ugh. Each
guild occupied a certain ward of the town headed by an alderman.
The town aldermen, who were unpaid, made up the town council,
which advised the mayor. The Mayor of London received 40 pounds
for hospitality, but in small towns, 20s. sufficed. Often there
were town police, bailiffs, beadles [messengers], a town crier,
and a town clerk. London offices included recorder, prosecutor,
common sergeant, and attorneys. In the center of town were the
fine stone houses, a guildhall with a belfry tower, and the
marketplace - a square or broad street, where the town crier made
public announcements with bell or horn. Here too was the ducking
stool for scandalmongers and the stocks which held offenders by
their legs and perhaps their hands to be scorned and pelted by
bystanders with, for instance, rotten fruit and filth. No longer
were towns dominated by the local landholders.

In London there were 4 royal princes, 6 great earls, 17 barons, 26
knights, and 11 female representatives of the peerage (counted in
1319). There was a wall with four towers surrounding the White
Tower, and this castle was known as the Tower of London. Another
wall and a moat were built around it and it has reached its final
form. Hovels, shops, and waste patches alternated with high walls
and imposing gateways protecting mansions. The mansions had
orchards, gardens, stables, brewhouses, bakeries, guardrooms, and
chapels. London streets were paved with cobbles and sand. Each
citizen was to keep the street in front of his tenement in good
repair. Later, each alderman appointed four reputable men to
repair and clean the streets for wages. The repair of Bishopsgate
was the responsibility of the Bishop because he received one stick
from every cart of firewood passing through it. Rules as to tiled
roofs were enforced. A 1297 ordinance required all taverns to
close at curfew, an hour that fluctuated. Prostitutes were
expelled from the city because the street with their bawdy houses
had become very noisy. Women huckster-retailers, nurses, servants,
and loose women were limited to wearing hoods furred with lambskin
or rabbitskin and forbidden to wear hoods furred with vair or
miniver [grey or white squirrel] in the guise of good ladies. An
infirmary for the blind was founded by a mercer, who became its
first prior.

The London mayoral elections were hotly fought over until in 1285,
when the aldermen began to act with the aid of an elected council
in eac