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

the city was threatened – the monopoly of the sale of cloth claimed by the burgesses, the authority of the town magistrates, the orderly system of administration which the kings were building up, and the interests of the whole body of consumers. A natural apprehension of any danger to the unity of the borough was shown not only in London, but in Winchester, Oxford, Marlborough, Beverley,[278] and possibly in other towns; the weavers were shut out of the franchise and all its privileges, hampered in their trade by all sorts of oppressive regulations, forbidden to buy their tools, or possess any wealth, or sell their goods save to freemen of the city, while the status of villeins and aliens in the city courts was allotted to them. But mere repression left the real evil untouched; and by 1300 the city authorities in London had found a more radical cure. The Mayor had gained the right to preside in the weavers’ court if he chose, and to nominate the wardens of the guild;[279] and no sooner was all danger from an independent rule thus averted than the weavers were granted power to buy and sell “like other free citizens.”[280]

      From this time all independent trade jurisdictions in the towns came to an end.[281] No more charters such as that of the weavers were sold by the crown;[282] and the crafts were presently forced to conciliate the local powers according to their measure of art or cunning – to beg from the municipal government a formal recognition for their association with such limited liberties as the town officers could be induced to give; to secure a more or less precarious existence by the payment of fines to the town treasury;[283] or to wrap round them a solemn conventional disguise, and conceal wholly or in part the fact of their union for trade purposes by sheltering themselves under the form of a religious association, and seeking independence “under a feigned colour of sanctity”[284] as men wholly moved by a zealous care for the souls of their dead comrades but taking no thought for the bodily welfare of living brethren.

      But by whatever means the fraternities hoped to compass liberty, it was in vain that they sought to elude the heavy hand of the municipal government. Trade associations were laid hold of by the boroughs, brought under the discipline and authority of the public magistrates, and forced to take their due part in the developement of the municipal organisation.[285] Towns which obtained a grant to have “all reasonable guilds” took care to maintain a reasonable authority, and craft fraternities were only given leave to exist on the express plea that they were “consonant with reason and redounding to the public honour and to the advantage of the common weal”;[286] while privileges were meted out to them on the distinct understanding of the gain which was to spring from these to the whole commonalty. By a dexterous move on the part of the town governors the officers of the guild were transformed into the officers of the community, and the machinery of the guild became the means by which the public sought to provide for a full and cheap supply of the necessaries of life, and protected itself from overcharges and false measures and bad wares, from uproar and disorder, from drunken workmen, from the flying sparks of the smith’s forge, or the noise of his hammer at night. In London for example there was a constant succession of customers complaining at the Mayor’s Court of the bad bargains they had made in buying cloth, so that the fullers found themselves excessively “hard worked” in appearing at the Guildhall to examine the cloths of discontented buyers, and begged that every one might buy at his own risk.[287]

      The masterly manœuvre executed by the town magistrates is revealed in the self-denying ordinances passed by the later guilds. Crafts “petition,” as we are gravely told, to have masters and ordinances, and these being granted the new rules turn out to be simply regulations to supply wares to the people of a fixed quality and price.[288] We can scarcely believe that the farriers should of their own free will have devised the rule that if any one of them, through negligence or any excess of pride which hindered his asking advice of the craft, failed in curing a horse of sickness, “then he shall be accused thereof before the Mayor and Aldermen and be punished at their discretion, in the way of making restitution for such horse to the person to whom the same belongs.”[289] Nor is it likely that masons and carpenters should have volunteered to take oath before Mayor and Aldermen that they would do their duty in their trade;[290] or that the masons should themselves propose that if a mason failed to fulfil his contract certain men of the trade who acted as his securities should be bound to finish his task.[291] Even the universal rule against night work was never among the London guilds (save in the single instance of the hat-makers)[292] made in the interest of the working-man; but on the contrary was dictated by the sagacious observation of the buyers that “sight is not so profitable by night, or so certain, as by day —to the profit, that is, of the community;”[293] and if spurriers “who compass how to practise deception in their work desire to work by night rather than by day”[294] the reason given for interfering with them was that they wandered about all day idle, and “then when they have become drunk and frantic they take to their work to the annoyance of the sick and all their neighbourhood … and then they blow up their fires so vigorously that their forges begin all at once to blaze … and all the neighbours are much in dread of the sparks which so vigorously issue forth in all directions from the mouths of the chimneys in their forges.”[295] Sunday closing itself was ordered as a matter of public convenience, because apprentices “could not be trusted to carry on work in the absence of their masters at church.”[296]

