Chapter XXI: Part II: From Cressy to Cromwell. Globe 8vo, 1s. 6d. Part III. From (2)

[237] It was a disgrace to the lord if any of his “livery” appeared in the law courts. The protection extended to the members of a craft was really efficient. See the punishment of a grocer who in 1404 had turned another of the company out of his house. (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 93.)

[238] The grocers in London claimed control over every one who kept a shop of spicery even if he did not wear their livery (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 66); but those who refused the livery were fined. The liveried members paid 2_s._ 6_d._ for the dinner, and “every man out of the clothing as us seemed they might bear.” (Ibid. ii. 239, 258.) A list was kept of those who wore the livery, those who wore gowns, and householders and bachelors not in livery. (Ibid. 175-177.)

[239] These divisions must be taken in a general sense. Five orders are mentioned among the Merchant Taylors (Clode, 8-9); but these really fall into three main groups. For our present purpose the “Bachelors,” an intermediate rank formed in some of the richer crafts, may be omitted.

[240] See Du Cange.

[241] Riley’s Mem. Lond. 258. See the case of the London bakers where a special ordinance was needed to make the servants liable to punishment for the grossest frauds in the absence of the masters. (Ibid. 181-2.)

[242] If a craftsman not admitted to the freedom of the guild took work, the customer in case of fraud had only the protection of the common law, and could not appeal to the town or guild ordinances. (English Guilds, 322.)

[243] From time to time there were protests on the part of the members of the craft against the power of the oligarchy. There was such a case in the London Grocers’ Company, when an attempt was made in 1444 to limit the power of the wardens in appointing new members. (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 123.)

[244] English Guilds, 30, 35, 289. Twelve of the discreetest of the smiths at Coventry elected the keepers, and formed the court to try offenders.

[245] Lambert’s Guild Life, 113, 129; English Guilds, 156, 159, 162, 217, 160, 169, 31, 164, 167, 318, 445. The weavers’ guild was governed by a council of twenty-four as early as the thirteenth century. (Lib. Cus. 424.) In religious or social guilds there were cases where the election of officers was made by the assent of all the brethren (English Guilds, 47, 49, 148, 213, 232), or “with the assent of the _elder part_ of the brethren and sistern of the guild” (ibid. 150); but the prevailing custom was the appointment of picked men to choose the officers. (English Guilds, 62, 64, 71, 75, 83, 89, 91, 97, 119, 266.) In one case “all the brethren whom the alderman should send for” were to elect officers. (Ibid. 35.) In another the alderman chose two men, the company chose two others, these four chose two more, and the six elected officers. In a later form copied for another craft instead of the “company” the “masters of the guild” chose two men. (Ibid. 276.) In one case a new provost was chosen by the four provosts of the past year. (Ibid. 186.) In the Grocers’ Company the wardens appointed their successors. (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 10, 14, 18.) A similar custom prevailed in the Southampton Guild Merchant.

[246] Riley’s Mem. 348. In the Cordwainers’ Guild of Exeter (1481) two of the wardens were chosen from the shop-holders, and two from the journeymen. (English Guilds, 332.) It would seem that among the coruesers of Bristol the journeymen had a certain recognized position, the visible sign of which was their having the right to provide lights carried in the municipal processions at certain feasts; and when in 1454 “divers debates and murmurs had arisen between the masters and crafts of the coruesers and the journeymen,” and the masters and craft-holders sought to deprive the journeymen of this right, the attempt was vigorously and successfully resisted.

[247] In Ipswich when a youth in 1448 was apprenticed to a barber for seven years it was stipulated that he should get suitable clothing, shoes, bedding, board, and chastisement. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 259.) At Romney in 1451 it was decreed that at the end of his service the apprentice should receive from his master 10_s._ or a bed of that value. (Ibid. v. 543). A decree against using daggers or knives or making any affray was limited by the phrase, “provided always that it shall be lawful to any inhabitant to correct his servant or apprentice according to the law.” (English Guilds, 390.) But on the other hand when a master among the tailors at Exeter chastised his servant so far as to bruise his arm and break his head, he had not only to give a fine to the craft but to give the servant 15_s._ and a month’s board and to pay his doctor. (Ibid. 322.)

[248] A master retiring from trade might sell and devise the services of his apprentice to a new master, but if there was any suspicion that a sale had been so managed that the apprentice lost credit for one or two years of the service which he had actually fulfilled both the masters were deprived of the freedom of the city and craft. (Paston Letters, i. 378.)

[249] See note A at end of chapter.

