The Act Book of St Katherine’s Gild, Stamford, 1480-1534 Edited by Prof Alan Rogers
(Stamford Survey Group 2011)(ISBN 978-1-84549-509-1)(£19.95)
The Henrician and Edwardian Reformations not only destroyed much of the fabric of late-
medieval religion, they also ensured the destruction of much of its historical record. That the
Act Book of the Gild of St. Katherine in Stamford survived was entirely due to the collecting
instincts of Dr. William Moore, a seventeenth-century Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge, who presented the manuscript to the College's library, thereby ensuring its
survival. We should be grateful, therefore, to Alan Rogers and his team from the Stamford
Survey Group for their considerable effort in transcribing this substantial document and editing
it for publication.
From the point of view of the modern reader the major shortcoming of the Act Book is, as
Professor Rogers acknowledges, that it reveals very little of the religious life of the gild. Gilds
and confraternities flourished in fifteenth-century England, and the cult of St. Katherine,
evident in England from the eleventh century, was widely celebrated. Decline, however, did set
in. Membership was reduced by the late 1520s, the Act Book finishes abruptly in 1534, and
there is no record of the gild in the chantry commissioners' report of 1548. Professor Rogers
eschews any speculation about the specific circumstances of the ending of the gild. At present,
therefore, it is impossible to place its demise in the context of continuing debate about the
nature of popular religion during the Henrician Reformation.
On the other hand, the major strength of the Act Book is what it reveals about the social elite
of Stamford and its relationship with the surrounding countryside. The gild lacked the prestige
and wealth of Stamford's leading gild, the combined gild of Corpus Christi and St. Mary.
Nevertheless, it did give scope for office holding for the 'second tier' of the town's tradesmen
and provided a focus for the extension of their connections to celebrities of local and national
importance, most significantly Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. The gild also
cultivated links with local clergy in Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland. The social
basis of its membership moved upwards during the first decade of the sixteenth century.
However, this might have had a detrimental effect on the gild's core functions, and the gild
seems to have experienced some sort of crisis in 1510, from which it did recover before the
final decline set in. This volume certainly represents a significant piece in the rich and
complex jigsaw of Stamford's late-medieval religious and civic culture.
Alan Rogers is hoping that readers of this book might identify some Rutland names, there are
many members from Northamptonshire but few identified as yet from Rutland. If readers are
able to identify members from Rutland would they please email the details to him.
Mike Tillbrook
