6 Antiquity and Early 



other of your benefits. It was also the custom of old 

 and now is recorded in your^ Chapter when Sir 

 yErnaldus was Alderman that for every reception of a 

 deceased brother and for ringing of the bells the Church 

 of Saint Martin shall receive eight pence. Farewell ! " 



Herbert, alluding to this convention, unhesitat- 

 ingly remarks that " the mention immediately after 

 the Conquest of ' ancient Statutes ' then existing 

 between so remote a Saxon foundation as St. Mar- 

 tin's-le-Grand College and the Sadlers, together 

 w^ith the old custom said to be recorded in the lat- 

 ter's chapter of the time of their Alderman y^rnal- 

 dus (also a Saxon name) leaves little doubt of the 

 Sadlers being a veritable Anglo-Saxon Guild, 

 and consequently the oldest on record of ail the 

 present Livery Companies." 



The allusion to the Alderman ^rnaldus is 

 explained by the fact that anciently the title of 

 alderman v^as applied solely to the chiefs of guilds. 

 Towards the reign of Edward III., the title of 

 Master superseded that of Alderman, which be- 

 came exclusively applied, instead, to the heads of 

 City wards. ^ It seems extremely probable that the 

 early segregation or grouping of the guilds or 

 crafts, as mentioned by Fitzstephen, was at the 

 time the only divisional distribution of the City, 



anciently bequeathed at death to the parish priest, instead of 

 any tithes that might be forgotten. 



^ " Nostro " in the copy in the Register. 



^ Herbert's Historical Essay, p. 17. 



