HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF THE CITY OF LONDON AND ITS LIVERY

COMPANIES.*

Tuts compilation, for such it essentially is, of the old City customs and ceremonials has been prepared with unusual care and judgment, and deserves special credit for correctness of detail and a desire to sift thoroughly all doubtful evidence, whilst, among the numerous " reminiscences " now published, it is encouraging to meet with some so trustworthy and impartial.

We are not acquainted with the "fugitive papers, published weekly in a Yorkshire periodical," on which this work is founded ; but it appears to be a well-arranged series of extracts from the Liber Albus, Strutt, Stowe, and other recognized sources presented to us in a compressed narrative. The author, however, or rather compiler, was not content to accept their cut-and-dried statements until he had, by personal investigation, satisfied himself as far as possible of their feasibility and correctness. He went to the city guilds, examined their time-worn charters, and drew his own conclusions; he ate of their dinners, drank of their wines, listened to their post- prandial songs, and fraternized with their Liverymen. Then, after all his patience and research, and spite of new friends and their warm hospitality, when he contrasted the City present with the City past, he decided that old things were best, and uttered with a sigh, "O tempera mutantur !" Yet, on the whole, he returned home pleased with everything but the absence of those pageants in whose bygone existence he was so interested ; he was impressed with the important results to trade of those great City feasts where kindly feelings were diffused and bad ones dissipated, where exist- ing ties were strengthened and new ones formed, and he quite agreed with the venerable leatherseller who told him in five words why none of England's troubles and none of her revolutions or changes of dynasty or other vicissitudes had succeeded in destroy- ing these valuable corporations—" The dinners have done it !"

With Disraeli's well-turned sentence in remembrance as his text, that " individuals may found communities, but institutions must found a nation," Mr. Arundell has endeavoured to illus.

* Hittorieat Reminiscences of the City of London and its Livery Companies. By Thomas Arundell, B.D., F.G.S. London: Bentley. 1969.

trate the great influence and importance of the City Companies, and to show that " conquest and diplomacy may enrich and extend for a time, but for a nation to live and become increasingly rich and strong, her prosperity must be based upon a sound system of trade." For the causes of the prosperity of our traders, we have to go back to the Saxon and Norman times, when we find them knit together by the strongest bonds, and congregating into fraternities or guilds. They knew that in union is strength, and so hit upon the happiest mode of securing a harmonious brotherhood ; they united to the one great object of their desire, namely, trade, two accessories, religion and feasting ; and our old Saxon ancestors did nothing without a good dinner to accompany it, whilst they employed priests to pray for their general success in life, and to bless the food at their banquets. It was in Edward III.'s reign that the chief Companies obtained a Royal warrant granting them the privilege of wearing some dis- tinctive dress or livery, and henceforth they were known by the designation of "The Livery Companies." Besides guilds political and guilds ecclesiastical were the merchant guilds—the originals of the present Livery Companies of London, and of which this book especially treats—and their origin is of great antiquity, the first written charter having been granted by Edward the Confessor to the " Knighten-Gild." Here Stowe is set to rights on the subject of knights, and we learn that " Cneughts," or Knights, signified "young men of the guild," and not knights or soldiers in a military sense. Almost all the principal and most wealthy companies- the Fishmongers, Ironmongers, Goldsmiths, Leathersellers, Mer- chant Taylors, and others—may claim an antiquity coeval with the Anglo-Saxon period, they having uninterruptedly cohered as fraternities to the present time, throughout the whole period intervening. From the place awarded them on all royal progresses and pageants and at coronations, they have in all ages taken a high position in the State. A master or alderman ranked as a knight when knighthood was the most honourable distinction, and a liveryman as an esquire, whilst most of the Sovereigns, from Edward III. downwards, have been enrolled as members of one guild or another. We have not time nor space to touch on the varied features or accessories that have always characterized the Livery Companies; their royal processions and water pageants, their minstrels and players, their holidays and out-door games, their imposing ceremonials and armorial bear- ings, their charities and schools, and their "fondness for dirt ;" but we may glance briefly at their splendid banquets, as being the most important phase in City policy.

