London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People 1200-1500 (review)

Caroline Barron has spent much of her professional life studying the history of medieval London. This period of London's history has been substantially modified over the last 30 years – most spectacularly, perhaps, in the archaeological work exemplified by the publications of Gustav Milne and Christopher Thomas. Barron's long-awaited study, based on the painstaking study of the detailed written records of all sorts, complements those of the archaeologist. No student of English medieval history especially medieval urban history will be able to write without consulting the detailed information about London from 1200-1500 that it contains.

Its subject is more restricted than its title suggests, as she specifically sets aside the religious history of the city and studies not the whole spectrum of city life but its more formal public and political position, its visible civic and corporate life, the inner workings of its government, its courts, officials, guilds and companies and bureaucracy from common clerk to mayor. Above all it is a study of the interaction between the monarch and his most powerful, if subservient, corporation.

The monarch's need for money and the government of London's need for royal charters, support and legitimation formed the basis of political wrangling and negotiations in the period. The cards each party held in this ever-renewed game altered as the period progressed although Barron judges that the monarch always held the stronger hand. The dialogue was complex, however, and the rights and privileges of either side were constantly re-negotiated. The London government was hampered by the size of the community, its factious nature and its frequent insubordination. The diverse interests that jostled for dominance in the city, the tensions between the great companies and smaller crafts, and factionalism in the mercantile class itself meant that divide and rule was always a royal option. Concessions to alien merchants were an important lever. Royal intervention if companies came to blows was always a danger to corporate independence and self-government. The monarch was able both to create monopolistic offices to which the crown had the right of appointment and to bring pressure to bear on the city to appoint royal nominees to important offices. Such people, especially the sheriffs and the legal officials such as the recorders, were the servants of two masters.

Royal interference could only go so far. The support of the capital was critical in establishing the legitimacy of the royal line. The city was also necessary to the monarch as a source of finance, of goods, of a distribution network, of military resources, of pageantry and international prestige. The monarch needed the capital to be impressive. The specialist legal courts which provided speedy resolution of commercial disputes were also valuable to a crown whose common law courts had restricted provisions for many aspects of commerce. Thus the growth of the mayor's court in the fifteenth century was important for the monarch and the role of the sheriffs' courts equally important for the city.

The monarch, in return for the city's co-operation, had to meet some at least of its needs and to permit its traditional liberties and a high degree of self-government. Without this, the city government would be discouraged from providing the necessary infrastructure of markets and wharfs, prisons, walls, gates, roads and bridges, water and sewage. Barron traces the process whereby compromises between the crown and the city over the administration of law and justice were established, and the privileges that affected the economic well-being of both the city and the kingdom were maintained. Both parties had a common interest in the management of the Thames and its ports as a thoroughfare for trade and industry and the regulation of public inns and hospitality. Both also had an interest in providing for the sick and the poor, the widows and orphans so that unrest was kept at...