A vast system of ingenious and elaborate regulations[72] marked the long effort of the townspeople to carry out in their new markets the apparently simple end which lay at the heart of the democracy, that food and necessaries of life both good and cheap should be within the reach of every man. According to the theory which still held its ground in the sixteenth century that “victual being a necessary sustenance for the body should not be esteemed at the seller’s liberty,”[73] a fixed price was set on all provisions. Hence the Assize of Bread[74] (apparently quite neglected by the feudal lords[75]) and the Assizes of Beer and of Wine were secured by the towns, whether as a part of their market rights or as an independent privilege.[76] Victuallers were closely watched lest in selling meat, eggs, butter, or oatmeal they should take “excess lucre upon them, selling that is to say more than 1_d._ in the shilling;”[77] innholders were allowed a penny of gain on every bushel of corn and a half-penny on every seven pounds of hay, so that if a man could buy a bushel of corn[78] for 2_s._ 8_d._ he was not allowed to sell it for 3_s._; tavern-keepers might have twopence profit on a gallon of white or red wine, and on sweet wines brought by Italian merchants, fourpence;[79] cooks must make their meat “well seasoned and wholesome, and sell it for reasonable winning, and that they reboil nor rebake no meat in hurt of the King’s people;” while fishmongers—a class most important in the mediæval world, and among whom it was impossible to prevent the growth of the middleman, were subjected to endless regulations.[80] In the unceasing effort to save themselves from dearth or from fraud the poor commons had their authorized protector in the Mayor—a protector who on entering office took oath before the community not only to obey the King but also to serve the people, and to “keep truly correction on all bakers and brewers and taverners and cooks and such like people.” No sooner was the Mayor of Bristol installed than he was bound to call all the bakers of the town to the Guild Hall, to understand from them what stuff they had of wheat, to counsel them in their buying and bargaining with the “Bagers” who brought corn to the town, and to decide on the size of the loaves. Then all the Bristol brewers were summoned before him, that he might commune with them about the cost of malt, and decree a fixed price which no brewer might evade or alter. In like manner he proceeded to set a price on wood “by his wise discretion,” and to order the hours of its sale; and he had to examine the colliers’ sacks, and to assure himself that standard measures for coal were set in the proper places of the town. Further, throughout the year it was his duty constantly to watch that his ordinances were duly observed. Occasionally his walk was extended along the river side, that he might keep an eye on the timber trade and observe whether the great wood called Berkeley wood was discharged at one quay, and the smaller faggots at another landing-place; and that he might from spring to spring watch prices, and see that there was small wood enough to supply the poor people with bundles at 1/2_d._ or 1_d._ kept at the “Back,” a waterside street where the merchants’ stores were piled. At divers times he went to oversee the quality of the bread and try its weight (for which perhaps, as at Sandwich, he engaged a goldsmith who was liberally paid for his experience at the scales); while at Christmas, or whenever there was holiday or a pilgrimage in the town, it was his business to make sure that there was bread enough in the shops to supply all needs. And in order to know certainly that the brewers not only made good ale for the rich but also a cheap small drink for the poor, on Wednesdays and Saturdays he was “used to walk in the mornings to the brewers’ houses, to oversee them in serving of their ale to the poor commons of the town, and that they have their true measures; and his ale-konner with him to taste and understand that the ale be good”[81]—a very necessary task if we accept the picture given us in Piers Ploughman of the typical beer-seller of his day—