Kuhl — Chaucer's Burgesses. 
671 
London, which had occasioned so much disquietude of late 
years (and which the lords had already shown a desire to 
take in hand), but also all kindred associations throughout 
the country, for the King issued writs to the Sheriff of every 
county to make a return of all Guilds within his bailiwick, 
with full particulars of their origin, government, and pos¬ 
sessions.” 1 Sharpe thinks that one “of the chief enact¬ 
ments (in 1391) was the interpretation of the Statute of 
Mortmain as comprising property held by laymen to the 
uses of religious houses or by perpetual corporations, such 
as guilds and fraternities.” 2 
One record, of extraordinary interest because unique, is 
preserved which indicates that the women had a direct in¬ 
terest in the business affairs of that day. In 1372 an ar¬ 
rangement was made between the Dyers, Leathersellers, and 
Pursers of the Bridge defining their respective duties and 
obligations. Of the three dyers who subscribe the Articles, 
- 1 Two separate writs dated 1 November were sent to the Mayor, and 
Sheriffs of London; one bids them “for certain reasons laid before the 
King and his Council at the last Parliament held at Cambridge, to make 
proclamations for all Masters, Wardens, and Surveyors of misteries and 
crafts in the City and suburbs who have in their possession any charters 
or letters patent fromfthe King.touching the said misteries and crafts, 
to bring into the King’s Chancery such charters”—before Feb. 2, 1389. 
The other writ is for all “Masters and Wardens of guilds and fraternities 
in the City and suburb” to make returns of their foundation, government, 
and property. {Letter-Book, H, pp. XLVIII, 336). See Toulmin Smith, 
English Gilds (E. E. T. S., Vol. 40, pp. 127-131), for a translation of these 
writs. The guilds were to make returns of the “true annual value of the 
said lands, tenements, and possessions and the true worth of the said 
goods and chattels” {Ibid., p. 128). Sharpe says {Letter-Book, H, p. 
XLVIII) that the “first writ applied to the Guilds which controlled the 
various trades and crafts of the City, but which also possessed incidentally 
a religious and social element; the second referred to unchartered associa¬ 
tions formed solely for religious and social purposes. No returns to the 
first writ appear to be extant (if, indeed, they were ever made), whilst 
only thirty-one returns have been discovered to the second writ. Among 
the latter are returns of four fraternities bearing the names of craft 
Guilds, viz: the Whitelawyers, the Barbers, the Cutlers, and the Glovers, 
but only as social and religious associations. A seventeenth-century copy 
of the return made by the fraternity of Barbers is printed in Mr. Sidney 
Young’s “Annals of the Barber-Surgeons” (pp. 30-34). A copy of 
Young’s Annals is in the Harvard Library. To what extent the guilds 
had a social and religious purpose is not known. See Miss S. E. Moffat, 
London Fraternities in the Fourteenth Century (printed in The Clare Market 
Review, May, 1906). A. copy of this article is in the library of Harvard 
University. Cf. Hinckley, Notes, etc., p. 27. 
2 Letter-Book, H, p. 371, n. 4. 
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