Livery (through the French from Lat. liberare, 'to deliver'), a word derived from the custom which prevailed under the Merovingian and Carolingian kings of delivering splendid habits to the members of their households on great festivals. In the days of chivalry the wearing of livery was not as now confined to domestic servants. The duke's son, as page to the prince, wore the prince's livery, the earl's son bore the duke's colours and badge, the son of the esquire wore the livery of the knight, and the son of the gentleman that of the esquire. Cavaliers wore the livery of their mistresses. There was also a large class of armed retainers in livery attached to many of the more powerful nobles. The livery colours of a family are taken from their armorial bearings, being generally the tincture of the field and that of the principal charge, or the two tinctures of the field are taken instead where it has two. They are taken from the first quarter in case of a quartered shield. These same colours are alternated in the 'wreath' on which the crest stands. The royal family of England have sometimes adopted colours varying from the tinctures of the arms. The Plantagenets had scarlet and white; the House of York, murrey and blue; white and blue were adopted by the House of Lancaster; white and green by the Tudors; yellow and red by the Stuarts, and by William III.; and scarlet and blue by the House of Hanover. An indispensable part of the livery in former times was the Badge (q.v.).
The freemen of the 75 city guilds or corporations which embrace the different trades of London are called liverymen, because entitled to wear the livery of their respective companies. In former times the wardens of the companies used yearly to deliver to the Lord Mayor certain sums, twenty shillings of which was given to individuals who petitioned for the money to enable them to procure sufficient cloth for a suit, and the companies prided themselves on the splendid appearance which their liveries made in the civic train. Till the Reform Bill in 1832, the liverymen had the exclusive privilege of voting for members of parliament for the City. The twelve chief corporations are the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, and Clothworkers. A royal commission was appointed to inquire into the City companies in 1880, when their charitable or trust income was returned at £200,000 a year, their corporate income at upwards of £550,000, and the capital value of their property (in the City, in the funds, in estates all over England and in Ulster) at £15,000,000. The annual cost of the hospitality exercised by the companies was estimated at £100,000; and of the 20,000 hereditary members about 12,000 were said to belong to the working-classes. The commission's gigantic Report was issued in 1884.