Prayers and Pageants - Nottingham's Guilds
The mediaeval guild was an association of individuals who shared a common interest such as trade, commerce, craftsmenship, socialising and feasting, and prayers and piety.
There were three main types of guilds:
- merchant guilds
- craft guilds
- social and religious guilds.
Most people in Nottingham would have belonged to a guild. Whilst they were important for trade they were also major social networks and could even be hotbeds of gossip.
The merchant guilds
Merchant guilds were the most important type and were usually granted by the crown.
- Nottingham's merchant guild was granted by Prince John in a charter of 1189
- Many members were chief townsmen or burgesses
- The guild is likely to have looked after the general regulation of trade and industry in the town.
The craft guilds
Medieval towns had hundreds of craft guilds. We don't know how many there were in Nottingham but there were plenty of trades in the town reflected in street names. England's medieval craft guilds would often operate in the following way:
- An apprentice would train for seven years before becoming a journeyman and then a master
- The guild supervised how goods were produced and the quality of the finished work
- The guild also regulated the price at which goods should be sold.
The religious guilds
Most guilds would be dedicated to a saint and have an important religious function but this was most evident in the religious guilds.
- Each religious guild would be dedicated to a saint and be based in a particular parish
- The guild would provide for the mutual support and assistance of its members, especially the poor and sick, as well as prisoners and pilgrims
- Guilds also provided some form of education
- The guild priest would say mass every day for the welfare of the living and the souls of the dead
- A major meeting would take place on the feast day of the saint, at which officers were elected and guild finances assessed
- Every year a procession would take place to and from the parish church with the consecrated host or Blessed Sacrament displayed in a monstrance
- The procession was often accompanied by a pageant in which members dressed in colourful costumes as saints, angels and dragons, and Biblical characters.
Nottingham's religious guilds
There would have been many guilds in Nottingham.
- One of the earliest known is the the Guild of St Mary at St Mary's church, for which a membership roll of 1371 survives. Among the 209 names it lists are many women.
- In 1375 John Crowshaw and Robert Baxter took William and Alice Horner to court for not paying money they owed to the Guild of All Saints at St Mary's
- At St Peter's church were the Guild of St George and the Guild of St Mary. Accounts between 1459 and 1541 survive for these guilds, and record among other things the elaborate dragon and angel costumes used in the pageants. Read some of the accounts here [PDF 23KB]
- In 1447 the wealthy merchant and nine-times mayor of Nottingham, Thomas Thurland, re-established the Guild of the Holy Trinity at St Mary's church. The lands it acquired would support two chaplains to celebrate mass and relieve the poor members of the guild.
At Nottinghamshire Archives
Nottinghamshire Archives holds the following records relating to the Merchants' Guild:
- Charter of King John, 1189 (reference: CA 4152)
- A reference is made to the Merchants' Guild in the Borough Court rolls, 1365 (reference: CA 1275)
The following records relate to Nottingham's religious guilds:
- Guild roll of St Mary, 1371 (reference: DP 90/1)
- Action for debt by the collectors of the Guild of All Saints is recorded in the Borough Court rolls, 1375-6 (reference: CA 1279)
- Accounts of the guilds of St George and St Mary at St Peter's, 1459-1541 (reference: PR 21,599). There is a transcription of these accounts (reference: M399) and a translation and account of them in the Thoroton Society Records Series Volume 7 (1939).
Illustrations
Top right: extract of mediaeval music (reference: PR 21,599)
Middle right: guild roll of St Mary, 1371 (reference: DP 90/1). See the guild roll in more detail here [PDF 100.2MB]
Bottom right: account of the Guild of St George and St Mary at St Peter's, 1519 (reference: PR 221,599).
