The form of petition for admission into the Guild, and the oath which had to be taken by intending members at the ceremony of their admission, are both quaint; the former runs, “Maister, we beseech you, at the reverence of the Holy Trinity, that you will receive us to be brethren of this place with you.” And the latter runs, “Ye shall be good and true, and each of you shall be good and true to the Master of the Gild of the Holy Trinity, Our Lady, St. John and St. Catherine of Coventre, and to all the brethren and sisters of the same Gild; and all the good rules and ordinances by the said Master and his Brethren afore this time made, and hereafter to be made, and your days of payment truly for to keep to your power, so God you help and all Saints.” [Illustration: ST. MARTIN’S CHURCH, BIRMINGHAM.] Amongst the other Guilds possessing royal members was that of Corpus Christi, instituted in the reign of Edward III., which rendered assistance to the churches of St. Michael and Holy Trinity, by part payment of the priests; of this Guild King Edward V. was a member. The Trade Guilds, of which there were many, one of the oldest being that of the Sheremen and Tailors, founded in honour of the Nativity some time in the reign of Richard II., were very jealous of their privileges, and resented promptly any infringement upon their prerogative. An interesting instance of their action in this respect was afforded by a combination of the Guilds for the purpose of suppressing an imitation guild which some of the young men of the town had formed in the early years of the reign of Henry VI. Dugdale’s account of this action runs as follows:— “The common people,” he says, “namely, Journeymen of several trades, observed what merry–meetings and feasts their masters had, by being of those Fraternities, and that they themselves wanted in like pleasure did of their own accord assemble together in several places of the city and especially in St. George’s Chapel near Gosford Gate, which occasioned the Mayor and his brethren in the 3rd year of Henry VI. to complain thereof to the King; alledging, that the said Journeymen in their unlawful meetings called themselves St. George his Gild, to the intent that they might maintain and abet one another in quarrels; and for their better conjunction had made choyce of a Master, with Clerks and Officers to the great contempt of the K. authority, prejudice of the other Gilds (viz. holy Trin and Corp Christi) and disturbance of the city; whereupon the King directed his Writ to the Mayor and Justices, with the Bayliffs of this City, commanding them by proclamation to prohibite any more such meetings.” Thus were the perhaps not unnatural desires of young people of the Middle Ages to emulate the gaiety and junketings of their betters crushed by royal authority.