      In thus bringing the crafts into subjection the towns were greatly strengthened by the sympathy of the State, which was the more inclined to make common cause with them from a growing apprehension of guilds of artificers and other labourers which in troubled times might prove centres of disturbance throughout the country. By a series of statutes the ancient powers of crafts were carefully pruned, and new authority grafted on to the town governments. “Congregations and confederacies” were jealously watched and forbidden.[297] The guilds were ordered to have their charters registered, and their rules and bye-laws approved by the chief magistrates of the town. They were forbidden to make ordinances to the damage of the King or the people. Sometimes jurisdiction over their own members was taken from them; and the right of search for any articles that “be not pure lawful and able chaffers,” or even the duty of seeing that the workers were duly paid their wages in ready money, was handed over to the town officers.[298]

      Thus it came about that by the triple alliance of the officials at Westminster with the governing class of the town and the general body of consumers, all alike bent on organizing industry in their several interests, the primitive free associations of workers were gradually forced into the singular position of deferential servants of the community. Within its own little realm each guild might use a narrow independence or a petty tyranny, but in its public aspect it could assert few pretensions.[299] No craft fraternity could be formed without the leave of the municipality, and every Warden took his oath of office before the Mayor, at whose bidding and subject to whose approval he had been elected.[300] The rules made by any trade for its government had no force till they had been approved by the Mayor and Corporation, enrolled by them on the city records, and sealed with the common seal.[301] And since they reserved the right of making any addition to these ordinances which they might deem necessary,[302] the town magistrates could interfere whenever they chose in the

278

Riley’s Lib. Cus. 130 etc.

279

Ibid. 121, 123. The survival of the weavers’ court may be seen in 1321. In certain cases where the bureller was fined by the Mayor, the weaver was punished by the bailiffs of his own guild. (Ibid. 422-3.)

280

Riley’s Lib. Cus. 423.

281

In 1327 Edward the Third granted a charter to the girdlers of London, which took in all the girdlers of the kingdom, ordered them under the same rules, and set them under the Mayors of whatever city they might be in. (Riley’s Mem. 154-5).

282

Some charters were given by Edward the Fourth and later Kings to companies of Tailors, Merchants, and so on, which gave them an existence independent of the town, and power to make their own ordinances. (See p. 173.) No list has been made out of these companies, and the subject needs investigation. From the cases which I have met with I think it may probably turn out that such charters were generally given to companies with a foreign trade, and given for reasons referring to that trade. The second charter of the Merchant Tailors in 1390 allowed them to make ordinances among themselves and of their own authority. (Clode, 3.) This charter seems to have freed them from the Mayor, but if so they were again put under his control in 1436. (Ibid. 5, see pp. 189-191, 193.) This was followed by a violent attempt in 1442 to have a Mayor of their own company, which failed and caused much anger. It is evident from the charter of Henry the Seventh, in 1502, which confirmed their independence, that they dealt in “all and every kinds of merchandises” “in all quarters and kingdoms of the world.” (Ibid. 7, 195.) By this they were again given full power to make ordinances for themselves without interference, so long as these were not contrary to the laws of the kingdom nor to the prejudice of the Mayor; and the Mayor was wholly deprived of the power of search among their subjects – a most important measure, since the master and wardens “had a great number of householders with their servants to rule and govern.” (Ibid. 197-200.)

283

Though guilds were forbidden in Norwich they existed, doubtless by the payment of annual fines. In the case of the tanners the complaint in 1287 against them was clearly that in case of disputes they “made plaint” to their own aldermen and not to the bailiffs. (Hudson’s Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich (Selden Soc.) p. 13.) The cobblers had apparently an important guild from the money paid; the saddlers, tanners, and fullers had also guilds in 1292. (Ibid. 39, 42, 43.) The King reserved the power of creating guilds, and it was possibly to prevent his exercising it that towns like Norwich and Coventry obtained by charter the right to have no guilds. Such a privilege freed them from the fear of fraternities independent of the municipality, while it left them free to recognise informally associations whose recurring fines were really the tribute paid for existence.

