annum towards the maintenance of the said chaplain to perform divine service in form aforesaid.
Common Seal of the Armourers of London.
Strype and others appear to have understood this charter as incorporating the Company of Armourers; which is hardly consistent with the language of it. The company had existed long before; and the charter is confined to the establishment of a guild among themselves (de se), which they had commenced without the requisite royal licence, and which is throughout treated as a guild of the religious kind exclusively. The charter even seems to have contemplated persons becoming members of the guild, who did not belong to the company. The Armourers are in possession of a silver matrix of a seal, apparently of the early part of the fifteenth century, which has been supposed to be the common seal of the guild, made on its incorporation by this charter; but if I have assigned the correct date to it, this could not have been the case. A woodcut of an impression is given in the margin. It will be seen to be circular, about 158 inch in diameter; the device is St. George on foot piercing the dragon with a spear, between two escutcheons, that on the dexter being charged with two swords in saltire, which still form part of the arms of the company, that on the sinister with a plain cross, doubtless for St. George, and each escutcheon ensigned with a helmet respecting the other; the legend is in black letter, and read in extenso is Sigillum commune artis armurariorum civitatis londonearum. One would have expected that the seal of the guild, made on its incorporation, if it bore any name at all, would have borne its corporate name or, at least, a legend in accordance with that name; but this legend makes the seal look like a seal of the company, St. George being their patron saint. A charter for founding a religious guild of St. George, at Norwich, in 5 Henry V., as given by Madox in his Firma Burgi,[1] is very like that in question; and so is the charter of 26 Henry VI. for founding the Haberdashers' guild of St. Katherine, judging from the description given of it by Herbert;[2] whereas the charter of 17 Henry VI. for founding the Drapers' guild of St. Mary, and that of 20 Edward IV. for founding the Clothworkers' guild of St. Mary, both of which were of the mixed kind, were materially different, extending