[250] Statutes 6 Henry VI. cap. 3.

[251] Statutes 12 Richard II. cap. 3.

[252] English Guilds, 395, 285-6; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 530; Riley’s Mem. Lond. 246.

[253] Riley’s Mem. Lond. 307; English Guilds, 285-6. Piece-work was common in many trades. In Newcastle the guild of fullers and dyers in their ordinances of 1477 regulated the price of fulling and shearing the various kinds of cloth by piece-work at so much a yard. The weavers also worked by the piece. The Newcastle slaters had been formed into a guild and had ordinances in 1451 with similar regulations; the bricklayers and plasterers were in a guild in 1454 (Newcastle Guilds). There was piece-work among the tawyers. (Riley’s Mem. Lond. 330-1.) In Winchester the weavers probably worked at from 3_d._ to 4_d._ a day, as they were ordered to take from Hallow Eve to the Annunciation for their work but 1_s._ 6_d._, and from the Annunciation to Hallow Eve but 2_s._

[254] In 1265 Leicester weavers were allowed by the guild to weave by night as well as by day. (Gross, ii. 144.)

[255] Riley’s Mem. Lond. 232-3. This was true of a great number of trades. (Ibid. 244, 245-7, 258, &c. For Lincoln tailors, English Guilds, 183. Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 20-21.) In this last company public notice was given of a servant who had left his master to prevent his being engaged by another.

[256] Hibbert’s Influence of English Guilds, 64.

[257] Riley’s Mem. 247-8, 250-1, 256.

[258] Lib. Cus. 84.

[259] Riley’s Mem. 495.

[260] Mem. Lond. 495-6. The friars from time to time appear as supporters of the poorer people. In Coventry the White Friars was the meeting place for the fellowship of the crafts and for the tilers’ company in the fifteenth century; and Friar John Bredon played the part of a local agitator. The policy of the Friars was often, as in Canterbury, part of a general antagonism to other religious establishments. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 98.)

[261] Mem. Lond. 543-4. The suppression of the May-day festival of the journeymen shearmen in Shrewsbury was very possibly a similar putting down of confederations and conspiracies. (Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Gilds, 120-2.) See also the Bristol Coruesers, p. 119, n. 1.

[262] Riley’s Mem. Lond. 609-12, 653. Clode, 4, 22-29.

[263] The town records of Shrewsbury note in 1516 a reward to the king’s messenger bearing letters concerning the insurrection of the apprentices of the City of London. (Owen’s Shrewsbury, i. 284.)

[264] See p. 102, note 2.

[265] See Note A, p. 160.

[266] English Guilds, cxxi. For an exception at Hull see Lambert’s Guild Life, 188. For Canterbury see H.M.C. ix. 173-4.

[267] “The people must cheerfully maintain the government, within whose functions however it does not lie to support the people.” Cleveland’s Presidential Address. Mar. 6, 1893.

[268] Stat. 11 Henry VI. cap. 12.

[269] Nott. Rec. i. 268-272, 316-318. See also Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 582.

[270] Piers Ploughman. Pass. iv. 80-118. There is an instance of a guild in which no parson, baker, or wife, was admitted. (Eng. Gilds, 271).

[271] Piers Ploughman. Pass. iii. 222.

[272] Riley’s Mem. 182. A summary of the conflict on the price of wine is given in Schanz, i. 642-50. By 5 Richard II. Stat. i. cap. 4 if a vintner refused to sell at the right price the mayor might deliver the wine to any buyer at statute cost.

[273] Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i., xvii., xviii.; Schanz, i. 651.

[274] Norwich Town Close Evidences (Brit. Museum.), 16.

[275] Riley’s Memorials, 174-5. Many other examples might be given. A later instance occurs when the London Corporation brought a complaint against the society of hoastmen in 1603 about the raising of the price of coals in London and the scanty supply, so that “without great difficulty the city cannot be provided sufficiently of sea-coals for the poor.” The fraternity of hoastmen make a statement of their reasons concerning the prices of sea-coals to the Privy Council in answer to the complaint of the Mayor and Aldermen. (Newcastle Guilds, 44.)

[276] The chief objection of the public to the “unreasonable ordinances” by which the crafts closed their corporations was the “common damage to the people,” probably as tending to raise prices. (P. 102, n. 2.) The Coventry Leet opposed the crafts in this matter.

