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

The probability seems to lie on the side of help given to poor members from the first.

236

The way in which the guilds fought in defence of their voluntary courts of arbitration, and the objection of the towns to these, is in itself proof enough of the importance to their members of a tribunal, however voluntary and arbitrary, which might relieve them from the interference on every occasion of the local magistrates, and the party politics of the town. The advantages of association in case of being called before the greater courts is evident from the account of mediæval procedure given in Sir J. Stephen’s History of the Criminal Law. The illustrations afforded by the Paston Letters are without number. See Manorial Pleas (Selden Soc.), 136. For the heavy cost involved by the corrupt practices of lawyers, judges, pleaders, and attorneys, see the action brought in 1275 by an advocate against an employer who had withdrawn from the case; the advocate sues for his fees and also for having been prevented by the stopping of the case from getting a very large sum of money out of the other side. (Ibid. 155-6.)

237

It was a disgrace to the lord if any of his “livery” appeared in the law courts. The protection extended to the members of a craft was really efficient. See the punishment of a grocer who in 1404 had turned another of the company out of his house. (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. 93.)

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.

257

Riley’s Mem. 247-8, 250-1, 256.

258

Lib. Cus. 84.

259

Riley’s Mem. 495.

260

Mem. Lond. 495-6. The friars from time to time appear as supporters of the poorer people. In Coventry the White Friars was the meeting place for the fellowship of the crafts and for the tilers’ company in the fifteenth century; and Friar John Bredon played the part of a local agitator. The policy of the Friars was often, as in Canterbury,