Knighten Guilde
According to A Survey of London by John Stow (1603), it was in origin an order of chivalry founded by the Saxon king Edgar for loyal knights.
[citation needed] According to a legend solely recorded in John Stow's Survey of London, land east of the wall was granted to the guild by King Edgar.
There were thirteene Knights, or Soldiers welbeloved to the king and realme, for service by them done, which requested to haue a certaine portion of land on the East part of the Citie, left desolate and forsaken by the Inhabitants, by reason of too much seruitude.
They besought the king to haue this land, with the libertie of a Guilde for euer: the king granted to their request with conditions following: that is, that each of them should victoriously accomplish three combates, one aboue the ground, one underground, and the third in the water, and after this at a certaine day in East Smithfield, they should run with Speares against all commers, all which was gloriously performed: and the same day the king named it knighten Guild...[1]Historic accounts of a brotherhood of 13 knights are redolent of a Cockney Camelot, but although the responsibilities of the guild were military – presumed to be to defend Aldgate and the eastern part of the City Wall from Norsemen and others – they were not the knights as the term came to be understood later in the Middle-Ages, the kind of knight typically depicted in Arthurian legend.
[citation needed][2] Edgar's decision to grant the land may have been influenced by his chief minister, St Dunstan, who had close links to the large neighbouring Manor of Stepney.
At one time a St Botolph dedicated church stood outside three city gates (Aldgate, Bishopsgate and Aldersgate), as well as one by the Thames at Billingsgate).
Though Stow quotes from an earlier charter from William I: William king of England to Maurice Bishop, and Godffrey de Magum, and Richard de Parre, and to his faithfull people of London, greeting: know yee mee to have granted to the men of Knighten Guilde, the Guilde that belonged to them, and the land that belonged thereunto, with all customes, as they had the same in the time of king Edward, and my father.
According to Stow these fifteen, the heirs of the original Knights, were "certaine Burgesses of London, of the progenie of those Noble English knights to wit: Radulphus Fitzalgod, Wilmarde le Deuereshe, Orgare le Prude, Edward Hupcornehill, Blackstanus, and Alwine his kinsman, and Robert his brother, the sonnes of Leafstanus the Goldsmith, Wiso his sonne, Hugh Fitzvulgar, Algare Secusme..."[1]The guild seems to have grown in prestige over time, as the fifteen members referred to included some of London's most influential men; an alderman, a canon of St Paul's.
The transfer of the possessions of the Knighten Guild to Holy Trinity Priory immediately brought about trouble with Geoffrey de Mandeville, Constable of the Tower.
