For 150 years after 1372 there was no fundamental rethinking of Colchester's administrative and electoral system. Changes were matters of detail. The extent and direction of piecemeal reform are nevertheless of interest for their relevance to social change, and make a necessary introduction to the major revisions of the years 1519–25. The history of government in the borough is best discussed with reference to the question of oligarchy. In his brief account of developments in Colchester, Tait saw the process as one of a progressively increasing concentration of power in the hands of an inner ring of burgesses, a common enough theme in the history of the late Middle Ages, but one which has occasioned debate on a number of separate issues. It is questionable how far ruling groups in towns were cut off from the support and consent of their fellow townsmen. Evidence for increasing oligarchy should sometimes be interpreted rather as the codification of past practice, and even where a more oligarchical form of government was in fact established, the implications for burgesses' welfare need dispassionate scrutiny. The detailed evidence from Colchester makes it feasible both to look at Tait's conclusion more closely and to investigate the wider issues.

At the core of the problem is the question of the part played by the commons in borough affairs. The commons, in this context, were not synonymous with the lower ranks of the burgesses; the term signifies all those burgesses who were neither bailiffs nor members of the council, and so must include the majority of tradesmen and property owners.