Preface. xv 



of its own existence at so early a date as the 

 Saddlers' Company. The remarkable convention 

 between the Guild of Saddlers and the Canons 

 of the ancient conventual church of St. Martin's- 

 le-Grand, described on p. 3 et seq., is authorita- 

 tively admitted to belong, by its handwriting, to 

 a period about 11 54 a.d. ; yet in this archaic 

 document we are referred still further back into 

 antiquity by an allusion which it contains to 

 statutes and customs alleged by it to have been 

 ancient even at that remote period In which 

 the convention was inscribed. Such circum- 

 stances as these establish for the Saddlers' 

 Company an antiquity which no other Company 

 can claim to equal. 



It only remains for the writer to gratefully 

 acknowledge the encouragement extended to 

 him by the Court in the prosecution of his in- 

 quiries, and particularly by the Master, Mr. W. 

 Spencer Watson, M.B., F.R.C.S. ; the Wardens, 

 Mr. Serjeant Robinson, Mr. Isaac Wilcox, and 

 Mr. Daniel Morgan, with Past Masters Alderman 

 Cotton, Moses Dodd, Charles O. Humphreys, 

 and Colonel R. P. Laurie, C.B., M.P., who were 

 appointed by the Court to assist him with their 

 advice. 



