Kuhl — Chaucer's Burgesses . 
655 
ment. We of course do not know with whom he shared his 
sympathies. But I have shown elsewhere 1 that his loss 
of Aldgate in October and his royal preferments in Decem¬ 
ber was probably the result of his having been a member 
of that fatal Parliament. Though he may have been neu¬ 
tral, we must not forget that Richard II was an erratic man. 
For Chaucer, therefore, to evade the ten companies who 
had established a precedent in presenting grievances against 
the King to Parliament was natural. A literary man does 
not court popularity by referring to enemies of his audience, 
—especially when it involves the loss of his house and in¬ 
come. 2 In his selection of the burgesses, therefore, Chaucer 
the artist becomes Chaucer the diplomat. 
May we not go a step farther? We have seen that Chaucer 
did not select from the most powerful companies of his day; 
nor, on the other hand, from those companies—weak as 
well as powerful—who openly denounced Mayor Brembre 
in 1386. It will not, therefore, be without interest to glance 
at the companies from which he could select. We find that 
there is still a possibility of thirty or more. But we are at 
once confronted by another factor which determined the 
poet’s selection, viz.: that from these thirty he chose the 
most prominent guilds. How can the comparative strength 
of these guilds, it may be asked, be determined? 
The latter part of the fourteenth century was—as is 
well known—the age in which the guilds were to become 
all-powerful. A notable year in their development was 1376. 
At this time it was agreed that the Common Council of the 
City of London should be composed of men from the “suffi¬ 
cient” misteries,—“the greater misteries electing not more 
than six persons, and the rest, four or two, according to 
their size.” 3 Fortunately there is preserved one list of 
1 See my article referred to in previous note. 
2 Particularly when there are plenty of other companies from which to 
choose I 
3 Letter-Book, H, pp. 39-40. The guilds had not had this power for a 
quarter of a century (Ibid., Intro, p. IV). Agitation had existed for some 
time whether the Common Council should be made up of guilds or by 
wards. Party feeling continued to rise until whispers of the agitation 
reached the King. He threatened to deprive the citizens of their franchise 
unless they maintained peace in the meantime. The City assured him 
that no serious dissensions existed. This privilege remained with the 
guilds until 1384, though an attempt had been made to oust them in 1380 
(Letter-Book, H, p. V). The complaints made in 1384 were that “matters 
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