It is noteworthy among such guilds for the considerable documentary evidence extant and for having survived as a Roman Catholic lay association until the eighteenth century.
Father Myles Ronan, in his essay 'Dublin Medieval guilds', found in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume XXVI, July to December 1925, states: …Occasionally money was left by deed for prayers (evidently meaning Masses) for the donor.
One such deed tells how in 1478 Sir Robert Dowdall, in his lifetime, bestowed on St. Ann's guild of St. Audoen's Church, Dublin, a gift of 100 marks, to be put out at interest, used in merchandise at a profit, or invested in the purchase of land in the country; the yearly income derived to be devoted to the support of two priests, who were to sing and pray for him in St. Audoen's.
From the Middle Ages the bakers' guild of Dublin was devoted to St. Anne, and represented her story at Mystery plays and during the triennial "Walking the Franchises" march around the city's limits.
A volume of abstracts of 841 documents was made in 1772 by James Goddard, clerk of the guild, among the Gilbert MSS.
Although the guild was not founded until 1430, some of the title deeds of its subsequently acquired property extend as far back as 1285, and continue until 1740.
[clarification needed] Lancelot Bulkeley, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, may have preserved the deeds in the Academy.
[citation needed] The eagerness of Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, a minister of Charles I, in searching into the affairs of the fraternity may have hastened his end.
[citation needed] The devotion in Dublin became so popular that in a Provincial Council on 21 March 1352, under Archbishop de St. Paul, 26 July festival of St. Anne was ordered to be celebrated as a double,[citation needed] and the people to refrain from labour and attend their parish churches.
In 1430 Henry VI, by letters patent dated 16 December, with the assent of Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin and Justiciar of Ireland, granted licence to found a chantry in St Audoen's Church and to endow a chapel and guild.
[citation needed] St. Anne's Chapel was erected at the south side of the nave, running parallel to it as far as the chancel.
Each of the six chaplains of this guild had an altar or chapel assigned to him on appointment, where he celebrated daily and served in the choir.
The other clerk was appointed to assist the chaplains by singing and reading in choir daily at divine service at a salary of 7 marks.
Every second week he caused fire and water to be brought, rang the bells, and accompanied the parish priest or curate in visiting the sick.
Separate chambers were allotted to the chantry priests, and the average yearly salary pertaining to their office appears to have been 8 marks (£80 before 1939).
[citation needed] The guild paid for all accoutrements necessary for singing Mass—bread, wine, wax, chalice, Mass-book, vestments, etc., while the priests agreed to sing at all divine services, so far as their learning and 'conyng' extended, unless special leave was granted, and not to relinquish their posts except on promotion to benefices.
Anne's Workhouse', which was evidently a special workshop for the men employed by the guild in connection with its property in the neighbourhood.
to the four scholars in St. Audoen's church, and a person named Codde bequeathed 4 marks for a two-year exhibition in the schools.
1 in Calendar) Robert Dovedall, a knight, gave 100 marks to be disposed of in merchandise, iron and salt being mentioned as the probable commodities.
St. Anne's recorded special deeds drawn up by the merchants and others, who could afford the expense, by which the donor bestowed on the guild certain premises in the city, or outside, on condition that the priests maintained on St. Anne's 'Rent' should, yearly, in St. Audoen's, on a certain Sunday, observe same, with solemn Mass, by plainsong, or, as it is again called, Requiem Mass by note, with five 'pryketts' (torches) of wax burning.
Benefactors, funders if special chantry priests and guild chaplains left specific directions as to which chapel—St.
The list of "Brethren and Tenants" included well-connected Protestants such as Bishop Robert Ussher, who was the prebendary of St Audeons from 1617, Sir Philip Perceval, an English-born official in Dublin Castle, and Sir Robert Dixon, Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1633–34 and father-in-law of the future Lord Chancellor Maurice Eustace.
It seems extraordinary that the guild retained its property The master and wardens could not appoint priests to the chantry, which had reformed itself.
In that year, after the storm created by the Titus Oates 'Popish Plot', the imprisonment and death of Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin (1680) and execution of Oliver Plunket (1681), the Church tried again to appropriate the guild's property.
As in Lowe's case, the plaintiffs assumed that its revenues, should be used solely for St. Audoen's Church and parish (see: Purpose trust).
The bill cited the charter and added that its annual revenues now amounted to £2,500; and alleged a gross breach of trust.
But since the 1641 Rebellion, they asserted, Roman Catholic masters and wardens were elected, who distributed the revenues among popish priests and the members of the fraternity, and allowed the ruin of the college.
[clarification needed] On 16 June 1682, the defendants provided a general history of the guild from about 1620, and denied that they or their predecessors were bound to support St. Audoen's.
In 1684 a vestry meeting at St. Audoen's decided to submit the case to the Lord Chancellor (Michael Boyle, (Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh) for arbitration.