The Eve of the Reformation

To relieve the Reformation from the odious charge that it was responsible for the poor-laws, many authors have declared that not only did poverty largely exist before, say, the dissolution of the monastic houses, but that it would not long have been possible for the ancient methods of relieving the distressed to cope with the increase in their numbers under the changed circumstances of the sixteenth century. It is of course possible to deal with broad assertions only by the production of a mass of details, which is, under the present circumstances, out of the question, or by assertions equally broad, and I remark that there is no evidence of any change of circumstances, so far as such changes appear in history, which could not have been fully met by the application of the old principles, and met in a way which would never have induced the degree of distressing pauperism which, in fact, was produced by the application of the social principles adopted at the Reformation. The underlying idea of these latter was property in the sense of absolute ownership in place of the older and more Christian idea of property in the sense of stewardship.

Most certainly the result was not calculated to improve the condition of the poorer members of the community. It was they who were made to pay, whilst their betters pocketed the price. The well-to-do classes, in the process, became richer and more prosperous, whilst the “masses” became, as an old writer has it, “mere stark beggars.” As a fact, moreover, poverty became rampant, as we should have expected, immediately upon the great confiscations of land and other property at the dissolution of the religious houses. To take one example: Dr. Sharpe’s knowledge of the records of the city of London enables him to say that “the sudden closing of these institutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor.”

“The devil,” exclaims a preacher who lived through all these troublous times – “the devil cunningly turneth things his own way.” “Examples of this we have seen in our time more than I can have leisure to express or to rehearse. In the Acts of Parliament that we have had made in our days what godly preambles hath gone afore the same; even quasi oraculum Apollinis, as though the things that follow had come from the counsel of the highest in heaven; and yet the end hath been either to destroy abbeys or chauntries or colleges, or such like, by the which some have gotten much land, and have been made men of great possessions. But many an honest poor man hath been undone by it, and an innumerable multitude hath perished for default and lack of sustenance. And this misery hath long continued, and hath not yet (1556) an end. Moreover, all this commotion and fray was made under pretence of a common profit and common defence, but in very deed it was for private and proper lucre.”332

In the sixty years that followed the overthrow of the old system, it was necessary for Parliament to pass no less than twelve acts dealing with the relief of distress, the necessity for which, Thorold Rogers says, “can be traced distinctly back to the crimes of rulers and agents.” I need not characterise the spirit which is manifested in these acts, where poverty and crime are treated as indistinguishable.

Dr. Jessop writes: “In the general scramble of the Terror under Henry the Eighth, and of the anarchy in the days of Edward the Sixth … the monasteries were plundered even to their very pots and pans. The almshouses, in which old men and women were fed and clothed, were robbed to the last pound, the poor almsfolk being turned out in the cold at an hour’s warning to beg their bread. The splendid hospitals for the sick and needy, sometimes magnificently provided with nurses and chaplains, whose very raison d’être was that they were to look after the care of those who were past caring for themselves, these were stripped of all their belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some convenient dry ditch to lie down and die in, or to crawl into some barn or house, there to be tended, not without fear of consequences, by some kindly man or woman, who could not bear to see a suffering fellow-creature drop down and die at their own doorposts.”333

Intimately connected with the subject of the care of the poor in pre-Reformation days is obviously that of the mediæval guilds which, more than anything else, tended to foster the idea of the Christian brotherhood up to the eve of the religious changes.

It would probably be a mistake to suppose that these societies existed everywhere throughout the country in equal numbers. Mr. Thorold Rogers, it is true, says – and the opinion of one who has done so much work in every kind of local record must carry great weight – that “few parishes were probably without guild lands.” But there is certainly no distinct evidence that this was the case, especially in counties say like Hampshire, always sparsely populated as compared with other districts in the east of England, and where the people largely depended on agricultural pursuits for a living. It was in the great centres of trade and manufacture that the guilds were most numerous and most important, for it was precisely in those parts that the advantages of mutual help and co-operation outside the parish bond were most apparent and combination was practically possible.

