when that monarch, being in want of money, caused inquiry to be made into the nature of the several guilds and fraternities in the kingdom, doubtless with the object of getting something out of them. The London barbers answered that they had no lands or tenements, and furnished the king with what seems to have been fairly full information as to their objects. Each member was bound to make a quarterly payment to the common funds, out of which decayed brethren received tenpence halfpenny a week each, provided their poverty was not due to their own folly; and the expense of obits and masses for deceased brethren was defrayed out of the funds. The masters of the Guild were to settle all disputes between the members; and there was, as we might expect, a yearly feast, for which no brother was to pay more than fourteen pence. Seventy-four years later than the date of this return the barbers were incorporated by charter, but during the interval the annals are not silent. The Surgeons Guild appear to have been somewhat jealous of the privileges of the barbers, and tried unsuccessfully to restrain them from practising surgery. In 1416, the mayor and aldermen issued an ordinance forbidding barbers, who often made their patients worse instead of better, from taking under their care any sick person in danger of death or maiming, unless within three days after being called in they presented the patient to one of the masters of the Guild; and in 1451 it was deemed necessary to issue further ordinances to the same effect. The masters were diligent in the execution of their office, and we have an interesting account of the punishment of a quack, one Roger Clerk of Wandsworth, who had attempted the cure of the wife of Roger atte Hache of Ismongeres Lane, in consideration of a payment of twelve pence, which was to be increased if the treatment succeeded. Clerk ordered a charm, "very good for her fever and other ailments," to be applied to the sufferer's neck. It consisted of a piece of parchment rolled up in a bit of cloth of gold, but it produced no effect, and Hache complained to the authorities. Clerk was thereupon haled before the mayor and aldermen, and had the impudence to tell their worships that the charm was good for fevers, and consisted of the words "Anima Christi, sanctifica me; corpus Christi, salva me; in isanguis Christi nebria me ; cum bonus Christus tu, lava me." But upon examination, not one of these words appeared on the parchment, and the Court told the defendant that a straw would be of just as much avail for fevers, an obiter dictum that savours strongly of rationalism. Clerk was found illiterate, an infidel, and altogether ignorant of physic or surgery; and to the end that people might not be deceived, was The Barber Surgeons of London. 143 sentenced to be led on an unsaddled horse through the streets of the city, a vessel suspended before him and another behind, while trumpets and pipes directed the attention of passers-by to his ignominious position. A few years later, an ordinance was made that no barber, his wife, son, daughter, apprentice, or servant should work at his craft, either in hair-cutting or shaving, on Sunday, on pain of paying six shillings and eight pence for each offence. This order was in compliance with a suggestion of Archbishop Arundel, who, while holding a provincial council in London, had been scandalised to learn that the barbers, being without zeal for the law of God, followed their craft on the Lord's Day. With the consent of his suffragans, the good Archbishop prohibited this unholy labour; but, as disobedience of his prohibition would entail excommunication only, while, as he naïvely adds, in these days "temporal punishment is held in more dread than clerical," he entreats the mayor and aldermen, "his sons In Christ and dearest friends, to ordain a competent penalty in money," to be levied upon the barbers who shall be transgressors in this respect. The Archbishop was evidently a shrewd judge of the comparative effect of temporal and spiritual punishments. We must not linger over the incidents of these ancient days. The incorporation of the barbers by letters patent under the great eal, which still remains attached to the document, dates from the first ear of the reign of Edward IV. The preamble recites that, through he ignorance, negligence, and stupidity of some of the barbers and f other surgeons, "very many and almost infinite evils have before his time happened to many of our liegemen," and some "have one the way of all flesh"; and to remedy these evils the charter roceeds to grant to the honest men of the mystery of the barbers to e one body, with a perpetual succession and common seal, to have e scrutiny and correction of surgeons in the city and suburbs, to amine their instruments and medicine, and to correct offenders by e or imprisonment. These provisions, though apparently applible to all surgeons, did not, we may presume, interfere with the ivileges of the Guild of Surgeons, which continued as a distinct and parate community until it was incorporated with the Barbers mpany by Act of Parliament in the year 1540. Several sets of ordinances and by-laws were made at various les under the authority of the charter. Occasionally quarrels ke cut with the rival community of surgeons, which were settled a time by a composition in 1493, but renewed a little later. In 11, owing to the science and cunning of physic and surgery being L2 exercised by many ignorant persons, some of whom could not even read, it was enacted by Parliament that the licensing of surgeons should be entrusted in London to the Bishop and the Dean of St. Paul's, and throughout the country generally to the Bishops and their Vicars General; but this statute did not probably affect the rights of the Barbers Company and the Surgeons Guild. At all events, the former body made further ordinances, including rules for reading lectures on surgery, for presenting patients in danger of death, and against one member supplanting another of his patient; and these ordinances were confirmed by Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor, and Fitz-James and Norwich, the Chief Justices, in the year 1530. Ten years later the Act uniting the Barbers and Surgeons into one Company received the assent of Henry VIII. The property of the barbers (it does not appear that the surgeons had any worldly possessions) was handed over to the united body. Four masters-two barbers and two surgeons were to rule the company. No surgeon was to shave or wash his patient, and no barber might practise surgery, except tooth-drawing. The bodies of four malefactors were to be handed over every year to the Company for dissection, and though this privilege was of great value to students of anatomy, and was stoutly maintained by the Barber Surgeons, as they were now called, it involved them in much expense and