In 1299 Edward I. granted them his licence to adopt the name of “Taylors and Linen Armourers of the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist.” Stow says that on St. John Baptist’s Day, 1300, a master (Henry de Ryall) and four wardens were chosen, the master being then called “the pilgrim,” as travelling for the whole Company, and the warders “the purveyors of alms or quarterages,” plainly showing that the gild was originally a charitable as well as a commercial fraternity. In March 1326 the first charter was granted to the Company by Edward III. In 1371 the Company, under this charter, made an ordinance to regulate their trade, with the special object of recovering damages from workmen miscutting the cloth entrusted to them. The Company acquired that portion of their Threadneedle Street estate upon which their present hall stands in 1331. In 1351 they enrolled their first honorary member; and about 1361 obtained a grant of a chapel at the north side of St. Paul’s, in honour of St. John the Baptist, for daily service and prayers for “the preservation of them that are or shall be of the fraternity.” In 1480 the Company received their first grant of arms, taking religious emblems, viz. a holy lamb set within a sun, the crest being within the pavilion, Our Blessed Lady St. Mary the Virgin, Christ her Son standing naked before her, holding between His hands a vesture (_tunica inconsutilis_). In 1484 the celebrated controversy for precedence in processions, etc., between the Taylors and Skinners arose, which was settled by the award of the Lord Mayor that each Company should have precedence in alternate years, and that each should invite the other to dine once in every year. This custom has been ever since kept up, the master and wardens of the Taylors dining with the Skinners on the first Thursday in December, the master and wardens of the Skinners with the Taylors on the 14th July. It was not till 1502 that the Company attained to the full privileges which they afterwards enjoyed. Under Henry VII.’s charter, not only were the Company made “Merchant” Taylors, but they ceased to be exclusively Taylors, and were permitted to receive others into their fraternity.