By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



245 



circumstances, be reduced to poverty. Accommodation has been 

 provided for eight men, to whom it is proposed to allow a few shillings 

 weekly " toward theyr fyndynge." Already some five alms-men 

 have been admitted to this privilege, and when funds are forth- 

 coming the number will be increased. May many worthy repre- 

 sentatives of their worthy townsmen, the Terumbers and the 

 Yerburvs, be raised up to carry out this good work. And may a 

 greater permanency be its lot than was granted to the foundation 

 of the open-hearted and open-handed merchant of the 15th century. 



It will not perhaps be deemed wholly irrelevant to the subject 

 of this paper, if we mention that, besides the Chantry founded by 

 Terumber, there was a religious Guild, which is called in the 

 records " The Brotherhood of Corpus Christi," within the parish 

 church of Trowbridge. A full account of such Guilds, and in 

 particular of three which formerly existed in Devizes, will be found 

 in the Wiltshire Magazine. 1 The one at Trowbridge, as far as we 

 can ascertain, does not appear to have been connected with any 

 particular trade, but to have been one of those guilds so common 

 in the 15th and following centuries, formed for the purposes of 

 mutual help and association in religious exercises, and so giving a 

 sanctity to the business and occupation of every day life. Some 

 now-a-days are too apt to brand, as mere superstition, old customs 

 which rebuke that spirit which, in " their haste be rich," too often 

 tempts men to forget, that, toil and succeed how they may, there is 

 One only to whom all blessing is due. 



The entries respecting this Guild are as follows 2 : — 



Crotolmtrse, The rentes of the ^ 

 tenentes at will followinge, viz., of John 

 Ellis for one tenemente with a garden 

 and a pocke of pasture, contein. by 

 estimac. 1 aer., and 4 othre lytle pockes 

 of pasture, contein. in all by estimac. 3 



Landes gyven to the 

 Brotherhood of 

 Corpus Christi, 

 within the Parish 

 Chirche of Trow- 

 bridge. 



acr. xlvi s . viii d . ; of Roger Lenthall for 

 one tenemente in Portesse with a garden 

 viii 3 ., and for 4 shambles in the Market 

 Place viii 3 . ; in all at the festes of the 

 yere most usual to be paid. 



lxii s . viii d . 



"Whereof 



1 Wilts. Arch. Mag. iv. 160. 

 J Booke of Survey of Chauntreys, No. 58, Certificate No. 46. 



