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 of 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. 3 d., &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, 152d.; to each of whom is given d. Item: the expenses of one other for 5 days, 3 d. 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.1 It has been said that the wardens of guilds were frequently named in medieval 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 Here is the bill for the annual feast in the Guild of Tailors of Winchester in 1411. The association was under the patronage of St. John the Baptist, and they kept their feast on the Day of the beheading of the Saint, August 29. In this year, 1411, the 29th of August fell upon a Saturday, which in medieval times, as all know, was a day of abstinence from fleshmeat. It is to be noticed, consequently, that provision is made for a fish dinner: "6 bushels of wheat at 8d. the bushel; for grinding of the same, 3d.; for baking the same, 6d. ; ready-made bread purchased 12d.; beer, 7s. Id. salt fish bought of Walter Oakfield, 6s. 8d.; mullet, bass, ray, and fresh conger bought of the same Walter, 6s. 8d.; fresh salmon of the same, 8s. ; eels, 10d.; fresh fish bought of John Wheller, ' fisher,' 2s. ; ditto, of Adam Frost, 9s.; ditto, bought of a stranger, 2s. 8d.; beans purchased, 9d.; divers spices, i.e., saffron, cinnamon, sanders, 121d. ; salt, 2d. ; mustard, 24d.; vinegar, Id.; tallow, 2d.; wood, 18d.; coals, 31d.; paid to Philip the cook, 2s.; to four labourers, 2s. 6d. ; to three minstrels, 3s. 4d.; for rushes to strew the hall, 4d.; three gallons and one pint of wine, 19d.; cheese, 8d." Making in all a total of £3 4s. 33d. This, no doubt, represented a large sum in those days, but it is as well to remember that at this time the guild consisted of 170 men and women, and the cost of the feast was not one-sixth part of the annual income. 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, 991 The example set by this donor to the Candlemas Guild at Bury was followed by many others in the later part of the fifteenth century. For instance, a "gentlewoman," as 1 Harl. MS. 4626, f. 26. she calls herself, one Margaret Odom, after providing by will for the usual obit and for a lamp to burn before "the holie sacrament in St. James's Church," desires that the brethren of the guild shall devote the residue of the income arising from certain houses and lands she has conveyed to their keeping, to paying a priest to "say mass in the chapel of the gaol before the prisoners there, and giving them holy water and holy bread on all Sundays, and to give to the prisoners of the long ward of the said gaol every week seven faggots of wood from Hallowmass (November 1) to Easter Day." Intimately connected with the subject of the guilds is that of the fairs, which formed so great a feature in mediæval commercial life, and at which the craft guilds were represented. For the south of England, the great fair held annually at Winchester became the centre of our national commerce with France. The following account of it is given in Mr. W. J. Ashley's most interesting Introduction to English Economic History: "A fair for three days on the eastern hill outside Winchester was granted to the Bishop by William II.; his immediate successors granted extension of time, until by a charter of Henry II. it was fixed at sixteen days, from 31st August to 15th September. On the morning of 31st August the justiciars of the pavilion of the bishop' proclaimed the fair on the hilltop, then rode on horseback through the city proclaiming the opening of the fair. The keys of the city and the weighing machine in the wool market were taken possession of, and a special mayor and special bailiffs were appointed to supersede the city officials during the fair time. The hilltop was quickly covered with streets of wooden shops: in one, the merchants from Flanders; in another, those of Caen or some other Norman town; in another, the merchants from Bristol. Here were placed the goldsmiths in a row, and there the 1 Ibid., f. 29. This was confiscated to the Crown on the dissolution of the Guilds and Fraternities under Edward VI. |