Internal Affairs of the Company. 177 



Wardens on these occasions to receive the gift of 

 rings as their doitceitr. 



The funerals very frequently took place at 

 night. Machyn, In his diary, gives an Interesting 

 account of one In 1552. 



" The XV day of Juin was bered Baptyst Borrow the 

 melener without Crepull-gate in Saint Gylle's parryche 

 with a penon a cote armur and a harold and with xxiij 

 stayffes-torches and so xxiij pore men here them and 

 many morners in blake and the Company of the Clarkes 

 wher ther and ys plase was hangyd with blake and 

 armes vj dozen." 



Mr. Thomas Adderley, a member of the Com- 

 pany and an antiquary of some note, writing to 

 the ''Gentleman's Magazine," in 181 3, states that 

 the Saddlers' Company still had in use at that 

 time the old funeral sconces remaining from the 

 custom of burying corpses by torchlight — a cus- 

 tom which, he adds, was still fresh in his memory.^ 



The Company still possess their old funeral 

 pall, or "burial cloth." It consists of a rect- 

 angular panel of rich crimson brocaded velvet 

 Interwoven with gold thread, 6 feet \\ Inches in 

 length and 22 inches In breadth, the pattern 

 consisting of two rows of seven medallions 

 of a conventional foliate design. Attached to 

 each of the four sides, and of the same length as 



' These are no longer preserved ; they were probably des- 

 troyed in one of the two subsequent conflagrations from which 

 the Hall suffered. 



