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Going to the Fraternity Feast: Commensality and Social Relations in Late Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Gervase Rosser
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In the history of medieval ideas about community, a prominent place must be accorded to the fraternity, or guild. This type of voluntary association, found throughout medieval Europe, frequently applied to itself the name of communitas. The community of the guild was not, however, a simple phenomenon; it invites closer analysis than it has yet received. As religious clubs of mostly lay men and (often) women, the fraternities of medieval Christendom have lately been a favored subject among students of spirituality. Less interest, however, has recently been shown in the social aspects of the guilds. One reason for this neglect may be precisely the communitarian emphasis in the normative records of these societies, which most late twentieth-century historians find unrealistic and, perhaps, faintly embarrassing. But allowing, as it must be allowed, that medieval society was not the Edenic commune evoked in fraternity statutes, the social historian is left with some substantial questions concerning these organizations, whose number alone commands attention: fifteenth-century England probably contained 30,000 guilds. Why were so many people eager to pay subscriptions—which, though usually modest, were not insignificant—to be admitted as “brothers” and “sisters” of one or more fraternities? Who attended guild meetings, and what did they hope to achieve by doing so? What social realities gave rise to the common language of equal brotherhood? This essay is intended to shed some light on these questions by focusing on what for every guild was the event which above all gave it visible definition: the annual celebration of the patronal feast day.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 4: Vill, Guild, and Gentry: Forces of Community in Later Medieval England , October 1994 , pp. 430 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1994

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References

1 See notably Le movement confraternel au Moyen-Age, Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome, vol. 97 (1987)Google Scholar; Meersseman, G. G., Ordo Fraternitatis, 3 vols., Italia Sacra, xxiv–xxvi (Rome, 1977)Google Scholar. The sole monograph on the English guilds (Westlake, H. F., The Parish Gilds of Mediaeval England [London, 1919]Google Scholar) gives priority to their “spiritual” aspect.

2 See, however, Coornaert, E., “Les ghildes médiévales (Ve–XIVe siècle). Définition. Evolution,” Revue historique 199 (1948): 22–25, 208–43Google Scholar; Oexle, O. G., “Gilden als soziale Gruppen in der Karolingerzeit,” in Das Handwerk in vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Zeit, vol. 1, ed. Jankuhn, H.et al., Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Dritte Folge, nr. 122 (Göttingen, 1981), pp. 284–354Google Scholar; and Reynolds, S., Kingdoms and Communities in Medieval Europe, 900–1300 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 67–78Google Scholar.

3 This total would represent, on average, three associations in each of 8,000 or 9,000 parishes. The distribution of fraternities was in fact uneven, their concentration being greater in the more commercialized and urbanized areas, but the overall estimate of 30,000 remains realistic. See Rosser, G., “Medieval English Guilds, 900–1600” (Oxford University, Oxford, in preparation)Google Scholar.

4 Biddle, M., ed., Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, Winchester Studies (Oxford, 1976), 1:34, 335Google Scholar.

5 Michaud-Quantin, P., Universitas: Expressions du mouvement confraternel dans le Moyen Age (Paris, 1970), p. 188Google Scholar.

6 Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar, s.v. “companion,” 1(c); Middle English Dictionary (Oxford, 1956–)Google Scholar, ss.vv. “compaignable” (a) and “compaignie,” 1(b).

7 For example, Public Record Office (PRO), C47/42/227: the guild of All Saints, Buxton (Norfolk), founded in 1384–85.

8 On this subject I have found particularly helpful Bell, C., Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar.

9 Instances cited in Davies, J. G., The Secular Use of Church Buildings (London, 1968), p. 52Google Scholar.

10 Browe, P., Die Pflkhtkommunion im Mittelalter (Münster, 1940), pp. 188, 195Google Scholar.

11 Browe, P., Die häufige Kommunion im Mittelalter (Münster, 1938), pp. 28–29Google Scholar, and chap. 1 passim.

12 Macy, G., The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament according to the Theologians, c. 1080–c. 1220 (Oxford, 1984), esp. pp. 86–93, 118–19Google Scholar (the development of popular devotion to, and reverence for, the eucharist, and the rarity of lay reception), 93–94 (eulogia as a form of partial substitute).

13 New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. McDonald, W. J.et al., 14 vols. (New York, 1967)Google Scholar, s.v. “agape” (article by C. Bernas).

