Archaeologists at Barbers' Hall : Mr. Sidney Young, F.S.A., on the Medieval Company.

Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Archaeologists at Barbers' Hall : Mr. Sidney Young, F.S.A., on the Medieval Company. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    period downwards they had a list of hundreds of masters of the Company, and before it had any Trade regulations it was the custom, on the day of its patron saints (Cosmo and Damian), to go to church in procession, and having attended mass, and made their alms and oblations, they returned to the hall for their annual dinner, it being part of the observance that members should con- tribute to a common box for the relief of widows and distressed brethren. As explanatory of the term barber-surgeons, which came to be applied to the Barbers’ Guild when corniug under Trade regulations, he pointed out that much of the surgery, and much of the practice of physic, was, in those times, performed by ecclesiastics, tonsorial and other like operations being performed by barbers, who would become somewhat expert in the duties. In 11(33, at the Council of Tours, under Pope Alexander III., it was decided that the shedding of blood was incompatible with the holy office of the clergy, and they being forbidden to interfere in any matter of surgery, blood- letting and the like, they gave over these operations, bin continued the practice of physic as well in this country as on the continent. Thus, no doubt, the barbers who had assisted the -monks in their minor operations, fiuding a lucrative occupation placed in their way, called themselves barber-surgeons. Among the documents in the possession of the Town Clerk of London, at the Guildhall, was an ordinance, of 1307, that no barbers were to be so bold or so hardy as to put blood in their windows openly or in view of folks, but were to have it privily carried into the Thames, the alternative being a line. In 1308 the first master of whom they had any distinct evidence was sworn in at the Guildhall, and Mr. Young read the record. Richard le Barber continued in office till TH-r G when two masters were appointed, and this practice continued for some time. Later on, barbers were sworn as keepers of the gates of the city, and to keep strict watch that no lepers should enter. In 1381, one of the Harleian manuscripts, containing a list of Companies’ halls in the city {temp. Richard II.), included that of the barbers, then, as now, in the parish of St. Olave, and probably on the same site. Richard, more solicitous about the funds than the observances of the Guilds, caused a return to be made of their pro- perties, and that of the barbers, the only one left of the number, answered that the Company had neither tenants nor rents to their common use. About this time there existed in the city another fraternity or guild of surgeons, not connected with the barbers, and at no time believed to have more than twenty, but generally about a dozen, members, and, like the barbers, existing by prescription only, and unincorporated. The books contain twenty or thirty references to quarrels between this body and the barbers, and appeals to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, with results, however, always in favour of barbers, who, in 1376, obtained an ordinance giving them scrutiny and correction of all surgeons. In 1390 they