Fleecing the Pious: the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow in the Central and North Welsh Marches 1400-1530

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of a late medieval religious institution, the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow, in the Central and North Welsh Marches from 1400 to 1530. It investigates the geopolitical climate which saw the rise of the Guild from the mid fifteenth century. It argues that the region of study is complex, culturally diverse, and also suffered continual war and conflict for many centuries prior to the fifteenth century. It was in a constant state of tension. The fragmented political economy and the inhospitable landscape were also factors which set this region apart. These tensions in the Central and North Welsh Marches led to religious uncertainty by the mid fifteenth century. Monasteries never had a stranglehold onpeople’s piety in the region, mostly because of the endemic political instability which worked against the monastic orders gaining anything more than an early tenuous foothold in the landscape. Instead, by the mid to late fifteenth century, people were drawn to their local parish church and less structured institutions like the mendicant friars and religious guilds. These changing religious patterns saw the Palmers’ Guild become an important supplier of religious services and a catalyst for economic and social stability in the region. Ludlow leveraged its influence through its Guild to expand into this region in response to a weakening of religious infrastructure due to the Owain Glyndŵr rebellion. The key primary sources for this thesis are the membership registers and riding books of the Palmers’ Guild. A quantitative analysis of over 3,500 names from these records, offers the opportunity for a reassessment of the role of this religious guild in the Central and North Welsh Marches. It is clear from these records that the Guild maximised its efforts in this culturally diverse region to extract the greatest returns for the Guild and the town of Ludlow. This was achieved in three main ways. First, it infiltrated the political economy by providing strong, secure networks to facilitate the cloth trade. Second, it used its connections, which were built on royal patronage, to build up its influence in the region. The last factor was its trump card. By offering religious hope to thousands of people in the Welsh Marches, it ensured it was the religious institution of choice, if the parish church could not offer support as death drew near. In this culturally diverse region, the bonds of trust were central to all relationships. The Palmers’ Guild used trust to underpin its activities and so became an important institution in the religious landscape, and a ‘middleman’ in the political economy of the Central and North Welsh Marches. However, despite the success of the Palmers’ Guild in recruiting people who lived outside Ludlow, the number of recruits from Ludlow dwindled in the early sixteenth century. The thesis will examine the reasons behind this phenomenon and how the Guild responded to the drop in local income. In 1551, after 250 years, the Guild was dissolved in response to the Act of 1547 (1 Edward VI) which suppressed religious guilds, chantries, and colleges.