THE GILD OF ST MARY

CAMBRIDGE

The Founders of the Gild of St Mary Lodge, No. 7288, hope that these notes on the history of the ancient Gild of St Mary in Cambridge may be of interest to all members of the lodge and, possibly, serve as a useful addition to the records of the origin of the lodge for the benefit of generations of masons yet to come.

The Gild of St Mary Lodge is essentially a 'Town' Lodge and, as such, it was felt desirable by its founders to associate it closely with the old town of Cambridge, as distinct from the University. There is, of course, no actual connection between the new lodge and the ancient Gild of St Mary, but as the medieval gilds had several points of principle and practice in common with modern freemasons' lodges, and as the lodge actually meets within easy sound of the bells of Great St Mary's, it seemed to the founders particularly appropriate that the ancient merchant gild and the new masonic lodge should both derive their titles from this same historic church, thus spanning seven centuries with one common link.

The origins of the ancient gilds of Cambridge are hidden in the mists of antiquity. It is known that there was a gild of thegns during the eleventh century and a Fraternity of the Holy Sepulchre existed in the twelfth century, whose abiding work was the building of the Holy Sepulchre Church.

A charter of King John in the year 1201 granted to the town of Cambridge a merchant gild. This may have been the forerunner of the Gild of St Mary, but there is no positive evidence to identify it with this, the earliest of the several gilds of medieval Cambridge of which records still remain. What we do know, however, is that the Gild of St Mary was founded before 1284, but probably after 1278. Under the former date there are existing to-day land conveyances made to the Gild, but in the Hundred Rolls (the equivalent of modern rating and valuation lists) of the latter year there is no record of any property belonging to it, as there doubtless would have been had the Gild existed at that time.

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Provincial Grand Lodge of Cambridgeshire

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