The livery companies were the most important organizations in London in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and even more important to London, perhaps, than the monarchy. The livery companies were responsible in part for the extreme wealth in London, and even provided the monarch with money. Robert J. Blackham writes, "The livery companies, with their political and municipal power, are peculiar to London. No other city has permitted such a development of its mistries and trades, nowhere else in England have chartered associations of the kind attained such wealth and power" (Blackham 2).
The livery companies originated from medieval organizations called "guilds," which were "voluntary associations formed originally for mutual protection, with religious, benevolent and social elements" (Grocers’ 1). The guilds were a "mixture of worldly and religious ideals" and there was a strong sense of "Christian brotherhood" between the members of a particular guild (Blackham 2). Being a member of a "Worshipful Company" was a source of pride and dignity for "the old world trader" (Blackham 3).
The guilds were not just for "social elements" and "mutual protection," they were also about money. The guildsmen were not just "merchants, traders and craftsmen," they were also "bankers and financiers" (Blackham 13) helping to establish London as the commercial and financial capital of the world. Sir Thomas Gresham, a Mercer, was responsible for the building of the Royal Exchange, which helped develop overseas trade, and helped London expropriate the title of "commercial capital" from Antwerp (Blackham 13).
Regarding the commercial aspect of the guilds, Blackham says they were "designed to represent the interests of [. . .] the employer, the workman and the consumer," though those interests may be "distinct and antagonistic" (Blackham 12). The guilds protected its members by being able to regulate "the establishment of businesses in the crafts and trades they controlled" (Rappaport 29). No one could practice a certain trade except the members of the corresponding Company (Blackham 13), and this protected the employer from the "incompetency of the artisan" (Blackham 11). The Company controlled the intake of apprentices and the rates of wages, and no journeyman was permitted to work outside his Company (Blackham 13). The Company was committed to protecting the journeyman, who was a "trained workman," by "preventing his being undersold in the labour market by an unlimited number of competitors" (Blackham 11).
It is no surprise, with their great financial and political power, that the livery companies were the "most important social organizations in sixteenth-century London" (Rappaport 26). By the early seventeenth century, two-thirds of the men in London were citizens of a livery company (Rappaport 53), and the responsibilities of the companies had been extended to providing relief for the poor, collecting taxes, and organizing pageants (Rappaport 26).
The first twelve companies eventually came to be known as "The Twelve Great Companies." They are: the Mercers, the Grocers (for whom Thomas Middleton wrote The Triumphs of Truth), the Drapers, the Fishmongers, the Goldsmiths, the Merchant Taylors, the Skinners, the Haberdashers, the Salters, the Ironmongers, the Vintners and the Clothworkers. These Companies wielded the true power in the City of London. Each year the Lord Mayor was selected from one of the twelve, and that Company was responsible for organizing and funding that year’s Lord Mayor’s Show.
In fact, citizens, or "freemen," were the only people who held any power in London. To become a "freeman," a man who had just finished his apprenticeship would swear an oath before his master and the governors of the Company associated with his trade in "a simple ceremony at the hall," and become a member of the Company (Rappaport 23-4). Soon after, the former apprentice (usually now a journeyman), would go to Guildhall where he would be sworn as a citizen or a "freeman" of London (Rappaport 24).
With his new found "freedom," the citizen acquired a number of rights that the "non-free" could not enjoy. These rights included the right to vote and the right to hold municipal office (Rappaport 30), and the right to "engage independently in economic activity" (Rappaport 29). It is interesting to note that, while there was no law preventing women from accepting the freedom, "it is clear they were excluded from the right and privileges of citizens" (Rappaport 49). In practice, they were excluded from becoming apprentices, with a few exceptions. There were only seventy-three women enrolled as apprentices during the entire sixteenth century (Rappaport 37), and in fact, the Weavers’ Company made it policy in 1550 "not to take on women apprentices" (Rappaport 37).
Apprentices were the bottom of the social hierarchy within the livery companies (Rappaport 232). Above them were the journeymen, the householders, the liverymen, and the assistants at the very top (Rappaport 217). The apprentices could work their way up through the ranks, but first they had to complete their apprenticeship. Apprenticed to a master for a certain number of years, the apprentice had a set of rules he was expected to follow. He was not allowed to marry or "commit fornication," nor take part in any "unlawful games" like dice or cards, and he was not supposed to go to the taverns or the theatres (Rappaport 234). The master provided his apprentice with clothing, as well as room and board (Rappaport 234). When the apprentice completed his term, the master also "paid the fees for making him a free man and a member of the company" (Rappaport 235).
