No brother exercising the crafts or mysteries of a Barber or Peruke-maker shall upon the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, either out or in time of divine service, work, or keep open his shop, on pain to forfeit for every time he shall be found so doing the sum of ten shillings.
Again, it is interesting to find that ‘Sunday Closing’ was provided for in the following regulation:—
No Vintner or Aleseller shall sell any ale or wine unto any one before 11 o’clock on Sunday, unless to strangers, under penalty of vjs. viijd.
Most interesting of all the thirty-eight Craft Gilds of Beverley is that of the Minstrels. The charter of this Gild was confirmed by ‘the gracious goodness of our most virtuous sovereign Lord and Lady, King Philip and Queen Mary,’ and is said to date ‘from the time of King Aethelstan, of famous memory.’
The Beverley Minstrels.
In 1520 the tower of St. Mary’s Church, Beverley, fell, and destroyed in its fall the greater part of the nave of the church. Various families of the town undertook the rebuilding of some portion of this, and one portion—the north-east pillar and the wall and roof above it—was rebuilt at the expense of the Gild of the Minstrels. This fact is recorded on a tablet placed high up on the pillar, where may be read these words:—
THYS PYLLOR
MADE THE