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THE INFLUENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH GILDS.
London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.
LEIPZIG: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN AND CO.
Cambridge Historical Essays. No. V.
THE INFLUENCE AND DEVELOPMENT
OF ENGLISH GILDS:
AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF
THE CRAFT GILDS OF SHREWSBURY.
BY FRANCIS AIDAN HIBBERT, B.A.,
OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE;
ASSISTANT MASTER IN DENSTONE COLLEGE.
_THIRLWALL DISSERTATION_, 1891.
Cambridge:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
1891
[_All Rights reserved._]
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
_TO THE REV. D. EDWARDES, M.A.,
HEAD MASTER OF DENSTONE,
IN REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH KINDNESS
AND ENCOURAGEMENT._
PREFACE.
I should explain that, in the present Essay, I have restricted myself to
associations which had for their object the regulation of trade. Frith
Gilds and Religious or Social Gilds have received only passing notice.
The Merchant Gild is too wide a subject to be treated in an Essay such as
this. Moreover the records of the Shrewsbury Merchant Gild are too meagre
to afford much information, and I would therefore have gladly passed over
the whole question in silence but that without some notice of it the Essay
would have seemed incomplete.
My attention has thus been concentrated on the Craft Gilds, and on the
later companies which arose out of these.
It is greatly to be regretted that we have no work on Gilds which deals
with the subject from an English point of view, and traces the development
of these pre-eminently English institutions according to its progress on
English soil.
The value of Dr Brentano's extremely able Essay is very largely
diminished, for Englishmen, not only because he is continually attempting
to trace undue analogies between the Gilds and Trades Unions, but still
more because he has failed to appreciate the spirit which animated English
Merchants and Craftsmen in their relations with one another, and so has
missed the line of Gild development in England. If he had not confined his
attention, so far as English Gilds are concerned, solely to the London
Companies he could hardly have failed to discover his mistake.
Something has been done to set the facts of the case in a clearer light by
Dr Cunningham briefly in his _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_[1].
But it is to be feared that Mr J. R. Green's _History_ is so deservedly
popular, and Mr George Howell's _Conflicts of Capital and Labour_ is so
otherwise reliable, that views differing from those which these writers
set forward--following Dr Brentano as it appears--stand little chance of
being generally known.
Great as is the weight which must attach to such important authorities, I
have endeavoured--by looking at the facts in my materials from an
independent standpoint--to avoid being unduly influenced by their
conclusions, or by a desire to find analogies where none exist.
The materials from which I have worked call for but little description.
They are simply the records of the Shrewsbury Gilds--either in their
original form as preserved in the town Museum and Library, or as printed
in the Shropshire Archaeological Society's _Transactions_.
Though my view has been thus confined it has been kept purposely so.
English local history is its own best interpreter, and although in some
instances the documents have required illustrating and supplementing from
extraneous sources, these occasions have been few. At the same time I have
not omitted to notice how the effects of national events were felt in
provincial changes, and I have especially striven to point out how the
Shrewsbury records bear upon the various theories which have been put
forward respecting Gilds. Writing thus in a historical rather than an
antiquarian spirit I have not considered it necessary to overburden the
pages with needless footnotes referring repeatedly simply to the records
of the Shrewsbury Gilds.
_October, 1890._
NOTE.--_The Gild Merchant_, by Charles Gross, Ph.D. (Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1890), appeared after the above had been written and the Essay sent
in. I have since had the advantage of reading it. The general conclusions
at which the writer arrives are so similar to those I had already formed,
that I have not found it necessary to alter what I had written. I have
however to some extent made use of the material he has brought together in
Vol. II., chiefly by way of strengthening the authorities in the footnotes
to which reference is made in the text.
EXTRACT FROM THE REGULATIONS FOR THE THIRLWALL PRIZE.
"There shall be established in the University a prize, called the
'Thirlwall Prize,' to be awarded for dissertations involving original
historical research."
