By the late Mev. K. II. Clutierbuck, F.S.A. 139 



Museum in this city, an institution wliicli would absorb any amount 

 of time you could give to it, and repay with interest all your at- 

 tention, we have the seals of the Weavers' Gild, the Tailors' Gild, 

 the Carpenters' Gild, the Bakers' Company, and relics of others, 

 and a painting of the Gild Hall pulled down rather more than a 

 century ago. It is not within my province to enlarge on these 

 Trade Gilds ; but I want to point out that they had so many usages 

 in common with the special subject I have in hand — the Fraternities 

 — that it is often more than difficult to distinguish between the 

 records of their respective organisations. For instance, the 

 Weavers' Gild maintained a priest at St. Edmund's Church, and 

 he had his own plate and ornaments belonging to his altar, in 

 exactly the same way as the Fraternities did in the same Church. 

 The Craft Gilds also had their processions, their plays, their sports, 

 and entertainments, and as must happen when the details are to be 

 gathered from the churchwardens' account books, which were written 

 with no other idea than that of accounting for money received and 

 spent, it is very difficult indeed to preserve a clear distinction. I 

 have gone upon what I think will be allowed to be a safe rule, and 

 considered that what the churchwardens made themselves account- 

 able for may fairly be esteemed the property of the Church and of 

 no private person or corporation. 



The object and purpose of the Craft Gilds is pretty clearly 

 indicated by their name. They first sprang up amongst the free 

 craftsmen when they were excluded from the fraternities which 

 had taken the place of the family unions. Their principal object 

 was to secure their members in the independent, unimpaired, and 

 regular earning of their daily bread by means of their craft. 

 The crafts had been devised for the purpose that everybody by 

 them should earn his daily bread, and nobody should interfere 

 with the craft of another. To define them thus is easy and plain 

 enough. But when you meet a survival, as you do in the pageants 

 at Salisbury, it becomes exceedingly difficult to be confident as to 

 whether it must be traced to a craft gild or to a fraternity. And 

 in the same way any attempt to get at the particulars of the 

 Cathedral history, or the history of the parish Churches, brings the 



