As a further example of the way in which property was left to a guild as trustees, the case of the “Candlemas Guild” at Bury St. Edmund’s may be cited. A few years after its foundation in 1471, one of its members left the guild considerable property for the common purposes of the fraternity, and for certain other specified objects. The name of the donor was John Smith, and his will was witnessed by the Abbot and Prior of Bury. It provided for the keep of an annual obit “devoutly,” and for the residue of income to be kept till the appointment of every new abbot. On that event the sum thus accumulated was to be paid to the new abbot in lieu of the sum of money the town was bound to find at every election. Should there be any sum over the amount necessary for this purpose, it was to be expended in payment of the tenth or fifteenth, or other tax imposed on the citizens by royal authority. Year by year, at the annual meeting of the guild, the wardens were bound to give an account of their administration of this trust. Year by year John Smith’s will was read out at the meeting, and proclamation was made before the anniversary of his death in the following manner: “Let us all of charity pray for the soul of John. We put you in remembrance that you shall not miss the keeping of his dirge and also of his Mass.” Round the town went the crier also with the lines—
“We put you in remembrance all that the oath have made,
To come to the Mass and the dirge the souls for to glade;
All the inhabitants of this towne are bound to do the same,
To pray for the souls of John and Anne, else they be to blame;
The which John afore-rehearsed to this town hath been full kind,
Three hundred marks for this town hath paid, no penny unpaid behind.
Now we have informed you of John Smith’s will in writing as it is,
And for the great gifts that he hath given, God bring his soul to bliss.
Amen.”