The funds at the disposal of the guilds were derived chiefly from voluntary subscriptions, entrance fees, gifts, and legacies of members. Frequently these societies became in process of time the trustees of lands and houses which they either held and administered for the purposes of the guilds, or for some specific purpose determined by the will of the original donor. Thus, to take one or two examples from the account rolls of the Guild of Tailors in the city of Winchester. In the time of King Richard II.—say 1392—the usual entrance fee for members was 3s. 4d., and the annual subscription was 1s. There were 106 members at that time, seven of whom had been enrolled during the previous year. Among others who had thus entered was one Thomas Warener, or Warner, a cousin of Bishop William of Wykeham, and the Bishop’s bailiff of the Soke; his payment was 4s. 8d. instead of the usual entrance fee. In the same year we find the names of Thomas Hampton, lord of the manor of Stoke Charity, and Thomas Marleburgh, who was afterwards Mayor of Winchester. In the following year, seventeen new members were enrolled, one of them being a baker of Southampton, called Dunster. Turning over these accounts, we come upon examples of presents either in kind or money made to the society. Thus in one place Thomas Marleburgh makes a present of a hooded garment which was subsequently sold for eighteen pence; and in another, one Maurice John Cantelaw presented for the service of the guild, “a chalice and twelve pence in counted money,” requesting the members “to pray for his good estate, for the souls of his parents, friends, benefactors, and others for whom he was bound to pray.” In return for this valuable present, the guild granted that it should be accounted as Cantelaw’s life-subscription.
Having spoken of the sources of income, which were practically the same in all guilds, something must be said as to the expenditure over and above the purposes for which the guilds existed. This may be illustrated from the accounts of this same fraternity of tailors of Winchester.[342] In the first place, as in almost every similar society, provision was made for the funerals of members and for the usual daily mass for thirty days after the death of the deceased members. The sum set down is 2s. 6d. for each trental of thirty masses. Then we find mention of alms to the poor and sick; thus in 1403, the sum of 36s., about one-tenth of the annual revenue, was spent upon this object. This, of course, was charity of a general kind, and wholly unconnected with the assistance given by rule to necessitous members of the guild.[343]
One expense, very common in these mediæval guilds, was the preparation for taking a fitting part in the great annual religious pageant or procession on Corpus Christi day. In the case of this Tailors’ Guild at Winchester, we find sums of money charged for making wax torches and ornamenting them with flowers and red and blue wax, with card shields and parchment streamers, or “pencils,” as they are called. The members of the guild apparently carried small tapers; but the four great torches were borne by hired men, who received a shilling each for their trouble. It is somewhat difficult for us nowadays to understand the importance attached to these great ecclesiastical pageants by our ancestors four hundred years or so ago. But as to the fact, there can be no doubt. Among the documents in the municipal archives of Winchester there exists an order of the Mayor and Corporation as to the disposition of this solemn procession in 1435. It runs thus: “At a convocation holden in the city of Winchester the Friday next after the Feast of Corpus Christi in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Harry the Sixth, after the conquest; it was ordained by Richard Salter, mayor of the city of Winchester, John Symer and Harry Putt, bailiffs of the city aforesaid, and also by all the citizens and commonalty of the same city: It is agreed of a certain general procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi, of divers artificers and crafts within the said city: that is to say the carpenters and felters shall go together first; smiths and barbers, second; cooks and butchers, third; shoemakers with two lights, fourth; tanners and japanners, fifth; plumers and silkmen, sixth; fishers and farriers, seventh; taverners, eighth; weavers, with two lights, ninth; fullers, with two lights, tenth; dyers, with two lights, eleventh; chaundlers and brewers, twelfth; mercers, with two lights, thirteenth; the wives with one light and John Blake with another light, fourteenth; and all these lights shall be borne orderly before the said procession before the priests of the city. And the four lights of the brethren of St. John’s shall be borne about the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the same day in the procession aforesaid.”
