Continuing with the story of Loughborough as presented by journalist
Edwin Goadby back in 1864. In this chapter, Goadby discusses the mediaeval guilds.
I've tried to keep the text and the layout as it appeared
in the original newspaper serialisation, although have split some of the text
into separate paragraphs to aid reading. I've added a few explanatory notes at
the end, if I think these might be useful. In the 160 years since the original
publication appeared, there have been many more discoveries and revelations
about Loughborough's history, and some terminology will have changed, so some
of the information contained in this article will be wrong: I have not tried to
amend these in any way, so reader, beware!
THE
HISTORY OF LOUGHBOROUGH
FROM THE TIME OF THE BRITONS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In: ‘Loughborough
Monitor’, 19 January 1865, pg. 5
CHAPTER
VI. THE GUILD OF
JESUS AND ST. GEORGE.
____________________________________
Chapter VI Probable date
of the Formation of these Guilds - Origin of Guilds - Their Three Classes - The
Social and Religious Guild, its primary uses and organization - The
Loughborough Guilds of this character - Their Salutary Moral Influence, as
shewn by the rules of a similar Fraternity in London - Place of Meeting, etc. -
The Riding of the George - Unfortunate destruction of their Documents.
Before
continuing our account of the several noble members of the family of the
Beaumonts who were successively manorial Lords of Loughborough, it is right we
should pause for a time to notice an important feature in the religion and
trade of the town which was developed sometime during the seigneuralty of the
family, although at what precise date there exists no means of determining. We
refer to the guilds established in the town sometime in the fourteenth century,
most likely during the reign of Edward III (1327-99), when the system of guilds
was greatly extended all over England, and playing an important part in the
life and energy of the place during their continuance.
The origin of
the guild-system in England and Germany has been the subject of many able and
learned investigations, into which we regret that our space forbids us to
enter. It must suffice, therefore, if we state, upon the high authority of Dr.
Wilda [1], that the guild was originally a heathen banquet, and that the word
still retains its significance as such in the Danish language. With the
Anglo-Saxons it had also some-what of a similar meaning, although the word
guild itself (from gyldan, to pay, to make good) was understood by them
to mean a mutual contribution in food and drink, or in money, for some common
social or religious purpose.
The early
guild, as we have already stated in an earlier part of the history, was the
foundation of most corporations or boroughs, and so was a political union; it
was at first the voluntary and afterwards the compulsory association of
different persons of the same trade or craft, and so became a species of
Trade-union; and it was also a religious, charitable, and social fraternity.
The religion of the time enforced the custom of masses and obits for the souls
of departed persons, and while the wealthy endowed their chantries, as we have
already seen that Hugh Dispenser did at Searlesthorpe [2], and bequeathed lands
and money for the support of a private priest, the poorer classes were left to
support each other by voluntary associations very much resembling our modern
benefit sick-clubs [3]. Each individual of the locality, upon entering the
guild, paid a given sum of money to the common fund, and made occasional and
quarterly contributions as well.
The
mass-priest elected by the guild sung a mass at every meeting for the living
friends, and each brother two psalms. Psalms and masses were also sung at the
death of a member of the guild, and fixed contributions were levied from each
member for the benefit of his survivors and to defray the expenses of his
funeral. If a man suffered losses in other ways, a similar method of relief was
adopted. The guild was dedicated to some patron saint, and festivals were held
upon his natal day. If a member absented himself from the meetings, unless by
reason of sickness, he was fined so many masses, according to the statutes of
the guild.
The
Loughborough guilds were mainly of this social and religious character,
although in the course of time they assumed the character of trade
associations. The early Saxon gyld had lost its political functions in
the manorial court, and the inhabitants appear to have been contented with that
government for some considerable period. The establishment of the Guild of
Jesus and the Guild of St. George was an evidence of the want of a closer and
more reciprocal union for social and religious purposes. Besides the uses
already enumerated, the guilds exercised a salutary influence over the general
behaviour of their members. This is well seen in the rules of the Jesus Guild
of London, from which we shall make an extract or two.
The officers
of a guild we may premise were called wardens. Here is one that speaks for
itself:
"If any
of the company be of wicked fame of his body, and take other wives than his
own, or if he be a single man, and be held a common lecheur, or contekour
(a quarrelsome person), or rebel of his tongue, he shall be warned of the
warden three times, and if he will not himself amend, he shall pay to the
wardens all his arrearages that he oweth to the company, and he shall be put
off for evermore. So that the good men of the company be not slandered by cause
of him".
Provision was
also made for such as "fel [fell] in mischief by sickness of body, or by
robbery by land or by water, or by fire brennyng (burning), or by elde
of body, or by contek (strife) he leese [lose] hand, finger, or other
member of his body; wherefore he may not work and live of his craft; so that it
be not at his assault, ne at his desert, but at his defence, by record of his
neighbours. And if he have well and truly paid his quarte ridges [coins] and
other things, as the good men of the company doen, he shall have of the silver
of the quarte ridges of the Box every week, for terme of his life x pence
halfpenny, in helpinge of his sustenance, he praying for all the company. And
at his dying shall have the light and masses, as is beforesaid".
The
discipline of the guild usually extended even further than the investigations
which must always have determined these grants, and the exclusion of a
notorious evil liver. The following rule of the same guild completes the
picture of their social power and importance.
