the searchers gave out certain samples and the wares had to conform to the same length, otherwise the makers were fined. One of the smallest gilds of which record is preserved in the Memorandum Book is the gild of founders. It consisted of only five members. There is considerable difficulty about fixing the date when the ordinances were passed. They were endorsed by the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen; as York did not become a county by itself until 1397, there were no sheriffs there until that date, thus the regulations must be later than 1397. Practically the same regulations appear again a few folios farther on, it is then stated that they were passed in the 14th year of a king, whose name is illegible. If the date is taken to be 1413 that is 14 Henry IV., then as Gyles de Bonoyne and Johan de Gervaux took their freedom in 1360 two of the five members must have been men of 70, an unusual age, for in the 14th century septuagenarians were not common. On the other hand, 14 Richard II. gives 1390, a date prior to 1397, and as the second set of ordinances are placed later in the MS., it would be more probable that they would be later in date. The regulations though short are interesting The second set seem to have been published to meet the wants of Gyles de Bonoyne, who being a bachelor, had no wife to help him with his work. In compassion for his hapless state, the gild passed a special regulation that he was to be allowed to have two apprentices at once, although this was contrary to gild policy. Possibly his wifeless condition was due to his being a foreigner, a Lombard.1 The prohibition of night-work was common to most of the crafts' constitutions, the rule was relaxed in the case of the founders, "smetyng de lour metall," was allowed by night. The spurriers too, were allowed to work on Sundays, if the king were in the north, or if the people, who wished to buy goods or to have some of their possessions repaired, were travellers.2 The Paris gilds allowed nightwork, if it were for the royal household, the queen, the princes of the blood, the bishop of Paris and other great lords.3 All lavers had to be made according to assize, that is according to measurements, by a lucky accident a piece of parchment with the sketch of the model, as supplied by the masters of the craft, has been bound up in the Memorandum Book with the founders' ordinances. The regulation dealing with the subject is very explicit and the penalty for infringement heavy. No one shall make any lavers except by an assize given to him by the said masters, under a penalty of £5 " modern money. 66 The cutlers' ordinances cover the whole of the fifteenth century; the first set given in Anglo-French are undated but apparently were enacted about 1410.2 The humility with which they approach the mayor and aldermen is the only novel feature. "To their very honourable and very reverend lords the mayor and aldermen of the city of York their poor fellow citizens address their supplications." The tenour of the alteration, which these subservient folk wish to introduce, shows that the ten masters of the gild were anxious to prevent a too rapid increase in their numbers. Apparently, before this enactment, there was no limit to the number of apprentices that a master might take, in the future, however, only one apprentice was allowed and he was to be kept in training for seven years. The gild made many claims on its members' time and money; probably the craftman developed great dexterity in escaping the elaborate net work of fines, but he was obliged to pay his fee towards the upkeep of the pageant and periodically to act as pageant master. From an agreement made between a chapman and the cutlers of York in 1445, it seems that these numerous obligations could be compounded for by an annual payment of 12s. 6d. modern money. Thomas Usclyff bound himself to pay that sum each year towards the pageant and lights, if he were excused from holding the office of pageant master or any other office pertaining to the said gild.3 But the gilds were beginning to find it increasingly difficult to collect these dues. A very comprehensive ordinance was passed that all vendors, whether citizens or strangers, except the merchants and mercers, were to pay towards the upkeep of the pageant, as in times past; in case 1. Mem. Bk., p. 94. 2. 1380, 1384, 1393, 1402, 1409 and 1410, are the dates when the master cutlers were enrolled as freemen 3. Mem. Bk., pp. 133 136 of refusal the offender was to be punished at the discretion of the mayor.1 But the strangers were elusive; nearly fifty years later the spurriers were still struggling with the problem, the stranger was ordered to pay a yearly tax of 5s. modern money, "to the sustentacion and brynging furth of the paiaunt of the said craftez."2 .66 Trade marks, which play an important part in the development of the Sheffield Cutlers' Company," were in use among the York cutlers from a very early date. Each bladesmith is ordered to cut and use his own mark upon the knives, which he makes, different from the mark of any other man of the same artifice.