Above the apprentices in the hierarchy were the journeymen, who worked for wages, and householders, who ran their own shops (Rappaport 221). These two groups formed a sub-organization in the Company called "the yeomanry." The origins of the yeomanry lie with "illegal fraternities of journeymen in late medieval London" (Rappaport 219). These journeymen capitalized on labour shortages, working only for double or triple the normal wage (Rappaport 219), and threatening "strikes against masters who employed foreigners" (Rappaport 220). It was like a union for journeymen. Something happened during the fifteenth century, in which the fraternities "underwent a striking transformation" (Rappaport 220), and by the sixteenth century London’s yeomanries included journeymen and householders -- the "employees and employers" (Rappaport 220).
The yeomanry of the Renaissance was a "somewhat autonomous organization" within a Company (Rappaport 219), and included the men who were "not elite" enough to be in "the livery," which was the other sub-organization within the Company. The livery included only one-fifth of all members, making the yeomanry the bulk of the company (Rappaport 219). The yeomanry was able to stay "somewhat autonomous" by providing its own income through the collection of "quarterage dues" (Archer 108). Among the responsibilities of the yeomanry was "enforcing many of the regulations governing a company’s craft or trade" (Rappaport 224).
In the Great Companies, there was a "separate livery of the yeomanry called ‘the bachelors’" (Rappaport 226). This special livery would be created only on the year when a member of that company was going to serve as Lord Mayor (Rappaport 226). The bachelors were responsible for "attend[ing] upon the Lord Mayor at his going to Westminster to take his oath and certain other days of like service" (Rappaport 226). On the day of the Lord Mayor’s Show, the bachelors would also be required to dress in special costume (Rappaport 226). Being elected to "bachelor" status "marked an important distinction between the men of substance who might eventually attain the livery of their company and the lesser artisans and shopkeeps who never would" (Manley 262-63).
Movement was possible between the members of the yeomanry and the elite livery. One could be promoted from the yeomanry to the livery (Rappaport 221), but "only the wealthiest householders were chosen" (Rappaport 256). It was expensive to stay in the livery. Upon being chosen, one would have to pay an admission fee (Rappaport 257), and buy a "fur-lined cloak and satin hood" for formal occasions (Rappaport 218). If a liveryman’s funds were dwindling, he could find himself back in the yeomanry (Rappaport 258).
The responsibilities of a liveryman included serving on committees which "performed important administrative, [and] deliberative [. . .] functions," as well as "overseeing lawsuits and appeals for action to the crown or parliament" (Rappaport 255). The elite liverymen, the "assistants," were required to attend court, and serve periodically as warden or master (Rappaport 268).
Since the Companies were so wealthy, the Tudor monarchy was "heavily dependent on the good will of the City" because "the City’s wealth was a source of financing more dependable than Parliament" (Manley 219). When a monarch demanded money from a Company, it would collect from its members to meet the sum of the request. When Queen Mary demanded a loan from the City in 1558, the Grocers Company had to come up with £7 555. These "compulsory loans" were called "Benevolences" (Grocers’ 10). Queen Elizabeth frequently demanded money, which she would borrow "free of interest, and then was graciously pleased to lend at 8 per cent!" (Grocers’ 10). The Stuart family, however, was the worst for borrowing huge sums of money and seldom repaying it. To fund James I, the Companies "supplied the money first from their common stock, then by assessment, at first voluntary, subsequently compulsory of individual members" (Grocers’ 10).
Despite being constantly squeezed for money, the Companies were still able to partake in good works, such as establishing almshouses and providing pensions (Archer 120). The Companies would also "assist" widows of Company men, and help the younger members of the Company by providing "two- to four-years interest-free loans of ten to fifty pounds to young men in need of capital to begin businesses" (Rappaport 39).
The livery companies have been described as "the rock upon which the life of the City was built" (Grocers’ 1), and their presence certainly helped London achieve great status during the Renaissance.
-- Lacey Marshall, 2002