the said master and wardens built about a proper quadrant or squared court, seven alms houses, wherein they placed seven alms men of that company, and their wives (if they had wives); each of these seven of old time had 13_d._ the week, but now of later time their stipend by the said master and wardens hath been augmented to the sum of 26_s._ the quarter, which is £5 4_s._ the year to each of them, besides coals; more, to each of them 20_s._ the year, by gift of Walter Fish, sometime master of that company, and tailor to her majesty. Some small distance from thence is the Merchant-tailors’-hall, pertaining to the guild and fraternity of St. John Baptist, time out of mind called of tailors and linen-armourers of London; for I find that Edward I., in the 28th of his reign, confirmed this guild by the name of Tailors and Linen-armourers, and also gave to the brethren thereof authority every year at Midsummer to hold a feast, and to choose unto them a governor, or master, with wardens; whereupon the same year, 1300, on the feast day of the nativity of St. John Baptist, they chose Henry de Ryall to be their pilgrim for the master of this mystery (as one that travelled for the whole company was then so called) until the 11th of Richard II.; and the four wardens were then called purveyors of alms (now called quarterage) of the said fraternity. This merchant-tailors’ hall, sometime pertaining to a worshipful gentleman named Edmond Creping (Dominus Creping after some record), he in the year of Christ 1331, the first of Edward III., for a certain sum of money to him paid, made his grant thereof by the name of his principal messuage in the wards of Cornehill and Brode street, which Sir Oliver Ingham, knight, did then hold, to John of Yakley, the king’s pavilion maker. This was called the new hall, or tailors’ inn, for a difference from their old hall, which was about the back side of the Red Lion in Basing lane, and in the ward of Cordwayner street.