Page:An Historical Essay on the Livery Companies of London.djvu/33



NOW proceed to give some details concerning the Cutlers' Company.

Before the reign of Henry V there does not appear to be any record of the incorporation of the Cutlers as a Fraternity, but it is stated in the accounts of the City Chamberlain for the year 1355 (there being then 32 Companies) that the Cutlers contributed £4 towards a sum raised as a gift to Edward III for defraying the expenses of carrying on his French Wars, and it is also on record that in 1368 the Cutlers sent two members to the Committee of Common Council.

The following is an Extract from the Archives of the City of London, Page 217, Letter Book F, Latin and Norman French.

""18 Edward III, A.D. 1344. "Articles of the Cutlers' Company. Be it remembered that on the Friday next after the Feast of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist (29 August) in the 18th Year of the reign of King Edward the 3rd the Articles of the Cutlers underwritten were read before John Hamond, Mayor, Roger de Depham, John de Caustone, and other Alderman, and seeing that they were befitting, were accepted and entered in these words." (Then follows the Articles.)"

On the 1st of December, 1413 (1 Henry 5), on the complaint of the Wardens and good folks of the trade of Cutlers of London, the Freedomship of the City of London, which had been granted to