Member Login
 
The Merchant Taylors Hall from the City Walls showing the east gable of the Hall: ink and pen drawing by E. Ridsdale Tate, 1904

The Taylors – Early Years

Although the Taylors appear in the City's freemen from 1273, the earliest reference to guild organisation are the ordinances and register of members dating from 1387, and entered in the City's memorandum book among the City Archives. In the medieval days the tailors were closely associated with the religious and charitable confraternity of St John the Baptist. It was that fraternity which built the present Hall. During this period the York Tailors enjoyed a golden age, playing a major role in the social as well as economic life of the City. As one of the leading York city craft guilds, the York tailors also played an important role in the famous sequence of York Corpus Christi mystery plays http://www.yorkmysteryplays.co.uk/.