ABSTRACT
From their medieval foundations, London’s livery companies (or trade guilds) fused together sacred and secular functions. They sought to regulate trade and maintain standards of production, but they also promoted the welfare of their membership, a concern that extended to the afterlife. The duty of fraternal commemoration was enshrined in company ordinances and that impulse infused their ritual, visual and material culture. Before the Reformation, the companies attended the funerals of their deceased brethren, maintained obits and chantries, and administered charitable institutions such as almshouses, all of which were designed to generate prayers for the soul of the benefactor and reduce their time in purgatory.
