sporadic entries for hearings from various trades. Multiple crafts sometimes presented together, as in September 1512, when the shoemakers, butchers, and worsted shearmen appeared together as a

century. Once the books recommence, there are sporadic entries for hearings from various trades. Multiple crafts sometimes presented together, as in September 1512, when the shoemakers, butchers, and worsted shearmen appeared together as a