A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



is obvious from their position in the book and from the handwriting that they belong *o *"^. '^'^ 

 14th century. It is not until 30 December 1395 that a ftJl set of ordinances, dated and with a 

 complete list of the members, is found. Although there is no reference to the fact in the preamble 

 to the regulations, doubtless their presence in the Memorandum Book of the city council was due to 

 their having been brought to the mayor and twelve probi homines for ratification. The absence of 

 mention of the civic authorities is exceptional, the usual formula being that the regulations were made 

 by the assent of the ' meir etautres bonez gentez,' here however ' par awys et assent des mestres du dit 

 artifice ' is the only reference to the authority by which the ordinances were endorsed. Of the twenty- 

 two ' bowers ' forming the gild, six are absent from the freemen's roll ; this, however, is not surprising, 

 for a man who appears as a gild member under the name ' Laurencius Bower ' quite possibly is enrolled 

 in the freemen's list under his inherited not his trade name. The numerous liberties too in York 

 possibly account for the absence of some names, for although the question of the rights and 

 privileges of the inhabitants of the liberties has not yet been thoroughly investigated there seems no 

 doubt that they could trade without taking up the freedom of the city. ' Robertus Cristendome ' is 

 apparently missing from the roll, but as a 'Robertus Christiane, bougher,' figures, it seems probable 

 that some scribal error accounts for the omission. A William de Crull, fisher, was not enrolled 

 under this name, but as William Brone de Crull. The ordinances written in French follow the 

 general type, night and Sunday work is prohibited, apprentices are limited to one to each master, 

 and a seven years' apprenticeship is insisted upon. A special feature of the bowyers' regulations is 

 that minute directions are laid down with regard to the sale of arrows at fairs, a bowyer is only 

 allowed to take a limited number of arrows to the fair at Chester, all shops are to be closed during 

 fairs, but no arrows are to be left to be sold by other people after the fair is over. Each gild had 

 its own peculiar enactments, and though seven years' apprenticeship and the prohibition of Sunday 

 trading are generic, the bowyers had a special clause that all members of the gild should be English 

 born, physically flawless, and loyal and faithful men.*' The exclusion of the alien is not unusual, 

 though generally he is admitted under restrictions. As, however, the armourers had also a regula- 

 tion ' that no man of the said craft shall take no man to servaunt nor to prentyce but him that is 

 one Inglishman born up payn of 40J., to be paid in the manere and forme aforewritten,' ^* it is 

 possible that more precautions were thought necessary when the articles manufactured played a 

 part in the country's defence. On the other hand the barbers and surgeons expressly recognize 

 the presence of aliens and foreigners, and require them to be contributory to the pageant, the light, 

 and to share other burdens.*' Skinners having peculiar temptations, when furs are sent to them to 

 be repaired, are heavily fined if detected in using old fur for patching.'" Women are seldom alluded 

 to specifically, but the cap-makers have an ordinance that imposes the same fine upon homme ou 

 femmeF Women, however, must have played an important part in foundry work, for a certain 

 Gyles de Bonoyne is allowed, contrary to all gild tradition, to have two apprentices at the same time 

 as he had no wife ** ; the saucemakers, too, complain bitterly that the skinners and their wives make 

 Paris candles, thus infringing their rights." Still, few women appear in the lists of members of the 

 various gilds often given in the York Memorandum Book ; a glover, Agnes Kepewyk, and a 

 parchment maker, Isabel de Morland, are the only two found in the York documents. It is, how- 

 ever, obvious from the entries concerning the celebration of the festival of Corpus Christi, that there 

 were many more gilds in York than those whose ordinances are entered in the city record. 



The number of plays given in the Ashburnham MS., the text used by Miss Toulmin Smith in 

 her York Mystery Plays, is forty-eight, but the York Memorandum Book, which contains a list of 

 the plays with the crafts which brought them out, gives under the date 1 41 5 fifty-one plays, and 

 a later list fifty-seven.'" When it is remembered that often several crafts joined together to produce ' 

 one play, the number of craft gilds in York cannot have fallen far short of eighty ; in the list 

 eighty-two difiFerent trades are mentioned,'^ but probably some of those had already so few repre- 

 sentatives that they were unimportant factors in the real commercial life of the city. The gilds 

 varied considerably in size ; of those of which a record can be found, several have only six or seven 

 members, but the tailors number 128, the cordwainers fifty-nine, the ' tapiters ' fifty-seven, the fullers 

 thirty, the bowyers twenty-two at the end of the 1 4th century. Even when it is granted that 

 several crafts were obsolete even in 141 5, the list remains sufficiently comprehensive to have covered 

 every detail of York's industrial life. It includes ' tannours, plasterers, cardemakers, fullers, coupers, 

 armourers, gaunters, shipwrightes, possoners (fysshe mongers), mariners, parchemyners (makers and 



° York. Memo. Bk. ^ fol. 20. " Ibid. ? fol. 127. «■ Ibid. - fol. 90. 



« Ibid. fol. 23. " Ibid. fol. 30. ^ Ibid. fol. 423. » Ibid. fol. 6o3. 



" Miss Toulmin Smith has printed the 141 5 list, op. cit. Introd. p. xviii ; cf. Drake, op. cit. App. xxx, xxxi. 

 R. Davies, Tork Rec. 233. But the author's work is founded on a personal transcript of the Memorandum Book, 

 the first volume of which is in the press, and the second volume, which includes die list, will appear shortly. 



" York Memo. Bk. old numeration, fol. ccxli to ccxlv ; new, 252 to 254. 



446 



