[750 Separate Copies of this Essay have been printed.]

TO JOHN MALCOLM LUDLOW, ESQ., OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, ONE OF THE TRUEST FRIENDS TO WORKING-MEN IN ENGLAND, THIS ESSAY S DEDICATED BY ITS WRITER.

IN order to study the English labour-question, I joined, in the summer of 1868, my master, Dr. Engel, Director of the Royal Statistical Bureau at Berlin, on his journey to the English manufacturing districts. But after a few weeks' inquiry, I was convinced that a thorough knowledge of the position of the English working-class would require a sojourn of months in their country. I therefore resolved to remain longer in England. Working-men's Associations of every kind, and the History of Labour in England, became the chief objects of my study. At last, in May 1869, I left England, with my portfolio full of the materials I had collected. But I had scarcely returned home, when I was asked by Mr. Furnivall to write a General Introduction to Mr. Toulmin Smith's work on English Gilds, which he had left unfinished at his death. As I unfortunately had not had the honour of knowing Mr. Smith personally, and therefore knew nothing of his ideas as to Gilds, I at first hesitated to accede to Mr. Furnivall's request. My scruples increased when I considered that I was to undertake a work which ought to have been done by a man of great learning and repute. And, indeed, now that my work is finished, I am so fully alive to its many deficiencies, that I greatly fear my undertaking this work will be thought by many, too daring. But I hope the fairness of the reader will not let him measure my essay by his conception of what such an outline as the present ought to be. I can only say that for many years past I have been deeply interested in this subject, that what I offer here to the reader is the result of much hard work and of many laborious personal researches in Libraries and Record-Offices, and that I have put forth my results in the best way I could, seeing the short time allowed me to write this essay in.

THE oldest reliable and detailed accounts which we have of Gilds come from England; they consist of three Gild-statutes.See these in Kemble's The Saxons in England, vol. i., Appendix D; and compare with them the translation in Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 591, &c.According to the latest investigationHartwig, Untersuchungen über die ersten Anfänge des Gildewesens, in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, edited by Waitz, Göttingen, 1860, vol. i. p. 136. into the origin of Gilds, the drawing-up of all these statutes took place in the beginning of the eleventh century. In the case of one of these Gilds, there is no doubt whatever as to the accuracy of this date. This Gild was founded and richly endowed by Orcy, a friend of Canute the Great, at Abbotsbury, in honour of God and St. Peter. Its object, according to the statutes, appears to have been the support and nursing of infirm Gild-brothers, the burial of the dead, and the performance of religious services, and the saying of prayers, for their souls. The association met every year, on the feast of St. Peter, for united worship in honour of their patron saint. Besides this, there was a common meal; and in order that the poor might also have their share in the joys of the festival, they received alms on the day of the feast; for which purpose the Gild-brothers were obliged to furnish, on the eve of the day, contributions of bread "well boulted and thoroughly baked." Guests were only admitted to the common meal by permission of the Master and Steward. Insults offered in a malignant spirit by one brother to another, were punished on the part of the Gild, and had also to be atoned for to the insulted. He who had undertaken an office, but had not properly discharged its duties, was severely punished.

The Exeter Gild, whose statutes have likewise been preserved, was of altogether the same character.See also the Introduction to Mr. Smith's Gilds by Miss L. T. Smith, p. xviii. Here, however, associationfor the purpose of worship and prayer stands out more prominently as the object of the brotherhood than in the former case. Three times a year the Gild-brothers assembled to worship together for the well-being of their living and dead fellow-members. Here, also, every such service was followed by a meal in common. When any brother died, every member was obliged to perform special devotions for the departed soul. The mutual care of the Gild-brothers was, moreover, shown by money-contributions in case of death, and in the support of those who went on a journey, as well as of those who had suffered loss by fire. Punishments were decreed for insults offered by the Gild-brothers to each other, as well as for not fulfilling the duties imposed on them by the Gild.

The statutes of the Gild at Cambridge show that its main object was altogether different from that of the two already mentioned. At the very outset, in the oath which every member had to take on the relics of the patron Saint of the Gild, they swore faithful brotherhood towards each other, not only in religious, but also in secular matters; and though the statutes secured for the Gild-brothers the same support in case of sickness and death as those of Exeter and Abbotsbury—and, like those, contained regulations with reference to alms, divine worship and feasts—yet all these objects were but insignificant in comparison with the measures for the protection of the members of the Gild against criminals, and even against the evil consequences of their own wrongdoing. The following may be considered a first principle: "If one misdo, let all bear it; let all share the same lot;" and for carrying this out, a complete organization existed. If one of the Gild-brothers required the help of his fellow-members, the inferior officer of the Gild living nearest to him had to hasten to his aid; should the officer neglect this, he became liable to punishment, and in like manner the head of the society, should he be remiss in affording help. If a Gild-brother was robbed, the whole Gild had to assist him in obtaining compensation from the lawbreaker. So also every Gild-brother was obliged to help, if a member himself had to make atonement for killing a man. If, however, he had no justifiable motive for committing the act, if he had not been provoked to it in a quarrel, if he was not under an obligation to execute vengeance, but had slain the man merely from malice, he himself had to bear the consequences of the deed. If one Gild-brother killed another, he had first to reconcile himself with the kinsmen of the murdered man, and had moreover to pay eight pounds to all those belonging to his larger family, namely, the Gild; failing which, he was shut out of the society, and themembers of the Gild were forbidden to hold friendly intercourse of any kind with him. In like manner, an insult offered by one Gild-brother to another was severely punished. The solidarity of the society was even shown in the case of violence and damage to property, which one member might have suffered from the servant of another; the master of the servant was answerable for him, and was sued by the society for compensation. It was, moreover, a leading principle of the society, to which every member had to bind himself by oath, always to support him who had right on his side.

The essence of the manifold regulations of the statutes of these three Gilds appears to be the brotherly banding together into close unions between man and man, sometimes even established on and fortified by oath, for the purpose of mutual help and support. This essential characteristic is found in all the Gilds of every age, from those first known to us in detail, to their descendants of the present day, the Trade-Unions. According to the variety of wants and interests at various times, the aims, arrangements, and rules of these unions also varied. As a rule, the Gild-brothers periodically assembled together for common feasts.

The inquiry as to where these features of the Gilds are first met with in earlier times will, perhaps, also yield an answer to the inquiry into the origin of Gilds themselves. The Northern historians, in answer to the question, whence the Gilds sprang, refer above all to the feasts of the German tribes from Scandinavia, which were first called Gilds. Among the German tribes, every occurrence among the more nearly related members of the family required the active participation in it of them all. At births, marriages, and deaths, all the members of the family assembled. Banquets were prepared in celebration of the event, and these had sometimes even a legal signification, as in the case of funeral banquets, namely, that of entering on an inheritance; and, when they concerned kings, that of a coronation. Wilda narrates in detail the circumstances of a banquet of this kind, at which the son and heir, in the midst of his own and his father's companions, toasted his father's memory, and vowed to imitate his worthy deeds; the companions took similar vows upon themselves. Further, great social banquets took place on occasion of the sacrificial assemblies at the great anniversary festivals, which coincided with the national assemblies and legal assizes, and on occasion of important political events; and at the same time the common concerns of the community were deliberated on at these banquets. Moreover, they also furnished an opportunity for the conclusion of those alliances for purposes of plunder or war, of which we have accounts, especially in the case of Swedenand Norway, as well as of those close unions of friends, in which, according to the Scandinavian Sagas, two warriors of antiquity were wont to confederate for life or death, for common enterprises and dangers, and for indiscriminate revenge when one of them should perish by a violent death.Münter's Kirchengeschichte, vol. i. p. 181, &c., quoted in Wilda's Gildewesen im Mittelalter, p. 29. Every freeman was obliged to attend these feasts, and bring with him whatever food and drink he might require. Hence these feasts were also called Gilds; for "Gild" meant originally the sacrificial meal made up of the common contributions; then a sacrificial banquet in general; and lastly, a society. When in later times Christianity spread itself in the North, the sacrificial banquets, with all their customs and ceremonies, remained in existence, and Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints, stept into the place of Odin and the rest of the gods.Compare Wilda, Das Gildewesen im Mittelalter, Halle, 1831, p. 5, &c. ; Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungs-Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 49-75, 2nd ed., Kiel, 1865; Hartwig, pp. 148, 149.

