York Mariners' Guild

The medieval guild of Fishers and Mariners of York, the fraternity of men who worked the river traffic between York, Kingston upon Hull, and the upper reaches of the Ouse. Like other York craft guilds it combined a trade, religious, and charitable role and staged a pageant in the York Mystery Plays, taking “The Flood” of the Noah cycle as its subject alongside the Shipwrights’ “Building of the Ark.” Its work was river-borne rather than seagoing. The plays are documented in the York civic registers from the late 14th century.