Stirling 900 – The Stirling Guildry and Seven Incorporated Trades of Stirling
The Stirling merchants’ guild, known as the Stirling Guildry, has very ancient origins. It is known to have been in existence in the early twelfth century, although it did not receive its Royal charter until 1226 when the phrase ‘We grant also to our said burgesses of Strivelyn that they shall have a merchant guild’ was included in the charter granted to the Burgh by King Alexander II on the 18th August of that year.
The Guildry was, in essence, an association of merchants who came together to protect their trading interests. It was forbidden for people who were not Burgesses (known as ‘unfreemen’) to trade within the Burgh boundaries in the mediaeval and early modern period. The Royal Charter ratified this association and made the Guildry into an autonomous body made up of the merchant traders who tended to be the wealthiest Burgesses in the Burgh. The Guildry worked to promote the interests of its members and provided support to them and their families in times of hardship. As time went on, the Guildry also became involved in charitable works and programmes to improve living conditions within the Burgh, such as the piping of fresh water to individual properties, the provision of a sewerage system and the development of the local Fire Brigade. The Guildry also sponsored the sons of merchants in gaining an education, financing scholarships for them as well as apprenticeships with other members.
The Guildry had its own officials. The head being known as the Dean of the Guildry. The Dean held regular sessions of the Dean of Guild Court, which was formed to hear cases where there were disputes between Burgesses.
The other artisans and tradesmen in the Burgh saw the advantages gained by the members of the Guildry in terms of trading rights and influence, and by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they began to seek to form their own trade associations to protect their monopolies within the Town. It was natural, given the rights already granted by the Crown to the Provost and Bailies of Stirling, that the craft bodies should look to the Burgh authority to grant them rights of incorporation. In Stirling, as in most other royal burghs, the Town Council accepted the applications submitted by the petitioning craft or trade and granted local charters, known as ‘Seals of Cause’ (Sigillum ad causas, in the language of the court), given under the seal of the Burgh Court, which regulated the constitution and administration of the newly-formed incorporation. The Incorporated Trades had at their head an elected Deacon or Convener and their accounts were kept by an official known as the Boxmaster.
No original Seals of Cause survive for the Seven Incorporated Trades of Stirling, but it is thought that these were granted sometime in the late fourteenth century, before the surviving records of Stirling Burgh begin. However, there is concrete evidence that such charters were granted in the minutes recorded relating to appeals made by the Incorporations to the Town Council for the confirmation of grants of earlier privileges and the protection of their particular monopolies.
The original Seven Incorporated Trades of Stirling were The Hammermen (Smiths – Blacksmiths and other workers in metal), Weavers, Tailors, Cordiners (Shoemakers), Fleshers (Butchers), Skinners, and Baxters (Bakers). Other associations of local burgesses included those of the Maltmen and a group of other trades who gathered together under the umbrella title Omnium Gatherum in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
The Seven Incorporated Trades acted together when their rights were threatened, and by the late sixteenth century, this loose association was ratified by the formal creation of the Convener Court where the various Deacons or Conveners sat together to make decisions that affected the rights and welfare of all of the trades in Stirling.
Members of these trade associations had enormous power and influence within the Burgh of Stirling. They elected the Provost, Bailies and members of the Council from amongst their number, and in this way, effectively ran the town, forming a powerful elite that had the ultimate say in matters economic, political and spiritual, given that the Elders of the Kirk were also chosen from amongst their number.
It was this ‘closed shop’ of a handful of men with a great deal of wealth and influence at their disposal that led to the scandal of 1772 that came to be known as the ‘Black Bond’. This incident, in which three of the most influential figures in Stirling made an agreement to govern the town in their own interests, became notorious in Scotland, and led to the removal of the Burgh’s autonomy for the space of five years, oversight of its government being assumed by the Court of Session, who appointed a temporary committee of ‘Managers’ from the general population, which reported directly to the Court.
The power of the Merchant Guildry and Incorporated Trades went into a decline as the nature of trade changed in Scotland throughout the eighteenth century, disappearing altogether after the passing of the Burgh Trading Act in 1846, which effectively destroyed the monopoly that trade associations had enjoyed in Scotland’s burghs since the early mediaeval period. The institutions persisted, however, becoming more akin to social clubs and charitable organisations, undertaking good works in the area. This remains the case for the surviving organisations, such as the Stirling Guildry, which is still a thriving institution today.
Records of each of the Incorporated Trades and of the Conveners’ Court are held at Stirling Council Archives along with the records of Stirling’s Merchant Guildry. These records consist mostly of minutes, which include the admissions of members as well as other administrative matters. These records can be very valuable for those undertaking genealogical research, but are also form a significant part of the history of Stirling as a Burgh, given that they are concerned with the people who effectively held all the power within the Town in the mediaeval and early modern period up to the early nineteenth century.