offence. In the meantime, that they might the better identify each other, as well as ascertain whether any man was absent upon unlawful business, they assembled at stated periods at a common table, where they ate and drank together. This sort of assembly was in the seventh century called the Gebeorscipe,* at which time Ina made a law to prevent turbulent proceedings at such kind of meetings." It is further added, that "because this association of pledges consisted of ten families, it was called a Decennary or Tithing, and subsequently, as being composed of such frank pledges, a Fribourg, or Frithgild."+

To the Frithgild, with its social feastings, succeeded the gilds devoted to religious or trading purposes, and which copied, as it will be seen, not only their convivialities, but other of their customs. Lambard says "there is nothing of certainty to be found of the origin of these later gilds, since they were in use long before any formal license was granted for such meetings." We find, however, ecclesiastical gilds mentioned in the Capitula of Carloman, and of our AngloSaxon synods, and that both clergymen and laity were members of such fraternities; little doubt, therefore, can exist but that they took rise with an improved state of society, and its first assembling in towns. The ecclesiastical laws of Athelstan speak of these gilds giving pledges, and hint at other of their regulations: "We have charged all that are admitted into our gildship by pledges given, that if any one happen to die, every brother of the gild give a loaf.”+

Secular gilds must have been of equal ancientry. The Frith gilds of the Londoners are mentioned both in Judica

• Johnson's Canons, Laws of Ina, who, in a note, explains Gebeorscipe to mean a meeting of freemen, gebur, in Saxon, signifying a common man. Mr. Taylor, with more probability, conjectures Geborscipe or Beorscipe to mean convivium, symposium, (see ante 2) a banquet; literally, beership, beer-drinking. These banquets are described by Tacitus to have been customary among the Gothic tribes. It was at such a ge-beership that the poet Cadmon was called upon to sing, when the harp was handed round to each of the company in turns.-Bede, iv. 24. (See Elect. Fran. 6.)

↑ "Frithgildum, Collegium, Sodalitium, ex Saxon frid, pax, and gildan, solvere quod qui ejusmodi societates, ineunt, collatitiam stipem in commune ad sua negotia conferant. Vide Præfat. ad Leges Adelstani."-Du Cange. Minsheu explains Freoborgh, alias Frithborgh, (Fride burgum,) to come of two Saxon words, Free, liber ingenuus, and Borgh, fideiussor, or of Frid, i. pax, and Borga, i. sponsor, a surety for the peace or good behaviour; and otherwise called, after the French, frank pledge, the one being in use in the Saxon times, the other since the Conquest.

Johnson's Canons.

Civitatis Londonia,* and in other Anglo-Saxon laws; and of those appropriated to trade, though not here distinctly named, Madox thinks the age so remote, as not only to have given origin to the practice of gildating whole towns, but even to the Saxon name and office of alderman. "Alder

man," he says, was a name for a chief governor of a secular

gild, and in time it became also a name for a chief officer in a gildated city or town;" and he quotes, in illustration, the circumstance of the prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, becoming an alderman of London, in consequence of the grant to that priory of the English Knighten gild,' as will be presently shown.†

Of the government of the Anglo-Saxon trade gilds but little is known. They seem to have consisted of a triple estate, or head council, and associates. The favorite number of the council, with its principal, was thirteen, in imitation of Christ and his apostles. Du Cange mentions one society (probably a religious one) which consisted of twelve men, and only one woman, who represented the Virgin Mary. Sometimes the members resided together in one building in a collegiate fashion."

We meet with accounts of only the following Anglo-Saxon gilds:

THE CNUGHTS, OR ANGLISCHE CNUIGHTEN GILD.

Stow mentions this gild in his "Survey of London," under the name of Knighten-gild; and from the information he affords, and that of others, it was evidently a Secular gild, similar to what have been noticed. The fraternity (or rather its principals) consisted of thirteen persons; they had a district, soke, or territorial gild, and enjoyed "customs,” which must have included ordinances for their government. Stow assigns the origin of Portsoken Ward to this gild:

Compiled by King Athelstan, and in which is the following strongly confirmatory passage, "Tertio, ut computemus semper decem homines, et senior conservit novem ad singula illa officia quæ omnes nos ediximus; et postea tota illorum societas unum è societate hominem constituat, qui x illos homines commoneat ad omne nostrum commune commodum observandum; et undecim illi conservent societatis suæ pecuniam, et sciant quid mittant, cum aliquid solvendum est, et quid deinde recipiant, si pecunia nobis oriatur ex communi nostra edictione: Sciant etiam, quod quælibit executio illorum quæ nos omnes ediximus, proveniat ad omnium nostrum commodum per trigenta denarios, vel per animam unum, &c.”— Wilkins's Saxon Laws, 66.

+ Firma Burgi, p. 30.

§ Du Cange, v. Gilda.

