Note 465 — XI The Commune of London

Mr. Loftie writes, in his ‘London,’ that “in the reign of Henry I. we find the guild in full possession of the governing rights which are elsewhere attributed to a guild merchant” (p. 30). See also p. 103 above.

In the same series, Dean Kitchin applies this assumption to Winchester, and observes of the “Knights,” who possessed a ‘hall’ there under Henry I., that “if we may argue from the parallel of the London Knights’ Guild, the body had the charge of the city, and was in fact the original civic corporation of Winchester,” (‘Historic Towns: Winchester,’ p. 74).