Neither Wilda, the principal writer on Gilds, nor Hartwig, who has made the latest researches into their origin, is able to discover anything of the essential nature of Gilds, either in what has just been related about the old family and its banquets, or in the sacrificial assemblies; and it is only as to the one point of the custom of holding banquets on the occasion of anniversary festivals, that Wilda is inclined to derive the Gilds from them. But of the essence of the Gild, "the brotherly banding together in close union, which expressed itself in manifold ways in the mutual rendering of help and support," he finds no trace. "The banquets," he urges as his principal objection, "were either casual meetings to which every one, as he thought proper, invited his friends, or which several people prepared in common, and which did not produce any more intimate relationship than that already existing from the actual bond of the family, or state, or neighbourhood; or they were meetings in which every one of the nation was able, or was obliged, to take part. There appears in them nothing of any closer voluntary confederacy of the members within, or by the side of, the union caused by the State or religion."Wilda, p. 28. Hartwig considers these objections of Wilda's conclusive, and believes that from the continued existence of pagan ceremonies even amongst the religious Gilds, and from the custom of holding feasts, nothing whatever can be deduced which is essential to the Gilds.Hartwig, p. 153.

Now these feasts cannot certainly be compared with thealready perfectly-developed Gilds of Abbotsbury, Exeter, and Cambridge; but if we connect with them what historians relate about the family in those days, we may still recognize in them the germ from which in later times, at a certain stage of civilization, the Gild necessarily had to develope itself. The family was, according to these historians,To avoid further quotations I refer to Waitz, vol. i. pp. 49-75. With referance to the Anglo-Saxons in particular, see also Lappenberg's Geschichte von England, vol. i. 1834, p. 587. a community of all-comprehending importance, and its care provided completely for nearly all the wants of the individual. This it was able to do in consequence of the then simplicity of life. The minor found in it his protection; the insulted, the natural friends who sympathized most keenly with him in every injury inflicted, and who helped him to procure satisfaction. He who would engage in those pursuits which alone in that age were worthy of a free man, and which at the same time promised riches and fame—in chase, feuds, and war—found in the family his natural allies. Naturally, he who fell into poverty, or sickness, or any other kind of distress, obtained from the family the necessary help; and it provided of course for the burial of the dead whose heir it was. These are indeed the first, and are even now-a-days the practical results of the family union. For the murdered, there arose from the midst of his family an avenger; to the robbed it gave the necessary help to prosecute and punish the thief, and to obtain restitution of the plunder. Further consequences of the nature of the family compact were, that the members were obliged to maintain peace amongst themselves; that they were not entitled to appear against each other in a court of justice; and, on the other hand, that they were called upon to punish members, especially women, who had violated the right of the family.By unchastity, as wives or girls.Before the community too it became answerable for its members. The payment of the forfeited wergild was, in all cases of offence—which according to ancient usage and custom claimed revenge—the concern of the whole family. The family appeared as such an intimate union of its members, that this responsibility of the whole body for the individual member commended itself to the sense of justice of the people as a matter of course. But as it answered for the compensation, and took part in the payment thereof, and assisted the guilty in order that he might not forfeit life and limbs to his antagonist, so it supplied the accused also with compurgators from among its members to ward off an unjust condemnation. In former times this family bond comprehended all relatives without limitation of degree;but in later days it became restricted to the nearer kinsfolk. Of course these members of the family met at oft-recurring banquets, at which, as was customary among the Germans, their interests were talked over and deliberated on, just as has been shown in the above-mentioned accounts of the Scandinavian writers (p. lxviii), who agree in this with Tacitus (Germ. cap. 22).

If we compare this description of the family, and the accounts of the above-mentioned banquets, with the statutes of the Gilds at Abbotsbury, Exeter, and Cambridge, the family appears as the original and pattern type, after which all the later Gilds were formed; and this will be proved still more clearly in the course of this treatise.Compare especially Part III. of this Essay, pp. cii, ciii. The family meets us here as the closest possible union, consisting of real brothers, and so thoroughly animated with the spirit of brotherhood and of mutual assistance and support, that it brings all conceivable relations within its reach, and provides completely for nearly all those wants, the satisfying of which fell, in later times, partly to the State, and partly to the artificial societies which were formed for this very purpose. The essential nature of the Gild, as characterized by Wilda himself, is to be found in the family, and developed there even to the highest degree. We do not yet see, it is true, special associations by the side of this most intimate natural union, but neither is there room for the former, by reason of the activity of the latter. It is indeed astonishing that Wilda, who himself afterwards designates the Gilds as "imitators of the family,"Wilda, pp. 56-58, 130, 132, 134, 147, 153, 169, &c. should here altogether forget whence they were derived.

With the exception of political interests, for which the State provided, there remains only one relation for which we find no particular provision in the family, namely, Religion. Care for the interests of religion was the business of the whole nation. At the time from which our accounts come down to us, the German tribes had already taken possession of fixed habitations; the relations of neighbourhood and of living-together asserted themselves in public life, and it was natural that the interests which first after politics united neighbours for common action, were the religious ones. Families, though acting generally as independent individual bodies, and competing most keenly with each other in the pursuit of their material interests, yet united as soon as that interest was concerned, which—even in the times of the most barbarian arbitrariness and the most unbridled clublaw, the times of the most unchecked pursuit of individualinterest—was always considered as the great, the common, the social interest, the reconciliation of man with God. As if single individuals felt themselves too weak to solve this great problem, they have always, at all times, and in all religions, united for the worship of God,—frequently the whole nation, and later, in special sacrificial societies, as we see in the religious associations of the Romans,Cf. Heineccius, De collegiis et corporibus opificum, in Heineccii opera omnia,tom. ii. p. 390, Genevæ, 1766; also Cicero De Senectute, cap. 13. Gaius, in l. 4 D. de coll. et corp. 47, 22, quotes a passage from Solon's legislation taken over into the twelve tables concerning sacrorum sacramentales. and still more perfectly in the religious Gilds and fraternities of the Middle Ages.

The circumstance, that we meet here, all neighbours united in one common society, and not yet that separation into closer and more restricted associations which is found in the later Gilds, can give rise to no difficulty. This is a phenomenon which appears always, as soon as a great interest unites men into a community, and which repeats itself in the rise of every separate kind of Gild down to that of our modern Trade-Unions. At first, as long as all belonging to one portion of mankind have an equally lively sense of want, as long as zeal is universal, and energy is equally effective in all, and as long as this zeal is still growing, one bond comprehends them all; but gradually, with the increase of number, and with the relaxation of the general interest, or with the appearance of various shades in that interest, they unite into closer societies, or close their circles; by the side of which then arise others of a similar nature.Compare Part III. pp. xcvi, xcvii. When, for instance—to make use of an example which Hartwig himself brings forward in a later passage of his inquiry—the Christian communions were formed, all the members contributed, according to their ability, to one common fund for the purpose of good works. With the extension of Christianity this general display of love abated; the contributions ceased, or were changed into regular and involuntary taxes; and the zealous separated into particular brotherhoods, &c. Further, the Gilds, from which in later times the town constitutions sprang, comprehended originally, as Wilda himself tells us, all full citizens, whose relations to each other were none but those given by local limits and the bonds of neighbourhood. To the first Gilds of the Kalenders, all the priests of a deanery belonged, and the first Trade-Unions took their origin in a manner thoroughly similar.

The essence of the Gild existed also in those associations for acquiring riches and fame, the sworn confederacies for plunder and heroic deeds referred to above, and mentionedby the Northern historians; and therefore, although from the natural scantiness of the sources, historical references to the direct derivation of the Gilds from them may be wanting, it does not appear that the attempt to bring them into connection with the Gilds ought to be rejected without further counterproofs.Against this view, on wholly insufficient grounds, see Wilda, p. 29; and without stating any grounds, Hartwig, p. 154.

