666 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
verses into modern English. “Each of them seemed a 
capital freeman of the City to sit on the raised platform 
(dais) in a guildhall”—says the poet. 
Of course the entire Common Council (150 members) 
did not sit in a body on the dais. This distinction belonged 
only to the Mayor and to the Aldermen. The Reverend 
Mr. Beaven, in a letter to the present writer, 1 makes this 
plain when he says: “In the Court of Common Council con¬ 
sisting of Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councillors, 
the Lord Mayor presides and he and the Aldermen occupy 
seats on the dais by prescriptive right. The Common 
Councillors have seats “on the floor”; indeed that phrase is 
constantly used to denote a Councillor as distinguished from 
an Alderman.” 
The passage, therefore, seems to mean: each of the wor¬ 
thies was fit to be an Alderman or a Mayor. Either inter¬ 
pretation will satisfy, though the reference to the Aldermen 
seems preferable. 2 
That the allusion is political is strengthened by the fol¬ 
lowing lines: 
Everich for the wisdom that he kan 
Was shaply for to been an alderman. 
Here we are on a definite footing and can reject Professor 
Skeat altogether. Hinckley 3 was the first to suggest that 
Chaucer used “Alderman” in its modern sense of “municipal 
magistrate,” instead of “head-officer of the guild,”—Pro- 
1 1 wish to express here my thanks to the great authority on the mu¬ 
nicipal history of London for his courteous and generous attention to my 
letter of inquiry. Without his assistance this portion of my paper would 
have been materially weakened. 
2 As a matter of fact the Sheriffs also sat on the dais. But there is no 
Sheriff between 1371 and 1407 who did not also attain Aldermanic rank. 
That is, a Sheriff who was not an Alderman when he entered office became 
one soon afterwards. There were 74 Sheriffs between 1371 and 1407. 
(Beaven, II. p. XXXVII. This statement in substance has been repeated 
by the authority just cited in response to my inquiry.) For the list of 
Sheriffs see Index to Letter-Book, H. 
3 Notes on Chaucer , Northampton, Mass., 1907, p. 28. This admir¬ 
able book unfavorably reviewed in the Athenaeum (Aug. 29, 1908), has 
recently come into its own. See Professor Karl Young, Kittredge An¬ 
niversary Papers , Boston, 1913, p. 405 n. Hinckley’s observations on 
the sixteen grocer Aldermen, however, based on the article in Did. Natl. 
Biog. under Brembre are erroneous. For a correct statement of the 
facts see Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London, Part I. London, 
1908, p. 390 n. Gf. Letter-Book , H, p. VII. 
