Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/129

UKIGIXAL DOCUMENTS. 87 III. — TitAiJK Guilds. The corporation of the city, or whole hoily of frcemeti, constituted a jjild or guild and is so designated in the earliest charters. The freemen continued to he sworn " of the gild of merchants " until the Corporation Reform Bill ; hut there had been no distinct gilds, or exclusive trading, for many years before that date.^ It is, however, certain that the trades, or mysteries, of Winchester were once separately associated in gilds or fraternities. We read in the Black Book of the Corporation, as well as in the Pipe Rolls mentioned above, of the Telarii, or " ars textoria," and its four magistri or stewards sworn in before the mayor ;^ of the Fullones, and two stewards of the art of fullers,' and of the art of corvesers,^ and of the fraternity of cissores.^ At the end of the seventeenth century the companies of carpenters and cordwainers are mentioned in au ordinance, and there were doubtless other companies. The growth of these subordinate gilds and their original connexion with the governing body is obscure. The telers and fullers, wo have seen, paid annual rent to the king for their gilds as early as the twelfth century. The charter of Elizabeth gives, or perhaps only confirms, to the corporation the right of creating such gilds, and this power may possibly have been implied in the old grants to towns of the franchises of a gild merchant ; but distinct gilds, so created, would still bo deficient in some corporate capacities. The survey of 1148 speaks of the place in Colebrook Street " ubi probi homines potabant gildam suam." ' The Consuetudinary, too, provides for the occasion of the " drinking of the gild markand." This feast seems to have been a meeting of the general gild merchant, and not of any one trade gild. The process by which the collection was made for defraying the expense of the potation is described in a manner which is now hardly intelligible. It should rather seem that the persons charged with the management of it had to indemnify themselves, as far as they could, by a collection from the members of the gild, and to pay the rest themselves, like the stewards of some public dinners at the present day ; and this construction is rendered probable by the like usage in other gilds. Thus, the costs of the gild feast at Yarmouth were formerly defrayed by four of the brethren on whom the lot fell.* In the gilds at Lynn, the four bailiffs, stewai-ds, scabins, or skevins, of each gild, seem to have been liable, in the first instance, for the dinners and drinkings on the day of the morning-speech, or general colloquium." From the days of Tacitus to our own the convivial element of the old municipal and co-operative system has been a prominent part of it. " Plerumque in conviviis consultant. Gens non astuta aperit secreta pectoris licentia joci," &c. Such were the maxims of our Teutonic ances- tors, transmitted to us through a long succession of gilds, fraternities, sodalities, and companies, which, in their various vocations, secular or sacred, have never lost sight of their aboriginal duty of compotation. Nor can we refrain from applauding the precautions taken to prevent excess, and the indulgent tests of moderation which they established : — " Nullus eorum tempore convivii, quod Gildescap dicitur, se inebriare debebit adeo s Jluiiieipal Report printed 1835. ^ Ih, 44. 9 Black Book, fol. 'I'l, 31, 32. ■• Lib. Winton. ^ 76., 39. ^ Swinfeus Vurnioutli,p. 55. - lb., 31. 6 Richards' Lynn, vol. i., p. 422, et seq.