GILDS AND VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS.

At an early stage in the development of the English nation there became manifest a tendency for persons who possessed certain interests in common, to organise themselves into a species of club or association. To such associations the term “gild” has been applied. Mr. Toulmin Smith maintains that the early English gilds came into existence for the purpose of joining all classes together, for assisting the needy and promoting objects of common welfare. These gilds were inspired by religious motives, and were closely associated with the Church.[418] The first three English gilds of which records are now available, are those of Abbotsbury,[419] Exeter, and Cambridge. The earliest available statement of the purposes of gilds appears to date from 858, when the Archbishop of Rheims, in giving particulars of the gilds of that date in France states that they “unite for offerings, for mutual assistance, for funeral services for the dead, for alms, and for other deeds of piety.”[420] The number of these associations rapidly increased. Brentano states that at one time during the Middle Ages, there were twelve gilds in Norwich and Lynn respectively. Gallienus counts 80 gilds in Cologne, Melle about 70 at LÜbeck, and Staphorst over 100 at Hamburg.[421] Gilds were so very numerous and so marked a characteristic of the social life of the period that it is not to be wondered at if exaggerated statements were made as to their number. “In Norfolk, the most densely populated county of England, Taylor is said to have counted no less than 909 gilds, and in Lyme Regis alone 75.”[422]

It is important to remember that the most prominent characteristic of gilds was the religious element. As a matter of fact it is impossible to conceive of any social organisation which was entirely divorced from religion, existing at this time. Hartshorn states “No matter what the specific raison d’Être was of any gild, it necessarily had a religious aspect. Each had its patron, in whose honour candles were burnt. Some had as their object the aid of poor scholars, the maintenance of schools or the payment of schoolmasters, the presentation of religious plays, as even to-day that of Oberammergau in South Bavaria, or the repair of roads and bridges. The Frith Gilds had rules for helping the gild-brothers in every need. The statutes of the English gilds frequently mention loans made to needy brothers with but one condition, that it be repaid when there was no more need of it.”[423]

Before proceeding to consider the educational significance of the gilds, we may refer here, for the sake of convenience, to two subsequent developments of the gild movement—the gild-merchant and the craft gild.

In the years which immediately followed the Conquest the more important towns of England suffered greatly, partly on account of the chances of war and partly on account of the policy of castle-building associated with the English kings of the Norman period. However, as soon as the Norman rule was firmly established, an internal peace, such as had not been previously enjoyed, was secured for this country; the towns, consequently, made rapid progress, and in one commercial centre after another a gild-merchant was set up.[424]

A gild-merchant came into existence for reasons similar to those which brought into being the religious and social gilds. There was a consciousness of a community of interest, and a common object which could be secured more effectively through co-operation. It is foreign to our purpose to attempt to examine critically the origin of gilds-merchant, and so it must suffice for us simply to state that their history has been traced back to corporations of merchants and artisans, which existed in Rome under Numa Pompilius, and which were termed “collegia” or “corpora opificum et artificium.”[425] In France, the first gild-merchant was formed in 1070, and came into existence for the purpose of protecting the free townsmen against the oppression of the nobility. Gradually their number increased, and with the growth in their number their purposes became more clearly defined, and the custom developed that the gild should receive formal recognition from recognised authority. Thus the traders of Paris formed the “Hanse des marchandes de L’eau” and the privileges they claimed were confirmed by Louis VII. in 1170.

The first purposive mention of a gild-merchant in England dates from C. 1093.[426] The general line of development seems to have been that such associations gradually came into existence at various centres; they defined their purposes, their claims, and the exclusive privileges they desired. When a favourable opportunity presented itself, they secured from the king or other lords the grant of a charter which was necessary for legal recognition. Henry I. seems to have been the first king who systematically granted these charters; during the reign of Henry II., charters were obtained by many of the principal towns of the country, notably Bristol, Durham, Lincoln, Carlisle, Oxford, Salisbury, and Southampton; in each of these charters the recognition of a gild-merchant was an important feature.[427] Ashley writes: “In spite of the paucity of evidence, the existence of a merchant gild can be definitely proved in 92 towns out of the 160 represented at one time or other in the parliaments of Edward I. No considerable name—with two exceptions, namely London and the Cinque Ports—is wanting from the list. It is impossible not to conclude that every town, down to those that were not much more than villages, had its merchant gild. This fact of itself is enough to prove the great part it must have played in the town life of the time.”[428]

A third type of gild—the craft gild—begins to appear early in the twelfth century. These gilds become more numerous as the century advances. In the thirteenth century they are a common feature of industrial life. The circumstances which gave rise to the origin of gilds of this character are still in dispute. The popular view is that the gilds-merchant came into existence, first of all, in order to secure protection against the feudal lords. Gradually they became exclusive and so rendered necessary the formation of craft gilds for the protection of the common interest of those who were engaged in crafts in opposition to the interests of those who were concerned in the sale of the commodities produced.