[277] These grants were all of early date, in the twelfth century. Ashley, Woollen Industry, 15-17; Madox, 26, 191, etc., 212, etc., 283-4. The Nottingham weavers paid a rent of 40_s._ for their guild to the King from the time of Henry the Second. For this they raised a contribution from each loom, and obtained a grant that those who paid might work in the outskirts of the town. (Nott. Rec. iii. 27, 58, ii. 36.)

[278] Riley’s Lib. Cus. 130 etc.

[279] Ibid. 121, 123. The survival of the weavers’ court may be seen in 1321. In certain cases where the bureller was fined by the Mayor, the weaver was punished by the bailiffs of his own guild. (Ibid. 422-3.)

[280] Riley’s Lib. Cus. 423.

[281] In 1327 Edward the Third granted a charter to the girdlers of London, which took in all the girdlers of the kingdom, ordered them under the same rules, and set them under the Mayors of whatever city they might be in. (Riley’s Mem. 154-5).

[282] Some charters were given by Edward the Fourth and later Kings to companies of Tailors, Merchants, and so on, which gave them an existence independent of the town, and power to make their own ordinances. (See p. 173.) No list has been made out of these companies, and the subject needs investigation. From the cases which I have met with I think it may probably turn out that such charters were generally given to companies with a foreign trade, and given for reasons referring to that trade. The second charter of the Merchant Tailors in 1390 allowed them to make ordinances among themselves and of their own authority. (Clode, 3.) This charter seems to have freed them from the Mayor, but if so they were again put under his control in 1436. (Ibid. 5, see pp. 189-191, 193.) This was followed by a violent attempt in 1442 to have a Mayor of their own company, which failed and caused much anger. It is evident from the charter of Henry the Seventh, in 1502, which confirmed their independence, that they dealt in “all and every kinds of merchandises” “in all quarters and kingdoms of the world.” (Ibid. 7, 195.) By this they were again given full power to make ordinances for themselves without interference, so long as these were not contrary to the laws of the kingdom nor to the prejudice of the Mayor; and the Mayor was wholly deprived of the power of search among their subjects—a most important measure, since the master and wardens “had a great number of householders with their servants to rule and govern.” (Ibid. 197-200.)

[283] Though guilds were forbidden in Norwich they existed, doubtless by the payment of annual fines. In the case of the tanners the complaint in 1287 against them was clearly that in case of disputes they “made plaint” to their own aldermen and not to the bailiffs. (Hudson’s Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich (Selden Soc.) p. 13.) The cobblers had apparently an important guild from the money paid; the saddlers, tanners, and fullers had also guilds in 1292. (Ibid. 39, 42, 43.) The King reserved the power of creating guilds, and it was possibly to prevent his exercising it that towns like Norwich and Coventry obtained by charter the right to have no guilds. Such a privilege freed them from the fear of fraternities independent of the municipality, while it left them free to recognise informally associations whose recurring fines were really the tribute paid for existence.

[284] Some of those so-called religious, but really trading guilds, have been identified. It is clear that the guild of S. Benedict at Lincoln was a society of traders or merchants, who traded on loans from the common fund, paying back half of the increase they made on it. (English Guilds, 174.) Among other instances see the Guild of S. John Baptist at Hull (Lambert’s Guild Life, 112, etc. 118, 232, 233); Corpus Christi (ibid. 124); Holy Trinity (ibid. 126.) A very curious and interesting account of the formal founding of the Pepperers’ Company as the Fraternity of S. Anthony in the Monastery of Bury, 1345, is given in Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i., xvii. Compare the records given on 8-15. It had become the Grocers’ Company by 1373. The Drapers’ Guild in Shrewsbury was originally the Guild of the Trinity. (Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Guilds, 32.) For other instances see Chapter V. The custom was so common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that it is highly probable that under any stress of difficulty it would have been resorted to in earlier days. The artizans must have been fully aware of the fact disclosed to us by the two forms of summonses for guild returns issued in 1388, one for the religious and one for the trading guilds—the fact that the two forms of association were regarded in a different way by the government. Some guilds are avowedly of a double character. (English Guilds, 126-128, 179-185.)

[285] See note A at end of chapter.

[286] Riley’s Mem. 627; see also 118, 120-1, 153-4.

[287] Riley’s Mem. 341.

[288] In the second half of the fourteenth century the London guild ordinances are in the main simply rules against bad or deceitful wares. See the chandlers, curriers and pelterers, cappers, potters, &c. Riley’s Mem. 118, 358; Lib. Cus. 94, 101; goldsmiths, Schanz, i. 613-4.

[289] Mem. Lond. 293.

[290] Lib. Cus. 100.

[291] Mem. Lond. 280-2.