The brethren of St. John’s just named, as the chief object of their association, kept a hospital for the poor and sick in the city. They paid a chaplain of their own, as indeed did most of the guilds, and had a master and matron to look after the comfort of the poor. They provided bed and bedding, and carefully administered not only their own subscriptions, but the sums of money freely bequeathed to them to be spent on charity. At every market held within the precincts of Winchester an officer, paid by the society, attended and claimed for the support of the poor a tax of two handfuls of corn from every sack exposed for sale. The mayor and bailiffs were apparently the official custodians of this guild, and numerous legacies in wills, even in the reign of Henry VIII., attest its popularity. For example, on February 19, 1503, John Cornishe, alias Putte, late Mayor of Winchester, died and left to the guardians his tenements and gardens under the penthouse in the city for the charity, on condition that for ten years they would spend 6s. 8d. in keeping his annual obit. In 1520, a draper of London, named Calley, bequeathed ten shillings to the hospital for annually repairing and improving the bedding of the poor. The accounts of this Fraternity of St. John’s Hospital for a considerable period in the fourteenth century are still in existence. They show large receipts, sometimes amounting to over £100, from lands, shops, houses, and from the sale of cattle and farm produce, over and above the annual subscriptions of members. On the other side, week by week we have the payments for food provided for the service of the poor: fish, flesh, beer, and bread are the chief items. One year, for instance, the bread bought for the sick amounted to 36s. 6d.; beer to 36s. 8d.; meat to 32s. 2d.; fish to 28s. 3½d., &c. Besides this seven shillings were expended in mustard, and 3s. 6d. for six gallons of oil. This same year the guardians also paid 2s. 2d. for the clothes and shoes for a young woman named Sibil “who nursed the poor in the hospital.” The above represents only the actual money expended over the sick patients, and from the same source, most minute and curious information might be added as to the other expenses of the house, including, for instance, even the purchase of grave-clothes and coffins for the dead poor, the wages and clothing of the matron and servant, and the payment of the officer who collected the handfuls of corn in the market-place. At times we have evidence of the arrival and care of strange poor people—we should perhaps call them “tramps” in our day. For instance, here is one heading: “The expenses of three poor strangers in the hospital for 21 days and nights, 15¾d.; to each of whom is given ¾d. Item: the expenses of one other for 5 days, 3¾d. Item: the expenses of the burial of the said sick person, 3d. Item: the expenses of four pilgrims lodged for a night, 2d. Item: new straw to stuff the beds of the sick, 8d. Item: paid to the laundress for washing the clothes of the sick during one year, 12d.”
To speak of guilds without making any mention of the feasts—the social meetings—which are invariably associated with such societies, would be impossible. The great banquets of the city companies are proverbial, and, in origin at least, they arose out of the guild meeting for the election of officers, followed by the guild feast. As a rule, these meetings took place on the day on which the Church celebrated the memory of the Saint who had been chosen as patron of the society, and were probably much like the club dinners which are still cherished features of village life in many parts of England.[344]
It has been said that the wardens of guilds were frequently named in mediæval wills as trustees of money for various charitable purposes. As an example of property thus left to a guild, take the Candlemas Guild, established at Bury St. Edmunds: the society was established in the year 1471, and a few years later one of the members made over to the brethren considerable property for the common purposes of the guild and other specified objects. His name was John Smith, a merchant of Bury, and he died, we are told, on “St. Peter’s even at Midsummer, 1481.” His will, which is witnessed by the Abbot and Prior of St. Edmund’s Abbey, provides, in the first place, for the keeping of an obit “devoutly.” The residue of the income was to accumulate till the appointment of each new abbot, when, on the election, the entire amount was to be paid over to the elect in place of the sum of money the town was bound to pay on every such occasion. Whatever remained over and above this was to be devoted to the payments of any tenth, fifteenth, or other tax, imposed upon the citizens by royal authority. This revenue was to be administered by the guardians of the guild, who were bound at the yearly meeting at Candlemas to render an account of their stewardship. 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 about the town the crier was sent to recite the following 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 town are bound to do the same,