Women in The Guilded Age. Part 1.

Company of Goldsmiths Coat of Arms

The Guilded Age; Gilt and Guild.

I've set the Seeking Solus series of novels between 1696 and 1724 CE, a time when women in England had rights and achievable ambitions that wouldn't be seen again for two-hundred years. It was a time of Guild Power and Girl Power.

‘Sooo, tell me what you want, what you really, really want.’ Unless it's a Zig-a-Zig ahhh. In which case, check back with this blog a little later. And, please, wash your hands first.

For everyone else: Are you sitting comfortably? Yes? Good; let's begin.

Part 1 - Guilds.

London, like all major cities in England and across much of Europe, operated a Guild System. Guilds were official companies that regulated and self-regulated economically important trades and crafts. The City of London for example, had twelve major (liveried) Guilds. The guilds’ required a payment to become a full member, a close family connection to the company or upon completion of a seven-year apprenticeship.

Full membership to a craft guild in London proffered two essential benefits, firstly; members become a Freeman of the Company, giving the person a certificate (we might call it a licence) to make and/or sell goods in that industry. And secondly by being a Freeman of a Company, you could, after due oaths to the Lord Mayor, become A Freeman of London. Being a city freeman meant the person was able move in and out the city without tolls, avoid certain taxes, operate in any guild industry and it removed the threat of being ‘pressed’ into the Navy.

The Goldsmiths Guild was and is one of the twelve liveried London guilds. The liveried guilds were the most powerful, holding significant influence over trade in London and across the Kingdom. These major guilds were not the whole story, London had approximately ninety official guilds at the end of the seventeenth century.

Guilded trades were often very niche, for example; innholders, brewers, vintners, and distillers each had their own distinct guild. Although as already mentioned, if you were in one guild you were able to do business in any field; at least in theory. In reality, the guilds ring-fenced their specialty and actively created barriers to entry.

One of the better-known incidences of restricted practice, or what would be known in the age of the unions in the twentieth centaury as, “a closed shop” was the Huguenot silver workers. In the late seventeen century these craftsmen and women were persecuted in their native France for being Protestant. Many fled the country for Protestant countries including England. Upon arrival in London most of these silver workers were refused entrance into the guilds in, order to keep competition in the London market restricted.

The Huguenot craftsmen found routes to London's market, mostly by bribing native silversmiths to have Huguenot made items assayed and registered as a London guild member's own work, therefore bypassing the rules. Over time however, the economic pressure from customers to be able to legally buy Huguenot crafted wares was too much to resist and the goldsmiths company invited Huguenot’s to become guild members.

Guilds had been in operation for hundreds of years before the seventeenth century and they continue to this day, albeit primarily in a ceremonial capacity.

See www.londonlives.org and www.liverycommittee.org for further reading.

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Guilds in the Seeking Solus series of Novels.

Guild influence is integral to some of the Seeking Solus novels. The power of the major guild in Exeter, The Incorporation of Weavers, Fullers & Shearmen, shapes the second novel, A Crimson Moon and also the forth novel, Midnight Owlers.

In the first novel, A Filigree of Gold, corrupt Newgate Deputy Governor, Jonathan Wild, offers the loveable rogue Edgeworth Bess, membership for her husband (Joseph “Blueskin” Blake) into the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Thus, enabling Blueskin to operate as a legal silversmith, this ability was known colloquially as a “Lombardy Licence”. Wild’s offer effectively grants Blueskin the freeman status of London. Blueskin lost his freemanship when the blacksmith’s guild stripped him of his freeman of the company status. As a freeman of the guild, contracts with other silversmiths and bankers could be arranged and negotiated. The ability to operate a legitimate silver business, impossible without the guild’s say so, is a chance Bess cannot pass up.

A secondary benefit for Bess of her husband regaining his position as a Freeman of the City of London, was if Joseph died, she would inherit his freeman status. Although knowing Bess, the loss of her much-loved husband would be the bitterest blow that she could suffer.

We will return to the guilds and especially the Exeter guilds in blogs specifically covering the second novel A Crimson Moon and the forth novel, Midnight Owlers.

Next Week our blog on Guilds - Part 2. Women in London's Guilds.

Blog Supplemental: Cleaver Clogs of the Month.

Our first P.B. Phillips Monthly Cleaver Clogs Award, goes to a couple of unknown, unnamed Scottish Doctors, let’s call them… Hamish and Taggart McDougall-Douglas. Congratulations, dear sirs.

In 1839 CE Hamish and Taggart invented the digestive biscuit, thereby saving humanity from extinction.

Before the digestive biscuit was mass produced by Reading’s glorious bikkie hero’s, Huntley & Palmer, almost everyone in England died before the age of twenty. The evil empire of McVitie’s stole the digestive recipe (Allegedly. Editor.) and H&P went bankrupt; the town of Reading in Berkshire has never recovered.

As everyone knows, all humans are born without stomachs. And until the time of Henry VIII, men and women lived exclusively in rivers; absorbing nutrients through their skin. Then with the invention of land, by The Noah & Mount Ararat Corp, people migrated out of the rivers to half-land/half-water places called Norfolk.

Land People fought dinosaurs for the land and won a great victory over the terrible lizards, smiting them with a big space rock. Hungry after the Dino-wars the Land People at first tried to eat grass and trees but without a digestive system they all died. Well, not quite all; some survived long enough to be raped or murdered by the Vikings. I am glad to report that the last of the Vikings were turned into Frenchmen after joining the European Union in 1995 CE, and serve them jolly well right.

The brave people of England continued their haphazard existence under the reign of a bunch of ill-mannered German thugs until 1839 CE when our Cleaver Clogs of the Month invented the digestive biscuit. Within hours the English grew tummies, knitted themselves fully functional digestive systems, left the swamps of East Anglia and by 1900 CE, invented the British Empire; thus saving humanity forever. Except the Americans, who still live exclusively in the fetid swamp-waters of Florida, ever-dodging our just English taxes.

Thank you, Hamish and Taggart, two of Scotland’s finest inventors and worthy recipients of the first P.B. Phillips: Cleaver Clogs of the Month Award. We owe you McDougall-Douglases, we owe you big.

A new blog each Sunday; Everything Else is Just Straw and Water.

P.B. Phillips. Author of the series of novels, Seeking Solus: Life and Love as the First True Thief Taker.