Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2. Green Alice Stopford

we trace the peculiar characteristics of the mediæval guild as opposed to those of modern associations. From the very outset its society was based on compulsion. Dealer or artizan had no choice as to whether he would join the association of his trade or no, that question being settled by the charter which gave the craft power to compel every workman to enter into its circle. A constitution such as this left a profound mark on the conduct and ultimate policy of every guild, for where there was no real freedom of association there proved at last to be no real freedom of government. Societies such as the modern trade union, created and maintained by the good will of men naturally bound to one another by common occupation and interests, and who expect from their association a common benefit, may long persist as voluntary institutions with a democratic government. But the ancient guild – a fraternity of the whole trade with all its ranks and classes, employers and wage-earners alike, compulsorily bound together into one fellowship as against the world without, and whose common interest in association tended to become more and more visionary – was inevitably driven to preserve by force an artificial and ill-compacted union; and instead of a free self-governing community, there grew up a society ruled by its leading members in a more or less despotic fashion, according to the character of the trade itself and to the support given to its governors by the authorities at Westminster or in the municipality.[238]

      (1) For it is plain that no intimate union can ever have existed between the three orders that practically made up the guild.[239] At the head of the society stood the master and the aldermen or wardens, drawn from among the wealthiest men of the trade; and grouped immediately round them were all those who, after having passed through these offices, retained for life a position of dignity among the members, and from whom the court of assistants or governing council was wholly or partly formed.

      (2) Then came the commonalty, the craft-holders or shopkeepers or “masters” of the trade – a term which by no means necessarily implies employers of labour, but rather artificers admitted into the “mestier”[240] or mistery – who were alone responsible before the law for offences[241] committed in their shops or work-rooms, and were therefore alone authorized by the guild to take work from a customer.[242]

      (3) Last came the hired workers – that is the trained journeymen or serving-men; for the unskilled labourers working for a daily hire and apprentices can scarcely be reckoned as in any sense members of the guild.

      In a society thus constituted the notion of self-government never for a moment implied the modern notion of democracy, or even the idea that authority should be exercised only by the will of the majority. In some fraternities indeed the whole community of craft-masters took part directly in the yearly election of officers, though probably this was the extreme bound and limit of their influence;[243] but in general there was the same tendency in the guilds as in the boroughs to choose their governors by some indirect and complicated system through which the commonalty was kept well in restraint. Either the alderman himself nominated candidates for the various offices, from among whom the select council or fellowship made their choice, or he appointed a few picked men, five or seven or eight as the case might be, to choose the rulers for the next year.[244] In the same way the two or four “sufficient and discreet men” who were to assist the alderman, “the helpmen and overseers,” or the council of eight or twelve or twenty-four, were chosen either by a similar committee, or by the direct choice of the alderman himself “with the aid of his fraternity.”[245] Nor is there any evidence that this method of government by the select few was a growth of later corruption; it is more probable that in societies which could only be founded at the wish of the more prosperous men in the trade, since they alone could undertake to raise the money for its charter or guarantee the payment of its yearly rent, these men were accustomed, in return for their money or as a security for it, to hold the management of the community in their own hands; and this seems confirmed by traces of the system which we find in very early times, as well as by what we know of the origins of later fraternities.

      If the power of the masters was thus limited, the mere journeymen were practically of no account at all in such great matters as election and legislation. Perhaps in some trades they occasionally exercized a slight influence, as in the case of the London bowyers, whose ordinances were agreed to “as well by serving-men as by masters.”[246] But in general it is doubtful whether the voice of the hired worker was ever heard or his will consulted, however much his obedience to the ordinances was required and enforced. It was supposed that his interests were sufficiently protected by the town authorities, to whom an alien who was cheated by his master, a journeyman who found his wages paid on the truck system, or a weaver who saw his labour supplanted by that of a woman or a foreigner, could make his complaint; and who were bound to see that no freeman of the borough took more apprentices into his household than he could promise to support comfortably; that the apprentice was not chastised beyond measure, nor turned out penniless at the end of his service;[247] and that no fraudulent action of his master should rob him of the benefit of the exact tale of the years of service he had fulfilled.[248]