"And if
any man be of good state, and use hym to ly long in bed, and at rising of (off)
his bed, nay woll not work, but wyn (query—wane, or destroy) his sustenance,
and keep his house, or go to the tavern, to the wyne, to the ale, to wrastling,
to schetyng (shooting), and in this maner falleth poor, and left (i.e
leaveth) his cattel (chattels) in his default for succour, and trust to be
holpen by the fraternity, that man shall never have good, no helpe of companie,
neither in his lyfe no at his dethe, but he shall be put off (out) for evermore
of the companie".
These facts
will show, we think, that we do not exaggerate when we ascribe considerable
importance in every point of view to the establishment of these guilds. Each
guild appears to have had its common hall. The one belonging to the Guild of
Jesus stood, about where the premises of Messrs. Aslett and Dawson now stand at
the bottom, or Cheapside, of the Market-place; whilst the one belonging to the
Guild of St. George occupied the site of the now disused Assembly Room in the
George Yard, which owes its name to the fact. We know nothing about the
character of these buildings, but it was here the various members of the guilds
assembled and transacted their special business. Hence too they sallied in
procession to perambulate the principal streets of the town on their way to
church upon the feast-day they especially commemorated. Various devices and
banners, which the insignia of modern sick clubs are the representatives, were
carried aloft in these yearly festivals.
The festival
of the Jesus Guild was probably held on or soon after August 7, the feast-day
of the name of Jesus, and would be a fine sight in those days. The church of
St. Peters [4], as we have seen, contained various images around its walls, and
these were pressed into service, along with such special ones as would always
be prominent in the small side chapel set apart for the express service of the
guild priest; and these formed the leading feature in the procession. Upon a
moveable platform or car there was a large full-sized image of the Christ upon
the cross surrounded by other figures, dramatised into a resemblance of the
crucifixion. After the procession, the church-going and the special religious
service, there would sometimes be the performance of a Mystery or miracle-play
in the open Market-place. This was rude drama in which various scriptural
characters conspiciously figured, and hell and heaven, devils and angels were
grotesque represented. They were, in fact, nothing less than a sort of spiritual
Punch and Judy Show, and many of the specimen mysteries that have come down to
us are full of bad theology, bad versification, and execrable argument.
However, they drew an audience much better than a long church-service, and no
doubt many a by-stander got some kind of spiritual insight and help from them.
In honour of
St. George, a similar custom was observed, called the "Riding of the
George," which was usually observed on or about his saint-day, April 23. A
large wooden image of the saint on horseback, clad in armour, with the dragon
writhing and mouthing at his feet, was fixed upon a car, and form the prominent
object in the procession. Occasionally a living personage on a living horse
represented the saint. A long procession followed, the church-bells rang
loudly, men, women, and priests gave picturesqueness to the throng, and the joy
and gratulation of all made this one of the greatest holidays in the year. It
was always a red-letter day in the local calendar, and observed as a public
holiday long after the guilds had ceased to exist. In the middle of the
seventeenth century St. George and the Dragon figures on the tradesmen' tokens
of Robert Bannys [5], an important inhabitant of the town, and yearly payments
were made by the churchwardens for ringing the church-bells upon April 23.
It is
singular, and shows the carelessness and absorption of the men of the time in
their daily round of duties and pleasures, that so little information should
have come down to us respecting these two guilds. A considerable quantity of
documents, of some importance from a social and religious point of view, must
have been collected during their existence; rolls of payments, levies and
fines; names of members, wardens, and chaplains, and numerous other facts that
would have served to spice our papers with such quaintnesses and realities as
would have reproduced the men, the customs, and the time, much more vividly
than any description we can give, however eloquent, or any mass of facts our
research might gather from the most scattered sources. Our readers will regret
it, but not more than we do ourselves.
What has
become of these documents we cannot conceive. They might be destroyed as
useless by an incurious lot of vandals, sold to the bookbinders to be cut up
for covers and backslips, or perhaps have contributed their quota of flame and
heat to boil the kettle of some thirsty thief. All we can say is, they are not
to be found, and a romantic and interesting chapter of local history must
remain unwritten, or at best but blindly groped after by a hungry reader and a
disappointed writer. We shall have to refer to these guilds again further on in
our history.
____________________________________
NOTES
[1] Dr Wilda
refers to Wilhelm Eduard Wilda (1800-1856) who wrote a book called ‘Das
Gildewesen im Mittelalter’
(‘The Guild system in the Middle Ages’)
[2]
Searlesthorpe refers to a Mediaeval hamlet and church, long since deserted, but
which gives its name to the current Shelthorpe
[3] Benefit
sick clubs - mutual aid societies that provided financial support to members
during sickness.
[4] Church of
St Peter’s is what we today call All Saints with Holy Trinity
[5] I have
been unable to positively identify Robert Bannys: the closest I have come is someone
called Robert Banis, baptised in Melton Mowbray in 1650, who was the son of
Robert Banis
____________________________________
Links to earlier parts of the History of Loughborough
Chapter 1, Part 2 - continuing Loughborough in the time of the Britons, Romans, and Saxons
Chapter 2, Part 1 - Loughborough in the time of the Normans
Chapter 2, Part 2 - Loughborough in the time of the Normans
Chapter 3, Part 1 - the family of the Dispensers
Chapter 3, Part 2 - the family of the Dispensers
Chapter 3, Part 3 - the family of the Dispensers
Chapter 4
____________________________________
Transcribed
and presented here with the kind permission of the British Newspaper Archive. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
____________________________________
Posted by
lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
_______________________________________________
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