[292] Riley’s Liber Custumarum, 101. See the case of the weavers infra p. 160, where the craft tried to shorten hours and the town forbade it.

[293] Ordinances of Pewterers. Riley’s Mem. 243. See also glovers and hatters, &c., 239, 246.

[294] Ibid. 226.

[295] Riley’s Mem. 226-7.

[296] Ibid. 218.

[297] Annual congregations made by the masons were forbidden by statute of Richard II., continued by later Kings (3 Henry VI., cap. i.). The anxiety of the government was quickened by the number of tilers who took part in the Peasants’ Revolt. (Stubbs, ii. 496.) Cf. The Common Weal (ed. Miss Lamond), 88-9.

[298] Statutes of the Realm, 3 Edward IV. cap. 4; ibid. 4 Edward IV. cap. 1. A law of 1410 withdrew from the worsted-weavers and merchants of Norwich the supervision of the cloth trade that had been granted to them in 1348 (Ashley, Woollen Industry, 54-5); and handed over to the mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of Norwich, the right of measuring and sealing all worsteds made in Norwich or Norfolk. (Blomefield, iii. 125.) A later law enacted that “the worsted shearers in Norwich shall make no ordinance but such as the Mayor and Alderman shall think necessary.” (Stat. 1494, cap. xi.) In the fifteenth century the Privy Council took away from the Bakers’ and Tailors’ Crafts in London the right of search in their trades which had been granted to their Wardens, and restored it to the Mayor, and ordered the crafts to obey the Mayor after the old usages, customs, and laws of London. 1442. Proceedings Privy Council, v. 196; Seligman, Med. Guilds, 82; Schanz, i. 617.

[299] The mayor and aldermen of London had full jurisdiction over all the various trades quite early in the fourteenth century. Two master-masons were reconciled before the mayor of London in 1298. (Mem. Lond. 38.) For early part of the fourteenth century see ibid. 90, 118, 120, 153-4, 216, 156, 178, 245-6.

[300] In “the ordinances of the Hull Guilds from 1490 to 1723 there is no authorization by any but the mayor of the town.” (Lambert’s Guild Life, 188.) For municipal authority over the Shrewsbury Guilds see Hibbert, 40, 85-6. For Norwich, Blomefield, iii. 130.

[301] A law of 1413 ordered the registration of charters and approval of ordinances and bye-laws—a law which was repeated by the Statute of Henry VI. to prevent the masters of guilds and fraternities making ordinances to the damage of the King or the people, when it was again decreed that all their rules should be certified and registered by Justices of the Peace or by the chief magistrates of cities or towns. 15 Henry VI., cap. 6. See also 19 Henry VII., cap. 7.

[302] English Guilds, 283-286.

[303] Ricart, 78. The examples are too numerous to give. But see the ordinances drawn up in 1448 for the Tailors’ Guild of Lynn by the Mayor and the Council. It was ordered that no new tailor should set up in business unless he was considered “sufficient in conning” not only by the two head men of his craft, but also by the mayor. Every tailor admitted to the guild had to pay a fine as entrance fee to the Mayor and another to the community, as well as his payment to the Guild; and paid a yearly fee to the town for any sewers and apprentices whom he employed. Quarrels between shapers and sewers were to be settled by the Mayor and the head men of the craft. If a tailor sent home an ill-fitting garment the buyer might bring his complaint to the Mayor’s Court, and claim amends before the Mayor and the head men of the craft on condition of paying a fine of 3_s._ 4_d._ if he did not prove his case. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 165-6.)

[304] Miss Dormer Harris has kindly given me the rules at Coventry as to how a craft was to proceed to the punishment of a member in 1518. The master of the craft was first to ask a “reasonable penalty;” if the offender refused to pay, the master was to apply again after three or four days and have the refusal recorded; and in case the refusal was repeated a second time he and three or four of the “honest men” of the craft were to come to the mayor; and the mayor and one of the justices were to command the offender to pay a double penalty; and if he refused yet again, to commit him to prison until it was paid to the craft. At the same time the offender was to desire the master to be “good master to him and his good lover.” If the penalty were more than would suffice for a pound of wax, the remainder was to go to common box, _i.e._, the city funds.

[305] The tilers were strictly ruled by statute as to how the various tiles should be made, thatch tile, roof tile, gutter tile, and so on; how the earth should be prepared and how big the tiles should be. Justices of the Peace, that is in towns the Mayor and the Aldermen, were to hear the cases against offenders and appoint searchers. (17 Edward IV. cap. 4.)

