Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

by Edward Lewes Cutts

he voluntary societies or fraternities called “gilds,” which were numerous all over Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, were established for mutual help and comfort in the various exigencies of life—in sickness, old age, poverty (if not the result of misconduct), in wrongful imprisonment, in losses by fire, water, or shipwreck.[560] So far it was a benefit club. But the gild had always a religious basis. It usually put itself under the name and protection of the Holy Trinity or of some saint. Once a year, at least, it took measures to have a special service held on its behalf in church, which all the members attended, habited in the livery of the gild; thence it proceeded to its hall or meeting-place for the annual business meeting; and afterwards held its annual feast. The mutual help and comfort embraced the spiritual side of life, and included mutual prayers for the living and the dead. Especially, the gild made much of the burial of its members, which was conducted with great solemnity; all the members were bound to attend the funeral; and provision was made for the continual offering of masses for the welfare of the living, and the repose of their departed brothers and sisters.[561]

The trade gilds had for their chief aim the regulation and protection of their particular trade; their laws included the regulation of freemen, apprentices, etc.; the quality, etc., of their goods; and constituted a trade monopoly. But the trade gild always embraced the usual social and religious features above mentioned.

The great trade gilds were often powerful and wealthy corporations; their members made bequests to them of lands and tenements; they used their commercial talent and ready money in making purchases of other property which added to their corporate wealth. They built handsome gild halls as the visible manifestation of their importance; all the members wore gowns of the same material, colour, and fashion; their officers, masters, and wardens were distinguished by great silver-gilt maces borne before them, and by chains and badges round their shoulders; they took pride in the splendour of their pageantry in the public processions and functions. They prided themselves also on the value of their plate, mostly gifts from their own members, or gifts from great persons; on the sumptuousness of their hospitality; and also on the useful institutions which they maintained—hospitals, schools, almshouses; on their gifts to the poor; and on their liberal contributions on great occasions of public need. Some of them had their own chapel, or at least constant special services in church, conducted by their own chaplain or chaplains.

Some of the gilds were organizations not so much for mutual benefit or the regulation of trade as for the foundation and conduct of enterprises for the benefit of the whole community; for promoting the glory of God, and increasing the number of services and the means of grace, for the population of the town; for founding a hospital or grammar school; for building and repairing bridges and highways, and the like.

The Gild at Ludlow had seven chaplains, and maintained also two deacons and four choristers to sing divine service in the parish church. It supported a grammar school, an almshouse for thirty-two poor people, and bestowed liberal gifts on the poor.

The Kalendar Gild of Bristol dated from before the Norman Conquest. In answer to inquiries made in 1387, the gild stated that in the twelfth century it had founded a school for Jews and others, to be brought up in Christianity, under the care of the said fraternity, which school it still maintained.[562]

At York there was a Gild of the Lord’s Prayer. It arose in this way: at some date unknown, but before the year 1387, a Miracle Play of the Lord’s Prayer had been performed in York, in which all manner of vices and sins were held up to scorn, and the virtues held up to praise. The play met with so great favour that a gild was founded for the purpose of keeping up the annual performance of the play. The gild had the usual charitable and religious features; but, besides, the members were bound to illustrate in their lives the scorn of vice and the praise of virtue, which were the objects of the play, and to shun company and business which were unworthy. The gild maintained a candelabrum of seven lights to hang in York Minster, to be lighted on all Sundays and feast days, in token of the seven supplications of the Lord’s Prayer, to the honour and glory of Almighty God, the Maker of that Prayer. And they maintained a tablet, showing the whole meaning and use of the Lord’s Prayer, hanging against a pillar of the minster, near the aforesaid candelabrum. Whenever the play was performed in York, the gild were to ride with the players through the principal streets, clad in one suit, and to keep order during the play.

The Corpus Christi Gild at York seems to have been founded by some of the clergy specially for the purpose of organizing a great annual function in honour of the Eucharist. On the day from which the gild took its name, a great procession was made through the streets of the city, headed by priests in surplices, and the six masters of the gild bearing white wands; the craft gilds of the city followed, exhibiting pageants. In 1415, ninety-six crafts took part in the procession, of which fifty-four exhibited pageants of subjects from the Bible, and ten carried torches. A great folio volume, now in the British Museum, contains the roll of its brethren and sisters, of all ranks, about 14,850 in number. The two gilds of St. Christopher and St. George, York, had a “Guylde Hall,” and maintained and repaired certain stone bridges and highways, and gave relief to certain poor people, but “had no spiritual promotion whereby the King should have firstfruits and tenths.”[563] The Earl and Countess of Northumberland were brother and sister of this gild, and their annual payment to it was 6s. 8d. each, and 6s. 8d. more for their livery.[564]

St. George’s Gild at Norwich, founded in 1385, in close connection with the corporation of the city, was another famous gild, numbering thousands of brethren and sisters, among them some of the East Anglian nobility. They had a stately equestrian procession, with pageants, on St. George’s Day.