An examination of the existing records leads to a general division of mediæval guilds into two classes —Craft or Trade associations, and Religious or, as some prefer now to call them, Social guilds. The former, as their name implies, had, as the special object of their existence, the protection of some work, trade or handicraft, and in this for practical purposes we may include those associations of traders or merchants known under the name of “guild-merchants.” Such, for instance, were the great companies of the city of London, and it was in reality under the plea that they were trading societies that they were saved in the general destruction which overtook all similar fraternities and associations in the sixteenth century. The division of guilds into the two classes named above is, however, after all more a matter of convenience than a real distinction founded on fact. All guilds, no matter for what special purpose they were founded, had the same general characteristic of brotherly aid and social charity; and no guild was divorced from the ordinary religious observances commonly practised by all such bodies in those days.

It is often supposed that, for the most part, what are called religious guilds existed for the purpose of promoting or encouraging the religious practices, such as the attendance at church on certain days, the taking part in ecclesiastical processions, the recitations of offices and prayers, and the like. Without doubt, there were such societies in pre-Reformation days – such as, for example, the great Guild of Corpus Christi, in the city of York, which counted its members by thousands. But such associations were the exception, not the rule. An examination of the existing statutes and regulations of ancient guilds will show how small a proportion these purely Ecclesiastical guilds formed of the whole number of associations known as Religious guilds. The origin of the mistaken notion is obvious. In mediæval days – that is, in times when such guilds flourished – the word “religious” had a wider, and what most people who reflect will be inclined to think, a truer signification than has obtained in later times. Religion was then understood to include the exercise of the two commandments of charity – the love of God and the love of one’s neighbour – and the exercises of practical charity to which guild brethren were bound by their guild statutes were considered as much religious practices as attendance at church or the taking part in an ecclesiastical procession. In these days, as Mr. Brentano in his essay On the History and Development of Guilds has pointed out, most of the objects, to promote which the guilds existed, would now be called social duties, but they were then regarded as true objects of Christian charity. Mutual assistance, the aid of the poor, of the helpless, of the sick, of strangers, of pilgrims and prisoners, the burial of the dead, even the keeping of schools and schoolmasters, and other such like works were held to be “exercises of religion.”334

If the word “religious” be thought now to give a wrong impression about the nature of associations, the main object of which was to secure the performance of duties we should now call “social,” quite as false an impression would be conveyed by the word “social” as applied to them. A “social” society would inevitably suggest to many in these days an association for convivial meetings, and this false notion of the nature of a mediæval guild would be further strengthened by the fact that in many, if not most, of them a yearly, and sometimes a more frequent feast existed under an item in their statutes. This guild feast, however, was a mere incident in the organisation, and in no case did it form what we might consider the end or purpose of the association.

By whichever name we call them, and assuming the religious basis which underlay the whole social life in the fifteenth century, the character and purpose of these mediæval guilds cannot in reality be misunderstood. Broadly speaking, they were the benefit societies and the provident associations of the middle ages. They undertook towards their members the duties now frequently performed by burial clubs, by hospitals, by almshouses, and by guardians of the poor. Not infrequently they acted for the public good of the community in the mending of roads and the repair of bridges, and for the private good of their members, in the same way that insurance companies to-day compensate for loss by fire or accident. The very reason of their existence was the affording of mutual aid and assistance in meeting the pecuniary demands which were constantly arising from burials, legal exactions, penal fines and all other kinds of payments and compensations. Mr. Toulmin Smith thus defines their object: “The early English guild was an institution of local self-help which, before the poor-laws were invented, took the place in old times of the modern friendly or benefit society, but with a higher aim; while it joined all classes together in the care of the needy and for objects of common welfare, it did not neglect the forms and practice of religion, justice, and morality,”335 which I may add was, indeed, the main-spring of their life and action.