      In all that concerned the hired worker, indeed, law had become so rigid and so detailed by the time that Parliament, the Town Council, and the Craft wardens, had taken their turn at legislation, that it might be plausibly assumed that nothing remained for the discussion of the working man. By a series of statutes Parliament endeavoured to keep the hire of the workers and the length of the working day fixed in spite of the increase of trade;[249] and mayors and bailiffs in all boroughs[250] were ordered to compel labour to keep its allotted times, and to proclaim the wages of craftsmen twice a year, “and that a pair of stocks be in every town to justify the same servants and labourers.”[251] Whatever was left undefined by Parliament was put under rule by the subordinate authorities. Town Councils made provision for the punishment of “rebel and contrarious” men in the mayor’s court, examined and corrected the customs of the crafts, forbade workmen to make their bargains anywhere save openly at the market cross, and fined them if they stood there beyond one day in the week,[252] probably on the supposition that they were holding out for a higher wage or shorter hours. The guild-masters regulated the prices to be paid for piece-work,[253] issued orders allowing work to be done by night, and made rules as to apprenticeship and service.[254] For greater security moreover the masters were accustomed to enter into covenants for mutual protection against their servants – “And if any serving-man shall conduct himself in any other manner than properly towards his master, and act rebelliously towards him,” said the Whittawyers, “no one of the trade shall set him to work until he shall have made amends before the mayor and aldermen.”[255] On the other hand journeymen were invariably bound by oath not to make any sort of confederation among themselves,[256]– a precaution which State and town and guild were equally vigilant in enforcing. Under such a system as this, if at any time the workers proposed to disturb the statute wage or the statute day, they had to contend not only against the upper class of their own craft, the masters and wardens and shopkeepers, but against the governing body of the town, and the opposition of the whole community.

      Neither oaths nor laws nor public opinion however could permanently prevent men from combining to better their position, and from time to time we can follow the fortunes of a struggle which, when the town records are published, will probably be shown to have been very general. In London alone we have during a single century records of strikes among the workmen of four trades – the shearmen, the saddlers, the shoemakers, and the tailors.

      The

238

The grocers in London claimed control over every one who kept a shop of spicery even if he did not wear their livery (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 66); but those who refused the livery were fined. The liveried members paid 2s. 6d. for the dinner, and “every man out of the clothing as us seemed they might bear.” (Ibid. ii. 239, 258.) A list was kept of those who wore the livery, those who wore gowns, and householders and bachelors not in livery. (Ibid. 175-177.)

239

These divisions must be taken in a general sense. Five orders are mentioned among the Merchant Taylors (Clode, 8-9); but these really fall into three main groups. For our present purpose the “Bachelors,” an intermediate rank formed in some of the richer crafts, may be omitted.

240

See Du Cange.

241

Riley’s Mem. Lond. 258. See the case of the London bakers where a special ordinance was needed to make the servants liable to punishment for the grossest frauds in the absence of the masters. (Ibid. 181-2.)

242

If a craftsman not admitted to the freedom of the guild took work, the customer in case of fraud had only the protection of the common law, and could not appeal to the town or guild ordinances. (English Guilds, 322.)

243

From time to time there were protests on the part of the members of the craft against the power of the oligarchy. There was such a case in the London Grocers’ Company, when an attempt was made in 1444 to limit the power of the wardens in appointing new members. (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 123.)

244

English Guilds, 30, 35, 289. Twelve of the discreetest of the smiths at Coventry elected the keepers, and formed the court to try offenders.