"This Portsoken, which soundeth as much as the franchise. at the Gate, was sometime a Guilde, and had this beginning, as I have reade. In the daies of king Edgar, more than 600 yeeres since, there were thirteene knights, or soldiers, well beloved of the king and the realme, (for service by them done,) which requested to have a certaine portion of land on the east part of the citie, left desolate and forsoken by the inhabitants, by reason of too much servitude. They besought the king to have this land, with the liberty of a Guilde for ever: the king granted to their request with conditions following; that is to say, that each of them should victoriously accomplish three combates, one above ground, one under ground, and the thirde in the water; and after this, at a certaine day, in East Smithfield, they should run with speares against all commers, all which was gloriously performed: and the same day the king named it Knighten Guilde, and so bounded it from Ealdgate to the place where now are towardes the East," &c.*

Edward the Confessor granted a written charter, the first that ever was given to a fraternity of the sort, to this Cnuighton gild. And in a confirmation of the same by William Rufus, addressed to "the men of the knytte gilda," is re

• Survaie of London, 1598, p. 85.

"The knightes had as then none other charter, by all the daies of Edgar. Etheldred and Čnutus, vntil the time of Edward the Confessor, when the heires of these knightes humblie besoughte to conforme their liberties; whereunto he graciously granting, gave them a deed thereof, as appeareth in the booke of the late house of the holie Trinity, written in the Saxon letter and tongue."-Ibid. Vide, engraved initial.

markably exemplified the threefold sense stated to have anciently attached to the term gild, viz. of a fraternity, a soke, and the privileges of a soke; it confirms "the gild that belonged to them,-and the land appertaining thereunto, with -all customs, as they had before enjoyed."*

On founding Trinity Priory, by Queen Maud, in 1115, the fraternity of the Knytte Gilda, or Anglische Cnighten gild, as the name was then changed to, (and whom Stow next designates as "certaine burgesses of London, of the progeny of these noble knightes,") gave to that convent "all the lands (district) and the soke (franchise,) called in English Knighten gild, but reserved the gilbrcine, or right to be a trade corporation; which, it is remarkable, is not assigned either by this grant or its confirmations, by Henry I. or other sovereigns ;+ and, in consequence, the prior of Holy Trinity became the territorial lord, or alderman, of Portsoken ward. He rendered "an account to the crown of the taillage imposed upon the men of that ward, in the 6th of Edward II.," as the other aldermen of London did for their respective wards; like them held courts of wardmote; and was seen by Stow, riding in procession with the mayor and his brethren the aldermen, "only distinguished from them by the colour of his gown, they wearing scarlet, and he, as an ecclesiastic, purple.”‡

Madox, for the above reasons determines the Knighten gild to have been what he calls "burgensic and secular," as well as from its name, which he thinks Stow mistook the meaning of. "Cneughts," (as he proves in a quotation from Alfred,§) signifying, not soldiers, but young men, i. e. young men of the gild; but more particularly from Stow's own designation of their descendants as "burgesses of London," and the improbability, so being a gild, that themselves were ecclesiastical, from their giving away all their land to a

• Strype's Stow, i. p. 349.

+ Henry 1st's confirmation only specifies the soke of the Anglische Cnihtgild, and the land pertaining thereto, as the men of the same had granted: Strype's Stow, i. p. 349; Madox (Firma Burgi, p. 23) adds, "this gild might be called English, because it was of English or Anglo-Saxon original. It was endowed with lands and adorned with privileges; the lands and privileges belonging to it were afterwards given and granted by the men of the gild to the canons of the Holy Trinity, London. And so the Englisc Cnihtene-gild (or gild of young men) expired, or was dissolved."

Firma Burgi, p. 30.

"Cnibtas and geonge-men." Bedæ Hist. p. 208, in Notis. Chl. Wheeloci Firma Burgi, p. 24.

convent. It may be added, that they at first held their gild or ward in fee, as all the aldermanries were held long afterwards; and above all, that the prior of Trinity became by its transfer an alderman; a circumstance Madox could account for only by " the prior" having stood in the place of alderman of the Cnighten guild, and becoming by that means an alderman of the merchant gild of the city."*

The feats of martial skill recorded to have been performed on this occasion, might be thought to partake too much of a military character for traders; but it will be seen that they were by no means such as were unlikely to have been prescribed, though to citizens, (asking the favor these did,) in a romantic age, and by a chivalrous monarch like Edgar: and that such was the fact, is in a great measure proved by our finding that similar exercises are stated in ancient times, to have been almost peculiar to the youth of London, leaving little doubt, therefore, that the knighten gild consisted of the expert juniors of pre-existing minor fraternities; or, perhaps, a union of as many Frith-gilds, as in this case were sufficient to constitute a new city-ward.

Of the nature of the first kind of combat, that "underground," we have not seen any account; that "above," or on the ground, seems to have meant the just or foot combat, as distinguished from that on horseback. This is described by antiquaries to have been usually with the sword or battleaxe, the combatants being generally separated by a barrier of wood breast high: we find also matches of this kind, of— three courses with the lance; three strokes with the battleaxe; and three thrusts with the dagger.

Water combats were boat-justs, or tiltings, on the water, (of which a representation will be found in Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 132.) The conqueror was he who could parry the baton of his antagonist with his shield, and whilst himself remained firm could overthrow the latter into the water. This was peculiarly a sport of the London youth, and remained so till Stow's time, who says, "I have seen in the summer season upon the river Thames, some row in wherries, with staves in their hand flat at the fore end, running one against another, and, for the most part, one or both of them were

• Firma Burgi, p. 30.