As to the positive opinion of the opponents of our view of the origin of Gilds:—Wilda allows that the later Gilds are derived from the old pagan ones, as regards the custom of assembling together at a common meal on various solemn occasions (a custom, however, which is certainly met with, not only among the Germans, but also in the Greek ἔρανοι and the Roman Collegia).Hartwig, p. 156. Varro speaks of the licentious banquets of the Roman collegia: "Immutabiles collegiorum cœnas intendere annonam." Cf. Heineccius, pp. 386, 399. As to the ἔρανοι, see Becker's Charikles, vol. ii. p. 239, 2nd edition, 1854. The peculiar characteristic of the Gilds, says Wilda, first entered into them through the Christian principle of love for one's neighbour; and the Gilds themselves had their origin in the monasteries aggregated together on that principle to share in the benefits of their prayers and good works. These aggregations were joined afterwards by laymen.Wilda, p. 31 ff. Against this view, Hartwig shows the untenableness of the derivation of the Gilds from those monastic aggregations,Hartwig, p. 152. and then points to the Gild-like unions of the cultivated and classical nations of antiquity, especially to the Roman burial-societies, which Christianity, as it spread, found already existing on an extensive scale. He then mentions the common contributions of the first Christians for good works, as well as the later discontinuance of these voluntary acts of charity of the laity, when the Church acquired great independent wealth. But, in spite of the immense property of the Frankish Church, Hartwig yet infers, from the existence of a great proletariat in the Frankish realm at the end of the Roman dominion, that associations of clergy and laity for mutual support must have been formed in that empire. Though more exact information concerning these is wanting, yet the existence of associations amongst the clergy of the sixth century for anything but pious purposes,—as for instance for opposing superiors,—appears to Hartwig sufficient reason for inferring the existence of similar ones for charitable purposes. The laity would join themselves at a later period to those societies, whose offshoots he sees in the Gilds of the Kalenders.Hartwig, pp. 156-160. See, on the Gilds of the Kalenders, p. lxxxviii below.

AFTER the German tribes had settled in fixed abodes, the families dwelling in a certain district united themselves into common sacrificial assemblies. As a rule, common meals were connected with them, to which every one taking part had to bring what he wanted of food and drink. From this these unions were called Gilds. When Christianity, together with its religious fraternities, came to the North, the latter amalgamated with the heathen sacrificial societies which they found there, and from this union arose the Religious Gilds of the Middle Ages.

This is the opinion on the origin of the Religious Gilds already expounded in the foregoing part of this Essay. In the above cited statutes of the Gilds at Abbotsbury and Exeter, of the eleventh century (p. lxv), we see the organization of these Gilds already completely developed. But much earlier, though less detailed, information is afforded by the Capitularies of Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, of the year 858.

We find, already distinct, in these Capitularies, the two kinds which must be distinguished among the Religious Gilds. The one exists among laymen; and it alone is called "Geldonia." It alone, too, bears already the complete character of the Religious Gilds as it existed during the whole of the Middle Ages. The other kind of Gild exists among the clergy.

In the CapitularyLabbei Concilia, ed. Coleti, t. x. cap. 16. p. 4: "De confratriis, earumque conventibus, quomodo celebrari debeant.—Ut de collectis, quas geldonias vel confratrias vulgo vocant, sicut jam verbis monuimus, et nunc scriptis expresse præcipimus, tantum fiat, quantum ad auctoritatem, et utilitatem, atque rationem pertinet: ultra autem nemo, neque sacerdos, neque fidelis quisquam, in parochia nostra progredi audeat. Id est in omni obsequio religionis conjungantur: videlicet in oblatione, in luminaribus, in oblationibus mutuis, in exequiis defunctorum, in eleemosynis, et ceteris pietatis officiis: ita ut qui candelam offerre voluerint, sive specialiter, sive generaliter, aut ante missam, aut inter missam, antequam evangelium legatur, ad altare deferant. Oblationem autem, unam tantummodo oblatam, et offertorium, pro se suisque omnibus conjunctis et familiaribus offerat. Si plus de vino voluerit in butticula vel canna, aut plures oblatas, aut ante missam, aut post missam, presbytero vel ministro illius tribuat, unde populus in eleemosyna et benedictione illus eulogias accipiat, vel presbyter supplementum aliquod habeat. Pastos autem et comessationes, quas divina auctoritas vetat, ubi et gravedines, et indebitæ exactiones, et turpes ac inanes lætitiæ et rixæ, sæpe etiam, sicut experti sumus, usque ad homicidia, et odia, et dissensiones accidere solent, adeo penitus interdicimus, ut qui de cetero hoc agere præsumpserit, si presbyter fuerit, vel quilibet clericus, gradu privetur, si laicus, vel femina, usque ad satisfactionem separetur. Conventus autem talium confratrum, si necesse fuerit ut simul conveniant, ut si forte aliquis contra parem suum discordiam habuerit, quem reconciliari necesse sit, et sine conventu presbyteri et ceterorum esse non possit, post peracta illa quæ Dei sunt, et Christianæ religioni conveniunt, et post debitas admonitiones, qui voluerint eulogias a presbytero accipiant: et panem tantum frangentes, singuli singulos biberes accipiant, et nihil amplius contingere præsumant, et sic unusquisque ad sua cum benedictione domini redeat." relating to the Gilds among laymen, Hincmar gives instructions to his clergy as to their allowed sphereof action, and as to the solemnities to be held at their meetings. He first tells them quite in general, that only that should be done which was required by dignity, utility, and reason; but he immediately defines this somewhat more precisely: "They shall unite for every exercise of religion: that is to say,"—and now follows, as a more detailed statement of the duties involved therein, the enumeration of all the objects which are again met with in the later Gild-statutes,—"they shall unite for offerings (especially of candles), for mutual assistance, for funeral services for the dead, for alms, and other deeds of piety." On the other hand, Hincmar forbids, what other Capitularies term "diabolicum"(which must be translated here by "heathenisms"),See Hartwig, pp. 142, 153. namely, feastings and drinking-bouts, because they led to drunkenness, gave occasion for unjust exactions, for sordid merriments, and inane railleries, and ended often even with quarrels, hatred, and manslaughter. If it was the priest of the Gild or any other clergyman who acted against this prohibition, he was to be degraded, but if it was a layman or a woman, he or she was to be excluded until satisfaction was given. If it became necessary to call a meeting of the brothers, as, for instance, for the arrangement of differences which might have arisen among them, they were to assemble after divine service; and after the necessary admonitions, every one who liked was to obtain from the priest a piece of consecrated bread and a goblet of wine; and then he was to go home with the blessing of God.

These fraternities were spread in the Middle Ages, in great numbers, over all countries under the sway of the Roman-Catholic religion, and they exist even now in such countries. As the Gild Statutes contained in this collection—and they are but waifs and strays of large flocks—show, these brotherhoods existed in considerable numbers in every town; thus there were twelve in Norwich, as many in Lynn, in Bishop's Lynn nine,while abroad, Gallienus counts even eighty in Cologne, Melle about seventy at Lübeck, and Staphorst more than a hundred at Hamburg.See Wilda, p. 346. But their objects and organizations were so identical everywhere, and remained so essentially unchanged during successive centuries, that a comparison of them in various countries and at various times could only lead to repetitions. I will therefore simply state their objects and their organization. What is described here, prevailed in all countries alike.Compare, for what is said in the following, the Gild Statutes contained in Mr. Smith's collection, the Introduction by Miss Smith, pp. xxviii-xlii, Wilda, pp. 344-375, and Ouin-Lacroix, Histoire des anciennes Corporations d'Arts et Méticrs et des Confréries religieuses de la capitale de la Normandie, Rouen, 1850, pp. 411-542.

