This festival was observed everywhere, but other local feasts were arranged according to local traditions. In Canterbury every Mayor was bound “to keep the watch” on the Eve of the Translation of S. Thomas. “And in the aforesaid watch the Sheriff to ride in harness with a henchman after him honestly emparelled for the honour of the same city. And the Mayor to ride at his pleasure, and if the Mayor’s pleasure be to ride in harness, the Aldermen to ride in like manner, and if he ride in his scarlet gown, the Aldermen to ride after the same watch in scarlet and crimson gowns.” The city was to be lighted by the Mayor finding “two cressets, or six torches, or more at his pleasure,” every Alderman finding two cressets, and each of the Common Council with every constable and town clerk one cresset. In Chester the great day for merry making was Shrove Tuesday, when the drapers, saddlers, shoemakers and many others met at the cross on the Roodeye, and there in the presence of the Mayor the shoemakers gave to the drapers a football of leather “to play at from thence to the Common Hall.” The saddlers at the same time gave “every master of them a painted ball of wood with flowers and arms upon the point of a spear, being goodly arrayed upon horseback accordingly.” The whole town joined in the sports, and everyone married within the year gave some contribution toward their funds.[273]
To these festivities we must add the yearly pageants of the Guilds—whether of the great societies like the Guild of St. George at Norwich,[274] whose Alderman in scarlet robe followed by the four hundred members with their distinguishing red hoods, marched after the sword of wood with a Dragon’s head for the handle which had been presented to them by Henry the Fifth;—or of the Corpus Christi Guild which evidently played a political part in the life of every great town. In York it is said to have had in the sixteenth century nearly fifteen thousand members, and at its great pageant, the Mayor and Town Council “and other worshipful persons” joined in a common feast, and sent wine and fruits at the public expense to great nobles and ladies in the city, till perhaps supplies ran out and the town was “drunken dry.”[275] The Craft Guilds also, whether voluntarily or by order of the Corporation, had their pageants, acting the same play year after year.[276]