The size of Maldon's population probably did not warrant administrative sub-division. The chapel of St. James, to the east of St. Margaret's, probably represents population growth before the setting up of Newland. T he two bailiffs who headed Maldon's government in the fifteenth century, Petchey suggested, represented the dual lordship of the borough, although he later backtracked and proposed that one bailiff represented the king and the other the Bishop. Maldon had only one bailiff until 1403, when we are naturally led to associate the institution of the second with the taking of episcopal jurisdiction at fee farm, and to suspect that the original bailiff indicates a similar pre-evidential arrangement with the Fitz Walter lords. Contrary to our expectations, no bailiff is listed among the witnesses to a grant of common soil in 1361.
Historians can be no more certain.
It is not necessarily the case that this mayor replaced the prepositus , for royal bailiffs are found in Lynn's administrative complex on numerous occasions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Probably the mayoralty developed slowly, gradually usurping the powers of the prepositus . The 1268 confirmation may have played a part in the contemporary power-struggle between interests gathered around mayor and alderman, which seems to have resulted in a victory for the mayoralty. W e should not exaggerate the implications of the transfer of power from prepositus to mayoralty. In contrast to Tait's opinion that the mayor was less a royal officer than the prepositus , Hudson had earlier proposed that the mayoralty Norwich was granted in 1404 derived its authority from the king, whereas the previous ballivalty it had partly replaced was based on community authority.