Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/272

 156 THE CORDWAmEES AND CORVESORS OF OXFORD. might protect and befriend them. The origin of this observ- ance cannot now, of course, be traced ; but it corresponds so exactly with something of the same nature, of the date of 6 Henry IV., found in the ordinances of the Drapers' Com- pany in London, that it will be only necessary to quote the direction for the latter to enable the reader to judge what the former must have been ; with this difference only, that it was probably a single light. For the manteyninge of oure hjght : Also ordeyiied hyt ys that tb^re schull be V. tapers of wax, of resoiiable wheight, sette in a candelstyke of laton, as ordeyned of olde tyme at Wol-cbyrche, in the worcbipp of tb' assumpcyon of oure Lady, and tb^y to brenne at due tymes, as the custome ys ; the wbicb lygbt scbull be well and bonestly ordeyned and mainteyned.' From some entries made in the books,^ it occurs incident- ally, that the cordwainers kept their light with the Carmelites at the Whitefriars ; and this must have been in their beauti- ful Lady Chapel on the south side of St. Mary Magdalen Church,^ restored wnth much taste and skill, under the able superintendence of Mr. Grimsley, in 1839 ; and if the Company occupied at that time, as they actually did at a later period, any house near Bocardo for the purpose of their meetings, the vicinity of this chapel might have been the principal cause of their selecting it, as the place wherein to make their offering. The two persons appointed to attend to this Light were called " Keepers of our Lady's light," and sometimes " Ower lades men ;" in Latin, " Custodes luminis beate (or sancte) Marie," and were duly sworn. An instance, however, occurs, of one of their members being amerced for neglect ; as at a Court holden on the Monday after St. Luke's day, in the first year of Richard III. is the following entry : — " Edwardus Symson Senescallus present' quod Ricardus Pyttis custos luminis beate Marie fecit def ' die oblacionis, ideo in miseri- cordia j. lib' cere,"^ for which he was again presented in the following year."^ And in the fifth year of Henry VII., the " Quoted in Herbert, i. 447. The wliole " See Dr. Ingram's " Memorials of account of the observances of this Com- Oxford," vol. iii., who notices that thei'e pany is well worth consulting. They are had been a distinct entrance to the chapel said to have had jjriests and altars at by steps from the churchyard. St. Michael's, Cornhill, St. Thomas of ^ ^ 4, fj^g price of a pound of wax Aeon (where they possessed a chapel ), at the time is stated, in p. 2;{, to have the Austinfriar.s, and St. liartholonunv's l)een Id. ; and the same thing may be Priory. inferred from the memorandum in p. 1. • A. 20, 2.3, 80. •• 1'. 6.