Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

CHAPTER XII

GUILDS AND FRATERNITIES

Every account of a mediæval parish must necessarily include some description of the work of fraternities and guilds. Although these societies, absolutely speaking, were not existent in every parish, still they were so very general that they may be reckoned certainly as one feature of pre-Reformation parochial life. It is hardly necessary to say much upon the subject of guild origins. Their existence dates from the earliest times, and they probably were one result of the natural desire to realize some of the obvious benefits arising from combination, in carrying out purposes of common utility. As a system of widespread practical institutions, “English guilds,” says Mr. Toulmin Smith, who may be regarded as our great authority on this matter, “are older than any kings of England.” The oldest of our ancient laws—those, for example, of Alfred, of Athelstan and Ina—assume the existence of guilds, to some one of which, as a matter of course, every one was supposed to belong. The same author thus defines the scope and purpose of the ancient guilds. “They were,” he says, “associations of those living in the same neighbourhood, who remembered that they had, as neighbours, common obligations.” They were different entirely from modern partnerships or trading companies, for their main characteristic was to set up something higher than personal gain and mere materialism as the main object of man’s existence, and to make the teaching of love to one’s neighbour, not merely accepted as a hollow dogma of morality, but known and felt as a habit of life.

An examination of the existing records leads to a general division of mediæval guilds into two classes—Craft or Trade Associations and Religious Societies; or, as some prefer now to call them, Social Guilds. It is with these latter that we are here chiefly concerned. The former, as their name implies, had as the special object of their existence the protection of some kind of work, trade, or handicraft; and in this, for practical purposes, we may include those associations of traders or merchants known under the name of “Guild-Merchants.” Such, for instance, were the great Companies of the City of London; and it was in reality the plea that they were trading societies, which saved them from the general destruction which overtook all fraternities and associations in the sixteenth century. The division of guilds into the two classes named above is, however, after all, a matter of convenience, rather than a real distinction, grounded on fact. All guilds, no matter for what special purpose they were founded, had the same general characteristic principle of brotherly love and social charity; and no guild, so far as I have been able to discover, was divorced from the ordinary religious observances commonly practised in those days.

In speaking, therefore, of the purposes of what I have called religious or social guilds, I must not be thought to exclude craft or trade guilds. It is very often supposed that, for the most part, what are called religious guilds existed for the purpose of promoting or encouraging some religious practice, such as attendance at church on certain days; taking part in ecclesiastical processions; the recitation of offices and prayers, and the like. Without doubt there were such societies existing in pre-Reformation days, such as, for example, was the great Guild of Corpus Christi, in York, which counted its members by thousands. But such associations were the exception, not the rule. It is really astonishing to find how small a proportion these ecclesiastical or purely religious guilds formed of the whole number of associations known as guilds. The origin of the mistaken notion is obvious.

In mediæval days—that is, in the days when such guilds flourished—the word “religious” had a wider, and in many ways a truer signification than has obtained in later times. Religion was understood to include the exercise of the two commandments of charity—the love of God, and the love of one’s neighbour; and the exercises of practical charity, to which guild brethren were bound by their guild statutes, were considered as much religious practices as the attendance at church, or the taking part in any ecclesiastical procession. In these days, as Mr. Brentano, in his essay On the History and Development of Gilds, has pointed out, most of the objects, to carry out which the guilds existed, would be called Social duties; but then, in mediæval times, they were regarded as objects of Christian charity. “Mutual assistance, the aid of the poor, of the helpless, the sick, of strangers, pilgrims, and prisoners, the burial of the dead, even the keeping of schools and schoolmasters,” and other such-like objects of Christian charity, were held to be “exercises of religion.”

By whichever name we prefer to call them, the character and purpose of these mediæval guilds cannot in reality be misunderstood. Broadly speaking, they were the benefit societies and the provident associations of the Middle Ages. They undertook towards their members the duties now frequently performed by burial clubs, by hospitals, by almshouses, and by guardians of the poor. Not infrequently they are found acting for the public good of the community in the mending of roads and in the repair of bridges. They looked to the private good of their members in the same way that insurance companies to-day compensate for loss by fire or accident. The very reason of their existence was to afford mutual aid, and by timely contributions to meet the pecuniary demands which were constantly arising from burials, legal exactions, penal fines, and all other kinds of payments and compensations. Mr. Toulmin Smith thus defines their object: “The early English guild was an institution of local self-help, which, before the poor-laws were invented, took the place, in old times, of the modern Friendly or Benefit Society, but with a higher aim; while it joined all classes together in the care of the needy and for objects of common welfare, it did not neglect the forms and practice of religion, justice, and morality,” which, it may be added, was indeed the mainspring of their life and action.

“The Guild lands,” writes Mr. Thorold Rogers, “were a very important economical fact in the social condition of early England. The Guilds were the benefit societies of the time, from which impoverished members could be and were aided. It was an age in which the keeping of accounts was common and familiar. Beyond question, the treasurers of the village Guild rendered as accurate an annual statement to the members of their fraternity as a bailiff did to his lord.... It is quite certain that the town and country guilds obviated pauperism in the middle ages, assisted in steadying the price of labour, and formed a permanent centre for those associations which fulfilled the function that in more recent times trade unions have striven to satisfy.”

An examination of the various articles of association contained in the returns made into the Chancery in 1389, and other similar documents, shows how wide was the field of Christian charity covered by these “fraternities.” First and foremost among such works of religion must be reckoned the burial of the dead, regulations as to which are invariably to be found in all the guild statutes. Then came, very generally, provisions for help to the poor, sick, and aged. In some, assistance was to be given to those who were overtaken by misfortune, whose goods had been damaged or destroyed by fire or flood, or had been diminished by loss or robbery; in others, money was found as a loan to such as needed temporary assistance. In the guild at Ludlow, in Shropshire, for instance, “any good girl of the guild had a dowry provided for her if her father was too poor to find one himself.” The “guild-merchant” of Coventry kept a lodging-house with thirteen beds, “to lodge poor folk coming through the land on pilgrimage or other work of charity ... with a keeper of the house and a woman to wash the pilgrims’ feet.” A guild at York found beds and attendance for poor strangers, and the Guild of Holy Cross in Birmingham kept almshouses for the poor in the town. In Hampshire, the guild of St. John at Winchester, which comprised men and women of all sorts and conditions, supported a hospital for the needy and infirm of the city.

Speaking of the poor, Bishop Hobhouse, in his preface to the Somerset churchwardens’ accounts, says—