Guild life beyond London, the Provincial Guilds of England and Scotland
Most Freemen or Liverymen (both terms import both genders) of a City of London Livery Company will have a good understanding of their own Company and perhaps a general awareness of the other Livery Companies operating in the City. The particularly motivated Liveryman might even be a member of more than one Livery Company and there are a small number of Liverymen who have connections with Guilds and Merchant Companies outside of London. However awareness of the provincial Guilds is at best vague and more typically a mystery to most among the City Livery Companies. Awareness of the provincial Guilds is often no better in the cities where they exist, even less so when the Guilds have expired leaving only an association of Freemen such as is the case in Lincoln and Norwich, both cities had a substantial number of Guilds modelled on their London brethren for which there is plenty of evidence in their respective Guildhalls. Arms of the defunct Norwich Goldsmiths' Company, similar t...