XI.
SOME TOWNSPEOPLE.
FOR many years after the Conquest the leading people of the town of Leicester were of Norman blood. This was owing, of course, to the power of the Norman Earls of Leicester, without whose appointment and approval no man could prosper, or obtain any high office, for the Earls naturally preferred men who were of their own race and who spoke their own language. The first Englishman who held the title of Mayor seems to have been William le Engleys, who was appointed in 1278, and in three subsequent years. It is possible, however, though not very likely, that he was a Norman nicknamed "The Englishman." He was not, at any rate, the first Englishman to bear rule among the burgesses, for as early as 1209, as we shall see, a man was at the head of the Guild Merchant, under the title of "Alderman of the Guild," who bore a Saxon name.
A curious Norman appellation was borne by the Curlevaches, a well-to-do family who owned land in the North suburb of Leicester. One of them deserves to be remembered as one of the ruling men who shaped the destinies of Leicester during its early days. Simon Curlevache was born about the year 1175, for he must have been a prominent member of the Guild Merchant, and probably over 25 years of age, when he witnessed the very important charter in which Robert, Earl of Leicester, who died in 1204, granted to the Burgesses of the town the right to pasture beasts in the Cowhay meadow beyond the South Gate. About the same time he witnessed also a deed executed by Petronilla, the Earl's mother, who died a few years after her son. In the first decade of the 13th century he was established as a merchant of considerable importance. Walter of the Churchyard, who afterwards became a member of the Guild Council, entered the Guild as "Simon Curlevache's man." It is clear that in the year 1209 Simon was carrying on an extensive trade. In that year King John granted him a license to export five lasts of leather (720 hides) from England to St. Valery, for
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