The Company and the Trade. 179 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Company and the Trade. 



The Company anciently all of the Craft, — Impracticability of restricting 

 it to Members of the Trade. — The Ordinances of the Company in 

 harmony v/ith the Laws of the Period. — Statute of 5 Eliz. c. 4. — 

 All Trades to be learned by Apprenticeship. — Apprentices to the 

 Saddlery Trade examined by the Wardens. — Number of Appren- 

 tices limited by Ordinance. — Regulations concerning Apprentices. — 

 Curious Custom upon taking up Freedom. — Spoons. — Accumulate 

 and are exchanged for other Plate. — Responsibility of Apprentices. 

 The Company Mediate between the Apprentices and their Masters. — 

 Saddlers only allowed to Open Shop conditionally. — " Proof-piece." 

 — Ordinances impose Honesty of Dealing. — Saddles to be made 

 Openly. — To be Viewed by Company before Sold. — " Forreyners." 

 — Statute 5 Eliz. c. 8. — The Leather Market at Leadenhall. — 

 Searchers and Sealers of Leather. — Custom of Search. 



HERE is every reason to believe that 

 originally the Saddlers' Company was 

 exclusively composed of members of 

 that craft. In course of time, how- 

 ever, the inheritance of the right to the freedom 

 of the Company by patrimony, coupled with the 

 disinclination of sons to follow the trade of their 

 father, led to the introduction into the Company 

 of members who followed other trades and pur- 

 suits. In the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury the Company's Order Books clearly show us 

 that the Court was not composed entirely of 

 members of the Saddlers' craft, although the 

 trade was represented thereon, and this has con- 