Ashley points out the difficulties involved in this theory,[429] and suggests an alternative hypothesis. He states that originally membership of the town assembly was bound up with the possession of land within the town boundaries, and that membership of the gild-merchant was practically identical with citizenship. In course of time, there came into existence a class of landless inhabitants of the town, who consequently could not be regarded as burgesses, and therefore could not be admitted into the gild-merchant without the payment of fees. Some of these people would turn to handicrafts. The same spirit of community of interest which produced the religious gilds and the gilds-merchant respectively would also operate to induce the craftsmen to form a guild of their own.[430]

The first craft gilds which come into notice, were those of the weavers; the weavers of London date their charter from the reign of Henry I. There were also gilds of weavers in London, Lincoln, and Oxford in existence before 1130.[431]Just as the gild-merchants obtained a legal recognition of their existence, so the craft gilds also in course of time received recognition from the king, whilst those gilds which were not authorised were amerced as “adulterine.” No attempt, however, seems to have been made forcibly to dissolve the adulterine gilds.

The only definite provision contained in these charters of recognition was, that no one within the specified area should follow the craft unless he were a member of the gild. This provision, however, involved the imposition of conditions of membership, and a general power of supervision over the members of the craft.

We are concerned in this thesis only with the educational significance of the gilds; hence we need not discuss further their economic aspects. It is, however, interesting to note that the social value of these gilds survived their economic functions. Judged from an economic standpoint, they began to degenerate during the fourteenth century. They had come into existence in response to the impulse arising out of a vague sense of the value of association of membership in a corporate body; against this spirit, the sense of individualism, which particularly manifested itself at the time of the Reformation, asserted itself and ultimately triumphed.

The gild system was of considerable importance from the point of view of education. We may note that the gild spirit manifested itself among teachers. They organised themselves into a form of association. Gradually, they laid down the conditions of membership of their body. In course of time, legal recognition was received from pope or emperor or king, and the embryo university gradually obtains general recognition. “The rise of the universities,” says Rashdall, “was merely a wave of that great movement towards association which began to sweep over the cities of Europe in the course of the eleventh century.”

We may next note that the gilds we have described proved to be the means by which the growing social consciousness of the nation evinced an interest in education. The term “social consciousness” is vague, and is capable of being variously defined. The origin of the phenomenon may be traced to the gregarious instinct, when the resulting consciousness is merely the “consciousness of kind,” to use Professor Giddings’ phrase. A higher stage of development is reached when an individual member of a group recognises the relationship in which he stands to the other members of the group, together with a realisation of the duties which such relationship involves. A still higher degree of development of the social consciousness results when the group as a whole recognises that it possesses social duties and responsibilities.

We may trace roughly four stages in the growth of a national social consciousness. First, there is the stage at which the individual cares only for himself, a second stage is attained when family claims are recognised, a still higher stage when a duty to a social group is perceived, a fourth stage is reached when social organisations are formed for discharging more effectively social duties.

The earliest of these social organisations in point of time—and the most important from the standpoint of education—were the social gilds. These gilds, as we have shown, were essentially religious. They were a manifestation of what may be described as a “democratic religious impulse.” The term is admittedly clumsy, but it denotes a desire proceeding from the people to carry out religious duties apart from the official requirements of the Church. On a large scale we can see this force at work in the movements initiated by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic respectively, or, to take a more recent example, in the Methodist revival in the Church of England. To return to our period, we find that men and women, impelled by a spirit of association, formed themselves into a gild in order to carry out more effectively their religious and social responsibilities. We particularly wish to note that, in some cases, these responsibilities included the making of provision for the education of the young.

It is not possible yet to indicate the full extent to which these social gilds made such provision, but it is probable that they did much more for education than is commonly conceived. Our chief means of discovering what was accomplished, is by an examination of the returns which were made when the gilds were being dissolved. From an examination of these records, we are led to the conclusion that, after an association or gild had been formed for specified purposes the general method of procedure was, that the members of the gild made certain payments to secure the services of one or more priests, who were to devote themselves to carrying out such objects as the gild had in view. These aims frequently included the keeping of a school.

