London guild conflicts

The London guild conflicts refer to period of intense civic conflict in the City of London during the 1370s and 1380s. The conflict was between rival political factions often centered on trade guilds or “misteries,” the predecessors of the later livery companies. These divisions reflected wider national divisions in the reigns of Edward III and Richard II and which largely centered around John of Gaunt's influence in the city.

Background

Role of London

The historian Michael Hicks has described late-medieval London as "the largest port, the largest market and retail outlet for luxuries and manufacture, and the largest employer" in Late Medieval England.^[1] Due to the precarious nature of government finances, London's access to cash meant that it was for the monarch important to be on good terms with the city.^[2] London also played a ceremonial role due to its proximity to Westminster.^[3] For their part, London's citizens benefited from proximity to royal administration, justice, and patronage, with Parliament and the King's Council at Westminster.^[4]

Guilds and factions

As a large city London had been turbulent throughout the Middle Ages^[5] and had become increasingly so by the early 1370s.^[6] This violence was often diverted into City politics and London had been particularly riven with factional strife since the late 1370s.^[7] There were already rivalries between the merchant guilds who sold food into the city )victualling) and the other artisan guilds who were net consumers,^[8] as well as between London and non London based merchants. Other conflicts included those between the mercantile guilds, such as the Drapers and Grocers and conflicts within the guilds between masters.^[8]

In this period these rivalries were intensified by plague outbreaks with concomitant depopulation, a shortage of bullion and ready cash,^[9] combined with a high level of immigration and an as-yet undeveloped sense of community solidarity.^[10][7] Internal tension was exacerbated by weak central government, owing to Edward III's last years being characterised by illness and popular discontent, and his successor, Richard, being a minor,^[6] with rival factions vying to present themselves as defenders of the king’s interests. This was exarcebated by heavy taxation, French threats to foreign trade and royal interference in civic affairs.^[6]

These issues were to influence city politics until Richard lost his throne in 1399.^[10][7]

Administrative structure

Plan of London about 1381^[11]

London was governed and administered by men from its merchant class, who were organised by their trades into different guilds (or misteries). These men formed London's political upper class.^[12] They filled the offices of alderman, sheriff, and Mayor, and governed through the Common Council. The council was omnicompetent, and dealt with the city's complex and often delicate relations with the King and royal government.^[13]

Relations with the crown

The city was politically turbulent at this time. Although a contemporary chronicler, Jean Froissart, believed Richard II favoured London at the expense of the rest of the kingdom, it is probable that King and city had poor opinions of the other. But, they had to live with each other: the Crown depended on the wealth of London's merchants for the subsidies and loans they provided,^[14] and the city relied on the King to protect its trade abroad and its liberties at home.^{[15][note 1]}

History

The Good Parliament and Gaunt's reaction

Richard Lyons together with Adam Bury and John Pecche had a monopoly on the sale of sweet wine in the city. This was lost at the Good Parliament of 1376 which in a generally anti-Gaunt mood saw the three impeached for corruption.^[17] This loss of favour was partially reversed when they were pardoned by the Crown in March 1377^[17] after Gaunt gained power after the death of his brother the Black Prince who had been the moving force behind the reforms of the Good Parliament. The Good Parliament was seen as provoking a constitutional crisis in London.^[18]

In 1376 the election of the Common Council was changed from being ward based to being based on the guilds^[19] which was supported by the lesser trades grouped around John of Northampton.^[20]

Partly because of his support for John Wycliffe during which the Bishop of London was publicly threatened by Gaunt^[21] there were riots against John of Gaunt in 1377.^[6] A more substantive reason for the riots was an attempt by Gaunt in the Bad Parliament to replace the authority of the mayor with that of a captain appointed by the crown.^[22]

Gaunt insisted that Adam Stable, the mayor elected under the new and more democratic rules,^[23] be deposed. To placate Gaunt and to avoid a royally appointed captain in the aftermath of the riots, Stable was replaced with Nicholas Brembre^[23] who as a rich merchant was seen as more acceptable to Gaunt. Ironically like his immediate successor John Philipot^[23] Brembre ended in the anti-Gaunt faction while those representing the "lesser trades" would become pro-Gaunt. The weakness of government and uncertainty about future direction meant that the City of London was unusually important compared to immediately earlier and later times.^[24]

In an attempt to preserve London's autonomy in late 1377 new charter for London was agreed. However a few months later there was a resurgence of mob violence against a king's uncle when a mob broke into the London home of Thomas of Woodstock which led to the charter's revocation.^[6]

The clash of the greater and lesser trades

The anti-Gaunt fishmonger William Walworth held the mayoralty during the Peasants' revolt, and the decisive actions of this faction against Wat Tyler and the rebel army and in support of the Crown gained considerable favour with Richard II, including knighthoods.^[25] Also in the revolt, which was itself strongly hostile to Gaunt, Lyons was executed by the mob.^[17]

After the destruction of [[tax records following the Peasants Revolt, money was becoming an important issue and extraordinary taxes were proposed mostly through customs, with the 1382 Parliament asking that these be managed by a committee of prominent merchants^[26] half from London,^[27] increasing London's weight in the national political community.

