FRIARIES AND GUILDS
In 1288 a church of the Dominican or Black Friars which had
been recently built was burnt down, and a few years later a
friary was re-established, which was one of the many Lincolnshire
religious houses granted by Henry VIII. to Charles Brandon
Duke of Suffolk. In 1301, under Edward I., a Carmelite, or
White Friars, monastic house and priory was founded; and
in the next reign, 1307, an Augustinian, or "Austin," friary;
and only a few years later, under Edward III., a Franciscan,
or Grey Friars, friary was established. All these three were
granted by Henry at the dissolution to the mayor and burgesses
of Boston. He also granted the town their charter under the
great Seal of England, to make amends for the losses they
sustained by the destruction of the religious houses. It is a
document with fifty-seven clauses, making the town a free
borough with a market on Wednesday and Saturday, and two
fairs annually of three days each, to which are added two
"marts" for horses and cattle. The ground where the grammar
school stands is still called the Mart-yard, and there you may
still see the beautiful iron gate which was once part of a screen
in the church, and is a very notable piece of good seventeenth-century
work.
The charter also gave the corporation, among other things, "power to assess the inhabitants, as well unfree as free, with a tax for making a safeguard and defence of the borough and church there against the violence of the waters and rage of the sea."
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were no less than fifteen guilds in the town, six of them with charters. The hall of St. Mary's guild still exists, the names of St. George's Lane and Corpus Christi Lane is all that is left of the others, but the old names indicate the localities.
In 1360 we have mention on the corporation records of William de Spayne, one of a family of merchants of repute, after whom Spayne's Place and what is now Spain Lane were named. William was an alderman of the Corpus Christi Guild, and sheriff of the county in 1378. Spain Lane had a row of great cellars, some of which were rented by the abbeys, and a quantity of wine was shipped from Bordeaux to Boston. King John of France had 140 tuns at one time, the carriage of which to Boston, and some part of it to the place of his detention at Somerton Castle (see Chap. XIII.), cost close upon £500. This
