It is not possible yet to indicate the full extent to which these social gilds made such provision, but it is probable that they did much more for education than is commonly conceived. Our chief means of discovering what was accomplished, is by an examination of the returns which were made when the gilds were being dissolved. From an examination of these records, we are led to the conclusion that, after an association or gild had been formed for specified purposes the general method of procedure was, that the members of the gild made certain payments to secure the services of one or more priests, who were to devote themselves to carrying out such objects as the gild had in view. These aims frequently included the keeping of a school.
We can find this illustrated by a consideration of the information available[432] with regard to the Gild of Kalendars, Bristol. In 1318 the Bishop of Gloucester issued an inquisition as to the rights and privileges of this gild. The report of the commissioners states that “the beginning of the fraternity exceeds the memory of man,” and it was established that it existed before the Conquest. The gild was formerly called the “Gild or Brotherhood of the Community of the clergy and people of Bristol” and received a licence from the Cardinal-legate Gualo in 1216. Among other works carried out by this association is mentioned the maintenance of “a school for Jewes and other strangers, to be brought up and instructed in christianitie under the said fraternitie.”[433] Here then is established the fact that gilds, as apart from churches, conceived themselves as responsible for education at least as early as the thirteenth century.
We may also consider the Palmers Gild which was founded in 1284. This gild supported a “warden, 7 priestes, 4 singyng men, twoo deacons, syx Queristers, ... 32 pore Almes people” as well as a schoolmaster to teach Latin.[434]
As additional instances of schools which were established through the agency of gilds we may enumerate the school at Maldon which is supposed to have been founded by the Fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin,[435] and the school at Raleigh, which was founded by the Trinity Gild in 1388-9.[436] The chantry certificate relating to this gild states that “lands were put in feoffement by diverse and sundry persons to ffinde a prieste ... to teach a fre schole their to instruct youth. Which seide town of Raleigh is a very greate and populous towne.”[437] These instances readily demonstrate the democratic appreciation of education, and that among the purposes for which people joined themselves together in voluntary association was the provision of facilities for education.
We pass to an important topic when we consider the work of the gilds-merchant and the craft gilds. If we can trace any educational activities on the part of these associations then we can trace the origin of the interest taken by the civic communities and by organised labour respectively in education.
Though it is an error to conceive of the gild-merchant as identical with the municipal authority yet as Gross points out the distinction between them was barely perceptible. Now, if we can show that the gilds-merchant in some cases supported schools, then we have shown the interest of the civic community (as apart from the work of the Church) in educational matters. The only specific case of a gild-merchant taking an interest in education which we have been able to find is that of the gild-merchant of York. The chantry certificate of the city of York states that “the governour and kepers of the mysterye of merchauntes of the cytie of York,” co-operated in the foundation of a hospital which had as one of its objects the maintenance of “two poore scolers.”[438]
Our difficulty in dealing with this topic arises from the fact that the “founder” of schools mentioned in the available documents is so very frequently not the real founder. It is for this reason that Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and others have been regarded as the founders of schools which cannot in any real sense be attributed to them. In the case of gilds, we find the names of certain persons mentioned as the founders of various charitable trusts without a distinct statement of the fact that they were acting simply as representatives of an association.
We are, therefore, driven to consider the full objects of the charitable trust under discussion. If the objects mentioned are mainly religious or eleemosynary, then it is probable that the trust created was ecclesiastical in its origin, but if these characteristics are not definitely present, or if the purposes specified by the trust include duties which should form a part of the duty of the municipality, then we consider that the gild should be classed under the municipal gilds.
With this object in view, we may examine the chantry certificate for the town of Wisbech, one of the fullest and most complete of the chantry certificates and one which would have well served as a model to others who had the duty of drawing up these returns. In answer to the question of the founder of the gild, the certificate states the gild was founded in the reign of Richard II. by certain clerks whose names are specified “with other mo.” This last phrase is significant as it supports the inference that the gild was formed by the citizens of the town, but that the clergy, as the natural leaders of the community, would append their names first to the document.
The objects of the gild, which are specified in this return may be briefly summarised—