The Company of Butchers of the City of York - Similar companies

The Butchers, together with other Gilds, played a key role in the governance of the city, in the maintenance of trade standar ... ds, and in the training of apprentices. Gild membership, following a seven-year apprenticeship, was one way of becoming a Freeman of the City. Trades would tend to congregate in one area of a town for ease of communication, and the Shambles in York is well-known as the butchers’ street. Saint Margaret Clitherow was married to a York butcher. A devout Catholic convert and zealous promoter of her faith, she was executed in 1586 and her house in the Shambles is her shrine. Although no longer standing, the Butchers’ own Gild Hall lay behind the Shambles in Gell Garth, an area now occupied by York Market. Today the Gild holds its meetings at Jacobs Well on Trinity Lane, Micklegate. The Butchers may well have been responsible for a civic duty, that is, to act as the City Executioners, and one of the artefacts of the Company is a large, unpointed, ceremonial execution sword. The religious Mystery Plays were a most important part of the life of the craft Gilds. These plays were performed on a procession of pageants at various stations throughout the City, and the Butchers’, probably because of their role in killing and butchering animals, enacted ‘The Death of Christ’. These plays are still performed every four years as the ‘Waggon’ Mystery Plays when each Gild performs its traditional pageant, and on the 8th and 15th September 2018 the Butchers Gild will again pull its waggon through the streets of York to perform the crucifixion scene. read more