A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



playe the playe yat of old time longed to yaire craft ' on Corpus Christi 

 day. 1 It is plain from this that there were craft-gilds in Durham at an 

 earlier date, though they were probably unrecognized. Additional evidence 

 is furnished by an entry in the Chancery Rolls of Bishop Booth, in 1464, 

 when the wardens and searchers of the cordwainers enrolled their ordinances 

 with a similar reference to the ancient Corpus Christi procession and play. 2 

 Three years later occurred the famous division of the weaver's craft between 

 the wolne-websters and the chalon-websters. 3 Then our information stops 

 until Tudor times. 



When the city received its charter of incorporation from Pilkington in 

 1565, the style was 'The aldermen and burgesses within the city of Durham 

 and Framwellgate,' but the gilds must have gained considerable power when 

 in 1602 Bishop Matthew practically handed over the control of the city to 

 them by his new charter. There was to be a mayor chosen annually from 

 the aldermen, twelve aldermen chosen for life, and twenty-four burgesses to be 

 chosen annually by the mayor and aldermen from certain of the mysteries or 

 gilds to form with them the common council. These gilds were by no 

 means of equal importance, and out of the nineteen gilds of the final episcopal 

 charter, that of Bishop Egerton in 1780,* only sixteen survived in 1835, 

 viz. mercers, carpenters, saddlers, dyers, tanners, skinners, butchers, cord- 

 wainers, weavers, glaziers and plumbers, drapers and tailors, smiths, fullers, 

 curriers and chandlers, barbers and ropers, and masons. The gilds of 

 plumbers, curriers, and barbers were not allowed to supply common council- 

 men, and even when a gild became extinct, as the dyers did, their rights passed 

 to the smiths, and not to any of the three disfranchised ones. In 1835 the 

 total number of freemen was a little under 1,200, but many were non-resident, 

 and the gilds had ceased to have any real connexion with the trades. A 

 curious anomaly was that all the children of a mercer became freemen by 

 birth, but in the case of the other gilds only the eldest son could acquire 

 the right without serving a seven years' apprenticeship to a freeman. Of 

 course the gilds lost all control over the remodelled corporation, but many 

 of them still survive, though in greatly diminished splendour. 



Gateshead was the only other borough possessing craft-gilds acknow- 

 ledged by the commissioners of 1835. We do not meet with these until the 

 time of Bishop Tunstall, who in 1557 incorporated the bakers and tanners. 

 However, other gilds were probably in existence, for in 1602 Bishop 

 Matthew confirmed the gilds of the dyers, fullers, blacksmiths, locksmiths, 

 cutlers, millers, joiners and carpenters, and incorporated them in one company. 

 Nevertheless, the Gateshead gilds were very feeble and small, as in 1661 Cosin 

 incorporated in one gild the drapers, tailors, mercers, hardwaremen, coopers, 

 and chandlers, and in 1671 sanctioned a similar composite gild of freemasons, 

 carvers, stonecutters, sculptors, brickmakers, tylers, bricklayers, glaziers, 

 painters, stainers, founders, nailors, pewterers, plumbers, millwrights, saddlers 

 and bridlers, trunk-makers, and distillers. Such an enumeration is eloquent of 

 the condition of gild life in Gateshead. The re-incorporation of 1661 was 

 necessary because during the Commonwealth Cromwell had incorporated the 

 drapers, tailors, mercers, hardwaremen, coopers, and chandlers, by the name 



1 Dur. Curs. No. 44, m. 9 ; No. 47, m. 14 < * Ibid. No. 50, m. 6d. 



* Ibid. No. 50, m. 6d. * Hutchinson, Hist, of Dur. ii, 29, 37-8, 47. 



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