14 The Carolingian ecclesiastical censures are cited in, e.g., Coornaert (n. 2 above). Those of English thirteenth-century bishops are instanced in Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R., Councils and Synods with Other Documents relating to the English Church, pt. 2, A.D. 1205–1313, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1964), 1:313Google Scholar (“gildales inhonestas, et precipue mercatorum et peregrinorum, quas omnino prohibemus”). See also the bitter scorn of the twelfth-century English cleric, Walter Map, for “those drinking-houses, which in English are called gildhus” (Map, Walter, De nugis curialium, ed. James, M. R.et al. [Oxford, 1983], pp. 154–58Google Scholar). Counter-Reformation prelates would continue this tendency to opposition, which, however, pace M. Venard, they were far from originating. See Venard, M., “La fraternité des banquets,” in Pratiques et discours alimentaires à la Renaissance, ed. Margolin, J.-C. and Sauzet, R. (Paris, 1982), pp. 137–45Google Scholar, esp. 137–39.

15 Some of the details in this and the following paragraphs are taken from the returns made by the English fraternities to a royal enquiry in 1389 (cataloged at PRO, C47). Problems with this source, relating both to the purpose of the survey and to a formulaic element in some of the returns, do not affect the use made of it here.

16 PRO, C47/38/41.

17 Boston, Municipal Buildings, MS. 4/A/2/1B. In this inventory, under “hall,” is listed “A table covered with parchment noted with anthems of Our Lady with three collects and covered with linen cloth.”

18 Lancaster, J. C., St. Mary's Hall, Coventry: A Guide to the Building, Its History and Contents, Coventry Papers no. 3 (Coventry, 1981), pp. 42–44Google Scholar.

19 PRO, C47/40/140(b).

20 PRO, C47/40/109.

21 For example, English Gilds, ed. Smith, J. T. and Smith, L. T., Early English Text Society, o.s., 40 (1870): 9Google Scholar: the guild of Saint Fabian and Saint Sebastian in the Church of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London, late fourteenth century.

22 Skaife, R. H., ed., The Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi in the City of York; with an Appendix of Illustrative Documents, Surtees Society, no. 57 (1872), pp. 291–92Google Scholar; Richards, W., The History of Lynn, 2 vols. (Lynn, 1812), 2:436Google Scholar (the horn of Saint Julian was commissioned for the Lynn guild in 1394–95: King's Lynn, Guildhall, MS. Gd.37, sub anno). The guild of Saint John the Baptist at Grantham possessed no fewer than three “horns from which the brothers and sisters are accustomed to drink on the day of the feast” (PRO, C47/40/113).

23 PRO, C47/44/321: the guild of Saint James at Sail (Norfolk), founded in 1358–59. Every poor person coming to the convivium was to be fed there and to receive in addition ¼d. from every member. PRO, C47/45/362: the guild of Saint Peter at Wiggenhall (Norfolk): “Iwat godes man come to our fraternete he schal have mete and drynke iwyles it wil last and also a taper for to bren before sent petur of a pound of wex.”

24 The limits to the material welfare offered by guilds to their own members have been underlined by McRee, B. R., “Charity and Gild Solidarity in Late Medieval England,” Journal of British Studies 32 (1993): 195–225CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Here, however, guild charity is being discussed in a wider context.

25 New Catholic Encyclopedia (n. 13 above), s.v. “agape.”

26 Heal, F., Hospitality in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1990), esp. pp. 320, 331–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 PRO, C47/40/106: the guild of Saint John the Baptist at Gedney (Lincolnshire); C47/38/23: the guild of Holy Trinity, Ely, founded in 1369. Another model was that of a guild of Saint Mary at Lincoln, which entertained at the feast as many poor people as there were brothers and sisters of the society present (C47/40/146).

28 Wisbech, Town Museum, Records of the Holy Trinity Guild, p. 63 (1506): “When the alderman and his brethren have dined we will that all the poor people then there present shall be set at a table in the said hall, and served with such meat as shall be left [by] the said alderman and his brethren.” For the Benedictine example, see Harvey, B., Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540 (Oxford, 1993), p. 13Google Scholar. For the lay aristocracy, see Heal, chap. 2. The fraternity charities described here were also related to the medieval custom of holding ad hoc “ales” for immediate charitable purposes. See Bennett, J. M., “Conviviality and Charity in Medieval and Early Modern England,” Past and Present, no. 134 (1992), pp. 19–41Google Scholar.

