Gilds were the bedrock of late medieval popular religion: voluntary associations with all sorts of purposes, some commercial, some social, but all with some religious dimension. Among the thousands of such institutions vastly varied in scale, Our Lady’s Gild of Boston became a flagship. Originally a fairly modest body with a local focus, it hugely expanded its activities in the early 1500s. Its finances were boosted by the sale of indulgences, pardons granting a shortening of time in purgatory for the purchasers and their loved ones.
