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Archaeologia Volume 30 Section 35 is in Archaeologia Volume 30.
On an Amity formed between the Companies of Fishmongers and Goldsmiths of London, and a consequent Participation of their Coat-armour. By John Gough Nichols, Esq. F.S.A. 499—513.
Read 22nd February, 1844.
The constitution and regulations of ancient guilds and commercial fraternities afford a subject which, it has been admitted, is deserving of greater investigation than it has hitherto received, as a branch of the social history of our ancestors. It is evident that they were institutions in the nature of benefit societies, affording a community of religious as well as secular advantages, and bound together by private laws to maintain the interests and the mysteries of their crafts. Though usually in large cities confined to the members of a particular trade, a guild sometimes comprehended the workmen of several occupations.
Chaucer describes among his Canterbury Pilgrims—
An Haberdasher and a Carpenter,
A Webbe, a Dyer, and a Tapiser,
(who) Were alle yclothede in o livere
Of a solempne and grete fraternite.
Even in London we find that connections were sometimes formed between fraternities whose trades were entirely different, and apparently least liable to be brought into contact. Accident having led me to remark some curious particulars on this subject, which might not readily occur again, I am induced to offer them to the Society's notice and protection.
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Honest John Stowe seems to have been dissatisfied with the information he received from the Fishmongers' Company, and he leaves them with this good-humoured taunt:—‘ Thus much have I thought good to note of the Fishmongers, men ignorant of their antiquities, not able to shew a reason why, or when, they were joyned in amity with the Goldsmithes, do give part of their armes, &c."
The modern historian of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, Mr. William Herbert, though still unable to name the time when, has stated confidently (but conjecturally) the origin of this amity. He says it "was the consequence of one of the decisions after disputes for precedence, which (he adds) were always accompanied by orders for the Companies to take precedence alternately, dine together, exchange livery-hoods, and other methods calculated to make them friends1.
Note 1. Herbert's Hist. of the Twelve Companies, 8vo. 1837, vol. ii. p. 12.
Such, says Mr. Herbert, was the result of a great fray between the Fishmongers and Skinners, which occurred in the midst of Cheapside, in or about the year 1340, and for which two of the most violent ringleaders were afterwards executed at the same spot. Mr. Herbert further adds that the Fishmongers and Goldsmiths have no commemoration of their "amity" at present; but the Skinners, who were similarly reunited after the affray just mentioned, when members of their courts dine with each other, drink as toasts, "The Fishmongers and Skinners, and Skinners and Fishmongers."
At a subsequent period, in the Ist Rich. IIL, a dispute for precedency between the Skinners and Merchant-Tailors was determined by agreement that either should take precedence in alternate years, and that the Master and Wardens of each should dine with the other Company on their respective feasts of Corpus Christi and the Nativity of St. John the Baptist1. No exchange of liveries is mentioned in this case; and I must here remark, that (whatever probability there may be in Mr. Herbert's conclusions) he appears to have no documentary evidence for stating that the Fishmongers and Skinners interchanged liveries; nor yet for his assertion that the amity of the Fishmongers and Goldsmiths was the sequel of a previous quarrel.
Note 1. Herbert's Hist. of the Twelve Companies, 8vo. 1837, vol. ii. p. 320.
It is distinctly recorded, however, that liveries were supplied by the Goldsmiths to the Fishmongers. In 13 Edw. IV., the Goldsmiths paid, for violet and scarlet for their livery, £12 15s. 5d. including £4 10s. for nine yards of the same violet and scarlet, at 10s. per yard, "for the Wardens of the Fishmongers," who, as well as certain others of that Company, wore the Goldsmiths' livery. In 3 Henry VII., among other items of charge for a new livery, £3 6s. is set down "for seven yards of blue and murrey, given to the Fishmongers for their hoods1."
Note 1. Herbert, ii. 205.
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
The feast of Saint Dunstan, the patron Saint of the Goldsmiths, was observed by their going in procession to Saint Paul's Church, on which occasion the Fishmongers accompanied them.
