Page:Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1535.djvu/35

the merchant, bids him "marie maydens or maken hem nonnes"^[1]. At Ludlow the gild of Palmers provided that:

If any good girl of the gild of marriageable age, cannot have the means found by her father, either to go into a rehgious house or to marry, whichever she wishes to do, friendly and right help shall be given her out of our common chest, towards enabling her to do whichever of the two she wishes^[2].

Similarly at Berwick-on-Tweed the gild "ordained by the pleasure of the burgesses" had a provision entitled, "Of the bringing up of daughters of the gild," which ran: "If any brother die leaving a daughter true and worthy and of good repute, but undowered, the gild shall find her a dower, either on marriage or on going into a religious house"^[3] So also John Syward, "stockfissh-mongere" of London, whose will was proved at the Court of Husting in 1349, left, "To Dionisia his daughter forty pounds for her advancement, so that she either marry therewith or become a religious at her election, within one year after his decease"^[4]; and William Wyght, of the same trade, bequeathed "to each of his daughters Agnes, Margaret, Beatrix and Alice fifty pounds sterling for their marriage or for entering a religious house" (1393)^[5]; while William Marowe in 1504 bequeathed to "Elizabeth and Katherine his daughters forty pounds each, to be paid at their marriage or profession"^[6]. Sometimes, however, the sound burgess sense prevailed, as when Walter Constantyn endowed his wife with "the residue of his goods, so that she assist Amicia, his niece,...towards her marriage or to some trade befitting her position"^[7].

The mixture of classes must have been more frequent in convents which were situate in or near a large town, while the country gentry had those lying in rural districts more or less

1. Langland, Vision of Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, passus A, viii, i. 31.
2. English Gilds, ed. L. T. Smith (E.E.T.S.), p. 194.
3. Ibid. p. 340.
4. Sharpe, op. cit. i, p. 589.
5. Sharpe, op. cit. ii, p. 299. The Fishmongers, who, up to 1536, were divided into the two companies of salt-fishmongers and stock-fishmongers, were a powerful and important body, as the annals of the City of London in the fourteenth century show, "these fishmongers" in the words of Stow "having been jolly citizens and six mayors of their company in the space of twenty-four years." Stow's Survey of London (ed. Kingsford), i, p. 214.
6. Sharpe, op. cit. ii, p. 606.
7. Sharpe, op. cit. i, p. 594.