But this power of the sheriff only lingered on for a few years. In 1223 a new arrangement was made between the citizens and Henry the Third. Norwich consisted of four distinct divisions which had been naturally formed out of the four hamlets created by the first settlers and which had by degrees become united into a single town:—_Conesford_, where the earliest comers gathered round the ford over the river, protected by the stream on one side, and on the other by the mound on which the castle stood in later days; the _Westwick_, whose name shews its later foundation, and which lay on the further side of the fortifications, within the bend of the river; the _Magna Crofta_ or big field of the castle, lying below the entrenchments midway between Conesford and Westwick, which was made at the Conquest into a new ward, Mancroft Ward; and the _Ward-over-the-Water_ on the further bank of the river, somewhat cut off from the rest of the town.[450] For the government of these “leets,” as the divisions came to be called, it was decided in 1223 that the burghers should elect four bailiffs, one for each district.[451] There was no longer to be any provost, since the bailiffs were to take his place in joint government of the town, and were further to take over the criminal jurisdiction hitherto exercised by the sheriff in his court at the castle. From this time therefore most of the social, commercial, and criminal affairs of the city lay in the burghers’ own hands.
The four bailiffs, however, had still no control over the castle and its entrenchments, nor over a wide reach of land that lay along the river, stretching past Conesford and Mancroft and Westwick—land owned by the prior and convent; nor had they any authority over the cathedral, the priory, and the bishop’s palace that lay within Westwick, nor over property owned by them or by other ecclesiastical bodies which penetrated into the heart of the city; while on the other hand tenants of castle and prior and bishop were all making their profit out of the city trade, and enjoying its peace and protection. Therefore the next claim of the burghers necessarily was that the King should give to the municipality authority to tax for the common expenses all inhabitants alike, under whatever lord they held; and in 1229 they obtained a royal grant that all “who should partake of the liberties which we have granted to the said citizens of Norwich ... shall be taxed and give aid as the said citizens;” and that “if anyone has withdrawn from their customs and scots, he shall return to their society and custom, and follow their scot, so that no one shall be quit therefrom.”[452] There was no trifling with the municipal authority in this matter; in 1236 and 1237 when the tenants of castle and prior attempted to resist the claim on their moneys, the sheriff was ordered to summon them before him to show by what right or warrant they claimed acquittance from payments to the city treasury; and again in 1276, when the tenants of the castle refused to pay their share of taxes, the case was brought before the barons of the exchequer, and an order came from Westminster that the sheriff was forthwith to levy the sum due and hand it over to the city.[453]