"The prize shall be open to members of the University who, at the time
when their dissertations are sent in, have been admitted to a degree, and
are of not more than four years' standing from admission to their first
degree."
"Those dissertations which the adjudicators declare to be deserving of
publication shall be published by the University singly or in combination,
in an uniform series, at the expense of the fund, under such conditions as
the Syndics of the University Press shall from time to time determine."
CONTENTS.
PAGES
CHAPTER I.
Introductory 1-6
CHAPTER II.
The Merchant Gild 7-29
Note 1. Chronological Table of Merchant Gilds 24-28
Note 2. List of Trades and Professions 28-29
CHAPTER III.
The Craft Gilds 30-54
Note 1. Indenture of Apprenticeship (1414) 52-53
Note 2. Oath of Freemen 53-54
CHAPTER IV.
The Early History of the Gilds 55-76
CHAPTER V.
Reconstruction of the Gild System 77-97
CHAPTER VI.
The Degeneracy of the Companies 98-112
CHAPTER VII.
Shrewsbury Show 113-127
CHAPTER VIII.
The End of the Companies 128-144
Appendix I. Non-Gildated Tradesmen 145-156
Appendix II. Authorities cited 157-159
Index 160-168
NOTE.
On page 26 Liverpool should be inserted. The charter was granted in 1229,
by the king.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
[Sidenote: _Local life in England always varied._]
In these days of convenience and easy transit, when distance has been
annihilated by the telegraph wire and the express train, we can hardly
realise, even with an effort, the extent to which such changes have
revolutionised the social life of Englishmen. Of local sentiment there can
be now but little, yet local sentiment has played a greater part in our
history than perhaps any other motive. The England of to-day is little
more than a great suburb of its capital. Yet it is a peculiar feature of
the England of the past that its local life was always singularly varied,
not only in the Middle Ages but down to quite recent times. Indeed the
characteristic is still more than traceable in some of our less busy
districts.
In the past, too, some parts possessed the feature in a more marked degree
than others. We should naturally expect that few towns would have a
stronger infusion of local feeling than Shrewsbury. Through all its
history it has indeed been marked by strong individuality.
[Sidenote: _Early growth of Shrewsbury._]
Situated in the midst of the Marches of Wales, the centre round which long
waged the struggle for the fair lands westward of the Severn, its strong
walls and insular position soon gave it a marked commercial superiority
over the surrounding country. In consequence we find Shrewsbury at an
early date considerably more advanced than the unprotected land outside,
which lay open to the ravages of the Welsh. This condition of affairs, the
reverse of favourable for commercial advancement, continued to depress the
neighbourhood after Edward the First's conquest of the Principality, for
the disorders of the Lords Marchers kept the Borders in a state of
continual alarm, and prevented the inhabitants from settling down to any
regular and profitable industry[2].
Henry IV. on the death of Glendower effected the reconquest of Wales, and
enacted severe laws against the inhabitants. The only result was, however,
the organisation of robber bands whose definite object was to plunder and
harass more completely their English neighbours. The evil became so
intolerable that a special court had to be erected to remove it, and in
1478 was formed the Court of the President and Marches of Wales.
By dint of powers of summary jurisdiction over disturbers of the public
peace, a diminution was effected in the disorders, and the border lands
were able to participate in the increase of trade which was such a marked
feature of the fourteenth century. In spite of the temporary shock given
to industry by the Reformation, the district had, by the latter part of
the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, quite
recovered from the Welsh ravages, and its prosperity at this time was very
remarkable.
The fertility of the district brought wealth to the market towns, and
provided a wide area of comfortable purchasers for the products of their
industries. The expansion of the Welsh cloth trade gave rise to a twofold
struggle. There was firstly a strenuous effort of the border towns to keep
it to themselves, and secondly a private quarrel as to which of them
should engross the market. Shrewsbury eventually secured the monopoly
after an arduous contest, and the importance of the town was thus
considerably enhanced.