245

Lambert’s Guild Life, 113, 129; English Guilds, 156, 159, 162, 217, 160, 169, 31, 164, 167, 318, 445. The weavers’ guild was governed by a council of twenty-four as early as the thirteenth century. (Lib. Cus. 424.) In religious or social guilds there were cases where the election of officers was made by the assent of all the brethren (English Guilds, 47, 49, 148, 213, 232), or “with the assent of the elder part of the brethren and sistern of the guild” (ibid. 150); but the prevailing custom was the appointment of picked men to choose the officers. (English Guilds, 62, 64, 71, 75, 83, 89, 91, 97, 119, 266.) In one case “all the brethren whom the alderman should send for” were to elect officers. (Ibid. 35.) In another the alderman chose two men, the company chose two others, these four chose two more, and the six elected officers. In a later form copied for another craft instead of the “company” the “masters of the guild” chose two men. (Ibid. 276.) In one case a new provost was chosen by the four provosts of the past year. (Ibid. 186.) In the Grocers’ Company the wardens appointed their successors. (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 10, 14, 18.) A similar custom prevailed in the Southampton Guild Merchant.

246

Riley’s Mem. 348. In the Cordwainers’ Guild of Exeter (1481) two of the wardens were chosen from the shop-holders, and two from the journeymen. (English Guilds, 332.) It would seem that among the coruesers of Bristol the journeymen had a certain recognized position, the visible sign of which was their having the right to provide lights carried in the municipal processions at certain feasts; and when in 1454 “divers debates and murmurs had arisen between the masters and crafts of the coruesers and the journeymen,” and the masters and craft-holders sought to deprive the journeymen of this right, the attempt was vigorously and successfully resisted.

247

In Ipswich when a youth in 1448 was apprenticed to a barber for seven years it was stipulated that he should get suitable clothing, shoes, bedding, board, and chastisement. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 259.) At Romney in 1451 it was decreed that at the end of his service the apprentice should receive from his master 10s. or a bed of that value. (Ibid. v. 543). A decree against using daggers or knives or making any affray was limited by the phrase, “provided always that it shall be lawful to any inhabitant to correct his servant or apprentice according to the law.” (English Guilds, 390.) But on the other hand when a master among the tailors at Exeter chastised his servant so far as to bruise his arm and break his head, he had not only to give a fine to the craft but to give the servant 15s. and a month’s board and to pay his doctor. (Ibid. 322.)

248

A master retiring from trade might sell and devise the services of his apprentice to a new master, but if there was any suspicion that a sale had been so managed that the apprentice lost credit for one or two years of the service which he had actually fulfilled both the masters were deprived of the freedom of the city and craft. (Paston Letters, i. 378.)

249

See note A at end of chapter.

250

Statutes 6 Henry VI. cap. 3.

251

Statutes 12 Richard II. cap. 3.

252

English Guilds, 395, 285-6; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 530; Riley’s Mem. Lond. 246.

253

Riley’s Mem. Lond. 307; English Guilds, 285-6. Piece-work was common in many trades. In Newcastle the guild of fullers and dyers in their ordinances of 1477 regulated the price of fulling and shearing the various kinds of cloth by piece-work at so much a yard. The weavers also worked by the piece. The Newcastle slaters had been formed into a guild and had ordinances in 1451 with similar regulations; the bricklayers and plasterers were in a guild in 1454 (Newcastle Guilds). There was piece-work among the tawyers. (Riley’s Mem. Lond. 330-1.) In Winchester the weavers probably worked at from 3d. to 4d. a day, as they were ordered to take from Hallow Eve to the Annunciation for their work but 1s. 6d., and from the Annunciation to Hallow Eve but 2s.

254

In 1265 Leicester weavers were allowed by the guild to weave by night as well as by day. (Gross, ii. 144.)

255

Riley’s Mem. Lond. 232-3. This was true of a great number of trades. (Ibid. 244, 245-7, 258, &c. For Lincoln tailors, English Guilds, 183. Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 20-21.) In this last company public notice was given of a servant who had left his master to prevent his being engaged by another.

256

Hibbert’s Influence of English Guilds, 64.