At so remote a period as the seventh century, our ancestors used on certain occasions to eat and drink together at a common table, which assembling was known as the Gebeors-Cipe (literally, beer- drinking) ; and then, too, prevailed a habit not altogether extinct now, that of joviality ; and it was so prominent at times, that Ina bad to make a law to prevent turbulent proceedings at such meetings. Few details remain concerning the festivities of the Guilds between the seventh and fourteenth centuries, but from the latter period to the present ample records remain to testify to their magnificence. It was in Henry IV.'s reign that the Com- panies acquired a local habitation as well as a name, and shortly after, halls in the style of the refectories of the religious houses began to be erected, whilst about the time of the Reformation many noblemen's houses were purchased by the various Guilds ; Lord Cornwall's by the Drapers, Lord Fitzwilliam's by the Grocers, and the Earl of Oxford's by the Slaters.

The feasting formerly was preceded by prayer and almsgiving, and all had " to come in their best liverie ;" it was also customary to " wash before sitting down to meat," and then the guests sat down "according to degree." From the following bill of fare (1419) the banquets of the fifteenth century would appear to modern taste to have been more substantial than elegant, yet it is evident that the people of that period were not unacquainted with luxuries indicating a certain amount of refinement :—

" First Course.—Brawn with mustard ; cabbage to the pottage : swan standard ; capons roasted ; great custards.

"Second Course.—Venison in broth, with white mottrews ; cony standard ; partridges with cocks roasted ; leche Lombard ; doucetts with little parnoux.

" Third Course.—Pears in syrop ; great birds with little ones together ; fritters payn puff, with a cold bakemeat."

Costly aromatic woods and spices were used during the banquet to perfume the hall or dining-room, also "roses, lavender, and sweet holy water." Forks not having been then intro- duced, table-napkins were a necessity at every feast, and finger-glasses being unknown, washing after dinner, as well as before, became usual. We are not told what wines accom- panied the dinner quoted above, but we read elsewhere that in 1411, at a grand hunt to which the citizens of London were in- vited by Edward IV., they were " servyd with many deyntie dysshes and of dyverse wynes good plentye, as whyte, rede, and claret," &c.

