By whichever name we call them, and assuming the religious basis which underlay the whole social life in the fifteenth century, the character and purpose of these mediæval guilds cannot in reality be misunderstood. Broadly speaking, they were the benefit societies and the provident associations of the middle ages. They undertook towards their members the duties now frequently performed by burial clubs, by hospitals, by almshouses, and by guardians of the poor. Not infrequently they acted for the public good of the community in the mending of roads and the repair of bridges, and for the private good of their members, in the same way that insurance companies to-day compensate for loss by fire or accident. The very reason of their existence was the affording of mutual aid and assistance in meeting the pecuniary demands which were constantly arising from burials, legal exactions, penal fines and all other kinds of payments and compensations. Mr. Toulmin Smith thus defines their object: “The early English guild was an institution of local self-help which, before the poor-laws were invented, took the place in old times of the modern friendly or benefit society, but with a higher aim; while it joined all classes together in the care of the needy and for objects of common welfare, it did not neglect the forms and practice of religion, justice, and morality,”[335] which I may add was, indeed, the main-spring of their life and action.
“The guild lands,” writes Mr. Thorold Rogers, “were a very important economical fact in the social condition of early England. The guilds were the benefit societies of the time from which impoverished members could be, and were, aided. It was an age in which the keeping of accounts was common and familiar. Beyond question, the treasurers of the village guild rendered as accurate an annual statement of their fraternity as a bailiff did to his lord.… It is quite certain that the town and country guilds obviated pauperism in the middle ages, assisted in steadying the price of labour, and formed a permanent centre for those associations which fulfilled the function that in more recent times trades unions have striven to satisfy.”[336]
An examination of the various articles of association contained in the returns made into the Chancery in 1389, and other similar documents, shows how wide was the field of Christian charity covered by these “fraternities.” First and foremost amongst these works of religion must be reckoned the burial of the dead; regulations as to which are invariably to be found in all the guild statutes. Then, very generally, provisions for help to the poor, sick, and aged. In some, assistance was to be given to those who were overtaken by misfortune, whose goods had been damaged or destroyed by fire or flood, or had been diminished by loss or robbery; in others, money was found as a loan to such as needed temporary assistance. In the guild at Ludlow, in Shropshire, for instance, “any good girl of the guild had a dowry provided for her if her father was too poor to find one himself.” The “guild-merchant” of Coventry kept a lodging-house with thirteen beds, “to lodge poor folk coming through the land on pilgrimage or other work of charity,” with a keeper of the house and a woman to wash the pilgrims’ feet. A guild at York found beds and attendance for poor strangers, and the guild of Holy Cross in Birmingham kept almshouses for the poor in the town. In Hampshire, the guild of St. John at Winchester, which comprised men and women of all sorts and conditions, supported a hospital for the poor and infirm of the city.