244 THOMAS HARDING April their account, for Harding as a member of the university was under their jurisdiction. As was the custom, the heirs and the creditors were summoned to a final meeting on 8 October 1573 in the name of Theodore Peelmans, the rector, by the university notary, Conrad Sylvius, and a notice to that effect was affixed to the doors of St. Peter's. On the appointed day the executors handed in a full statement of the assets, amounting to 1,766 florins, without the property in England. The expenses, about 1,627 florins in total, were detailed and justified.^ The account was approved and the executors were discharged from their responsi- bility, with the exception that a balance of about 139 florins had to be distributed in alms, according to the will of the deceased, amongst his poor and needy countrymen residing on this side the sea for the sake of their religion. As time went on, and English catholic life on the Continent began to concentrate at Douai, the memory of Harding was preserved in the old university only by his tombstone, in front of the altar of the Holy Trinity, in St. Grertrude's Church, adorned with the figure of a man propping with his right hand a tottering church, and, on the wall near the grave, an inscription on a brass plate, which was lost in the turmoil of the French revolution.^ H. de Vocht. The Bridgnorth Company of Smiths In the return made by the corporation of Bridgnorth to the commissioners on public records in 1833 the following paragraph appears : ^ Xni. There are no ancient companies, guilds, or fraternities in this borough now existing : such companies formerly existed, but there are no records to be found applicable to the same. In 1914 a volume was acquired by the British Museum^ (Add. MS. 38834, described in the catalogue as a guild-book), which gives details for the years 1595 to 1752 concerning one of these forgotten companies, the company of smiths, coopers, nailers, &c. The occupations comprised under ' &c.' make a long list : black- smith, brazier, carpenter, cutler, fishhook-maker, freemason, ' The assets were : sale of goods, 282 flor. 4 st. ; sale of books, 184 flor. 2 st. ; gold, money, and debts, 1,300 flor. 4 st. ; total 1,766 flor. 9 st. ; expenses and legacies, 1,627 flor. 7 st.
- This inscription was reproduced by John Pitt in his Dt lUustribu^ Angliae
Scriptoribus, and was copied about 1770 by Paquot, Fasti, p. 29.
- App. to Report of the Commissioners on the Pvblic Records (1837), p. 438.
- It was bought from Mr. T. M. Blagg on 4 April 1914 and was once in the library
of Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore. Fastened into the volume near the end is a small sheet of paper with notes relating to various members of the Bemand family.
