The narrative which follows can be filled in by reference to the “Account of the Worshipful Company of Skinners of London,” which was published by my regretted friend and colleague, the late James Foster Wadmore, A.R.I.B.A., while this Paper was in course of preparation. He had then recently completed fifty years of service in the Court of the Company, of which he was for several years the senior member, but survived the publication only a few months.
An Old City Company.
THE corporate name of the Company is “The Master and Wardens of the Guild or Fraternity of the Body of Christ of the Skinners of London.” The association with the feast of Corpus Christi, held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, goes back to the earliest days of the Company, and the annual Corpus Christi procession and feast of the Company are referred to and expressly sanctioned by the Charter of 1392—16 Ric. II. When the name is Latinized, the word “Pelliparii” serves as the equivalent of Skinners.
The Arms of the Company date from 4 Edw. VI., and are as follows:—The Shield—Ermine, on a chief gules, three ducal coronets or, capped of the field and tasselled gold. The Crest—a lizard (Lynx) statant proper, gorged with a wreath, leaved vert, purffled or. The Supporters—Dexter, a lizard proper; Sinister, a martin sable; each gorged with a wreath, leaved vert. Motto—“To God only be all Glory.” Down to the seventeenth century “In Christo Fratres” was used.
The date of the first establishment of this Company is unknown, but it was certainly long prior to the year 1327—1 Edw. III—when the first Royal Charter was granted to “Our beloved men of the City of London called Skynners.” Later charters were granted from time to time, but it is not necessary to refer to them here. The Company also holds an unlimited license in mortmain. The earlier of the City Companies, such as the Weavers, Saddlers, and others, claim to have had their beginning in Saxon times. Whether the same is true of the Skinners, it is now impossible to say, but at all events the grant of the charter constituted a Royal recognition of what was already a voluntarily existing fraternity.
An old book in the possession of the Company, written on vellum and illuminated, which dates from the end of the fifteenth century, contains a list of names of the “Founders and Bretherne and Susterne of the fraternity of Corpus Christi founded by the Worshipful Fellowship of Skynners of the Citee of London, that is to wit.”—
King Edward the III.