(Continued from p. 76.)
Chapter XXXIV.—Gilds of Middlesex.
THE Gilds of this county were chiefly, but not entirely, centred in the capital.
London.—In Chapter xiv. I have given an account of a Gild which existed in this City during the Anglo-Saxon period (A.D. 827-1013). It probably had many predecessors during the Roman occupation, but of these no sufficient details have come down to us.
I now propose to give some account of other Gilds in the City, naming them generally in the order of their supposed establishment. I do not here include the 89 gilds, which took the shape of City Companies for the regulation of trades, &c., of which 12 were known as the Great Companies, and 77 as the Minor Companies; while of these latter many have altogether died out. Concerning such of these as now remain ample details are available: as to the great Companies, in Herbert’s well-known History; and as to the others, in the newly-issued Report of the Royal Commission into the Livery Companies of the City of London.
Gild of Parish Clerks.—Amongst the Minor Companies was the Gild of St. Nicholas, founded in the reign of Henry III. (13th century), which afterwards rendered important services to the City, by preparing the “Bills of Mortality,” from which the appearance of the Plague became manifest, and its progress in fatality recorded. These parish clerks (who were anciently poor real clerks, i.e., clergy) formed a Gild, or fraternity, and so excelled in church music that ladies and men of quality on this account became members, and on certain days they had public feasts, celebrated with singing and music. Upon working days they attended the schools. Their ancient duty at church was to assist the priest at the altar, sing with him, and read the Epistles.
Gild of the Glovers, founded 1354.—This was a purely secular Gild. The Ordinances now before us purport to be made by the masters and keepers [or wardens] of the Craft of Glovers in the City of London, and the bretheren. The following is a brief abstract only, for the Ordinances themselves are very full and extended:
(1) Every brother shall pay sixteen pence a year, by quarterly payments, towards providing two wax tapers to burn at the high altar of the Chapel of our Lady, in the new Church-haw beside London, and also to the poor of the fraternity who well and truly have paid their quarterage as long as they could.
(2) If any brother be behind of payment of his quarterage by a month after the end of any quarter he shall pay 16 pence, that is to say, 8d. to the old work of the Church of St. Paul of London, and the other 8d. to the box of the fraternitie. Also, as often as any brother be not obedient to the summons of the wardens, or be not present in the “heveyns that folk be dead,” and in offering at the funeral of a brother, and in attendance at church with the fraternitie on the feasts of the Annunciation and Assumption, and others, he shall pay 16 pence in like manner.
(3) Every brother shall come to Placebo and Dirige in the “hevenys of dead folk” in suit or livery of the fraternitie of the year past, and on the morrow to mass, and there offer, in his new livery or suit, upon pain of 16 pence.