After the grand feast of the year, that on election-day, the most interesting event to all the brethren, was, immediately upon the removal of the cloth, the crowning with garlands the new master and wardens. These garlands were made of red velvet, with pieces of silver fastened on them engraved with the company's arms ; but by some of the guilds caps of maintenance were used instead of garlands, and they always mysteriously happened to fit only those who had been selected as new master and wardens. The writer upholds this custom of crowning with great zest and at some length, endeavouring to show that from the earliest historic period crowns or wreaths have been held in high estimation. At Delphi a garland of apple was the reward of the victor, at Corinth a wreath of pine, and at Olympia a laurel- wreath ; the soldier who saved the life of a Roman citizen in an engagement received the " corona civica," he who first scaled the walls of a city in a general assault a " corona muralis," he who first forced the enemy's entrenchments a " corona castrensis," and the successful sea captain the " corona navalis." So, then, this- crowning of the wardens is exceedingly significant, especially when we remember that the ancient Romans used to give the cap to their slaves in the ceremony of making them free, whilst on medals the cap is often represented as the symbol of liberty. After the crowning and the passing of the loving cup, followed the time- honoured custom of " toasting " and of " wine-drinking," the latter accompanied by the varied performances of minstrels, men once famed for their noble bearing and manly dignity, but by degrees degenerated to such an extent that they became outcasts from all virtuous communities. These mediaeval feasts then concluded with the performance of some " holy play " by the London clerks, whose chief and almost only study being music, their performances had a strong operatic tendency. So much for the feasts of olden time. The incidental information introduced to light up the more sober portions of the book is harmonious and entertaining. We read in one place that " Belin, the British name for Apollo, was a favourite deity with the Britons, and the ancient. temple once standing in his honour near London Bridge gave rise to the present name of Billingsgate, or, as it was formerly called, Belinsgate." Then, &propos of Billingsgate, abusive language too trivial to be noticed nowadays was punished by fine in the six- teenth century. Thus, there is an extract from the Carpenters books (1556), " Received of Wyllm Mortymr, a fine for calling of mystris francs beste ;" and another from the Merchant Taylors' records (1562), stating that William Kimpton was fined 40s. for- calling Stephen Misney " a crafty boy." We have few faults to find, and nothing disparaging to say of this book, but we may remark that the index is particularly scanty for a work containing so much detailed matter. We notice that Mr. Arundell has, when mentioning the dates of certain Mayors, departed from the practice of most historians by giving the year in which they were inaugurated, instead of their year of office ; but this is unimportant. He says, too, that " the name usually assigned to the Chief Magistrate of London was Bailiff until the reign of Richard I., when in the year 1189 it was changed into that of Mayor." Now, the Liber Albus, from which he so often quotes, states that "it is in the charter of King Henry, son of King John, that the chief officer of London begins to be called ' Mayor.' " Though, Mr. Arundell tells us, it cannot be distinctly traced when the title of " Lord " was first added to that of "Mayor," there is little reason to doubt that the prefix was granted by Edward III., in 1354, together with the style of "Right Honourable." There is in the following passage a slight error that should be corrected :—" It is nevertheless a fact that, in the year succeeding the death of Charles I., the then Lord Mayor, Sir Abraham Raynardson, was committed to the Tower (April 4, 1649)," this implying either that the death of Charles I. took place in 1648, or that Sir Abraham Raynardson was committed to the Tower in 1650. Again, the second year of Richard H.'s reign is 1379, and not 1381, as stated at page 400.

We do not agree with Mr. Arundell in his opinion that the ancient arms of the City of London bore no reference to the Apostle St. Paul, for iu the Munimenta Gildhallie Londoniensis it is stated that on certain occasions the Mayor came forth to meet. the castellain, holding the City banner in his hand, " E serra la baniere vermaille, ore une ymage de Seint Poul de or, od les pies, e lee mayns, e la teste, de argent, et une espeie en la main de la dite ymage." And Riley says that, summoned to arms for various causes from time immemorial, and living beneath the shadow of the time-honoured church dedicated to St. Paul, the citizens of London could have no more appropriate emblem or device for their banner than the effigy of the saint wielding the sword, significant of the mode in which he gained the martyr's crown.

We think Mr. Arundell has most ably and succinctly described the history of the City of London Companies, his aim having been, according to the preface of the book, to draw the attention of the general reader thereto, and to show the dignity and value of many of the ancient corporations. He earnestly upholds the continuance of our old City ways and customs, and objects strongly to the test of utility being ruthlessly applied to every institution of re- spectable antiquity. His writing is simple and straightforward ; there is no smotiering of facts by showy diction ; no waste of matter, or introduction of irrelevant details ; and no disputatious arguments ; and when recognized authorities differ he has weighed the evidence carefully by patient examination, leaving the reader to decide for himself on the point at issue.

He has entered so thoroughly into the inner life of the City Guilds and their brilliant ceremonials as to have learnt and mastered the secret of their success.. We know not which predominates, his re- spect for their ancient privileges, his admiration for their good dinners, or his conservative feeling for their well-organized con- stitutions, but we are convinced there could be found no warmer or more able exponent of their cause. His work, though con- densed, is instructive, entertaining, and full of spirit, the informa- tion it contains trustworthy and abundant, it is sure to please by its heartiness and honesty, and Mr. Arundell will gain many thanks for providing in so attractive a shape what must otherwise have remained hidden in the dry, untempting recesses of the Liber Albus or the Liber Custumarum.