Guild Day was an annual ceremony and festival held in the city of Norwich, England from its establishment by its namesake the Guild of Saint George in 1385 to its abolition in 1835. There are extensive records of the event's history, though the rituals associated with it changed over time.
From its establishment in 1385 it was largely a civic religious parade that took place on Saint George's Day from the St Peter Mancroft church to Norwich Cathedral, usually featuring a dramatisation of the legendary fight between Saint George and a dragon figure, as well as a representation of Lady Margaret from 1530.
During and after the Reformation, it began to take on a secular purpose. Surviving the Chantries Act 1547, the Company and Citizens of Saint George significantly reduced the celebration for the duration of the reign of Edward VI. The Company fully dropped its depictions of George and Margaret in 1559 under the Protestant Elizabeth I while keeping the dragon later known as Snap, and moved the festival's date multiple times before landing on the Tuesday before midsummer, the day of the yearly inauguration of the new Mayor of Norwich; Guild Day thus became a celebration of this inauguration, bolstering the continuity of civic authority in the city. The event saw a period of religious turbulence during and after the English Civil War.
Guild Day continued after the dissolution of the Company of Saint George in 1732, though was abolished under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Objects from Guild Day reside in Norwich Castle Museum, and drawings of the events are held by the US Library of Congress.
History 1385–1547: Establishment and formation of traditions In the year of its founding, The religious Guild of Saint George in Norwich, founded to honour the saint, venerate God, and pray for members of the guild both living and dead as well as for men in the King's service, established the ceremony in 1385, giving Guild Day its namesake. Douglas Ezzy, Gary Easthope and Victor Morgan have suggested that Norwich likely drew on ideas to create Guild Day from the mayor's pageant in London.
The religious rituals that made up Guild Day varied significantly over time. During its first centuries, its ceremonies began during evensong in Norwich Cathedral the day prior to the main event, usually on 22 April. Guild Day itself usually happened on the 23 April which is Saint George's Day, or in May when the usual date coincided with Holy Week or Easter Week. Leading the procession on the day, from St Peter Mancroft church in the western part of Norwich, to Norwich Cathedral, a man would carry a wooden sword featuring a handle in the shape of a dragon's head, usually followed by a standard bearer, musicians, torch bearers and holy water bearers, as well as the City Waits, cantors from the Cathedral, and city and guild officials. From as early as the first years of the 15th century, the centrepiece of the procession at the time was a representation of Saint George on horseback who wore full armour, accompanied by a dragon figure. A dramatised battle would play out between the two, and following this the dragon would not be permitted to enter the cathedral, according to some scholars instead remaining outside on a "dragon stone" after having been vanquished. The Guild members would then hear mass in the cathedral at its Saint George altar or chapel before joining a feast. The Guild would return to the cathedral later in the day to pray for the souls of its dead members and benefactors. The next morning, additional religious services were held at Norwich Cathedral and guild officers were elected for the next year at a predetermined location.
The Guild received its charter in 1417. It is argued by Benjamin McRee that factional infighting in Norwich in the 1430s "added a new, partisan layer of meaning to the symbolism of [the Guild's] annual procession", when a bloc led by Mayor Thomas Wetherby and his supporters, many of them Guild members, lost and then regained office with the support of Earl of Suffolk William de la Pole, also a guild member. In 1452, the city government effectively amalgamated with the Guild of Saint George, and as part of this deal all city officers gained admission to the Guild, including past political enemies of Wetherby. After this point, the church was represented in the parade by around 24 priests, half of whom would be dressed in red copes and the other half in white, as well as chanting clerks from Norwich Cathedral. Following the 1452 merge, Saint George nor the dragon would appear in the parade for 15 years; Muriel C. McClendon has argued that adversaries of Wetherby within the Guild possibly wanted to suppress the message of an urban reliance on outsiders that they believed the legend inculcated. The two characters returned to the parade in 1467, the year of the death of the Guild's last leading adversary to Wetherby.
By the 16th century, Norwich's civic elite including its Mayor, aldermen, and some Common Council members, formed the centre of the Guild of Saint George's membership alongside gentry, aristocrats and ecclesiastical notables. In 1530, a representation of Lady Margaret portrayed by a Guild member, occasionally referred to in sources as 'The Lady', 'The Maid', or 'The Margaret' and dressed in red or purple, was added to the procession, riding behind Saint George. They rode horses decorated with ribbons and laces. Philip Butterworth has put forward that during this time the dragon figure may have been allowed to weave in and out of the parade to cause fear and amusement, though this assertion is based on later accounts of the parade. After some time, the full armour and weapons usually worn by the Saint George character in the procession's early years were instead carried for him by attendants.
