A HISTORY OF PRESTON GUILD.
We have received a small volume, entitled as above, and as the Guild takes place next week we give the introductory chapter, which contains information which will no doubt be interesting to our readers. Tho authors of the volume are Wm. Dobson, and John Harland, F.S.A :
Preston is an ancient town, but the precise date of its foundation is not known. Speculative antiquaries have indulged in disquisitions on its presumed origin, but without adding much to our knowledge on the subject. It was, however, a town in Saxon times, and at the conquest possessed a church, one of the three recorded in domesday book as being in Amounderness.
When Preston first received municipal privileges is also unknown. Our corporation have been granted not less than fourteen charters by successive sovereigns, the first having been received from King Henry the Second, and they possess a still older and more curious document, ‟The Custumal of Preston," recording the peculiar privileges possessed by the borough at the time that document was prepared, probably the thirteenth century, and which privileges it would appear to have then long enjoyed.
The inhabitants of Preston have returned members to parliament, with little intermission, since the thirteenth century. But among the claims of our borough to notice, the most peculiar is probably our guild, a periodical celebration—in ancient times connected with municipal rights, in later days also memorable for the festivities with which it his been associated.
When the first guild took place is unknown; we possess records of twenty-two having been held, and are about to celebrate the twenty-third. Guilds Merchant are a Saxon institution, and sonic ingenuity has been exercised in tracing their establishment, many of our antiquaries believing them to have originated in the days of Alfred or earlier. On the eve of another celebration of our ancient festival, there is a very natural curiosity excited as to the nature and origin of this singular institution, among many who at other times have little taste for antiquarian studies. The early history of guilds would fill a volume; we would now note only a few of the most salient features.
In the Anglo-Saxon era of our history, as the most ancient of social ties, that of families, gave way under the growth of population, and all the dwellers in a place were no longer kinsmen, it became necessary to substitute some other bond of association, having special reference to the still sparse population of a district. Hence arose the grouping of neighbours into little confederacies or partnerships in social duties, rights, and responsibilities, consisting of ten men or heads of families, and hence called tythings or gylds, for the terms were once synonymous. Ten of these tythings made a hundred, a term which originally had no reference to the land, but simply to the population of some vicinity amounting to that number of heads of families. The smaller associations of ten families were called ge-gyldan—fellows or brothers of the gyld—that word implying one who shares with others either in paying or in worshipping, but more commonly the former. Hence came several variations of the term, as geld, a tax, Dane-geld, &c.; and later gald or yald, a levy of any tax or subsidy for the king. We must nut dwell on the various kinds of guilds which arose, all having the common features of equal contributions to a common fund, and equal pledge of suretyship of any nine members for the tenth, in cases where the borh or pledge was necessary. Hence nigh-borhs or neighbours. The citizens of London formed themselves into frith-gylds, or associations for the maintenance of the public peace, each consisting of ten men, and ten of these guilds forming a hundred. A similar association in York was called a ten-man-tale, from the number of men composing it and the old word to tell, count, or reckon. A second and later form was the religious guild for mutual comfort and support in life, succour in peril, relief in distress, Christian burial after death, and masses for the soul of a deceased member in purgatory. Of these the late Mr. J. M. Kemble gives several interesting illustrations in his great collection of Anglo-Saxon charters. Within the last twenty years there has been an extensive revival among Roman Catholics of this form of guild. A third variety was a knightly guild, of which one is said to have been instituted in London in the reign of Edgar, between A.D. 959 and 975. A fourth variety, naturally springing from the civil and the ecclesiastical guilds, was the accular or trading guild; with which class we are now more immediately concerned. London being divided into wards, and these into streets, there was at an early period a manifest convenience in persons of the same trade or calling dwelling in the same neighbourhood.
