Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/107

 1920 MERCHANTS' COURTS AT WINCHESTER 99 the other. There are six rolls preserved in the city archives giving the proceedings of the permanent court of piepowder, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 19 Henry VI and 35 Henry VIII. The archives are very imperfectly arranged and further examination may bring more rolls to light, but I propose to note some points on which the details of these rolls of the permanent court illustrate and confirm the general conclusions expressed by Dr. Gross in the Selden Society's publications.^ The court consists of the mayor and two bailiffs. The ' Usages ' of the city of Winchester make clear what the position of the mayor is. His first duty is to save and sustain the franchise of the city, to protect the rights and privileges of his fellow townsmen. The mayor is the city's man. The court is ' Curia domini Regis civitatis Wyntonie pede pulverisato ', and the essential magistrates are the king's representatives, the bailiffs. The king's writ is addressed to the bailiffs, not the mayor ; defendants who have no security and insolvent debtors are ' in custodia Ballivorum ' and fines are paid to the bailiffs, not to the mayor. The magistrates are exercising a function of the Crown, and the mayor is one of them as a corollary of the principle recognized in increasing practice of the right of the citizens to a voice in all forms of the government of their own town. The derivative character of the authority of the court and its close dependence on the Crown is shown by the interference of the Crown by writs in cases of irregularity. In 19 Henry VI one Welynow has been security for two London drapers, Dobel and Crystemasse ; the case had gone against them and the court had allowed Welynow to be distrained for the amount due from the debtors. A royal writ directs that the distraint should be levied on the principal debtors ' quia satis habeant unde solvere possint ' and Welynow allowed ' pacem habere '. In 35 Henry VIII Henry Dolphin, draper, of the city of London, is prosecuted for the large sum of £40 ; after the case has proceeded nearly to a conclusion Dolphin produces the king's writ of habeas corpus and the case is removed from the Winchester court. Again, the defendant is generally summoned ' ad respondendum ' to the plaintiff, but sometimes it is ' domino Regi ' and not to the plaintiff ; resisting arrest is treated as an offence against the king. In the latest roll, however, that of 35 Henry VIII, the mayor takes a more important and leading part ; an adjournment, for instance, is ' per mandatum maioris' or ' erga adventum maioris proximum'. In any case the history of the Winchester court is an illustration of the principle that the functions of the Crown are transferred with increasing completeness to the magistrates representative of the citizens ; but they still are functions of the Crown. H2
 * 8dect Casea concerning the Law Merchant, 1270-1630, i (1908).