142 The Fraternities of Sarum. 
Fraternities, it will be well to consider the means they had to do it 
withall—the “sinews of war.” At Salisbury we are able to do 
this with accuracy, because the accounts of the stewards, or wardens, 
of the Confraternity of the Jesus Mass exist for many years and 
are printed by the Wiltshire Record Society under the able editing 
of Dr. Straton. This Fraternity in the year 1500 possessed a 
tenement in Wynmanstreet, in which William Lobbe the brewer 
was living and paying a rent of 40s. a year. Another tenement 
thereto annexed was rented by John Combe, malt maker, at 33s, 4d, 
a year; there was another, called Combys place, next door, for 
which William Harry, the tenant, paid 25s. 8d. on a repairing 
lease; another, “aforegeynst”’ the last, for which Edmund Baker 
paid 20s. a year. Joan Spicer tenanted another house in New 
Street, paying 6s. 8d. a year; Widow Agnes A. Dene paid 6s. 8d. 
a year for the house next door. So that the rents of the Salisbury 
houses came to £6 13s.4d. Then there were the pence, which in that 
year amounted to £4 12s.4d. There were also legacies from Robert 
Todd, the brewer, 3s. 4d., and John Savernake, the chandler, 8d., 
together 4s. So that the whole receipts for that year, arrears in- 
cluded, were £13 8s. 23d. Of that sum in that year 3s. 9d. had 
to be paid to the head lord, who was the Bishop. His lordship the 
present’ Bishop tells me that all such ground rents and all other 
payments now go direct to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, so that 
there is no tracing them, which it would have been interesting to 
do. But I do not think myself, though I cannot prove it from the 
accounts of this particular brotherhood, that the Fraternities, any 
more than the churchwardens or the craft gilds, neglected the 
opportunity of turning many honest pennies by entertainments, 
and though perhaps the churchwardens were the ones to supply the 
“refreshments”? and make all they could out of them, yet the 
brothers and sisters, when possible, provided the amusements, of 
which I believe the “ collection at the close’ formed an important 
part. 
Indeed, there is one somewhat primitive drama presented in our 
parts every Christmas, which I cannot help feeling confident is the 
survival of the play of the Gild of St. George, the most frequent 
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