The Jesus Guild was one of medieval London's, and England's, most socially and religiously significant fraternities. This book presents all of the known surviving documents relating to the Jesus Guild (officially dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus), which was based in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, London. New's comprehensive introduction provides the reader with key contextual information about the guild, including its governing structure, sources of income and devotional activities. Membership records of the Jesus Guild do not survive but a picture is sketched of its reach through the guild's system of farming of devotions: for an annual sum, individuals could purchase the right to collect offerings on behalf of the guild in English and Welsh dioceses (and Ireland, too, for a time). This reach firmly establishes the Jesus Guild as a national fraternity, alongside similar organizations such as the guild of St Mary's, Boston, or the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow. Of the known members, reconstructed by New through the records and last wills and testaments, there are a range of occupations present among the brethren, although the lowest economic bracket of individuals were not welcomed into the guild, as vividly illustrated when the beadle was paid for keeping poor people out of the Jesus Chapel in 1529/30 (p. 207). Alongside a thematic discussion of the guild, the introduction includes a detailed section on the provenance and codicology of the manuscript in which New uses palaeographic evidence to great effect to detect developments and changes in relation to the guild's main scribe and his employment outside of the guild.
The records themselves are a jumble of documents, including copies of letters patent, later royal confirmations, guild ordinances, property deeds and annual accounts. New's transcription of these documents is complemented by appendices detailing the church goods remaining in the crypt of St Paul's in 1552 and biographies of the wardens mentioned in the manuscript. The bulk of the edition is the accounts of the guild from 1514/15 to 1534/35, which follow a fairly consistent pattern for each year. Starting with the receipt of monies from devotions received from dioceses across the country, the annual reckonings then detail expenditure on the guild's religious activities. These are then accompanied by payments for employing men to care for ‘the crowdes’ – meaning the crypt chapel beneath St Paul's Cathedral, for which the guild assumed responsibility – and payments associated with feasting and victuals for brethren and guild officers for different occasions. The accounts also include information regarding gifts given to the guild by individuals both during their lifetime and on their deathbed, and the giving of alms.
Alongside the expected annual payments are ‘sundry’ expenses, which provide an extraordinary insight into the multifaceted activities of a national fraternity. Beyond London, the guild's officers incurred expenses through activities such as surveying land in Uxbridge, and the giving of gifts and sending of letters to bishops and royal chancellors, imploring their assistance in obtaining the Scala Coeli indulgence or in securing the right to gather devotions in certain dioceses (pp. 106, 129). The guild exercised its legal rights with vigour when it took John Savage to court for slandering the guild (p. 114) or in instances of non-payment of devotions from proctors in the dioceses (e.g. p. 233). New shows the guild to be a vital presence in the social fabric of England and Wales.
Although wide ranging in its impact and geographic reach, the guild maintained a particular relationship with the city it was both founded and based within. As New's biographies make clear, the leading members of the guild were eminent London citizens – all but two (Henry Benet and Richard Ford) of the 25 wardens so detailed can be associated either with one of the City's central government or livery companies. As to be expected, the City features prominently in the guild accounts, particularly in visual and aural terms. For instance, in the payments for ‘waites’ (hired musicians) to carry banners embroidered with the symbol of Jhu through the streets and suburbs of London and playing instruments to warn people of the upcoming feast for the celebrations of feasts of Transfiguration and Name of Jesus (p. 149). The feast itself must have been a major occasion in London's festive calendar: the accounts for 1516/17 detail a bonfire erected by the north door of the cathedral alongside significant expenditure on physical mementos of the Cult of the Holy Name. Badges or pins described as ‘Jesus’ were gifted to the king, queen and ‘other grete estates’, while over 1,000 further ‘smalle Jhūs’ were purchased or made, the bulk specifically for children, but all of which were presumably distributed among the public attending the celebration. Such items were a personal and potent reminder (bolstered by the literal fanfare in the run-up to the feast) of this prominent guild's participation in the social and religious activities of the City.
This edition is filled to the brim with details of the organization's role in not just late medieval and early modern London, but England more generally. Throughout, the vibrancy of a national fraternity is highlighted, many aspects of which there was not space to explore in this review: the guild's influence on local and national economies; its interactions with royal authorities; and its web of connections with local religious houses. New's thorough and expert handling of the guild accounts is a very welcome addition to the small sphere of published guild records and will no doubt be a well-thumbed edition for historians of late medieval England and beyond. Although products of particular times and places, guilds (in a multitude of manifestations) were ubiquitous across medieval Europe. Carsten Jahnke's recent edition of the records of Lübeck's fraternities might make for productive comparative reading alongside New's records of the Jesus guild.
