Salter's Guild
London Livery Companies, originally craft guilds, had their origins in Medieval times. They decided who could trade and dictated prices and wages, working conditions and welfare.
Each Company, like the Salters, was governed by a Master and one or more Wardens who were elected by the Court of Assistants, of which Morgan Aubrey was one.
In return for a trade monopoly, guilds set standards, controlled quality and carried out inspections and would mete out punishment for poor workmanship.
The term ‘Livery Company’ came with the custom of wearing of a uniform and over the years, each guild jockeyed for economic and political power. Inevitably, acrimonious disputes arose. Finally, in 1515, the Court of Aldermen settled the order of precedence of the forty-eight Livery Companies in existence at the time, according to company wealth.
The most important and prestigious companies were known as the ‘Great Twelve’ and in pride of place at the top was the Worshipful Company of Mercers or general merchants.
The family of Joan Vaux, Morgan Aubrey’s wife, came from the sixth ranking Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors. The seventh-ranked Skinners or fur traders disputed the position that had been accorded them, so the Merchant Taylors and the Skinners agreed to alternate positions every year. This is said to be the origin of the phrase ‘to be at sixes and sevens’.
The Worshipful Company of Salters ranked ninth and included individuals whose trades involved the usage of salts and the preparation of chemical mixtures for use in food.
Guilds would ensure that members were decently buried, and provided a special pall cloth for the occasion. They looked after their members who were ill and unable to work, and cared for their ‘poore widowes’.
Wives of Salters benefited from the £100 that Morgan Aubrey’s widow Joan left to ‘the Master Wardens and Comynalty of the Art or Mystery of the Salters’ in her will she wrote in 1612. Joan Aubrey left money for ‘fifty poore women’ to have a gown to wear at her funeral and to give ‘the saide Company of Salters’ a dinner on that day.
Five centuries later, like many other Livery Companies, the Salters’ Company has lost its direct connection with its original trade, but it still retains its Latin motto: Sal Sapit Omnia – Salt Seasons Everything.
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