Caroline M. Barron – författare

This is the first full account of the evolution of the government of London from the tempestuous days of the Commune in the late twelfth century to the calmer waters of Tudor England. In this three-hundred-year period Londoners learnt how to construct, and to manage, 'self-government at the king's command'. They had to develop ways of negotiating with demanding and very different kings and to devise ways of raising money from citizens which were seen to be fair. London's elected rulers had also to resolve conflicting economic interests, to administer common resources and to protect and enhance the health and well-being of all those who lived in the city. London was by far the most populous and wealthy city in the kingdom, and its practices were widely copied throughout England. It was, as the Londoners claimed in 1339, the 'mirror and example to the whole land'.

This is the first full account of the evolution of the government of London from the tempestuous days of the Commune in the late twelfth century to the calmer waters of Tudor England. Caroline Barron shows how the elected rulers of London developed ways of dealing with both demanding monarchs and quarrelsome city inhabitants. The remarkable survival of the city's own records makes it possible to trace, in unexpected detail, the inner workings of civic politics and government over three hundred years. London was by far the most populous and wealthy city in the kingdom, and its practices were widely copied throughout England. It was, as the Londoners claimed in 1339, the 'mirror and example to the whole land'.

Edition and translation of a copy of a vastly significant document for our understanding of fourteenth-century England, long believed lost.In the summer of 1376 a spirit of reform was abroad in the city of London. A number of measures were taken to make those who were elected to govern the city more responsible to its citizens as a whole. A committee was set up to examine the ordinances at the Guildhall and present to the Commonalty those that were "profitables" and those that were not. Two years later, the committee produced a volume known officially as the Liber de Ordinancionibus, but popularly as "The Jubilee book", because it had been initiated in the jubilee year of Edward III's reign. But the reforming measures introduced in the book caused so many controversies and disputes that eventually, in a bid to restore order in the city, in March 1387 the "Jubilee Book" was taken outside the Guildhall and publicly burnt. Historians have long debated the possible contents of this contentious but hugely significant volume, widely believed to be lost. However, recently a fifteenth-century copy of the "Jubilee Book", possibly of an earlier draft put together in the course of the two years, but superseded by the final version, was discovered in a manuscript held at Trinity College Cambridge (Ms O.3.11).