Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/251

1922 LAW MERCHANT IN LONDON IN 1292 243 strangers was no innovation, for something like it should have been instituted in 1221, as a result of the eyre held before Hubert de Burgh and his fellow justices, in the course of which it was agreed that when the court of husting was not sitting, the mayor and sheriffs, together with two or three aldermen, should sit daily to hear plaints of those ' who are called pepoudrous ', and who had hitherto been obliged to wait for a session of the husting. 1 It is likely, however, that the sheriffs' court had come to be the sole tribunal for pleas of foreign merchants, for the treatise on the ' Lex Mercatoria ', written probably about 1280, 2 which is preserved in the Little Red Book of Bristol, knows no other London court where the procedure is governed by the law merchant. Now the books of remembrance of the city of Bristol borrow not a little from the city of London, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this treatise comes also from the mother town. London was very much in the mind of the author who, even if he derived his knowledge of other mercantile courts from practical experience, was certainly no stranger to London courts and London practice. But although he mentions the mayor several times, no reference is made to the mayor's court, 3 nor is there to be found, where we might expect it had it been required, an alternative form applicable to that court ; ' coram vicecomite si sit in Londoniis ' is the extent of his teaching. 4 Edward I's ' establishments ', however, reinforced perhaps by the Carta Mercatoria, 5 were effective, and in the fourteenth century it is settled practice for pleas of debt and all other personal actions between merchant and merchant to be heard in the mayor's court and to be determined according to the law merchant : 6 in such cases the justices sitting at St. Martin's- 1 Ibid. p. 67. 2 A date about 1300 has been proposed (ante, xvii. 356), but there is nothing in the treatise inconsistent with a date some twenty years earlier. The Carta Merca- toria ( 1303) is not mentioned, and this may be regarded as giving the latest possible date : but it seems equally inconceivable that the author could have failed to mention the statute of Acton Burnel (1283) had he known of it (cf. Fleta, ii, c. 68) : he mentions (p. 60) the statute of Marlborough (1267), but no later statute. He knows a King Edward son of Henry, and a King Philip of France. He seems not to know of a warden in London or of the ' establishments ' and the procedure laid down by them. 3 Little Bed Book, pp. 77, 81, 84, 85. I regard the curious ' Placita coram Maiore, vicecomitibus et Ciuibus Ciuitatis Londoniarum ', &c., in the formula for a letter on p. 85 as an intentional absurdity, like the discrepancies elsewhere between regnal years and years of our Lord. 4 Ibid. p. 59 ; cf. p. 82. Alternative forms are given (p. 59) for a fair, a town, and a city (other than London). 5 Mun. Gildh. Lond., ii. 208 : ' Item, volumus et concedimus quod aliquis certus homo . . . assignetur . . . coram quo valeant specialiter placitare ... si Vicecomes et Jfiaior eis non fecerint de die in diem celeris iustitie complementum.' 6 Ricarfs Kalendar (Camden Soc.) p. 95. I suggest a date between 1321 and B2