“The guild lands,” writes Mr. Thorold Rogers, “were a very important economical fact in the social condition of early England. The guilds were the benefit societies of the time from which impoverished members could be, and were, aided. It was an age in which the keeping of accounts was common and familiar. Beyond question, the treasurers of the village guild rendered as accurate an annual statement of their fraternity as a bailiff did to his lord… It is quite certain that the town and country guilds obviated pauperism in the middle ages, assisted in steadying the price of labour, and formed a permanent centre for those associations which fulfilled the function that in more recent times trades unions have striven to satisfy.”336

An examination of the various articles of association contained in the returns made into the Chancery in 1389, and other similar documents, shows how wide was the field of Christian charity covered by these “fraternities.” First and foremost amongst these works of religion must be reckoned the burial of the dead; regulations as to which are invariably to be found in all the guild statutes. Then, very generally, provisions for help to the poor, sick, and aged. In some, assistance was to be given to those who were overtaken by misfortune, whose goods had been damaged or destroyed by fire or flood, or had been diminished by loss or robbery; in others, money was found as a loan to such as needed temporary assistance. In the guild at Ludlow, in Shropshire, for instance, “any good girl of the guild had a dowry provided for her if her father was too poor to find one himself.” The “guild-merchant” of Coventry kept a lodging-house with thirteen beds, “to lodge poor folk coming through the land on pilgrimage or other work of charity,” with a keeper of the house and a woman to wash the pilgrims’ feet. A guild at York found beds and attendance for poor strangers, and the guild of Holy Cross in Birmingham kept almshouses for the poor in the town. In Hampshire, the guild of St. John at Winchester, which comprised men and women of all sorts and conditions, supported a hospital for the poor and infirm of the city.

The very mass of material at hand makes the task of selecting examples for illustrating some of the objects for which mediæval guilds existed somewhat difficult. I take a few such examples at haphazard. The organisation of these societies was the same as that which has existed in similar associations up to the time of our modern trades unions. A meeting was held at which officers were elected and accounts audited; fines for non-acceptance of office were frequently imposed, as well as for absence from the common meeting. Often members had to declare on oath that they would fulfil their voluntary obligations, and would keep secret the affairs of the society. Persons of ill-repute were not admitted, and members who disgraced the fraternity were expelled. For example, the first guild statutes printed by Mr. Toulmin Smith are those of Garlekhithe, London. They begin: “In worship of God Almighty our Creator and His Mother Saint Mary, and all Saints, and St. James the Apostle, a fraternity is begun by good men in the Church of St. James, at Garlekhith in London, on the day of Saint James, the year of our Lord 1375, for the amendment of their lives and of their souls, and to nourish greater love between the brethren and sisters of the said brotherhood.” Each of them has sworn on the Book to perform the points underwritten.

“First: all those that are, or shall be, in the said brotherhood shall be of good life, condition, and behaviour, and shall love God and Holy Church and their neighbours, as Holy Church commands.” Then, after various provisions as to meetings and payments to be made to the general funds, the statutes order that “if any of the foresaid brethren fall into such distress that he hath nothing, and cannot, on account of old age or sickness, help himself, if he has been in the brotherhood seven years, and during that time has performed all duties, he shall have every week after from the common box fourteen pence (i. e. about £1 a week of our money) for the rest of his life, unless he recovers from his distress.”337 In one form or other this provision for the assistance of needy members is repeated in the statutes of almost every guild. Some provide for help in case of distress coming “through any chance, through fire or water, thieves or sickness, or any other haps.” Some, besides granting this kind of aid, add: “and if so befall that he be young enough to work, and he fall into distress, so that he have nothing of his own to help himself with, then the brethren shall help him, each with a portion as he pleases in the way of charity.”338 Others furnish loans from the common fund to enable brethren to tide over temporary difficulties: “and if the case falleth that any of the brotherhood have need to borrow a certain sum of silver, he (can) go to the keepers of the box and take what he hath need of, so that the sum be not so large that any one may not be helped as well as another, and that he leave a sufficient pledge, or else find a sufficient security among the brotherhood.”339 Some, again, make the contributions to poor brethren a personal obligation on the members, such as a farthing a week from each of the brotherhood, unless the distress has been caused by individual folly or waste. Others extend their Christian charity to relieve distress beyond the circle of the brotherhood – that is, of all “whosoever falls into distress, poverty, lameness, blindness, sent by the grace of God to them, even if he be a thief proven, he shall have seven pence a week from the brothers and sisters to assist him in his need.”340 Some of the guilds in seaside districts provide for help in case of “loss through the sea,” and there is little doubt that in mediæval days the great work carried on by such a body as the Royal Lifeboat Society would have been considered a work of religion, and the fitting object of a religious guild.

