Note 574 — Chapter XII
Reading edition
Unfortunately in the brief extracts from the Southampton records which have been as yet published, references to municipal government are so scanty that any sketch of it can only be drawn in faint and uncertain outline. In the opinion of Dr. Gross the Merchant Guild was originally a strictly private fraternity, and only became the dominant burghal authority in the fourteenth century. (Gross, ii. 231.) I have suggested here the idea of an earlier connexion; but the question needs full examination.