Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/381

Rh This primarily secured for them the performances of certain religious rites, which were more valued than life itself. While the members lived, but more especially after their death, lighted tapers were duly distributed in their behalf, before the altars of the Virgin and of their patron saints in the parish church. A poor man in the Middle Ages found it very difficult, without the intervention of the guilds, to keep this road to salvation always open. Relief of the poor and of necessitous members also formed part of the guild’s objects, and gifts were frequently awarded to members anxious to make pilgrimage to Canterbury, and at times the spinster members received dowries from the association. The regulation which compelled the members to attend the funeral of any of their fellows united them among themselves in close bonds of intimacy.

“But the social spirit was mainly fostered by a great annual meeting. On that occasion all members were expected to attend in special uniform. With banners flying, they marched in procession to church, and subsequently sat down together to a liberal feast. The guilds were strictly lay associations. Priests, in many towns, were excluded from them, and where they were admitted held no more prominent place than the laymen. The guilds employed mass priests to celebrate their religious services, but they were the paid servants of the fraternity. Every member was expected to leave at his death as much property as he could spare to the guilds, and thus in course of time they became wealthy corporations. They all were governed by their own elected officers—wardens, aldermen, beadles, and clerks, and a common council formed of their representatives kept watch over their property and rights.”

That shows a perfectly independent organisation, and if such an organisation undertook the performance of miracle-plays, it was at no priestly dictation. The gradation was perfectly natural, by which traditionary rites were replaced by miracle-plays on the occasions of the gild festivals. And the body of tradition thus sheltered under the wing of the gilds far into the mediæval period, was considerable; nor did it become wholly displaced or absorbed, but has continued a slowly diminishing quantity ever