With regard to the objects of these Gilds, Hincmar defines them completely, when he says, "in omni obsequio religionis conjungantur," they shall unite in every exercise of religion. By this were meant, before all things, the associations for the veneration of certain religious mysteries, and in honour of saints.The modern representative of this is the march of the members of the English village Benefit-Societies to morning service at their church before the midday dinner, the cricket match and games of the afternoon, and the evening dance.—F. J. F. Accordingly, these Gilds were everywhereThe reason why there is no patron saint mentioned in the case of the Gild of the Smiths of Chesterfield (see Mr. Smith's collection, p. 168), seems to me to be that this Gild does not, in the account given of it, appear any more as an independent Gild, but simply as a subdivision of the Gild of the Holy Cross of the Merchants of Chesterfield. Before it joined the latter, it had been likewise under the patronage of the Holy Cross, as is proved by the members "worshipping before the greater cross in the nave of the church of All Saints," and by the "lights to be burnt before the cross on the days named." But after it had become a mere subdivision of a Gild under the same patronage, a special mention of the patron was no more required, and, for the sake of discriminating it from the rest, it was simply called the Gild of the Smiths. under the patronage of the Holy Trinity, or of certain Saints, or of the Holy Cross, or of the Holy Sacrament, or of some other religious mystery. In honour of these patrons they stuck candles on their altars and before their images; in some statutes this appears even as the only object of the Gild.See, for instance, p. 14 of Mr. Smith's collection. WildaWilda, p. 347. narrates also how the setting up of such a candle became the origin of an entire Gild. Once, towards the end of the fourteenth century, says he, several merchants and shopmen of Flensburg were sitting drinking together, and having paid their score, six shillings (standard of Lübeck) remained over. What should be done with these, was now the question. At length they resolved to order a candle to be made, which was to burn before the image of the Virgin Mary on the altar of our Lady. This fraternity, so insignificantly begun, increased rapidlyin members and in income; the Gild-brothers therefore resolved to adopt a regular constitution, to elect aldermen, to begin a Gild-book, &c. Besides for the setting-up of candles, the members united also for special devotions to their patrons; and amongst these Gilds must be named, above all, the fraternities of the Rosary, as those widest spread since the days of St. Dominic. Further, the Gilds got masses said in honour of their patrons, and went in solemn procession to their churches on the days of their feasts. Conventions like that between the fraternity of London Sadlers, and the neighbouring Canons of St. Martin-le-Grand, by which the Sadlers were admitted into brotherhood and partnership of masses, orisons, and other good deeds, with the canons, were common with these religious Gilds. They further obliged their members to engage in devotions and divine services for the souls of their departed brethren, and often, also, to aid pilgrims and pilgrimages,Mr. Ludlow's suggestion (Fortnightly Review, vol. vi., N. S., p. 399), that the assistance of pilgrims "is probably the original of what is now termed 'donation' to 'travellers,' or 'tramps,' or sometimes simply 'tramp-money'—i.e. relief to members going in search of work," can hardly be serious. Craftsmen travelling in search of work were at least not usual in England in the fourteenth century, and perhaps even never as long as the old system of industry prevailed; whilst a glance at some ordinances relating to the relief of pilgrims, even among the statutes of Craft-Gilds (such as, for instance, on pp. 180, 182 and others of Mr. Smith's collection) might convince Mr. Ludlow of the real nature of these pilgrims. (The 12 Richard II. cap. 3, requiring a Letter-Patent from wandering labourera, evidently refers to agricultural labourers only.) See Additional Notes, No. 4. especially to some most revered places, as, for instance, to the Holy Land, to the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul, or of St. James (of Compostella), to Loretto and other places.

But, as Hincmar pointed out, the "obsequium religionis" included not only devotions and orisons, but also every exercise of Christian charity, and thereſore, above all things, mutual assistance of the Gild-brothers in every exigency, especially in old age, in sickness, in cases of impoverishment,—if not brought on by their own folly,—and of wrongful imprisonment, in losses by fire, water, or shipwreck, aid by loans, provision of work, and, lastly, the burial of the dead. It included, further, the assistance of the poor and sick, and the visitation and comfort of prisoners not belonging to the Gild. And, as in the Middle Ages instruction and education were entirely supplied by the Church, and were considered a religious duty, we find among the objects of religious Gilds also the aid of poor scholars, the maintenance of schools, and the payment of schoolmasters.

No Gild pursued all these objects together; in each separate Gild one object or the other predominated, and, besides it, the Gild pursued several others. But often, too, we find Gilds for the fulfilment of quite a concrete and merely local task, as, forinstance, the Gild of Corpus Christi at York. I am obliged on this account to make some observations against Mr. Toulmin Smith, though I do it with extreme unwillingness; for nobody can acknowledge Mr. Smith's great merits in making this collection with greater thanks than myself, and I am most keenly alive to the fact that it becomes me, least of all, to enter into controversy against a man of such learning, especially in this place. But Mr. Smith has so strangely misconceived the character of this Gild,See pp. 140-143 of Mr. Smith's collection. that I think it absolutely necessary to correct him.

The case with this York Gild is simply this. In all Roman-Catholic countries the consecrated host is carried every year on the day of Corpus Christi, by the priest of highest rank in the place, in solemn procession, in the towns through the streets, and in the country over the fields. This is one of the greatest feasts of the Roman-Catholic Church. To heighten its solemnity, all the pomp which the Church can command is brought together. With this intention the clergy of York founded a special Gild, of which the sole object was to provide the ceremonies and pomp of this festival. As the solemnities of one of the greatest ecclesiastical feasts were in question, it can easily be understood that those who were at the head of the Gild were priests. Moreover, the reason why the many crafts of York joined so generally in this procession, was neither "the love of show and pageant which it gratified," nor was it "the departure from the narrow spirit of the original ordinances," but simply that the taking part in this procession was considered as a profession of faith in transubstantiation. I have myself seen at Munich, the King, the Ministers, the whole body of clergy, the University, all the Trades with their banners and emblems, all the Religious Fraternities, the Schools, and even the Army, taking part in a like procession; and that at Vienna is renowned for still greater pomp.

As there were Gilds for conducting this procession, so there were also Gilds for the representation of religious plays, which were common in the Middle Ages in all countries, and which are still performed in some places, for instance, every tenth year at Oberammergau in Southern Bavaria. Such were the Gild of the Lord's Prayer at York, and the Gilds of St. Elene, of St. Mary, and of Corpus Christi, at Beverley.See also Blomefield's account of the Gild of the Holy Cross at Abingdon, in his History of Norſolk, iii. p. 494. The performance of secular plays was also the object of some Gilds, for instance, of the Gild at Stamford,See p. 192 of Mr. Smith's collection. and of the Confrérie des Conards at Rouen.Ouin-Lacroix, p. 493.Moreover, all objects of common interest for which now-a-days special societies and associations provide, — for instance, the various insurance companies,—in the Middle Ages caused all who were interested in them to unite themselves to religious Gilds; the motive and the principles only were other than those of to-day, namely, Christian charity, instead of profit. Thus there were not only Gilds like the "Fraternitas ad Ædificandum Capellam St. Gertrudris,"Wilda, p. 349. but also those for the repair of bridges and highways.See p. 249 of Mr. Smith's collection. The National Life-Boat Institution of to-day would undoubtedly have been a Religious Gild in the Middle Ages; to be convinced of it one need only look at the statutes of the Gild of the Holy Trinity, Wygnale, Norfolk.See p. 110, ibid. Even at the present time I know of societies similar to these Gilds among the Catholics. The Roman-Catholic Bishops of Germany founded, a few years ago, the association of St. Catherine all over Germany, with a great number of local branches, for the foundation of a Roman-Catholic University. Every member is bound to a minimum contribution and to certain devotions. The Bishop of Hippo and Tagaste founded, especially in France, but with branches extending to other countries, an association under the same obligations for the erection of orphan-houses in Africa; and similar to these there exists still now an infinite number of associations in the Roman-Catholic Church. Like these last-n med examples of to-day, the mediæval Gilds always connected special devotions and good deeds with the pursuit of their principal object.

When the Frith-Gilds originated, after the family had ceased to afford its members necessary protection, they also, as well as the Craft-Gilds in later times, connected with the pursuit of their political and industrial objects certain devotions and good deeds; and it has therefore been justly observed, "that it was not till the times subsequent to the Reformation that these fraternities could be regarded as strictly secular." These religious provisions in all kinds of Gilds were probably the reason why Mr. Toulmin Smith has given the name of Social Gilds to those which provide for other common interests besides the political and industrial ones, instead of terming them "Religious Gilds," as was usual till now. His name for them is undoubtedly a just one, but it comprehends the political and industrial Gilds as much as the one used hitherto; for the bases on which these Gilds rested were the same social principles as those by which the rest were guided. It distinguishes the two kinds even less; for though there were religious provisions in the political andindustrial Gilds, yet these were always only of less importance, whilst the other Gilds pursued regularly as principal objects things, the provision for which was considered in the Middle Ages as an essential religious duty and task of the Church.As I discussed this subject a little with Mr. Toulmin Smith,—I think we settled the name together,—I may say that he looked at the main object of the Gilds he was dealing with, those of A.D. 1389; and as that was unquestionably social, like that of our modern Benefit-Societies, he gave these Gilds their right name. To have called them "Religious," because of their ornament of a saint's name, would have seemed to him and me a monstrous contradiction, in the days of Chaucer and Wycliffe, of William who had the Vision of Piers the Plowman, and others who have left us records of what Romanism, with its monks and friars, practically then was in England.—F. J. FURNIVALL. See Additional Notes, No. 2.Though I acknowledge the justness of Mr. Smith's appellation, I prefer the one which Madox uses, and which is also in use in all other countries.

