have been considered a work of religion, and the fitting object of a religious guild.

It would be tedious to multiply examples of the purposes and scope of the old fraternities, and it is sufficient to repeat that there was hardly any kind of social service which in some form or other was not provided for by these voluntary associations. As an illustration of the working of a trade or craft guild, we may take that of the "Pinners" of the city of London, the register of which, dating from A.D. 1464, is now in the British Museum.1 These are some of the chief articles approved for the guild by the Mayor and Corporation of the city of London: (1) No foreigner to be allowed to keep a shop for the sale of pins. (2) No foreigner to take to the making of pins without undergoing previous examinations and receiving the approval of the guild officers. (3) No master to receive another master's workman. (4) If a servant or workman who has served his master faithfully fall sick he shall be kept by the craft. (5) Power to the craft to expel those who do ill and bring discredit upon it. (6) Work at the craft at nights, on Saturdays, and on the eves of feasts is strictly prohibited. (7) Sunday closing is rigidly enforced.

It is curious to find, four hundred years ago, so many of the principles set down as established, for which in our days trades unions and similar societies are now contending. It has been remarked above, that even in the case of craft guilds, such as this Society of Pinners undoubtedly was, many of the ordinary purposes of the religious guilds were looked to equally with the more obvious object of protecting the special trade or handicraft of the specific society. The accounts of this Pinners' Guild fully bear out this view. For example: We have the funeral services for departed brethren, and the usual trentals, or thirty masses, for deceased members. Then we find: "4d. to the wax chandlers' man for setting up of our lights

Egerton MS., 142.

at St. James." One of the members, William Clarke, borrowed 5s. 1od. from the common chest, to secure which he placed a gold ring in pledge. There are also numerous payments for singers at the services held on the feast days of the guild, and for banners and other hangings for processions.

Of payments for the specific ends of the guild there are, of course, plenty of examples. For instance: spurious

pins and "other ware are searched for and burnt by the craft officers, and this at such distances from London as Salisbury and the fair at Stourbridge, near Cambridge, the great market for East Anglia and the centre of the Flanders trade. "William Mitchell is paid 8d. for pins for the sisters, on Saint James' day." In 1466, a man is fined 2s. for setting a child to work before he had been fully apprenticed; and also another had to pay 2s. for working after seven o'clock on a winter night. Later on in the accounts we have a man mulcted for keeping a shop before he was a "freeman" of the society, and another "for that he sold Flaundres pynnes for English pynnes." At another time, a large consignment of no less than 12,000 "6 pynnes of ware were forfeited to the craft, and sold by them for 8s., which went to the common fund. These accounts show also the gradual rise in importance and prosperity which the Pinners' Guild, under the patronage of St. James, manifested. At first, the warden and brethren at their yearly visit to Westminster were content to hire an ordinary barge upon the Thames, but after a few years they had started "a keverid boote" of their own at the cost of half-a-crown, in place of the sixpence formerly paid. So, too, in the early days of their incorporation they had their annual dinner and audited their accounts at some London tavern-the "Mayremayde in Bread Street' and "the brew house atte the Sygne of the Rose in Old Jury" are two of the places named. Later on they met in some hall belonging to another guild, such as the "Armourers'" Hall, and later still they built their own

Guild Hall and held their banquet there. This building made a great demand upon their capital, and the officers evidently began to look more carefully after the exaction of fines. For late working at this time one of the brethren was mulcted in the sum of twenty pence: another was fined twopence for coming late to the guild mass, and several others had to pay for neglecting to attend the meeting. From the period of starting their own hall, illfortune seems to have attended the society. About the year 1499, they got involved in a great lawsuit with one Thomas Hill, upon which was expended a large sum of money. A special whip was made to meet expenses and keep up the credit of the guild; for what with counsel's fees, the writing of bills, and the drawing of pleas, the general fund was unable to find the necessary munitions of war to continue the suit. To the credit of the members, most of them apparently responded generously to this call, and, in consequence of this unfortunate litigation, to many subsequent demands which the empty exchequer necessitated.

There would be no difficulty whatever in multiplying the foregoing illustrations of the working of the mediaval societies. The actual account books of course furnish us with the most accurate knowledge, even to minute details, and any one of them would afford ample material.

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 is. 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.1 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

The existence of which I know from Mr. Francis Joseph Baigent, who with his usual generosity allowed me to examine and take my notes from the copies which he has among his great collection of materials for the history of Hampshrie.

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.1

One expense, very common in these medieval 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

1 One example of this latter, or as I might call it, ordinary expense of the society, is worth recording. In 1411, and subsequent years, an annual payment of 13s. 4d. is entered on the accounts as made to one Thomas Deverosse, a tailor, and apparently a member of the fraternity. The history of this man's poverty is curious. When Bishop William of Wykeham, desiring to build Winchester College, purchased certain lands for the purpose, amongst the rest was a field which a tailor of Winchester, this Thomas Deverosse, subsequently claimed; and to make good his contention, brought a suit of ejectment against the Bishop. The case was tried in the King's Bench, and the tailor not only lost, but was cast in costs and so ruined. With some writers, William of Wykeham's good name had been allowed to suffer most unjustly for his share in the misfortunes of the unlucky tailor; for the Bishop not only undertook to pay the costs of the suit himself, but agreed that the college should make the unfortunate claimant a yearly allowance of 8d. to assist him in his poverty. The Tailors' Guild secured to him a pension of 135. 4d.