We can find this illustrated by a consideration of the information available[432] with regard to the Gild of Kalendars, Bristol. In 1318 the Bishop of Gloucester issued an inquisition as to the rights and privileges of this gild. The report of the commissioners states that “the beginning of the fraternity exceeds the memory of man,” and it was established that it existed before the Conquest. The gild was formerly called the “Gild or Brotherhood of the Community of the clergy and people of Bristol” and received a licence from the Cardinal-legate Gualo in 1216. Among other works carried out by this association is mentioned the maintenance of “a school for Jewes and other strangers, to be brought up and instructed in christianitie under the said fraternitie.”[433] Here then is established the fact that gilds, as apart from churches, conceived themselves as responsible for education at least as early as the thirteenth century.

We may also consider the Palmers Gild which was founded in 1284. This gild supported a “warden, 7 priestes, 4 singyng men, twoo deacons, syx Queristers, ... 32 pore Almes people” as well as a schoolmaster to teach Latin.[434]

As additional instances of schools which were established through the agency of gilds we may enumerate the school at Maldon which is supposed to have been founded by the Fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin,[435] and the school at Raleigh, which was founded by the Trinity Gild in 1388-9.[436] The chantry certificate relating to this gild states that “lands were put in feoffement by diverse and sundry persons to ffinde a prieste ... to teach a fre schole their to instruct youth. Which seide town of Raleigh is a very greate and populous towne.”[437] These instances readily demonstrate the democratic appreciation of education, and that among the purposes for which people joined themselves together in voluntary association was the provision of facilities for education.

We pass to an important topic when we consider the work of the gilds-merchant and the craft gilds. If we can trace any educational activities on the part of these associations then we can trace the origin of the interest taken by the civic communities and by organised labour respectively in education.

Though it is an error to conceive of the gild-merchant as identical with the municipal authority yet as Gross points out the distinction between them was barely perceptible. Now, if we can show that the gilds-merchant in some cases supported schools, then we have shown the interest of the civic community (as apart from the work of the Church) in educational matters. The only specific case of a gild-merchant taking an interest in education which we have been able to find is that of the gild-merchant of York. The chantry certificate of the city of York states that “the governour and kepers of the mysterye of merchauntes of the cytie of York,” co-operated in the foundation of a hospital which had as one of its objects the maintenance of “two poore scolers.”[438]

Our difficulty in dealing with this topic arises from the fact that the “founder” of schools mentioned in the available documents is so very frequently not the real founder. It is for this reason that Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and others have been regarded as the founders of schools which cannot in any real sense be attributed to them. In the case of gilds, we find the names of certain persons mentioned as the founders of various charitable trusts without a distinct statement of the fact that they were acting simply as representatives of an association.

We are, therefore, driven to consider the full objects of the charitable trust under discussion. If the objects mentioned are mainly religious or eleemosynary, then it is probable that the trust created was ecclesiastical in its origin, but if these characteristics are not definitely present, or if the purposes specified by the trust include duties which should form a part of the duty of the municipality, then we consider that the gild should be classed under the municipal gilds.

With this object in view, we may examine the chantry certificate for the town of Wisbech, one of the fullest and most complete of the chantry certificates and one which would have well served as a model to others who had the duty of drawing up these returns. In answer to the question of the founder of the gild, the certificate states the gild was founded in the reign of Richard II. by certain clerks whose names are specified “with other mo.” This last phrase is significant as it supports the inference that the gild was formed by the citizens of the town, but that the clergy, as the natural leaders of the community, would append their names first to the document.The objects of the gild, which are specified in this return may be briefly summarised—

Here we have an effective enumeration of the duties of a municipal authority, and when the date of the founding of the gild and the absence of any legislation which compelled the carrying out of such tasks are considered, then the duties specified point to a high degree of social responsibility having been attained at Wisbech at this date. We may, therefore, conclude that the gild at Wisbech was not simply a religious association for purely spiritual purposes, but was an association of the civil community for municipal purposes. That these purposes included certain religious functions is not a matter of surprise. Religion in the Middle Ages was more closely interwoven with the life of the people than it is to-day.

