Middle English Literature

Royal Benefactors
London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.vii, fols. 6v–7r (Golden Book of St. Albans)
Language: Latin
Manuscript date: 1380
The Golden Book of St. Albans (also known as the Liber Benefactorum,
Book of Benefactors) is a record of the names of benefactors and their con-
tributions to the Benedictine abbey of St. Albans (for more on donors,
see the image “Anne of Burgundy, duchess of Bedford, before St. Anne,”
p. 135). The monk and historian Thomas Walsingham began the record
in 1380, and it was continued to the end of the fifteenth century (on
Walsingham, see “Usurpation,” p. 69). Over 230 illuminations of bene-
factors and their donations appear in the Golden Book’s 157 folio pages,
many like this one in reds, purples, greens, and blues. The illuminator’s
name was Alan Strayler, who included a self-portrait on another page.
Folios 6v–7r show Edward II (1284–1327), Edward III (1312–77), Edward,
Prince of Wales, the Black Prince (1330–76), Richard II (1367–1400),
John of Gaunt (1340–99), and Queen Matilda (1102–67).
Primary documents and further reading
Galbraith, V. H. (1932) “Thomas Walsingham and the Saint Albans Chronicle,
1272–1422.” English Historical Review 47: 12–30.
—— (ed.) (1937) The St. Albans Chronicle, 1406–1420. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Walsingham, T. (1866) Annales Ricardi Secundi. Johannis de Trokelowe et Henrici
de Blaneforde: Chronica et Annales, ed. H. T. Riley. London: Longmans, Green,
Reader, and Dyer.

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Labor and Capital
5
Labor and Capital
Guilds
Guilds were associations of men and sometimes women that performed a
combination of social, religious, and economic activities. More prevalent in
urban areas, they tended to be either parish organizations created to perform
religious devotions, or craft or trade fellowships designed to regulate their
organizations (membership, craft standards, and other activities), protect their
business from local and overseas competition, and expand trade in national
and foreign markets. With the wool staples, which began in the early four-
teenth century and which favored English rather than alien traders, English and