In 1381 John Northampton, the leader of the lesser trades who had become friendly to Gaunt, held the mayoralty for two terms with the king writing to Londoners^[28] to back his re-election in 1382.^[20] Northampton managed to put an end to the fishmongers' monopoly,^[20] which although this was partially reversed when Brembre returned,^[29] Brembre still refused to fully restore the monopoly.^[6]

Brembre got the mayoralty back in 1383^[23] with the king's support^[20] (partly because he owed Brembre money)^[6] and with force on both his side^[20] and Northampton's.^[6] According to a petition to the 1386 Parliament he had "secured the mayoralty by violence and by assembling a large body of supporters”.^[30] The nineteenth century constitutional authority William Stubbs said that this forcible election had "the importance of a constitutional episode."^[31]

Brembre had Northampton arrested on charges of sedition on 7 February 1384, and provoking a series of shop closures by supporters in the city on the 11th, which Brembre treated this as an insurrection and had one of the organisers John Constantine summarily executed.^[32]

Brembre's 1384 re-election was opposed by the goldsmith and future mayor Nicholas Twyford,^[6] but Brembre concealed armed men in London Guildhall^[33] while Richard had ensured that there was a general disarmament in London for the election^[34] for the election which meant that Twyford's supporters could be chased out.^[35] In 1384 Brembre also accused his rival John Northampton of sedition,^[36] although the death sentence was commuted to ten years with Northampton remaining a presence in London politics.^[20]

Brembre became a very close and trusted ally of Richard during Richard's attempts to escape limits on his rule. In 1387 he unsuccessfully attempted to raise troops in London for Richard against the Lords Appellant who had taken over effective government of the country.^[37] Brembre was executed by the Merciless Parliament in 1388, marking the effective end of this period of civic factionalism.

Factions

The Vintners

In the mid-1370s John of Gaunt was associated with wealthy financiers such as Richard Lyons^[38] who with Adam Bury and John Pecche had a monopoly on the sale of sweet wine in the city. The members tended to have strong personal links to John of Gaunt.^[17] This monopoly was condemned by the reformist Good Parliament of 1376, and who completely lost all hope of power after the execution of Lyons in the Peasants Revolt.

Greater Guilds

The anti-Gaunt faction had its strength among the greater guilds and more prosperous merchants,^[6] especially "victuallers" who supplied food to London,^[38] such as the then dominant grocers and the fishmongers. "Victuallers" was a pejorative term.^[39] associating the party with the then-high price of food in London; historian Barbara Hanawalt describes it as being part of a smear campaign.^[40]

The fishmongers had a valuable monopoly on supply of fish to the city that was resented by the other citizens.^[41] The factions' aim was to strengthen the existing oligarchy by depriving the lesser guilds of any voice in the city,^{[citation needed]} and was consequently favourable to Richard's policy. It was hostile to John of Gaunt and supportive of William Courtenay the Bishop of London.^[42] Prominent members included William Walworth,^[43] Nicholas Brembre,John Philipot, Nicholas Exton, Adam Karlille, William Venour, John Fressh, John Hadle, Adam St Ives and later Richard Whittington.^[44][45]

The dominance at various times was evidenced by the fact that at the 1383 election there were sixteen aldermen who belonged to the Grocers' Company.^[46]

They could be seen as a merchant capitalist party in city politics. The two groups were roughly aligned along guild lines, with Brembre representing the non-productive victualling guilds―who made money from trade rather than goods―against the artisanal labouring guilds,^{[47][note 2]} The group effectively controlled city government, and historian Pamela Nightingale has argued that "because the merchant-capitalists were most strongly represented in the grocers' and fishmongers' companies, the conflict took on the appearance of victualler against non-victualler".^[49]

Lesser Trades

A more commercially reformist faction that sought open civic markets and wider participation in London’s trade was a collection of the "lesser trades" such as cordwainers and butchers that weren't in the Great Companies and were far more likely to be tradesmen rather than merchants. This was led by John Northampton and in the 1370s opposed the dominance of the Gaunt supported Lyons faction^[20] but in the 1380s won Gaunt's support.^[42] Northampton became a reformist Lord Mayor of London in 1381 and 1382, during dissension in favour of reform of its Common Council in the early years of Richard II's reign. When the anti-Gaunt faction were able to engineer Northampton's overthrow, even the book of records of reform legislation was burned, known as the Jubilee Book. The radical movements' mob politics heightened public reluctance to permit people's engagement in politics.

The pro Gaunt faction was in the nineteenth and early twentieth century often portrayed as also supporting John Wycliffe^[42] due to Gaunt's support for Wycliffe and the great merchants' support for Wycliffe and Gaunt's opponent the Bishop of London. However Northampton was a devout Catholic rather than a Lollard.^[20]