People of all ranks took part in these Religious Gilds. Now and then, however, people out of a certain class were not to be admitted.See p. 179 of Mr. Smith's collection. See also Wilda, p. 361. The same person might take part in several religious Gilds. The members had often a special livery, as is still now the case with some fraternities at Rome. These liveries were worn on their ecclesiastical festivals, and probably also at the great feastings and drinking-bouts which were always connected with them. Notwithstanding all the prohibitions against the latter, since the days of Hincmar, they seem to have so pushed themselves into the foreground, that sometimes special references were needed in the Gild statutes, that "not eating and drinking, but mutual assistance and justice were the principal objects of the Gild."See Wilda, p. 33.

The expenses to be defrayed for attaining the objects of the Gild were provided for by the entrance-fees, the contributions, the gifts and the legacies of members. The contributions were sometimes fixed, but sometimes, especially in earlier times, they varied according to the wants of the Gild. The account of the Gild of the Smiths at Chesterfield is the only one in which there are no contributions mentioned;p. 168 sqq. of Mr. Smith's collection. it had its own property, from which all its expenses were to be defrayed; it had, however, to pay with bankruptcy for this deviation from Gild principles. The organization of the Religious (or Social) Gilds was the same as that of all Gilds up to the time of our modern Trade-Unions: a meeting, and officers elected in it, with fines for not accepting office when chosen to it. Often the members had, on their entrance, to declare by oath that they would fulfil their obligations. Persons of ill repute were not to be admitted; and memberswere to be excluded for misconduct. Moreover, the same rules are to be found with regard to proper behaviour and decent dress at the Gild-meetings, as recur in all kinds of Gilds to our day. Disputes among members were to be decided by the Gild. The disclosing of the affairs of the Gild was to be severely punished. In those places in which the Gild had no special hall, its meetings were often held in the Town-hall.See Wilda, p. 348. The fraternities must accordingly have enjoyed high consideration.

As to the Gilds among the clergy, the Capitularies of Hincmar—which, as said above, related to themLabbei Concilia, ed. Coleti, t. x. cap. 14, p. 4: "Quomodo in conviviis defunctorum, aliarumve collectarum gerere se debeant." Cap. 15: "Quid cavendum sit presbyteris, quando per Kalendas inter se conveniunt."—contain ordinances against the extravagances of the priests at funeral meals, and at the feastings which used to follow their meetings, especially those of the priests of a deanery (or diaconasia), on the first of each month. No priest was to get drunk at them, nor was he to empty goblets to the health of saints or of the soul of the deceased; nor was he to force others to drink, nor get drunk himself at the desire of others. The priests were not to burst out into indecent noise or roaring laughter; they were not to sing vain songs nor tell inane jokes; nor were they to allow scandalous performances of bears or female dancers to be made before them, nor delight in other mummeries, "because this was heathenish, and forbidden by Canon law." Nor were they on every occasion to provoke each other, or anybody else, to passion and quarrels, and still less to fighting and murder; nor was he who was provoked to assail at once his provoker. On the contrary, the priests were to breakfast with honesty and fear of God; holy stories and admonitions were to be read, and hymns sung, and every one was to go home in good time. Exactly the same ordinances are contained in the Capitularies of Bishop Walter of Orleans,Ibid. cap. 17, p. 73: "Quomodo in consortiis et conviviis gerere se debeant." which likewise bear date in the year 858.

These passages do not, however, contain anything from which the existence of a Gild amongst these priests can be inferred; for the extravagances mentioned might be connected with any kind of meeting. In later times, however, the clergymen assembled on the first day of each month to deliberate on their interests, were united in special fraternities, which, from their meeting-day on the Kalends of each month, were called "Gilds of the Kalenders." It is generally inferred from this, that probably even in Hincmar's time the priests bound each other by mutual agreement to pray for their salvation, and to observe certainrules with respect to their meetings; and these meetings are accordingly believed to have been Gild-meetings of the clergy. This is nothing but a mere conjecture, it is true. But it is also true that, in later time, the members of the Gilds of the Kalenders used to assemble on the Kalends of each month for divine service, for deliberation on their interests, and for common meals, like the priests in the time of Hincmar. In a deed of the fifteenth century they are still called "fratres in calendis missas celebrantes."Wilda, p. 352. In any case, therefore, the name "Gilds of the Kalenders" seems to be derived from these monthly meetings.

In later times the objects of these Gilds were extended to the exercise of any good works, especially towards the Gild-brothers themselves,—as for instance, the distribution of loaves among them,—and also to the assistance of the poor, the furnishing of church-attire; and these Gilds, as is shown by the Statutes of the Gilds of the Kalenders at Bristol,See p. 287 of Mr. Smith's collection employed themselves even in the keeping of old records, and in the maintenance of schools. Now and then the Statutes of these Gilds remind their members expressly, that their fraternity was crected "non solum pro commodis præsentibus, et lucris temporalibus inhiandis, sed magis pro beneficiis celestibus et perpetuis;"Wilda, p. 356. and especially with regard to the great feastings of these Gilds, such admonitions may not have been out of place. Most of the Statutes of the Gilds of Kalenders have, for the regulation of their feasts, a special bill of fare, as an appendix.Ibid. p. 365. In some Gilds there were special stewards to provide for these meals, and then the expenses were defrayed by common contributions; in others, some of the brethren and sisters, each in their turn, had to prepare the meal from their own means.

These fraternities existed originally only among the clergy. In later times laymen too took part in them; and then the only distinction of these Gilds from the other religious fraternities was, that the clergy prevailed in them, whilst proportionally only few clergymen belonged to the others, and were even sometimes expressly excluded from all offices.See p. 264 of Mr. Smith's collection. The only account of a Gild of Kalenders contained in the present collection of Mr. Smith, that of the Gild of the Kalenders of Bristol, belongs to this later time. Often the number of members was limited in these Gilds, sometimes to the number of the twelve apostles, sometimes to twenty-four. In this case the number of lay members was always fixed in proportion to that of the clerical members. Thus the Gild of St. Canute at Flensburg consisted,according to its Statutes from the year 1382, of twenty-four priests; but whenever this number could not be filled up, laymen might be admitted, but only to the number of eight, at the outside. The wives of laymen were, however, excluded from the meetings till the year 1422. In this year, the Gild-book narrates, the ecclesiastical brothers were moved by the prayers of the lay brothers, repeated for several years, to grant the admission of their wives to the meals after the general meetings. There was, however, to be one condition: the wife of the lay brother, whose turn it was, was obliged to provide the meal, and to wait at table. The mayor and his wife were to have the first turn.Wilda, p. 359.

The laymen, however, always remained in a subordinate position. At the meals they had seats separate from those of the priests,—probably because the latter talked over their affairs at table,—and in the deliberations the laymen had no vote. As among the other Religious Gilds, there were special ones for various classes and ranks, so there existed also Gilds for the higher and the lower clergy, the so-called Major and Minor Gilds of the Kalenders. One Gild of Kalenders existed in almost every town; in the larger towns even more. The organization of the Gild of Kalenders was the same as in other Gilds. Often the president was called Dean —perhaps a remnant of the origin of these Gilds.—Often, too, the Gilds of the Kalenders had halls like the other Gilds; and, as in the lay Gilds, the brothers of the ecclesiastical Gilds used to go there daily "to beer and to wine."