The gild existing at Stratford-on-Avon seems also to have been a citizen gild. Its origin can be traced to a date earlier than 1295. In the return made to the sheriff’s proclamation in 1389, it was stated that the gild was begun at a time beyond the memory of man. The affairs of the gild were administered by two wardens who were elected by the members. The main objects of the gild seem to have been the maintenance of priests to celebrate divine service and the keeping of a grammar school.[440]

The chantry certificate of the city of Worcester further supports the contention that the municipal authority provided a school. The certificate referred to was signed by the master of the gild, two bailiffs of the city, an alderman, a citizen, and two stewards of the gild. It is notable that not a single ecclesiastic signs the return. The school, moreover, was kept in the Gild Hall of the city, and was apparently a successful one, as there were over 100 scholars who attended it. This return, coupled with the fact that Worcester was a cathedral city, raises several points of interest which it is hoped that future research will elucidate. From whom was the necessary authority to establish the school derived? Was the school the outcome of a dispute between the civic and the ecclesiastical authorities, as was the school at Exeter in the seventeenth century? Prima facie, facts certainly point in that direction.[441]

We have quoted the case of these three gilds to support the contention that it had begun to be realised that it was the duty of the municipal authorities to make provision for education. A full investigation into this subject can only gradually be made, as the various municipal documents are examined with this object in view. We may, however, note here that the “Gilds of Holy Trinity and St. George” in Warwick were responsible for the continuance of Warwick School,[442] that the burgesses of Coventry seem to have maintained a school,[443] that a grammar school at Ipswich was founded by the municipality,[444] that the civic authorities at Bridgenorth were in charge of the schools,[445] and that the school at Plymouth was founded by the corporation.[446]

The work of the craft gilds for education still remains to be considered. We find that at Shrewsbury, the Drapers’ Gild, the Mercers’ Gild, the Shermen Gild, the Shoemakers’ Gild, the Tailors’ Gild, and the Weavers’ Gild, each supported a chantry priest at either the church of St. Mary, or St. Chad, or St. Julian. By analogy with other cases, we assume that these chantry priests acted as schoolmasters to the children of the members of the craft gilds.[447]

A new departure was instituted when a successful member of a craft gild bequeathed money to it for the purpose of endowing a school at a specified place. Thus, in 1443, John Abbot made the Mercers’ Craft the trustees of a school to be founded at Farthinghoe in Northamptonshire.[448] A school at Lancaster was founded in 1469 by John Gardyner, burgess and probably miller, of Lancaster.[449] In 1487, Sir Edmund Shaw or Sha “cytezen goldsmyth and alderman and late mayer of the citee of London” devised money to the Goldsmiths’ Company for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a grammar school at Stockport.[450] Then, in 1505, another Lord Mayor, Sir Bartholomew Read, founded by will a school at Cromer and also appointed the Goldsmiths’ Company as trustees.[451]

The general conclusion we seem to be justified in drawing from these instances is, that the value of education was being more and more realised, and that the duty of making provision for education ceased to be regarded as exclusively the function of the Church. This does not mean that there existed an idea that education was not still regarded as something which should be closely associated with the Church, but rather, that the idea had originated and developed that organisations which represented the municipality and handicrafts respectively, also possessed a responsibility in making provision for the education of the young.

In addition to making provision for schools, the gilds were important educative forces in other directions. They constituted one of the most important agencies for breaking down social exclusiveness and “in transmitting social manners and ideals from a narrower to a wider circle.” As the gilds had increased in number, so they increased in wealth and importance. They built halls which were the external testimony to the position they occupied. At times they entertained kings and other magnates of the realm and admitted persons of standing to honorary membership. Music and the drama were also fostered by the gilds. Several gilds existed in England[452] with the object of developing an interest in music. The performance of dramatic representations was a common feature of the gilds.

Membership of the gilds also proved to be a training for the performance of the duties of citizenship and of society, as the members of such organisations were brought into intimate relation with a wider circle than their own individual interests would furnish, and they would be required to take part in the transactions of the business of the gild. It is noteworthy that gilds were organised on a social basis, and that women were admitted to the membership of the merchant and craft gilds, as well as to that of the social and religious gilds. Thus at Kingston, the Gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded in 1357 by 10 men and 13 women,[453] and the Gild of Corpus Christi founded in the same town in 1338 included 18 women among its 43 founders.[454] The sons and daughters of these founders might be admitted to membership of the gilds without initiatory payment.[455] Again, at Coventry, the names of women as well as men are mentioned in the Charter of the gild merchant.[456]

One other point may be mentioned, a point which has been described as “the most important educational service of the gilds.” This service was the growth of the system of apprenticeship. Originally, apprenticeship was merely a private contract between an individual and his prospective master. With the development of gilds, regulations specifying the conditions of such apprenticeship began to be issued, e.g. the master craftsman might teach his art to as many members of his family as he pleased, but he could only have one other apprentice. Moreover, from the outset, the apprentice was under the special protection of the gild which was practically a court of appeal in the event of any serious complaint on the part of the apprentice. Important, however, as this topic is, a further consideration of it would lead us beyond the special limits of our investigation.