1547–1642: Reformation changes In 1547 during the Reformation, the dissolution of the chantries, religious fraternities and other charitable and educational foundations was ordered by an act of Parliament under Edward VI. While this led to the end of many Saint George's Day celebrations across England, it did not affect the Guild in Norwich aside from causing it to re-found itself as the Company and Citizens of Saint George, as a charter granted to the Guild's members in 1417 by Henry V had made it a permanent body. The name change displayed a rejection of the doctrine of purgatory, and thus signalled a transition of the feast day from a civic religious ceremony to a ceremony with a secular purpose. After 1547, members of the Company stopped playing Saint George, Margaret, or the dragon, and prayers for its deceased members were halted. For the rest of the reign of Edward VI, the celebration was significantly reduced to an evensong service on the day prior, a divine service and banquet on the feast day, and a sermon and election of officers on the third day. In 1550, the Company sold some possessions including those that had been used in its pre-Edwardian parades.
In March 1555, now under the reign of Mary I, the Company and Citizens of Saint George made the decision to return to the commemoration of Saint George's Day as it had "twenty years past," prior to the Reformation changes. But, in May they instead decided against this, resolving to keep the feast on the Sunday after Trinity "upon divers considerations" despite Mary's restoration of the ritual calendar to its pre-Reformation format. They did, however, return their name to the original Guild of Saint George.
At a council meeting in May 1559, following the death of Mary I and the accession of the Protestant Elizabeth I as Queen the previous year, the Guild adopted the name "Company and Fellowship of Saint George", and chose to remove both Saint George and Margaret from the procession. They did however resolve to keep the dragon; "but for pastime the dragon to come in and show himself as in other years". This satisfied Protestant critics of the celebration. Muriel C. McClendon argues that from this point on, the members of the Company themselves were framed as the heroes against the dragon instead of the now absent Saint George, though Gervasse Rosser has argued that from this point the dragon embodied both roles. The feast of Saint George was again officially abrogated in 1561, though Norwich's Guild survived this and the annual ceremony persisted.
In April 1574, members of the Company again changed the date of the celebration, this time to the Sunday before Midsummer. By this time, the event was commonly known as "the feast of the mayor, shreves and company." In 1584, the celebration's date was moved a third time to the Tuesday after the Feast of Saint Peter the Apostle, continuing as a June festival.
1619–1642: As a celebration of the new Mayor of Norwich During the early 17th century, the ceremony became entirely fused with the installation of the Mayor of Norwich, which was already taking place on the Tuesday before Midsummer. The new purpose of Guild Day became to celebrate the inauguration of a new mayor of the city. The mayoral handover made the civic authority fragile, and so the pomp and ceremony was used to emphasise the authority of magistracy and the unity and continuity of the civic body. In 1619, the accounts of the Company record payments for painting the dragon by then known as Snap, as well as payments for gilding and painting a figure of Saint George, as "work done for the city"; the Norwich city chamberlain paid for the work on this figure which was used intermittently between 1619 and 1632. The chamberlain also took over the maintenance of the dragon from the early 1620s. Also around this time, a fool known as Dick Fool, as well as a pair of whifflers who had the job of clearing a path in the crowd for the dragon, were added to the procession.
This version of the ceremony included decoration of the town, several processions, a large feast for the elite, and entertainment of the masses with fireworks and sideshows. In preparation for the events, houses were newly painted. In some cases, plasterwork was marked out to resemble dressed stone and boughs of greenery were brought into the streets. Rushes were strewn about in Norwich Cathedral, and contemporary observers noted that streets were decorated with flags, portraits and tapestries. Cannons, bells, trumpets and fireworks were used. Citizens dressed in their best clothes for the occasion. The new purpose of Guild Day became to celebrate the inauguration of a new mayor of the city. The mayoral handover made the civic authority fragile, and so the pomp and ceremony was used to emphasise the authority of magistracy and the unity and continuity of the civic body.
Citizens turned out in thousands to watch the procession to and from the cathedral. For the procession, a sword that had been presented to the city by Henry V was carried before the mayor. He was then inducted into office in a ceremony at the Guildhall, taking three oaths; one being his oath as Mayor which was a self-dedication to the city, and the other two directly to the monarch. There was an extensive use of Latin; ordinances from the 16th century stipulated that each year, the high master of the Norwich School was to appoint some of the school's boys to deliver "a pitthye and short oracion in Latyn comending Justice and Obedyence" on Guild Day. Boys at the school also composed verses for the event which were inspired by ancient texts, often in English with Latin titles. Several of the orations from the ordinances' continued observance in the early 18th century exist at the Norfolk Record Office.
1642–1732: Religious turbulence