The Reformation shook the whole system of Gilds to its foundation; and this was especially the case with the Religious Gilds of the laity, and the Gilds of the Kalenders. "In England," says Madox,Firma Burgi, p. 27. "these Religious Gilds have been judged to be founded in superstition;" and it was the same in all countries in which the Reformation gained ground. The Gilds were therefore abolished in all Protestant countries; but not on the Continent as in England, in favour of the private purse of the King and his courtiers;By Act 37 Henry VIII. cap. 4, and Act 1 Edw. VI. cap. 14. See Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith's Introduction, p. xlii. on the contrary, we see in Northern Germany and in Denmark, the property and income of these Gilds delivered everywhere, according to the intention of the founders, to the common treasure for the poor, to poor-houses, hospitals, and schools.Wilda, pp. 372, 373. It is very interesting to see that the regular conventions of priests are found in Denmark even in the sixteenth century, after the introduction of the Reformation.Ibid. p. 353.They were still called by the same name, "Gilds of the Kalenders,"though they were held no more every month, but only once (or several times) a year. The synod at Rothschild ordered, that they should also take place in those provostships in which they had not existed till then, that the ministers might remain united in doctrine and ceremony. Nobody was, however, to be burdened with the preparation of a meal; and no stranger to the place, and no foreigner, was to be admitted a member of the Gild. The conclusion of another synod says: "When a priest goes to the meeting, he shall not be armed. During dinner they shall abstain from scandalous talk, drunkenness, and unseemly disputes; four dishes and no more are to be served; and towards evening everybody is to go home." A former synod, of the year 1562, had already forbidden the abuse of prolonging these conventions for two or three days. PontoppidanPontoppidan, Ann. Eccl. Dan. iii. p. 47. describes these conventions as they took place in the age after the Reformation, as follows: "The priests, together with their wives, heard a sermon in the church of the brother whose turn it was; they then proceeded round the altar, deposited there an offering on behalf of the poor scholars of the next town; the conclusions and proceedings of the foregoing provincial synod were then recited, and their other affairs talked over and put in order. After this they, together with their whole families, went to the parsonage, where they indulged a little at dinner, 'in bona charitate' sang certain songs at meals, and made themselves merry in other wise; but sometimes quarrelled also scandalously, and made a great uproar." The resemblance of the synodal precepts mentioned above on this page to those which Hincmar of Rheims gave earlier in the ninth century to the "presbyteris, qui per calendas conveniunt" is striking. It shows clearly that after so many centuries these meetings were still held in the same way, and that the same abusesIn the year 1598, a parson at Ewerdrup had to prepare the meal at the meeting of the Kalenders. What was wasted there is to be found minutely in Pontoppidan, Ann. Eccl. ii. p. 47. There were consumed, among other things, one head of cattle (at the price of 18 marks), six lambs (12 marks), two fat swine (20 marks), seven geese (7 marks), ten pairs of fowls (3 marks 12 shillings), three tuns of beer of Rostock (33 marks), and two tuns of homebrewed beer (10 marks). The whole meal cost 156 marks 1 shilling. had to be opposed.

When the zeal against everything connected with Catholicism, inflamed by the Reformation,Compare excellent Parson Harrison: "Our holie and festiuall daies are verie well reduced also vnto a lesse number; for whereas (not long since) we had vnder the pope foure score and fifteene, called festiuall, and thirtie Profesti, beside the sundaies, they are all brought vnto seauen and twentie: and with them the superfluous numbers of idle wakes, GUILDS, FRATERNITIES, church-ales, helpe-ales, and soule-ales, called also dirge-ales, with the heathenish rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished and laid aside."— Harrison's Description of England, A.D. 1577-87, in Holinshed, vol. i. p. 138, col. 2. (On Wakes and Church-ales, see Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, pp. 177, 173 of the 1836 reprint of the fifth edition.)—F. J. F. had cooled down a little, the old associates felt painfully the want of their former convivial gatherings. Gilds were therefore re-established for social purposes, and from this probably originated our clubs and casinos of to-day. Of the essential nature of the old Gilds there is, however, no other trace to be found in these modern representatives.

The great analogy between the modern Friendly Societies and the old Religious or Social Gilds, has been already pointed out by Sir Frederick Eden.State of the Poor, vol. i. ch. iii. He also pronounces the opinion, that "notwithstanding the unjustifiable confiscation of the property of the Gilds under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., there is every reason to suppose that private associations, on a more contracted scale than the ancient Gilds, continued to exist in various parts of England," and "that it is extremely probable, that many of these Societies [i. e. the Gilds], even after the confiscation of their lands at the dissolution, continued their stated meetings in the common room, or hall, for the purposes either of charity, or of conviviality."Ibid. p. 597. An able article in the Quarterly Review for October, 1864, on "Workmen's Benefit Societies" (p. 318), refers also to their analogy with the Gilds. The latest comparison between both has been drawn, with reference to the Gild-statutes contained in Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection, by Mr. J. M. Ludlow, in the Fortnightly Review for October, 1869.

THOSE sworn fraternities for the protection of right, and the preservation of liberty, of which mention has already been made in Part I., arose independently of the towns. Yet in the towns, the necessity of protecting liberty, property, and trade, against the violence of neighbouring nobles, the arbitrary aggressions of the bishops or the burgrave, or the bold onsets of robbers, or—as in the case of towns which sprang from the settlements of traders in foreign countries—against the onslaughts of the surrounding and often still barbarian inhabitants, —often too the feeling of insecurity within the towns themselves,—must have specially moved the small freemen to the formation of the societies above referred to. These inhabitants of the towns were old free landed proprietors; partly of the neighbouring estates, but chiefly of land within the territory of the towns themselves. Most of them carried on trade; some probably also handicrafts. But the possession of town-land is the distinguishing mark of these earliest burghers. To this possession alone was full citizenship everywhere attached in the first movements of civic life. Hence, whilst the dangers just mentioned as threatening liberty and property made it necessary to provide means of protection, and whilst the possession of soil in the same small territory—indeed, within the walls of the same town,—together with the similarity of occupations, increased the community of interests, close vicinity of residence made easy the conclusion of alliances. Naturally therefore, the whole body of full citizens, that is, of the possessors of portions of the town-lands of a certain value, the "civitas," united itself everywhere into one Gild, "convivium conjuratum;" the citizens and the Gild became identical; and what was Gild-law became the law of the town.

Such Gilds existed in England even in Anglo-Saxon times, as the formerly-mentioned Gilds of Dover, of the Thanes at Canterbury, as well as perhaps the Gild-Merchant at London,Wilda, p. 244; Firma Burgi, p. 26. together with many others, of which only later accounts are extant. Such also were the Gild-Merchant of York,Wilda, p. 250. the great Gild of St. John at Beverley, of the Hanshouse of Beverley, as well as that of the Blessed Mary of Chesterfield, though these were of a somewhat later period.English Gilds, pp. 151 and 165. (By the quotation English Gilds is always meant the Statutes contained in Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection.) The Old Usages of Winchester, too, contain many intimations of a former relationship of this kind between the Gild of Merchants there and the whole body of the citizens;Cf. ibid. p. 357. The Usages date from a time in which the commonalty of Winchester enjoyed already a share in the government of the town. Yet the members of the old Gild of Merchants appear still as its governors; it is from amongst them ("the meste gode men,"—an expression which occurs frequently also in Germany and Belgium for the patrician families) that the Council of the Mayor, and the twenty-four sworn men, are taken; and these exercise a vast influence at the election of the Mayor, and on other occasions. (Cf. English Gilds, p. 349.) and the same is true of the Ordinances of Worcester.English Gilds, p. 369.One of the documents relating to these Gilds contained in this volume, contains the grants of liberties, and of a Gild, to the townsmen of Beverley, similar to the grant of civic constitutions to several German towns,—as, for example to Lübeck, according to the municipal laws of Soest, to Freiburg according to those of Cologne,Cf. Wilda, p. 221, &c., and p. 231, &c.—and to the grant of communal rights to the people of Rheims, "ad modum communiœ Laudunensis"Raynouard, Histoire du Droit Municipal en France, tom. ii. livre iv. ch. i. ò 10 (Paris, 1829).(Laon), by Louis VII. of France. By this document, on p. 151 below, Thurstan, Archbishop of York, grants to the townsmen of Beverley, a Gild, and "all liberties, with the same laws that the men of York have in their city." King Henry I., as well as Thurstan's successors, confirmed this Beverley grant; and there is even a document, stating its confirmation by Pope Lucius III. From this kind of Gild sprang, in England, the method of recognizing the citizens as an independent body, by confirming their Gild.Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 27: "Peradventure, from these Secular Gilds, or in imitation of them, sprang the method or practice of gildating and embodying whole towns."

