At sixes and sevens

If a situation is “at sixes and sevens” it is generally held to be in a state of confusion in which nobody is quite sure what to do next. The phrase might also be used to describe the bedroom of the average teenager. People who disagree with each other can also be at sixes and sevens when there appears to be no easy reconciliation of their dispute – they might also be described as “at loggerheads”.

But where does this unusual expression come from? Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable suggests that the most likely explanation is that it has to with gambling with dice, probably because the most common totals when two dice are thrown are six and seven.

However, there is a far more colourful account of the phrase’s origin, which has to do with the medieval livery companies of the City of London. These were the craft guilds that acted like combinations of professional associations and early trade unions. They set the standards for their trades, only admitting to their ranks people who demonstrated an acceptable level of skill and who had practised their craft for a certain period of time. The guilds took great pride in their professional status and developed ceremonial uniforms (“liveries”) that they wore on special occasions, such as the procession that marked the inauguration of a new Lord Mayor.

The twelve livery companies were keen to preserve their “pecking order” in terms of which trade was deemed to take precedence over the others. Top of the tree were the Mercers, or general merchants, and twelfth in line were the Clothworkers.

However, in the middle were the Merchant Taylors and the Skinners. These companies had both received their royal charters within a few days of each other in 1327 and both claimed to be number six, with the other being number seven. The dispute ran for more than 150 years, and may have been the inspiration for a line in Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” (c. 1386) that runs “… set the world on six and sevene, / And if thou deye a martyr, go to hevene”.

Eventually the two companies decided to accept the judgment of the Lord Mayor and aldermen, so the matter was presented to Sir Robert Billesden, who was Lord Mayor in 1484. He came up with a compromise solution that sounds typically English, especially as it involved the consumption of food and drink.

The judgment was that there should be two dinners, held annually, at which the master and wardens of one company would entertain the other. Having made friends with each other by eating and drinking together, they would not object if they took it in turns to be number six. Sir Robert decreed that, in the first year, this would be the Skinners, but the Merchant Taylors would precede them in the following year.

This arrangement, with the Merchant Taylors and Skinners taking turn to precede each other, has continued ever since, thus the two companies are always “at sixes and sevens”.

It is one of those explanations that one would dearly like to be true, even if it is not.

© John Welford