[306] Mem. Lond. 308.

[307] English Guilds, 386, 398-9.

[308] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.

[309] Nott. Rec. i. 197. In Winchester every bureller had to give one cloth yearly to the King’s ferm. (English Guilds, 351.)

[310] Enforced contribution of crafts was common; and the cost considerable. (Gross, ii. 51; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 166, 225; ibid. ix. 173-5.) See Kingdon, ii. 260, 318, &c. In Coventry there were complaints in 1494 that the dyers, skinners, fishmongers, &c., were so “self-willed” that they could not be made to contribute to pageants. See Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Gilds, 63. For the whole question of plays and pageants see Davidson’s Studies in Eng. Mystery Plays, printed by Yale University, 1892. The Corpus Christi processions became after the order of the Council of Vienne, 1318, exceedingly popular; the guilds of Corpus Christi, having charge of the procession, not of the plays (91-2), were probably generally composed of the upper class of people. A list of Miracle Plays and Mysteries has been made for students by F. Stoddard, California University, 1887.

[311] Von Ochenkowski thinks the relation of municipalities and crafts depended on the relative force of the three principles then contending for the mastery—feudal rights, the king’s will, and the common law; in the conflicts between guilds and towns he sees the alternating forces of the king’s law and of the common law. (Wirthschaftliche Entwickelung, 59-60.) Many homelier causes than this were probably at work.

[312] The surprising number of guilds formed under Richard the Second and during the next hundred years must strike any one who looks at the town records. As a single example see the list given for Shrewsbury in Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Gilds, 58-9. In many cases it can be proved that the new fraternity was really an old one, but its re-constitution is as important as a new creation.

[313] Boys’ Sandwich, 678, 680.

[314] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173-4. “Provided always that any such masters so elected shall be none of the same crafts or mysteries whereof they shall be elected.”

[315] Boys, 685, &c.

[316] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173-5, 148. Sometimes wealthy guilds united to gain a monopoly of power in the borough. There was a tendency to combine even in the poorer social or religious fraternities. (Eng. Gilds, 219.) A decline took place in the number of miracle plays for the crafts. Pollard’s Miracle Plays, xxx.

[317] See the curious provision made by the mayor of London at the request of the farriers to get their bills paid. (Riley’s Mem. Lond. 294.)

[318] English Guilds, 285.

[319] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.

[320] Shillingford’s Letters (Camden Soc.) 4.

[321] Though this body of Twelve appears first in the records in 1344, it is impossible to doubt that it was of earlier origin, in view of the custom of other boroughs. In the same way the notices in 1288, 1301, and later, of the electing jury do not by any means imply that these were its first appearances, and all analogy would point to an opposite conclusion.

[322] Freeman’s Exeter, 147, 149.

[323] Mr. Freeman seems to suggest that the Council of Exeter was formed by the habitual summoning of certain members of the Assembly to advise the mayor, and speaks of it as “a committee of the whole body.” (Ibid. p. 152.) It is, however, not yet certainly ascertained whether the evidence bears out this view as regards Exeter.

[324] The regular list of recorders or law officers begins in 1354. Freeman’s Exeter, 154.

[325] Freeman’s Exeter, 146-7. English Guilds, 303, 307, 308.

[326] Both these classes admitted “out-brothers,” probably “foreigners,” who paid half fees.

[327] English Guilds, 313-316.

[328] Ibid. 318, 324, 327.

[329] Ibid. 321-2.

[330] His first charter to the Tailors was in 1461 (Gross i. 124 n. 2); the second in 1466. A different instance occurs in Shrewsbury, when Edward the Fourth gave in 1461 a charter to the Fraternity of the Blessed Trinity making it into the company of the Drapers. (Hibbert’s Influence and Development of English Guilds, 59.)

[331] English Guilds, 301, 307, 310. Gross i. 124.

[332] English Guilds, 309-311.

[333] English Guilds, 302-304.

[334] Ibid. 303.

[335] English Guilds, 304-8.

[336] English Guilds, 324.

[337] Ibid. 326.

[338] English Guilds, 323.

[339] Ibid. 331-4.

[340] Ibid. 334-7.

[341] This forms the earliest account we possess of the costs of a private bill. Ibid. 308-311.

[342] Freeman’s Exeter, 146-154.

[343] English Guilds, 328.

[344] See Chapter XIII. p. 352-4.

[345] In 1376 the judges held that no guild could be established save by royal charter. (Seligman in his Med. Guilds p. 66, quotes Year