29 PRO, C47/40/109.

30 PRO, C47/40/142.

31 For example, PRO, C47/44/337: the guild of the Purification at Upwell (Norfolk), refounded in 1327–28.

32 For example, PRO, C47/44/313: the guild of Corpus Christi at Oxborough (Norfolk), founded in 1360 (the place is not named in the return, which, however, was evidently preserved with others from Oxborough and was consequently thus cataloged at the Public Record Office). At the feast each member gave a ¼d. loaf toward the alms of the fraternity.

33 Macy (n. 12 above). It would, however, be wrong to exaggerate the extent to which the mass was asocialized by the thirteenth century, especially when John Bossy has so clearly demonstrated the further moves in this direction which were taken in the 16th. See Bossy, J., “The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200–1700,” Past and Present, no. 100 (1983), pp. 29–61Google Scholar.

34 Rosser, G., “Solidarités et changement social: Les fraternités urbaines anglaises à la fin du Moyen Age,” Annales: Economies, sociétés, civilisations 48 (1993): 1127–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Communities of Parish and Guild in the Late Middle Ages,” in Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350–1750, ed. Wright, S. J. (London, 1988), pp. 29–55Google Scholar.

35 For example, in the accounts of the Holy Cross guild of Stratford-upon-Avon for 1388–89: “For the expenses of John Regnalt in going to Warwick to invit the brothers to the feast. 3d.” (Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, MS. BRT 1/3/4). And in those of the guild of Saint George at Nottingham for 1481, an agent was reimbursed the cost of shoeing his horse when he rode into the country to notify the brothers and sisters about the feast (The Guilds of St. George and of St. Mary of the Church of St. Peter, Nottingham, Thoroton Society Record Series, extra ser., vol. 7 [1939], sub annoGoogle Scholar).

36 PRO, C47/41/193: the guild of Saint Augustine in the church of Saint Augustine by Paul's Gate, London, founded in 1387.

37 This provision was extremely common in fraternity statutes. Ill health, of course, was also an admissible excuse. Occasionally a sick absentee received some food or drink from the feast at home (e.g. PRO, C47/43/261: the guild of Saint Margaret, Lynn, founded in 1354; C47/44/325: the guild of All Saints, Stoke Ferry [Norfolk], founded in 1359).

38 The case cited in n. 36 above of expulsion for nonattendance certainly concerned a relatively small club.

39 This guild comprised eighty-four living members in 1475–76; its average annual recruitment over the following half-century was about five (Wymondham, parish church, MS. accounts of the guild of Saint Mary's Nativity [1475–1536], fols. 2–3, 31–31v). In 1529 it was determined that every brother and sister present at the dinner should contribute 1d. toward the alms of the guild; in 1534 7s., or 84d., were collected on this occasion (ibid., fols. 55v, 61v).

40 Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, MS. BRT 1/3/23, 25, 27. In 1410–11, an annual payment from every member of 7d. in “light-silver” was discontinued, all the existing brothers and sisters being asked to compound for the levy with a single payment of 10d. Two hundred forty-five members were listed on this occasion (MS. BRT 1/3/25); see BRT 1/3/14 (1402–3) for the previous rate of the “light-silver.”

41 Bedford, Bedfordshire County Record Office, MS. Z486/1, sub annis 1526–27, 1528–29.

42 Templeman, G., ed., The Records of the Guild of the Holy Trinity, St. Mary, St. John the Baptist and St. Katherine of Coventry, Dugdale Society (1944), 19:151Google Scholar.

43 Coventry, City Record Office, MS. A6: register of the guild of Corpus Christi and Saint Nicholas of Coventry, 1488–1553. The third (“Goose”) dinner, held in July, was less well attended than the other two, and was discontinued in 1495. The identification of individual careers within the guild, of which examples are cited here, has been made possible by the creation of a computer transcript of the guild register. This was done by my friend Anthony Divett, to whom I am most grateful for sharing his work with me.

44 PRO, C47/44/348.

45 For example (to cite one of many), Smith and Smith, eds. (n. 21 above), p. 61: a guild of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Lynn, in which noisy disturbance of the other brothers and sisters during the drinking was punishable by a fine.