their servants in frequent contests with the friends of criminals who had been executed. In connection with the passing of this Act, an interesting question arises as to the origin of the famous Holbein which is preserved at the Hall of the Company, and was exhibited at the recent Tudor Exhibition in Regent Street. The picture, on oak panel, 10 ft. 2 in. long by 5 ft. 11 in. high, contains nineteen figures, assembled in a room hung with tapestry and traditionally said to have been an apartment in the palace at Bridewell. The King, seated on a throne, robed, crowned, and bearing a state sword in his right hand, is giving with his left a document, with the great seal attached, to the foremost of eight kneeling members of the Company, while seven others are standing behind, and on the king's right are three other kneeling figures. The circumstance of the seal being attached to the document has caused the picture to be described as "Henry VIII. giving a charter to the Barber Surgeons." Certainly they did receive from him a charter in 1512, but he was then only twenty-one, and Holbein has represented him as about fifty, which was within a year of his age in 1540, the date of the Act uniting the Barbers and Surgeons. In 1541 Thomas Vicary, to whom the King is handing the document, was master of the Company, and would naturally occupy a foremost The Barber Surgeons of London. 145 position in any communication with His Majesty. For these and other good reasons Mr. Young concludes that the picture commemorates the passing of the Act, and that the addition of the great seal is an artistic license, and he is probably right in his conjecture. Some of the other persons represented bear well known names. Dr. William Butts, the second figure on the King's right, was the most famous physician of his day, and had a large and aristocratic practice. He was a personal friend of Henry, and will be remembered as a minor character in Shakespeare's historical play, where he is represented as standing forward in defence of Archbishop Cranmer. In front of Butts kneels John Chambre, who attended Queen Jane Seymour in her last illness, and was a priest as well as a physician. He held many church preferments: the deanery of St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, where he built a cloister costing 11,000 marks, the archdeaconry of Bedford, the treasurership of Wells Cathedral, a canonry at Windsor, a prebend at Salisbury, and benefices in Somerset and Yorkshire. Another figure is Sir John Ayliff, surgeon to the King, who afterwards retired from practice and became a merchant and alderman of London, where he was sheriff in 1548. This picture is the chief treasure of the Barber Surgeons Company. Samuel Pepys once hoped to buy it for £200, though it was then worth £1,000. James I. borrowed it to have it copied, and Charles I. also borrowed it, apparently intending to keep it, but it came back again. Sir Robert Peel is said to have offered £2,000 for permission to remove one of the heads, and he promised to make good the injury; but if the offer was ever made, which is, we hope, doubtful, it was not accepted. The picture was engraved on copper for the Company by Barton in 1734, and the plate, strange to say, is still occasionally used for taking copies for presentation to members of the Company on their election as assistants. Under the authority conferred upon them by statute and charter the Barber Surgeons made from time to time further ordinances necessary for the regulation of the trade of hair-cutting and shaving, as well as of the practice of surgery. The former are not of general interest, but many of the latter throw a quaint light upon the proceedings of the surgeons of London, and the treatment of their patients during the period in which the jurisdiction of the Company was continued. The powers of the Company as regards the oversight and correction of surgeons, the examination of their instruments, and in restraint of intruders, were vigorously executed. The College of Physicians did not look with a friendly eye upon the Barber Surgeons, but their attempts to interfere, entrenched as the Company were behind the authority of statute law and royal charters, did not succeed. The college, indeed, obtained an Order in Council in 1632 to compel surgeons to call in a learned physician in certain cases, but this order was, on the petition of the Barber Surgeons, subsequently withdrawn. Nor did the aggrieved physicians fare better when, after the Restoration, they endeavoured to obtain their end by an Act of Parliament, for the Barber Surgeons had sufficient influence to get a clause inserted in the Bill saving their rights, and thereupon it was withdrawn by the promoters. Breaches of the ordinances were dealt with by the Court of the Company, who also decided upon any complaints of bad or insufficient treatment of patients, and sometimes assessed the surgeons' charges. William Gyllam was ordered in 1570 to cure Elizabeth Hyns of carmebrontyasis, and to persevere until she was whole, when she was to pay him six shillings and eight pence, ready money, in the presence of the Court. Alexander Capes, carpenter, complained in 1573 that he had been in the hands of John Friend, William Wise, and Richard Story, and had given them money to be cured, and was not, whereupon they were directed to deal further with him for his health. Henry Dobbins alleged William More did not cure his son, but made him worse, and More was forbidden to meddle any further in surgery. Thomas Adams represented that he had given money and a gown to John Paradise to cure his daughter, but she died, and he now wished to recover the gown. The Court directed Paradise to restore it, but Adams was ordered to pay the surgeon's boat-hire to Putney. Richard Carrington complained that he had been abused in words by William Clowes, an eminent practitioner of his day, and afterwards warden of the Company, and the Court induced the parties to shake hands and be friends. In 1599 an information was directed to be exhibited against the sexton of Whitechapel for surgery, with what result we are not informed. Next year Oliver Peacock was fined for not presenting his "cure," an odd expression for a patient who had died, in the mitigated penalty of four shillings, but he was forbidden to practise surgery in future. Similar entries continue in the minute-books of the seventeenth century. Edward Stretfeld, a bone-setter, appeared before the masters in 1602 and was licensed on agreeing to pay ten shillings quarterly for the poor; and in the same year, Garrett Key, a stranger, having undertaken the care of a sick man without making presentation thereof, voluntarily gave three pounds to the masters and was acquitted of all former offences. But Gabriel Hunt, a surgeon, was committed to the compter for practising without authority; and John Foster, a |