"Md. That of olde tyme in custome yt hathe bene used uppon the said even and daye, that Masters the aldermen and the vj wardeyns of the sayd Fysshemongers wayte uppon this fellyshippe of Goldesmythes, in theyr (that is, the Goldsmiths') lywery, at Seynt John Zacharyes churche; and there, as soone as the sayd Fysshemongers be comen thether, Mrs. the wardeyns use to send unto theym to the said churche spyce-brede, bothe caaks and bunnys, with ale, rede wyne, and clarett wyne, and ypocras, by certeyn of the yonge men wayeters appoynted by the wardeyns for the tyme, and they to serve theym after the best maner in the mene tyme, whyle oure lyverey be ready to go to Powles. And when our companye be redy to goo, then oure beadyll, at the comyng owte of the sayd churche of masters the sayd Fysshemongers, at the corner of our hall agaynst the sayd churche, to joyne aldermen together, they that hathe bene sheryves together, wardeyns together, a Fysshemonger and a Goldsmythe together, and so to goo into Woode streate, uppe to the Crosse in Chepe, and so to Powllys. And the beadell to come behynde, in his lyvere gowne and hoode, and the ij brokers to wayte uppon the wardeyns to know theyr myndes, and to wayte still uppon theym, unto the mastyrs comyng home agayn to Goldesmithes hall with the sayd Fysshemongers, and there to be served with spyce-brede, ale, wyne, and pyppens, &c.
"And on the morow, beyng Seynt Dunston's daye, the sayd brokers to bere spyce-brede, ale, and wyne to Seynt John Zacharyes churche, to geve drynke to Masters the Fysshemongers, and our beadell to wayte uppon the Masters of oure companye, in the hall, whyle the ordinances be redd and the dyatt sealled,—the iiij new wardeyns, and the sayer for the tyme beyng, with the hole companye, beyng in theyr lyverey, and syttyng in the hall, on the formes, and heryng of the ordinances redd, and Masters the aldermen beyng in theyr skarlett gownes and skarlett cloakes; and, that done, then our Beadell to goo to the sayd Seynt John Zacharyes churche to the sayd Masters the Fysshemongers, to geve theym knowlyche of the redynesse of our companye, and the same beadell to set our companye in lyke order, at the sayd corner of the sayd churche, and to goo lykewyse into Woode streate, and unto the Crosse in Chepe, and so thorow the Chepe unto Powlls, (pari modo et forma sicut in die precedente, etc.) and to come home thorowe Foster lane to the hall to dyner1."
Note 1. Herbert, vol. ii. p. 213.
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It may further be noticed, as a memorial of this annual visit of the associated Companies to St. Paul's, that, among the escocheons of arms painted "upon the roofe of the west end and crosse building of St. Paul's church beneath the steeple," were those of the Fishmongers' and Goldsmiths' Companies impaled in one shield, ‘ the former being the ancient coat of the three dolphins and three pairs of keys on a chief, before the union of the Fishmongers with the Stockfishmongers.
The continuance of this alliance in the reign of King James the First is particularly noticed in Anthony Munday's Chrusothriambos, the Lord Mayor's Pageant for the year 1611. The Lord Mayor, Sir James Pemberton, was one of the Company of Goldsmiths, who displayed their usual Pageant of an Orfery, or forge of their handicraft. ‘The emblems," says Munday, " going before this orfery, a Mare-man and a Mare-maid (each quartered with a golden Unicorne), do figure the long continued love and amity, which (time out of minde) hath been betweene the Goldsmiths and Fishmongers, as Time in his speech for that purpose more at large declareth."
Time thus alludes to it:
Concerning these faire emblemes, and the cause
Of theire combining in this kind accord,
The argument doth instantly afford
The ancient love and cordiall amity,
Between the Fishmongers' and Goldsmiths' company.
At feasts and solemne meetings on each side,
A Fishmonger and Goldsmith hand in hand, Have long time gone, and nothing could divide
The rare continuance of that loving band,
Which (doubtlesse) to the end of time will stand; And therefore these impresses are thus borne:
The one's Fish with the other's Unicorne.
Yet let no censure stray so far at large
To think the reason of that unity
Makes Fishmongers support the Goldsmiths' charge, And their expences shared equally:
No, ‘tis the Goldsmiths' sole society
That in this triumph bears the purse for all,
As theirs the like, when like their lot doth fall. Their loves (herein) may not be thought the lesse, But rather virtuall and much stronger knit,
That each to other may the same expresse
When honour (in each science) makes men fit
On such a seat of dignity to sit;
Then Peter's keys with David's cup of golde
May freely march together uncontrolde."
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