The same relationship between the Gild and the town community existed in France. In Paris, the government of the town lay in the hands of the mercatores aquæ, who formed the municipalRaynouard, tom. ii. livre iv. ch. i. ò 9. See also Wilda, pp. 239-244. body. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially in the North of France, appear unions of the freetownsmen, in order to protect themselves against the oppressions of the powerful, and the better to defend their rights.See the account of the grounds of ratification in the Charters of the French Kings. Raynouard, tom. ii. livre iv. ch. 7. So, in 1070, the citizens of Mans established a sworn confederacy, which they called commune,In Belgium and Germany it was only the unions of the lower classes which were called communes. in order to oppose the oppressions of Godfrey of Mayenne. The people of Cambrai did the same against their bishop in 1076, during his absence; and as he, on his return, refused to recognize their confederacy, they shut the gates of the town against him. An affair of the same kind had taken place there already in 957.Cf. Moke, Mœurs, Usages, Fêtes et Solennités des Belges, Bruxelles, ii. p. 6. These instances might be multiplied. The numerous grants of communal rights to French towns from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, are nothing but the recognition by the king of such Frith-Gilds as had been previously in existence for a longer or shorter period. Kings, even when they did not favour Gilds upon their own demesnes, generally did so upon those of the nobility, whose power they wished to break.Raynouard, tom. ii. livre iv. ch. 7, 8; Wilda, p. 152. But everywhere then, as in later times upon the formation of trade-unions, many transitory confederations, many unsuccessful attempts, and a great expenditure of courage, magnanimity and energy, preceded the permanent establishment of the communes.

Thus, in 1188, Count Philip of Flanders confirmed to the town of Aire in Artois, its laws and customs, such as his predecessors had already granted and recognized to the citizens, in order to secure them from the attacks of "wicked men."D'Achery, Spicilegium (ed. Paris, 1723), tom. iii. p. 553: "Quas ob injurias hominum perversorum propulsandas . . . eis indulserunt." See also Wilda, pp. 147-151. These customs were those of the Amicitia, the Gild of citizens, which had been established by them probably even before the time of their first recognition, for protection against attacks from without, and for securing peace within. What the Amicitia was for Aire, the so-called Vroedscapen were for the towns of the Netherlands,Wilda, p. 151. the Hezlagh for Sleswig,Ibid. pp. 77, 152-158. and apparently the St. Canute-Gild for Flensburg.Ibid. p. 158, &c. There are hardly any records bearing reference to Gilds in Germany in the tenth and eleventh centuries; probably because they had disappeared from public notice in consequence of the measures taken against them by princes and bishops; yet the relations existing at a later period between the "highest Gild" and the town, leaves no doubt thathere too the Gild was the germ of the town-constitutions.Wilda, p. 170. Compare also Arnold's Verfassungs Geschichte der deutschen Freistaedte, 185, i. p. 401. "But the enigma, that many towns in France (as even Paris, and almost in like manner in England, London) had municipal constitutions, without such a commune or Gild ever having been granted to them, finds its solution in the fact, that the Gilds existed there before German municipalism had come into being, and that the latter had developed itself unnoticed out of the former."Wilda, p. 152. This may also be said of the great towns of Flanders.Moke, i. 191. Of London, more anon.See pp. xcviii, xcix of this work.

The earliest notice of such a Town-Gild upon the Continent, of that in Sleswig, contains a noble instance of a daring fulfilment of the duties imposed upon the Gild-brothers. Magnus, the son of King Nicholas of Denmark, had slain the Duke Canute Lavard, the Alderman and protector of the Sleswig Gild. When King Nicholas, in 1130, came to Hetheby (that is, Sleswig), his followers advised him (as an old Danish chronicle relates) not to enter the town, for the townsmen put in force the law with extreme severity within their Gild, called Hezlagh, and did not suffer any one to remain unpunished who had killed or even injured one of their brethren. But the king despised the warning, saying, "What should I fear from these tanners (pelipers) and shoemakers?" Scarcely, however, had he entered the town, when the gates were closed, and at the sound of the Gild-bell the citizens mustered, seized upon the king, and killed him, with all who tried to defend him.Wilda, p. 71. Thus, even at the beginning of the twelfth century, the Gilds enjoyed in Denmark such respect, that the lord of the land, Duke Canute, was pleased to become their Alderman: and they had such power that they could venture to revenge, even upon a king, any violation of the law committed on a member of their great family.

The Sleswig Gild was called Hezlagh, that is, either sworn Gild, convivium conjuralum, or highest Gild, summum convivium.Ibid. p. 72. If the latter, other Gilds must have existed besides it. Although the body of citizens and the Gild originally included the same persons, yet the quality of being a full-citizen did not of itself include the fellowship of the Sworn-Gild; for this a special acceptance was required. Now, as the towns flourished and increased in well-being, material differences in property must have arisen among the full-citizens — partly through the failure of individuals in the race for wealth, partly through the settlement of new poor families in the town—which could not but have a lowering effect on their occupations.Arnold, ii. p. 208; Moke, i. p. 179, ii. 107. This led toclosing the old Gild which hitherto had existed alone in a town; by the side of which others then formed themselves with the same or similar ends. But the oldest Gild maintained a very natural precedence over the others, and was even called the "higher" or "highestWilda, p. 170, quotes the Statutes of Dortmund: "Si vero percussor est confrater maioris gylde nostrœ amam vini superaddat burgensibus pro emenda."The members of the highest Gild enjoyed also the privilege of a less number of sworn brethren being required. Cf. Wilda, pp. 75-86. Gild." Gradually, some system of hereditary transmission of the freedom of the Gild came into existence de facto, in that the son generally entered the fraternity to which his father belonged: the sons of Gild-brothers were naturally more willingly accepted than other new members, and, later on, the conditions of entry were rendered more easy for them. Thus originated a certain circle of families which from generation to generation belonged to the highest Gild, and continuously constituted its stock. The oldest Gild remained no longer equivalent to the whole body of citizens; the Full-burghers Gild became the Old-burghers Gild, and according to place and time its development became more or less aristocratic.Cf. Wilda, pp. 77, 78; Arnold, vol. i. p. 246.

In Sleswig, when King Nicholas was slain there in 1130, the Gild still included the whole body of the citizens. The Chronicle at least speaks of the citizens in general, who mustered at the call of the Gild-bell (the town-bell).Wilda, p. 77. On the other hand, in Germany, at a somewhat later period, the government of the town is everywhere found in the hands of a "highest Gild." In Cologne the Richerzechheit, or Gild of the rich, summum convivium, occupied the municipal offices. In the eleventh century, during the struggle of the Cologne people against their bishop, Hanno, there was still only one Gild, which included the whole of the citizens:—at least, there is no mention of patrician families. But by the end of the twelfth century this Gild had become a summum convivium.See also Arnold, vol. i. p. 401 &c. The government of the town rested exclusively with a "patrician-aristocracy," the Richerzechheit, which had already grown insolent, exercised an oppressive sway, and looked upon power as a lucrative monopoly. This led, in the thirteenth century, to violent revolts of the craftsmen, particularly the weavers, who were especially thriving there. They were no longer willing to bear alone the burdens of the Commonwealth, but desired a share in the administration, at least in what concerned the management of the city household, and especially as the "Old-burghers" contributed least to the payment of the taxes. Several times, indeed, we see the weavers allied with the bishops of Cologne against theruling families. The like often happened in those days—as for example, at Liège, Huy, and Bâle—and also in the earlier alliances of the French communes with the kings against the nobility, as well as in the modern alliances between the working-classes and Tories, or Cæsars. But the men of Cologne did not succeed in their object, in the overthrow of the patricians, until the second half of the fourteenth century. Contemporary with the Richerzechheitthere existed in the town other Gilds of merchants; but information as to their participation in the government of the town is wanting.Wilda, pp. 176-194, 235 &c. 257 &c.; Arnold, vol. i. pp. 418, 419, 425, 433. Traces of the same or some similar development are to be found in Spire, Strasburg, Frankfort-on-Main, as well as in Freiburg and Lübeck, and in several other towns.Wilda, pp. 194-228, 231. The frequently recurring repetitions, by the town-hating Hohenstauffen, of Charlemagne's prohibition of conjurations (societies bound by mutual oaths), are shown by this to have been nothing but abortive attempts to annihilate the Gilds, whose existence was peremptorily required by the circumstances of the time. These prohibitions however affected the highest Gilds less than the others; at least, Frederick II.'s prohibition of the Gilds of Goslar in A.D. 1219, specially excepts the Gild of Coiners,Wilda, p. 169. which in the free towns was regularly identical with the highest Gild, as in Cologne, Spire,Ibid. p. 195. and other places.

