140 



The Fraternities of Sarum. 



same difficulty to the front. But I hope it will be understood how 

 essential it is to be clear as to which must be attributed to the one 

 class of association or the other. Craft Gilds, from the nature of 

 things, must be almost entirely confined to the towns. But the 

 Fraternities, which are my particular subject, were very much more 

 widely spread. You will allow me to emphasise, therefore, that I 

 have now left the other classes, the Gild Merchant and the Craft 

 Gilds, and purpose to confine myself to what have been called the 

 Social or Religious Gilds, but which, as I think, would be better 

 called the Fraternities. In every town and in every parish of any 

 size these friendly associations, made for mutual aid and contribution, 

 were institutions of local self help, which before poor-laws were 

 invented took the place in old times of the modern friendly society, 

 the benefit society, or in Avider terms of all the organisations by 

 which under the names of clubs and so on parish work is carried 

 on at the present day. In fact, it is a characteristic of our time 

 that Gilds for social and religious purposes are everywhere being 

 resumed, the old names being re-adopted. 



There is no getting at the beginning of them, and no drawing 

 lines of limitation for their varied forms. They were lay bodies 

 and existed for lay purposes, and the better to enable those who 

 belonged to them rightly and intelligibly to fulfil their neighbourly 

 duties, as free men in a free state. They were usually called by 

 the name of the saint to whom they were dedicated, the most popular 

 names being St. George, Corpus Christ!, the Fraternity of Jesus, 

 the Fraternity of Our Lady, and so on. In Salisbury there were 

 the Gild of Saint George, the Brotherhood of the J esus Mass in 

 Saint Edmund's Church, the Fraternity of the Holy Ghost in Saint 

 Martin's Church, and in Saint Thomas's one which, like that at St. 

 Edmund's, seems to have been called the Fraternity of the Jesus Mass. 



There was one at Andover, called after the Virgin Mary, and I 

 want to mention one at Basingstoke, the Fraternity of the Holy 

 Ghost, because its ruined chapel, so close to the railway station, 

 may serve as a continual reminder of the subject to all who travel. 



Their number throughout the country was very great, a parlia- 

 mentary return was made in 1388 of five hundred gilds existing at 