[Sidenote: _Its later prosperity._]
The internal history of its Gilds will show how peculiarly the state of
Shrewsbury illustrates the period of quiet prosperity before the
introduction of machinery broke in upon the comfortable life of provincial
England.
The county towns then possessed an importance of which they have since
been shorn by various causes[3]. Each was the capital of its district,
filling the part of a distant metropolis to which neither the country
gentleman nor the wealthy burgess could expect to go more than once or
twice in a lifetime. Shrewsbury, in particular, was possessed of features
which serve not only to make it especially typical of the social habits of
the period, but which at the same time give it an interest exceptionally
its own[4].
[Sidenote: _Its stationary condition in recent times._]
And when the introduction of machinery transformed the face of England to
such a large extent, the changes which it brought to Shrewsbury were
extremely slight. Local life was strong. The town was slow to accommodate
itself to new conditions of industry. Its Gilds and companies maintained
their vigour to the end. Their yearly pageant continued to our own day.
The timbered houses which the substantial tradesmen built in the days of
their prosperity are still, many of them, standing. The streets of the
town have been only gradually altered and improved. They still follow the
old lines, often inconvenient, but always interesting: they still are
called by their old names, full of confusion to the stranger, full of
significance to the student.
[Sidenote: _Importance of history of its Gilds._]
[Sidenote: _Their quiet development._]
Shrewsbury, then, exhibits a character eminently its own, from whatever
point we view its history. But it is a distinction of similarity rather
than the prominence of singularity. The progress of the town has gone on
quietly and calmly, seldom interrupted and never forced. The history of
its Gilds must of necessity present similar features. It will be a record
of silent development, often leaving few traces, yet not the less evident
to careful observation.
[Sidenote: _Peculiarities._]
But it is also a history in studying which we must be particularly on our
guard against being led astray by the analogy of similar institutions in
other parts of England or on the Continent. The desire to arrive at, or to
conform to, general conclusions often blinds writers to the fact to which
we have already drawn attention, namely, that local life in England was
always varied; that each town and district had its own strongly-marked
peculiarities. Bearing this in mind, deviations--apparent or real--from
the ordinary course of Gild history will cause us no surprise. The
shearmen's maypole quarrel[5] with the bailiffs is almost the only trace
of serious conflict at Shrewsbury between the municipal authorities[6] and
the companies until the seventeenth century. There are no signs of the
rise of Yeomen Gilds[7] in earlier or later years, though evidence in
plenty is found of the complete disregard shown by the masters for the
interests of the journeymen[8]. On the other hand, so far from the Court
of Assistants being a late creation we meet with it at Shrewsbury very
early in Gild history.
[Sidenote: _Especial points of value._]
It will also be a record rich in illustrations of contemporary social
life[9]. The closeness of relationship between religion and the ordinary
business pursuits of the mediaeval burgess; the wide public influence
exercised by the Gilds in their earlier years, and the remarkable family
feeling they maintained within the boundaries of the old towns even down
to the time when the companies had become utterly demoralised, will be
exemplified not less remarkably than the continuity of the Gild sentiment
through the shocks of the Reformation period, through the economic changes
of Elizabeth, and even (in some sort) through the Reforms of 1835.
It is a history too which will help us to understand a problem of
considerable difficulty. We shall not only see the degenerated societies
of capitalists in full vigour down to the date of their enforced
termination as trading companies, but we shall also be enabled to perceive
how it was that they managed to retain their prejudicial and antiquated
privileges to the very end of their existence.
It is indeed in the light which their history throws on the conditions of
provincial trade and the social customs of an ordinary provincial town
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that its special
importance lies. The rapid progress which marked the commencement of that
period, not less than the torpor and decay which characterised the
corporate towns at its close will be found to be eminently exemplified in
the history of the Shrewsbury Gilds.