46 Hammer, C. I., “The Town-Gown Confraternity of St. Thomas the Martyr in Oxford,” Mediaeval Studies 39 (1977): 466–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Coventry, City Record Office, MS. 100/17/1: Weavers 11 (weavers' account book, 1523–1635), fols. 2 ff. annual receipts from the “love brethren,” many of whom are specifically described as practicing crafts other than weaving, are distinguished in these accounts from the quarterages of the professional members.

48 Shrewsbury, Shropshire County Record Office, MS. 356/321 (accounts of the wardens of the palmers' guild, late fourteenth to early sixteenth century); MS. 356/323 (lists of new members of the guild, 1504–5).

49 Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, MS. BRT 1/3/26. Fraternity hoods were distributed on this occasion, also, to “divers gentlemen,” including a dozen given to Burdet and his wife.

50 Maidstone, Kent Archives Office, MS. Md./G1–2 (the invitation was issued in 1474; in the following year Bourchier was inscribed as a member of the guild).

51 The Maidstone records cited in the previous note contain examples of this practice.

52 PRO, C47/40/116.

53 Rosser, G., “Workers' Associations in Medieval English Towns,” in Les metiers au Moyen Age, ed. Sosson, J.-P. (Louvain, in press)Google Scholar.

54 Bloom, J. H., ed., The Register of the Gild of the Holy Cross, the Blessed Mary and St. John the Baptist … of Stratford-upon-Avon (London, 1907)Google Scholar.

55 For a resplendent example of a guild official's crown, see the inventory of the Boston guild of Saint Mary, drawn up in 1533 (Boston, Municipal Buildings, MS. 4/A/2/1B): “One chaplet of red velvet for the alderman with one great ouch [brooch] in the front of the same of pure gold, and in the same be set 3 great pearls with 6 turquoises. Item upon the same chaplet 8 great ouches of pure gold with 8 balesers [rubies] set in the midst of every of them and garnished with 2 chases of pearl about every of them. Item 10 ouches of silver and gilt each containing 5 stones. Item 16 other ouches, but little ones, of pearl and stone. Likewise in the hindermore part of the said chaplet one great ouch of silver and gilt garnished with pearls in the circuit.” There were also chaplets for the two chamberlains, of blue velvet powdered with stars of gold with the letter “M” (for Mary) and lilies made of pearls.

56 Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, MS. BRT 1/3/12. In other cases where supplementary portions of drink were allocated to the officers, the expectation may have been that the latter were to distribute the surplus as exemplary alms for the poor (see n. 28 above). For example, PRO, C47/40/116: the guild of the Holy Trinity, Grimsby, founded in 1341.

57 Thus in the inventory of the guild of Saint John the Baptist at Swafferton (Norfolk), compiled in 1505–6, are listed “1 tablecloth of 5 yards … [and] 2 other tablecloths for the side tables, each 6 yards long” (Norwich, Norfolk County Record Office, MS. PD52/233, sub anno). For the architectural disposition cf a substantial extant medieval guildhall, see, e.g., Lancaster (n. 18 above).

58 For example, PRO, C47/43/252; C47/43/268: the guilds of Saint Anne and of Saint John the Baptist, Lynn.

59 Bonney, M., Lordship and the Urban Community: Durham and Its Overlords, 1250–1540 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 9, 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 PRO, C47/46/452(a).

61 PRO, C47/46/446.

62 Reproduced in Lloyd, D. and Klein, P., Ludlow (Chichester, 1984), pp. 26–27Google Scholar. For a guild (one whose social composition linked the London merchant community and the royal court) in which the competitive composition and singing of songs was a particularly prominent feature of the feast, see Sutton, A. F., “Merchants, Music and Social Harmony: The London Puy and Its French and London Contexts, circa 1300,” London Journal 17 (1992): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 The manuscript has been printed: Little, F., A Monument of Christian Munificence, or an Account of the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross, and of the Hospital of Christ in Abingdon (Oxford, 1872), pp. 121–24Google Scholar; and Smith, L. T., ed., The Itinerary of John Leland, 5 vols. (reprint, London, 1964), 5:116–18Google Scholar. For the guild's role in the erection of the bridge, see also Preston, A. E., Christ's Hospital Abingdon (Oxford, 1930), pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

64 For example, the guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford: see the accounts, cited above, passim.

65 Maidstone, Kent Archives Office, MSS Md.G.14 and Md. G.1–27, passim.

66 For example, again, the Stratford accounts, cited above.