It would be tedious to multiply examples of the purposes and scope of the old fraternities, and it is sufficient to repeat that there was hardly any kind of social service which in some form or other was not provided for by these voluntary associations. As an illustration of the working of a trade or craft guild, we may take that of the “Pinners” of the city of London, the register of which, dating from A.D. 1464, is now in the British Museum.341 These are some of the chief articles approved for the guild by the Mayor and Corporation of the city of London: (1) No foreigner to be allowed to keep a shop for the sale of pins. (2) No foreigner to take to the making of pins without undergoing previous examinations and receiving the approval of the guild officers. (3) No master to receive another master’s workman. (4) If a servant or workman who has served his master faithfully fall sick he shall be kept by the craft. (5) Power to the craft to expel those who do ill and bring discredit upon it. (6) Work at the craft at nights, on Saturdays, and on the eves of feasts is strictly prohibited. (7) Sunday closing is rigidly enforced.

It is curious to find, four hundred years ago, so many of the principles set down as established, for which in our days trades unions and similar societies are now contending. It has been remarked above, that even in the case of craft guilds, such as this Society of Pinners undoubtedly was, many of the ordinary purposes of the religious guilds were looked to equally with the more obvious object of protecting the special trade or handicraft of the specific society. The accounts of this Pinners’ Guild fully bear out this view. For example: We have the funeral services for departed brethren, and the usual trentals, or thirty masses, for deceased members. Then we find: “4d. to the wax chandlers’ man for setting up of our lights at St. James.” One of the members, William Clarke, borrowed 5s. 10d. from the common chest, to secure which he placed a gold ring in pledge. There are also numerous payments for singers at the services held on the feast days of the guild, and for banners and other hangings for processions.

Of payments for the specific ends of the guild there are, of course, plenty of examples. For instance: spurious pins and “other ware” are searched for and burnt by the craft officers, and this at such distances from London as Salisbury and the fair at Stourbridge, near Cambridge, the great market for East Anglia and the centre of the Flanders trade. “William Mitchell is paid 8d. for pins for the sisters, on Saint James’ day.” In 1466, a man is fined 2s. for setting a child to work before he had been fully apprenticed; and also another had to pay 2s. for working after seven o’clock on a winter night. Later on in the accounts we have a man mulcted for keeping a shop before he was a “freeman” of the society, and another “for that he sold Flaundres pynnes for English pynnes.” At another time, a large consignment of no less than 12,000 “pynnes of ware” were forfeited to the craft, and sold by them for 8s., which went to the common fund. These accounts show also the gradual rise in importance and prosperity which the Pinners’ Guild, under the patronage of St. James, manifested. At first, the warden and brethren at their yearly visit to Westminster were content to hire an ordinary barge upon the Thames, but after a few years they had started “a keverid boote” of their own at the cost of half-a-crown, in place of the sixpence formerly paid. So, too, in the early days of their incorporation they had their annual dinner and audited their accounts at some London tavern – the “Mayremayde in Bread Street” and “the brew house atte the Sygne of the Rose in Old Jury” are two of the places named. Later on they met in some hall belonging to another guild, such as the “Armourers’” Hall, and later still they built their own Guild Hall and held their banquet there. This building made a great demand upon their capital, and the officers evidently began to look more carefully after the exaction of fines. For late working at this time one of the brethren was mulcted in the sum of twenty pence; another was fined twopence for coming late to the guild mass, and several others had to pay for neglecting to attend the meeting. From the period of starting their own hall, ill-fortune seems to have attended the society. About the year 1499, they got involved in a great lawsuit with one Thomas Hill, upon which was expended a large sum of money. A special whip was made to meet expenses and keep up the credit of the guild; for what with counsel’s fees, the writing of bills, and the drawing of pleas, the general fund was unable to find the necessary munitions of war to continue the suit. To the credit of the members, most of them apparently responded generously to this call, and, in consequence of this unfortunate litigation, to many subsequent demands which the empty exchequer necessitated.

