There were guilds
exclusively religious, guilds of the calendars for the clergy, social
guilds for the purpose of promoting good fellowship, benevolence, and
thrift, merchant guilds for the regulation of trade, and frith guilds
for the promotion of peace and the establishment of law and order.
In this goodly company we find evidences at an early date of the
existence of the Fraternity of Parish Clerks. Its long and important
career, though it ranked not with the Livery Companies, and sent not its
members to take part in the deliberations of the Common Council, is full
of interest, and reflects the greatest credit on the worthy clerks who
composed it.
In other cities besides London the clerks seem to have formed their
guilds. As early as the time of the _Domesday Survey_ there was a
clerks' guild at Canterbury, wherein it is stated "_In civitate
Cantuaria habet achiepiscopus_ xii burgesses and xxxii mansuras which
the clerks of the town, _clerici de villa_, hold within their gild and
do yield xxxv shillings."
The first mention of the company carries us back to the early days of
Henry III, when in the seventeenth year of that monarch's reign (A.D.
1233), according to Stow, they were incorporated and registered in the
books of the Guildhall. The patron saint of the company was St.
Nicholas, who also extended his patronage to robbers and mariners.
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