Note 355 — Chapter V

Davies’ Southampton, 168. In 1422 a Winchester burgess paid £10 to be free of holding any office save that of Mayor for the rest of his life. Another paid five marks to be freed from ever taking the office of bailiff. (Gross, ii. 259-260.) In Lynn, when a man was chosen jurat, “he took time till the next assembly to bring ten pounds into the Hall, or otherwise to accept the burden.” (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 167.) Fine for refusal to go to Yarmouth as bailiff of Cinque Ports, and payment to substitute (Ibid. v. 541). In 1491 an Act was passed forbidding the burgesses of Leicester to refuse the Chamberlainship. Sixty years later another Act ordered them not to refuse the Mayoralty. By Acts of 1499 and 1500 members who absented themselves from the Court of Portmanmote at Whitsuntide and Christmas were fined. (Ibid. viii. 426.) In Canterbury certain powers were exempted by writ from serving on juries, 1415. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 169.)