* The gild of pewterers adopted an unusual policy instead of drawing up their own rules, they took over those of the pewterers of London. But a comparison of the York and London ordinances, which were enacted in 1348, shows few points of resemblance.5 No more London ordinances are extant until 1438, that is until 22 years after the date, when York was said to have adopted the London laws. On 19 Nov. of that year the London company was summoned before the mayor and aldermen and charged with having made ordinances without the council's knowledge or authority. Three months later, the pewterers confessed their faults and their illegal ordinances "were annulled and utterly rejecte." The next month the 1438 regulations were approved by the mayor. It is obvious these new rules were not those in use in York; are the York ordinances the same as those which excited the wrath of the aldermen of London, and were destroyed. The evidence certainly points in that direction, but it is difficult to understand why they were objected to; there seems to be nothing startling or against "the profit of the city" in them. The uncompromising exclusion of the alien and the unfree man are by no means peculiar to the pewterers-the insistence upon a seven years' apprenticeship is common to all gilds. The enactment 6 1. Mem. Bk., p. 137. 2. 3. 4. York Municipal Records, vol. VII., fol. 1096 (29 Jan., 1494). 5. Letter Book, F. fol. 155. H. T. Riley, "Memorials of London and London Life," pp. 241-244. 6. C. Welch. 66 History of the Pewterers' Company,' pp. 2-5. that no master was to pay a servant more than 40s. (that is in modern money £30) a year, startling as it seems to the industrial ideas of the 20th century, was only an echo of the national policy expressed in the statute of labourers. Though the solution is not absolutely satisfactory still it seems fairly probable that the York ordinances are the missing London ones. The London pewterers claimed the right of search throughout the whole country, and two searchers were dispatched into Yorkshire for the purpose.1 Both men and women were admitted to the London company but there is no allusion to women in the York gild. Neither in numbers nor in social status can the metal workers be compared with the cloth workers. Seven of the ten gilds connected with the iron industry only attain to a membership of 79, that is an average of 11 members to each gild, whereas the five cloth manufacturing gilds reach à membership of 325, an average of 65 members to each gild. The remaining twenty gilds fall naturally into four groups; food producers, as butchers, bakers, saucemakers and fishers; builders, as glasiers, plasterers, joiners and painters; makers of household utensils and weapons of defence, as potters, chandlers, coopers, sadlers, parchment makers, bowers and fletchers; and makers of clothing, as glovers, skinners, cobblers. The barbersurgeons and writers of texts admit of no classification. Thus a man's material well-being turned entirely upon the good management of the gilds. The baker who fed him, the clothier who clothed him, the builder who built his house, the barber-surgeon, who shaved and bled him were not individuals pursuing unhampered careers but part of a highly organised system with rules and regulations that often remained unaltered for a century. A rapidly expanding industrial life circumscribed by an absolutely inelastic set of laws seems to spell disaster, revolution, chaos; but York thrived under the system. The explanation of the anomaly lies in that great national asset, an Englishman's capacity for the good administration of bad law. The craftsman certainly lived with the sword of heavy penalties for slight 1. C. Welch, op. cit. pp. 46, 47. 66 offences hanging over his head, but it seldom fell. Mr. Hudson has worked out the fines paid at the Leet Court and handed over to the city chamberlain for the year 1289, in Norwich. By drawing out a balance sheet for the whole city in this year it appears that the total amount of all the amercements entered is £72 18s. 10d. This is equivalent to more than £1,000 at the present value of money. But all that the collectors can account for, even after Easter, is £17 Os. 2d. It is clear that however efficient the system was in preventing offences from passing undetected, it did not do much to deter offenders from repeating them." That under such a system glaring cases of injustice must have taken place is unquestionable. A popular man would escape scot free, an unpopular man would pay the fines that were often needed to keep the gild machinery in working order; still the literal interpretation of the law would have led to worse calamities. Owing to the assize of bread,2 the bakers' gild stands on the border line between a state and a municipal undertaking. The earliest ordinances are undated, they possess one novel feature, the masters were to discriminate between the skilled and the unskilled labourer, the former was to receive £1 6s. 8d. and his clothes, the latter only 13s. 4d., without clothes. The regulations of 1479 are given in English, they legislated the place where, and the hours when bread brought from the country may be sold.3 Unfortunately the earliest of the butchers' ordinances are illegible,* two additional ordinances are inserted later in the volume, one of which prohibited the killing of beasts in the shambles at night, the other forbade butchers to take apprentices for a shorter period of time than seven years.5 The work of the building crafts overlapped considerably, the tilers and plasterers seem to have been at constant warfare. At last in 1413, they submitted their disputes to the mayor and 1. W. Hudson op. cit. p. cxxxix, Leet Jurisdiction. p. lviii. 2. Ante p. xxii. Selden Soc., vol. 5, 3. Mem. Bk., pp. 29, 43, 168-172. In the British Museum are two interesting MSS., crudely illustrated, containing the ordinances of the bakers, their accounts and records of some of their meetings. Add. MSS. 34605. 4. Ibid., pp. 58, 59. 5. Ibid., p. 59. |