It is commonly believed and regularly spread that the Masters of Defence, often referred to as the Company of Masters, was a guild of fencing masters who had the right to police fencing schools across England and to fine those who were not running their schools in an appropriate manner.
Unfortunately this is an old theory that doesn’t hold much water when looking at the evidence that is available to us as historians.
Rather it would appear that the Masters of Defence of London was an association of four ‘Ancient Masters’ who made an arrangement with each other to operate in London in a manner that benefitted all of them.
The association was brought about to ensure that the Ancient Masters and their students did not step on each others toes as they operated their schools. We see this in the indenture that we have arecord of that states limits to the distance that a student must be from any other school when they open their own school
The guild theory comes about from mis-reading of the records we have available to us and misunderstanding of the way in which a guild actually operated in the 16th century.
This misunderstanding is compounded by the very small number of historians who have actually chosen this subject as their subject for study. As such the information we have is from historians who brush across this information as it references and supports their own study but is not the focus of it.
The most valuable piece of evidence we have is from Sloane manuscript ms2530 held by the British Library. This manuscript is a record of fencing from the 16th century that records many gradings of students of fencing and the oaths they took.
It also records the rules of the schools, the indenture of the ancient masters who made the association. It also has a copy of the letter each grade would have received to certify their rank.
The theory of an incorporated guld of masters is hampered by several things. I would say the first is that the re has yet to be discovered a patent letter incorporating teh masters as a guild but this is not the first thing.
The first thing is that a guild is usually known as a ‘worshipful company’. Take the Worshipful Company of Cutlers as an example. This can be shortened, and often is for the masters of defence, to simply ‘company’, the comapny of cutlers.
I choose this as the first hurdle the guild theory has to overcome simply because in no record that we currently have are the masters of defence ever referred to as such. Historically there is no ‘Company of Masters of Defence’ nor ‘Worshipful Comany’ of the same. With no historical reason to support a guild the theory should never have found its feet.
The supposed Patent
The main piece of evidence provided by previous historians towards a letter of incorporation is a warrant first issued by Henry VIII. This warrant licenses several named masters and provosts of the science fo defence to close down any school in the country that is not being run according to the correct license and oaths.
This piece of evidence can be considered a patent letter as it would have been a letter that was left open as it would need to have been presented to any justice of the peace who was not familiar with the officers executing the warrant but it is not a letter of icorporation.
A patent letter is simply a letter that is not sealed. It is open for all to see rather than sealed for private correspondence. The patent of the warrant would in fact have been sent all across the country to inform the magistrates in each region that the named people are licensed to carry out teh orders.
A warrant, far from being incorporation of a guild, is in fact simply authorisation for the named individuals on the warrant to enact teh office that is specified on the warrant. Police officers today (in the UK) carry warrant cards which serve teh same purpose.
This warrant was repeated by Queen Mary I and a new warrant with new names was written by James VI/I. The warrant issued by James was in teh same wein as the former two.
There is no evidence of a warrant written by Edward VI but it can be reasonably presumed that it was continued by him as the warrant of Mary I is just a confirmation that the warrant by Henry VIII still stands as legal.