284

Some of those so-called religious, but really trading guilds, have been identified. It is clear that the guild of S. Benedict at Lincoln was a society of traders or merchants, who traded on loans from the common fund, paying back half of the increase they made on it. (English Guilds, 174.) Among other instances see the Guild of S. John Baptist at Hull (Lambert’s Guild Life, 112, etc. 118, 232, 233); Corpus Christi (ibid. 124); Holy Trinity (ibid. 126.) A very curious and interesting account of the formal founding of the Pepperers’ Company as the Fraternity of S. Anthony in the Monastery of Bury, 1345, is given in Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i., xvii. Compare the records given on 8-15. It had become the Grocers’ Company by 1373. The Drapers’ Guild in Shrewsbury was originally the Guild of the Trinity. (Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Guilds, 32.) For other instances see Chapter V. The custom was so common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that it is highly probable that under any stress of difficulty it would have been resorted to in earlier days. The artizans must have been fully aware of the fact disclosed to us by the two forms of summonses for guild returns issued in 1388, one for the religious and one for the trading guilds – the fact that the two forms of association were regarded in a different way by the government. Some guilds are avowedly of a double character. (English Guilds, 126-128, 179-185.)

285

See note A at end of chapter.

286

Riley’s Mem. 627; see also 118, 120-1, 153-4.

287

Riley’s Mem. 341.

288

In the second half of the fourteenth century the London guild ordinances are in the main simply rules against bad or deceitful wares. See the chandlers, curriers and pelterers, cappers, potters, &c. Riley’s Mem. 118, 358; Lib. Cus. 94, 101; goldsmiths, Schanz, i. 613-4.

289

Mem. Lond. 293.

290

Lib. Cus. 100.

291

Mem. Lond. 280-2.

292

Riley’s Liber Custumarum, 101. See the case of the weavers infra p. 160, where the craft tried to shorten hours and the town forbade it.

293

Ordinances of Pewterers. Riley’s Mem. 243. See also glovers and hatters, &c., 239, 246.

294

Ibid. 226.

295

Riley’s Mem. 226-7.

296

Ibid. 218.

297

Annual congregations made by the masons were forbidden by statute of Richard II., continued by later Kings (3 Henry VI., cap. i.). The anxiety of the government was quickened by the number of tilers who took part in the Peasants’ Revolt. (Stubbs, ii. 496.) Cf. The Common Weal (ed. Miss Lamond), 88-9.

298

Statutes of the Realm, 3 Edward IV. cap. 4; ibid. 4 Edward IV. cap. 1. A law of 1410 withdrew from the worsted-weavers and merchants of Norwich the supervision of the cloth trade that had been granted to them in 1348 (Ashley, Woollen Industry, 54-5); and handed over to the mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of Norwich, the right of measuring and sealing all worsteds made in Norwich or Norfolk. (Blomefield, iii. 125.) A later law enacted that “the worsted shearers in Norwich shall make no ordinance but such as the Mayor and Alderman shall think necessary.” (Stat. 1494, cap. xi.) In the fifteenth century the Privy Council took away from the Bakers’ and Tailors’ Crafts in London the right of search in their trades which had been granted to their Wardens, and restored it to the Mayor, and ordered the crafts to obey the Mayor after the old usages, customs, and laws of London. 1442. Proceedings Privy Council, v. 196; Seligman, Med. Guilds, 82; Schanz, i. 617.

299

The mayor and aldermen of London had full jurisdiction over all the various trades quite early in the fourteenth century. Two master-masons were reconciled before the mayor of London in 1298. (Mem. Lond. 38.) For early part of the fourteenth century see ibid. 90, 118, 120, 153-4, 216, 156, 178, 245-6.

300

In “the ordinances of the Hull Guilds from 1490 to 1723 there is no authorization by any but the mayor of the town.” (Lambert’s Guild Life, 188.) For municipal authority over the Shrewsbury Guilds see Hibbert, 40, 85-6. For Norwich, Blomefield, iii. 130.

301

A law of 1413 ordered the registration of charters and approval of ordinances and bye-laws – a law which was repeated by the Statute of Henry VI. to prevent the masters of guilds and fraternities making ordinances to the damage of the King or the people, when it was again decreed that all their rules should be certified and registered by Justices of the Peace or by the chief magistrates of cities or towns. 15 Henry VI., cap. 6. See also 19 Henry VII., cap. 7.

302

English Guilds, 283-286.