Kuhl — Chaucer's Burgesses. 
663 
are to be ruled in the same manner as “denizen (privees) 1 
weavers of the City, and that neither should work by night 
at any time of the year.” 2 Five years later the foreign 
weavers were given permission to carry on their business in 
England, and likewise to elect masters to supervise their 
craft. 3 Though they had their craft, they had no repre¬ 
sentatives, as did the native weavers, in the Common Coun¬ 
cil. 4 This, of course, was owing to the fact that the native 
workmen were jealous of their continental neighbors. 
Chaucer, ever on the alert, tells us that the Wife of Bath 
Of clooth-making, . . . hadde swiche an haunt, 
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt. 
This is a distinct appeal to the new sense of nationalism 
which England was feeling in the latter half of the four¬ 
teenth century. 
The native weavers, on the other hand, sent four mem¬ 
bers to the City Council in 1376,—John de Bathe 5 (what 
relation to the good Wyf?), John Gyle, William Goryng, and 
William Gqdhewe. 6 Their careers in the affairs of the City 
and Guild resemble those of the Haberdashers. Whenever 
important matters were under consideration at the Guild¬ 
hall they were summoned. 7 Goryng and Bathe were suffi¬ 
ciently prominent to be masters of the guild at one time or 
another. 8 The latter, a resident of Aldersgate Ward, 9 was 
granted a pardon in 1378 for the killing of another. 10 In an 
interesting will we infer that he was a well-to-do person. He 
left certain shops to the church of St. Botolph in Alders¬ 
gate; to the prior of another church he leaves all his “lands 
and tenements in Westchepe, Goderounlane, and elsewhere 
1 i. e., native. 
2 Letter-book, F, p. 173. It has not been thought necessary to go 
into details concerning the masters of each mistery. The Weavers, 
Dyers, and Tapicers likewise elected their masters from time to time. 
(See Ibid., H, Index). 
3 Ibid., G, p. 130. 
4 Ibid., H, p. 524 (Index). 
6 Or Baathe. 
6 Letter-Book , H, p. 42. 
7 See Index to Letter-Book , H. 
8 Ibid., pp. 202, 318, 346. 
9 Ibid., p. 239. 
10 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1377-81, p. 294. 
