Note 520 — Chapter XI

Oxford, by a charter of Richard the First, had a mayor and two aldermen. In 1255 Henry the Third made the aldermen four, corresponding to the four wards of the city, and joined with them eight leading burgesses mainly to keep peace in the city and to have charge of the assize of bread, beer, and wine. The twenty-four common councilmen were elected from the citizens at large. (Boase’s Oxford, 42-44.) In Ipswich besides the twelve “honest and loyal” portmen elected yearly in the cemetery of S. Mary Tower there was a council of twenty-four; and seven of the portmen and thirteen of the twenty-four could together make rules for the town. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 242, 244.) In Yarmouth (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 305; Blomefield, xi. 301-2, 342), twenty-four jurats (afterwards called aldermen) were chosen by the burgesses, and appointed all the officers of the town. Between 1400 and 1407 changes were made in the constitution. Two bailiffs were elected instead of four, and besides the council of twenty-four aldermen a common council was formed of forty-eight members. So also in Colchester and Norwich. Worcester had two councils, “the twenty-four above and the forty-eight beneath.” (English Guilds, 379, 396. Also Leicester, Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 425.) Canterbury had an upper council of twelve and another of thirty-six. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 171-2.) For councils of seventy and eighty see pp. 374, 432. In Chester a charter of 1506 gave twenty-four aldermen and forty of the common council. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 359-60.) In Bristol (Hunt’s Bristol, 85-86) and Liverpool (Picton ii. 26) the council was composed of forty “honest and discreet” men. Colchester had two councils of sixteen each. (Cromwell’s Colchester, 265.)