ABSTRACT
The fundamental law governing Bristol during the seventeenth century was Henry VII's letters patent of 1499. In the sixteenth century Bristol had experienced just such a process of social change as its commercial economy shifted to trade in luxury goods with Spain and the Mediterranean, and a new form of merchant community took shape in the city. Among the most important charter privileges belonging to Bristol - or to any corporate town - were its right to make by-laws to regulate the local economy and its authority to collect necessary rates to maintain vital local functions. In the 1630s the point of crisis concerned the Society of Merchant Ventures, the city's most important economic organization, to which belonged the leading overseas traders, including a majority of the membership of the Common Council. Years ago W. K. Jordan said that he found Bristol one of the most parochial places in all England.