There would be no difficulty whatever in multiplying the foregoing illustrations of the working of these mediæval societies. The actual account books of course furnish us with the most accurate knowledge, even to minute details, and any one of them would afford ample material.

The funds at the disposal of the guilds were derived chiefly from voluntary subscriptions, entrance fees, gifts, and legacies of members. Frequently these societies became in process of time the trustees of lands and houses which they either held and administered for the purposes of the guilds, or for some specific purpose determined by the will of the original donor. Thus, to take one or two examples from the account rolls of the Guild of Tailors in the city of Winchester. In the time of King Richard II. – say 1392 – the usual entrance fee for members was 3s. 4d., and the annual subscription was 1s. There were 106 members at that time, seven of whom had been enrolled during the previous year. Among others who had thus entered was one Thomas Warener, or Warner, a cousin of Bishop William of Wykeham, and the Bishop’s bailiff of the Soke; his payment was 4s. 8d. instead of the usual entrance fee. In the same year we find the names of Thomas Hampton, lord of the manor of Stoke Charity, and Thomas Marleburgh, who was afterwards Mayor of Winchester. In the following year, seventeen new members were enrolled, one of them being a baker of Southampton, called Dunster. Turning over these accounts, we come upon examples of presents either in kind or money made to the society. Thus in one place Thomas Marleburgh makes a present of a hooded garment which was subsequently sold for eighteen pence; and in another, one Maurice John Cantelaw presented for the service of the guild, “a chalice and twelve pence in counted money,” requesting the members “to pray for his good estate, for the souls of his parents, friends, benefactors, and others for whom he was bound to pray.” In return for this valuable present, the guild granted that it should be accounted as Cantelaw’s life-subscription.

Having spoken of the sources of income, which were practically the same in all guilds, something must be said as to the expenditure over and above the purposes for which the guilds existed. This may be illustrated from the accounts of this same fraternity of tailors of Winchester.342 In the first place, as in almost every similar society, provision was made for the funerals of members and for the usual daily mass for thirty days after the death of the deceased members. The sum set down is 2s. 6d. for each trental of thirty masses. Then we find mention of alms to the poor and sick; thus in 1403, the sum of 36s., about one-tenth of the annual revenue, was spent upon this object. This, of course, was charity of a general kind, and wholly unconnected with the assistance given by rule to necessitous members of the guild.343

One expense, very common in these mediæval guilds, was the preparation for taking a fitting part in the great annual religious pageant or procession on Corpus Christi day. In the case of this Tailors’ Guild at Winchester, we find sums of money charged for making wax torches and ornamenting them with flowers and red and blue wax, with card shields and parchment streamers, or “pencils,” as they are called. The members of the guild apparently carried small tapers; but the four great torches were borne by hired men, who received a shilling each for their trouble. It is somewhat difficult for us nowadays to understand the importance attached to these great ecclesiastical pageants by our ancestors four hundred years or so ago. But as to the fact, there can be no doubt. Among the documents in the municipal archives of Winchester there exists an order of the Mayor and Corporation as to the disposition of this solemn procession in 1435. It runs thus: “At a convocation holden in the city of Winchester 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 on 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.”