The form of government of the ancient Anglo-Saxon trade guilds had some resemblance to that of our ancient constitution of king, lords, and commons; it consisted of a headman, alderman, or principal (in later times called the warden); of a council, and of associates. The favourite number for the head man and his council was 13, in imitation of Christ and his twelve apostles. The first trade guild of which we find any record was the ‟Gilda Theutonicorum," or the guild of the (German) steel-yard merchants of London. They are supposed to have given existence to the famous Hanseatic league—a commercial confederacy, formed on the east shores of the Baltic, in the eighth century, to protect their trade from the piratical incursions of the northmen. Thence they derived their names of "Easterlings," and Tennant declares them to have been our ‟masters in the art of commerce." They are known to have settled in London before the year 967, in which year ‟Emperor's men, or Easterlings," coming with their ships to Billingsgate, were declared to be law-worthy by an edict of King Ethelred. Of this guild Stow gives a long account. They had a governing alderman and council of twelve, and lived together in a large building, in the fashion of a collegiate body. Hansa and Gilda were synonymous terms; the former occurring in charters of King John (1199) and Henry III. (1250), in the sense of guild. The principal factory or warehouse in London was in Thames-street, with spacious quays, and their ancient house there was called the German Guild-hall (‟Gilhalda Teutonicorum.") They subsequently added house to house, and from one of their new acquisitions, previously called the Steel-house, in Steel-yard, they received the name of ‟Merchants of the Steel-yard,” as their factory was called. At one time the guild is said to have exported annually 40,000 pieces of woollen cloth, whist all the English merchants together exported only 11,000 pieces. The strong prejudices of the citizens against foreigners ultimately effected the dissolution of the guild in 1552, after an existence in London of nearly six centuries. The next stage in the history of guilds is the formation of the trading guilds by citizens of London, which laid the foundation of what are still known as ‟The Twelve Livery Companies of London.” One of these, the Saddlers’ Guild, had its origin in Anglo-Saxon times. Another, the still existing guild of Woollen-cloth Weavers, arose in Anglo-Norman days. They had a charter from Henry II., which confirms to them all the liberties and customs they had enjoyed in the reign of Henry I., and also shows that some guilds had received royal charters long before Edward I., and had possessed certain immunities immediately after the Norman conquest. As the charter of Henry II (one of the earliest of the kind known) has important bearings on the grant of a guild to Preston, we print a translation of the grant:—
‟Henry, &c., King of England, &c., to all bishops, justices, sheriffs, ministers, and all other, his faithful, greeting. Know ye that I have granted to the weavers of London to have their guild in London, with all liberties and customs which they had in the time of Henry my grandfather [Henry I.], and in such sort that none [unless by their leave, or it be done by one of the guild,) shall intermeddle with their ministers [or officers] within the city, or in Southwark, or other places of London adjacent, otherwise than he was accustomed in the time of Henry my grandfather. For which reason I will, and strictly command, that wheresoever they may they shall lawfully manufacture, and shall have everything as aforesaid in the some sort, well and peaceably, honourably and entirely, as at any time they might in the time of Henry my grandfather, and more fully and entirely have had the same, on condition that they therefore render to me every year two marks of gold (£26 13s. 4d.) at the feast of Michaelmas. And I hereby prohibit any one from molesting them under a penalty of £10.—Given at Winchester.”
There is no date, but Henry II. reigned A.D. 1154-1189. Glanville speaks of guilds in this king's reign as common institutions. Of early royal grants of guilds mercatory we may specify one by Henry I. to Beverley, in Yorkshire. In the same reign (in 1103) Hawise, Countess of Gloucester, granted one to her burgesses in Petersfield, giving them all the liberties, &c., enjoyed by the Guild Merchant of Winchester, as granted by her father, William Earl of Gloucester. King Stephen granted to Chichester all the liberties, &c., of Guild Merchant, which they had in the time of King William (I.) his grandfather, and his uncles. Henry II. granted by charter that the men in Wallingford should have freely a Guild Merchant. He made a similar grant to the burgesses of Newcastle-under- Lyne, or Lyme, and, as this charter became the model, exemplar, or type of his subsequent grant to Preston, we print, from Kuerden, a translation:—
‟Know ye that we have given, and by this our present charter have confirmed, for us and our heirs, that our town of New Castle under Lyne be a free borough, and that the burgesses of that borough have a Guild Merchant in the said borough, with all liberties and free customs to such Guild Merchant in any wire belonging; and that they may pass through all our dominions, with their merchandise, buying, selling, and trafficking, well and in peace, freely, quietly, and honourably; and that they be quiet [or quit] from toll, passage, postage, stallage, lastage, uluage, and all other customs. Wherefore, we will, and strictly command, for us and our heirs, that the free burgesses of the said town receive all manner of security of peace, soc and sac, toll, infangthief, utfangthief, hang-wyte, home-soken, gryth-bryce, plyt-wyte, fiyt-wyte, ford-wyte, forestall, child-wyte, wapentake, lastage, stallage, shoowynde [shewing or scavage toll) hundred, averpenny; and for all treasons, murders, felonies, riots, the chattels of all felons, and all other customs and actions throughout all our realm, and the Marches of Wales, and our dominions as well in England as in any other of our territories.—Given under the hand of the Reverend Father R, Bishop of Chichester, our Chancellor, at Fakenham, the 18th day of September, in the 19th year of our reign.”
This charter was granted on the 18th September, 1173. At some later period the same monarch granted a charter to Preston—the earliest of the fourteen charters which have been granted to our ancient borough—in the following terms:—
‟Henry, &c., King of England, &c., to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, sheriffs, and all his officers and liegemen throughout England, greeting. Know ye that I have granted, and by this my present charter have confirmed, to my burgesses of Preston, all the same liberties and free customs which I have given to my burgesses of Newcastle-under-Lyne. Wherefore, I will, and firmly command, that my aforesaid burgesses of Preston have and hold, well and in peace, freely and quietly, fully and entirely, and honourably, both within the borough and without the borough, all those liberties and free customs (saving my right of administering justice) which the burgesses of Newcastle-under-Lyne have, as I have granted, and by my charter confirmed, to them the aforesaid burgesses of Newcastle.—Witnesses: G. of Ely, and I. of Norwich, bishops; Godfrey de Lucie, earl; William de Maundeville, Ranulf de Glanville, Hugh de Cressy, Ralf Fitzstephen, Bertram de Verdun, Hugh de Laci.—Given at Winchester.”
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