The Mercers’ Company is very ancient; it was incorporated in the year 1393 (17 Rich. II.);[53] but long before that the mercers had been associated voluntarily for purposes of mutual aid and comfort. They came to light first as a fraternity in the time of Henry II., for Gilbert à Becket, father of St. Thomas of Canterbury, is said to have been a mercer; and in 1192, Agnes de Helles, sister of St. Thomas, and her husband Thomas Fitz-Theobald de Helles, in founding the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which is distinctly stated to have been built on the spot where the future archbishop was born, constituted the fraternity of mercers patrons of the hospital. The present Mercers’ Hall, in Cheapside, is built on part of this site. It was only by degrees that the merchant adventurers became detached from the mercers. The last link between the two companies was severed as late as the year 1666, when the Great Fire destroyed the office held by the Merchant-Adventurers under Mercers’ Hall. The Haberdashers’ Company was a branch of the Mercers’, which broke off from them in the time of Henry VI. The word ‘mercer’ would seem to imply merchant only, being derived, through the French ‘mercier,’ from the Latin word ‘mercator.’ It is probable that those who were called mercers dealt at first in most commodities, except food and the precious metals. Herbert, however, considers that in ancient times ‘mercer’ was the name for a man who dealt in small wares; and that ‘merceries then comprehended all things sold retail by the little balance, in contradistinction to things sold by the beam, or in gross, and included not only toys, together with haberdashery and various other articles connected with dress, but also spices and drugs; in short, what at present constitutes the stock of a general country shopkeeper.’ He goes on to say that the silk trade, which in later ages formed the main feature of the mercers’ business, is stated in the Act of 33 Henry VI., c. 5, to have been carried on by ‘the silkwomen and throwsteres of London,’ who, in petitioning for that Act, pray that the Lombards and other strangers may be hindered from importing wrought silk into the realm, contrary to custom, and to the ruin of the mystery and occupation of silk-making and other virtuous female occupations. The mercers were not the first incorporated company; in this the goldsmiths, skinners, and merchant tailors may claim precedence; they, however, have long ranked the first, as exemplified in the following stanzas from a song addressed to Sir John Peakes, mercer (who was elected Lord Mayor in 1686), after a dinner given in his honour: ‘Advance the Virgin, lead the van, Of all that are in London free, The Mercer is the foremost man That founded a society. _Cho._ Of all the trades that London grace, We are the first in time and place.