“Besides all this there were small associations, called Gilds, the members of which were bound to devote a certain portion of their time and money and their energies to keep up the special commemoration and the special worship of some Saint’s chapel or shrine, which was sometimes kept up in a corner of the church, and provided with an altar of its own, and served by a chaplain who was actually paid by the subscriptions or free-will offerings of the members of the gild whose servant he was. Frequently there were half a dozen of these brotherhoods, who met on different days in the year; and frequently--indeed, one may say usually--there was a church house, a kind of parish club, in which the gilds held their meetings and transacted their business.” In the account of the “Building of Bodmin Church” in the fifteenth century we have an example of the working of this guild system. Every one appears to have given according to his means, and even generously. There were personal gifts, like that of an “hold woman,” who gave 3_s._ 2½_d._; and another woman, in addition to her subscription, sold her “crokk for 20_d._” and gave the money to the Church. But the success of the enterprise evidently is to be attributed to the guilds which existed at that time in great numbers and in a most flourishing state in Bodmin. “Religious life,” we are told, “permeated society, particularly in the fifteenth century.” In Bodmin at that time almost every inhabitant seems to have been included in one or other of the many fraternities. Indeed, the spirit of association seems to have been so strong at this time that various groups of people joined themselves together for the purpose of making a common gift. In this way we read that “the young maidens of Fore Street and Bore Street” gave a common subscription in addition to the sums received from the Guild of Virgins in the same streets.