Las Competencias Comunicativas para la formación ciudadana y el trabajo de

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The most significant feature of the first half of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly the issue of a general custumal for all the ports. There are at least two surviving versions of the general custumal which date from the year 1527, These were revised

versions of a general custumal issued in 1504.^ The two versions are virtually identical and provide a detailed account of the way in which the member ports were to conduct their internal affairs.

The first few clauses of the general custumal closely resemble

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those to be found in earlier custumals of individual towns. They relate how, on the day normally set aside for the appointment of the head officer, the hundred horn was to be sounded throughout the town to call the freemen to the assembly and stress that it was the duty of every freeman who was a resident, householder and indweller

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to attend the hundred. At this point however a radical departure was made from the normal pattern. The mayor or bailiff of the

town, together with the jurats, was to impanel 37 of the wisest and most discreet inhabitants. The 37 were then to go apart from the rest of the assembly and choose the head officer for the following year.^ It was stipulated, however, that the person chosen must be

1. K.A.O,, Sa/ZB 4, ff.l-44v; B.L., Add, MS. 28,530, ff.40v-58. 2. 'Custumal of Sandwich', in W, Boys, Collections for an History

of Sandwich, 428-9; 'Custumal of Winchelsea', in W.D. Cooper, History of Winchelsea, 218; 'Custumal of Dover', in J. Lyon, History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover, ü , 26?; "Custuaal of Rye', in J. Lyon, History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover, Ü ,

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3. K.A.O., Sa/ZB 4, f.lv; B.L., Add. MS. 28,530, f.40v, 4. K.A.O., Sa/ZB 4, f.2; B.L., Add. MS. 28,530, ff.40v-41.

1. K.A.O., Sa/ZB 4, f.3; B.L., Add, MS. 28,530, f.41. 2. Sa/ZB 4, ff.3-4; Add. MS. 28,530, f.41.

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one of the jurats from the previous year. The newly-elected head i officer was then sworn into office by the previous incumbent. After .c taking his oath of office, he then administered the oath to the

jurats, who remained the same as in the previous year unless there was a vacancy on the bench for any reason. In this case, the deficiency was filled by a freeman chosen by the head officer and

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jurats.

The net effect of these measures was to limit the size of the

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governing body to an extremely small number, continuing the trend ' towards oligarchic rule. The head officer each year was to be - ^ chosen from the previous year's bench by a body picked by the bench, 7 0

Since the same jurats were sworn each year these changes meant in A effect that the governing body was limited to the same 13 people ;f for an indefinite period until there was a vacancy on the bench

through death or any other reason.

The records of the Brodhull also provide information about the way in which this system was to be applied in the various ports. At Hastings, Rye, Dover and Sandwich the number of people to whom the choice of mayor was allocated was 37, as specified in the general

custumal. At Hythe, the number appointed was to be 25 and, at Winchelsea, 13. These regulations did not apply at Romney where

there was said to be no mayor or bailiff by election; the town was to be governed in accordance with its ancient custom.^

Both the date and the place of the meeting which issued these

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regulations present some difficulty. The records of the Brodhull

also set another problem. They state that the new regulations were .ss issued because in many towns there had been great dissension over ' the elections of mayors and bailiffs 'not only at the day of

election ... but also after the day in bands, unlawful confederacy, and unlawful assemblies, and after the day by disdain and other great displeasure and grudges ... and also breaking and disturbing of the king's peace and letting of true justice to the great abusing and unquietness of the well disposed people ... to the great slander,

3 rebuke and decay of the said towns.'

The records of the towns themselves provide little evidence to support this claim, although Gardiner has pointed out that there had for some time been disagreements at Sandwich which had tended

to lower the dignity of the mayoral office.^ It is possible, however.

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1. White & Black Books, 200-1.

2. In the White Book the regulations are said to have been issued at a Guestling held at Dover on 23 August, 1525. Hull has

suggested that this is a scribal error and that the meeting took place on 23 August, 1526: White & Black Books, 200; The

records of Romney agree that the regulations were issued on 23 August, 1525 but state that the meeting was held at Romney:

K.A.O., NR/CPc 9; The records of Winchelsea state that the

meeting took place at Romney on 30 April, 1527: E.S.R.O,, Winchelsea MS. 51, f.29v; The Sandwich records give the date as 17 July, 1527, again at Romney; K.A.O., Sa/AC 3, ff.29-30. 3. White & Black Books, 201.

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that the governing bodies of the ports may have exaggerated the extent of such disturbances in order to justify the establishment of a more limited form of government than that prescribed in the custumals of the individual towns.^ This is basically the view adopted by Mrs. Green, There is, however, strong reason to doubt • whether the spirit of democracy which she attributes to the period prior to the issue of the new electoral customs was ever as real in

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