In England, where the Gilds were far in advance of those of any other country, there were highest Gilds of the kind described, even in Anglo-Saxon times. There, according to Lappenberg,Lappenberg, vol. i. pp. 610-612. the landed proprietors on or near whose estates the towns were built, for a long time exercised great influence in them, and constituted their aristocracy. Thus, in Canterbury, the condition of becoming an alderman was the possession of an alienable estate (soca), the possessors of which were united with other landed proprietors to the there-existing old Gild of the Thanes. But as there were at Canterbury two other Gilds besides, this Gild of the Thanes was probably the summum conviviumof that city6.

With a much higher degree of development we have however to deal, as I believe, in the before mentioned union of the Frith-Gilds of London, the like of which recurs at a later period at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in a less degree of perfection in the German towns. The fact of London preceding other places in this development, presents no difficulty, since England must be regarded as the birthplace of Gilds,See Additional Notes, No. 1. and London perhaps as theircradle. At least there is documentary evidence that the constitution of the City was based upon a Gild; and it served as a model for other English towns.Wilda, p. 248. See also Hüllman, Städtewesen, vol. iii. p. 73. According to the Judicia Civitatis Lundoniœ of the time of King Athelstan, the Frith-Gilds of London united to form one Gild that they might carry out their aims the more vigorously. This united Gild governed the town; as is proved by the fact that their regulations bound even non-members. The occasion of this union was, perhaps, that here, as afterwards in other places, other Gilds had gradually formed by the side of the original sole Gild, and rivalries between the old and the new prejudiced the attainment of the aim of the Gilds—the protection of freedom and of right. Possibly the English Knighten Gild was this original one. According to Madox,Firma Burgi, p. 30. the alderman of the Knighten Gild was the alderman of the Merchant Gild of the City. Nor is our conjecture contradicted by Stow's statementStow's Survey of London (ed. 1720), bk. ii. p. 3 &c. as to the date of the origin of this Gild; for this was probably only a sanction for the Gild's possession of landed property which it had received from King Edgar. It would not of course require royal permission to come into existence. The Knighten Gild had possession and jurisdiction both within and without the City, and its lands afterwards formed a quarter of London, whose name "Portsoken" shows also that it was formed from a territory situated originally without the city gates.Lappenberg, vol. i. p. 614; cf. also Wilda, p. 247. It was thus probably a Gild like that of the Thanes of Canterbury.

A similar union took place three centuries later at Berwick-upon-Tweed. In the years 1283 and 1284 the townsmen of Berwick agreed upon the statutesEnglish Gilds, p. 338, &c. of a single united Gild: "that where many bodies are found side by side in one place, they may become one, and have one will, and, in the dealings of one toward another, have a strong and hearty love." Article I. therefore provides that "all separate Gilds heretofore existing in the borough shall be brought to an end," and that "no other Gild shall be allowed in the borough." All formerly existing Gilds were to hand over to this one Gild the goods rightfully belonging to them, and "all shall be as members having one head; one in counsel, one body strong and friendly." The way in which this statute was drawn up shows clearly that "citizen" and "Gild-brother" were considered identical. It also contains a series of regulations concerning the administration of thetown, the police of the markets, and various other points of municipal interest.Articles 2, 15, 16, 19 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, also 30; further 33, 34, 35, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46. English Gilds, p. 338, &c. The words of the preamble and of the first article show that, before the union of the various Gilds, rivalries detrimental to the body of the citizens had sprung up. The succeeding articles make it clear that only the better inhabitants, the merchants, were Gild-brethren and citizens:Articles 18, 25 (as to the last see p. cvii), 20, 21, 30, and others. and several of the articles point out that at least one of the consolidated Gilds had been a Frith-Gild,Articles 12, 13, 31, 32. which originally coincided with the whole body of citizens.Cf. Article 14. It may be that this first Gild included —as was the case in Canterbury—the old families, the original possessors of the soil in and around the town, who either then or afterwards carried on trade; or that it acquired with the growth of the town an aristocratic family character, as was the case in many German towns; or that it limited, for other reasons, the number of its members. Then new Gilds arose, whose members were but little, or not at all, behind those of the first, either in rank, social consideration, or wealth, and who therefore strove for an equal share in the government of the town. This led, in Berwick, to the above-noticed amalgamation of the Gilds, and in the German cities to a participation in the Town-Councils. Thus it was with Spire and Frankfort; thus also with Lübeck and Strasburg, and probably also with Cologne. In London this process was going on perhaps as early as the tenth century. The admission of these new Gilds formed the transition from the Gild constitution of the town to that of the "commune," which was often further developed under violent storms, when the patricians withstood the ever-increasing struggles for power of those inhabitants who were excluded from political rights. The history of the German and Belgian towns furnishes abundant proof of this being the case.

A peculiar union of Gilds must be inferred from an article in the Gild-Statutes of Malmoe in Denmark.Wilda, p. 100: "Qui vero in aliquo convivio contumax inventus fuerit vel satisfacere noluerit, si legitime citatus fuerit ad synodum generalem in Skanör, si ibidem respondere contemserit, ex tunc a dicto convivio excludatur." The drawing-up of this statute took place towards the end of the thirteenth century. See Wilda, p. 115. According to this article a confederation existed among the Gilds of various places, and had general assemblies of the Gild-brothers at Skanör. Perhaps its condition was analogous to that of the Flemish Hanse, or of the confederacies of the German towns, or of Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, and Roxburgh, united to a generalScottish Trade-Gild. It reminds one also strongly of the organization of the English Trade-Unions at the time of their change from local into national societies, when they united a great number of towns all over the country.

It may not be out of place here to dwell for a moment on the confederations among the German towns in the thirteenth century which I have just mentioned. They, too, originated from circumstances similar to those which called forth the first Frith-Gilds; they were emanations from the same spirit, were founded on the same principles, and had rules similar to theirs; they were Gilds with corporations as members. The most important among these unions was that of the Rhenish towns. At the time of the interregnum, that is, at the very moment when Germany was left utterly without a ruler, when there was no power to check the princes in the unlimited extension of their rights, when they levied tolls at their pleasure, and ground the poor to the bone by exorbitant taxes; when knights and nobles lived by highway robbery, waylaid streets and passes, and plundered and murdered the merchants; when the strong oppressed the weak, unpunished, and might was right;—in that classical age of clublaw, when there was no supreme power in the empire, the union of the Rhenish towns stept for a time into its place. This union was no mere offensive and defensive alliance; its object was the maintenance of an entire system of order and law, and of the authority of the Empire. It forced even princes and nobles to join it. Like the Gild-brothers of Cambridge, the towns entered upon mutual obligations by oath; and the measures which they adopted for the protection of their members, and for the chastisement of the breakers of their peace, were similar to the Cambridge ones. A special clause insured common protection to the poor and little as well as to the mighty and great, whether they were lay or cleric, Christian or Jew.See Arnold, vol. ii. p. 66 sqq.; Barthold, Geschichte der deutschen Städte und des deutschen Bürgerthums, vol. ii. p. 200 sqq. Leipzig, 1850.

A short examination of the Statutes of the Town-Gilds will justify our claim for these confederations of towns to be shoots from the same root, fruits from the same tree, and higher stages of the same development from which the Frith-Gilds sprang. From the time when these Frith-Gilds stood at the head of the towns, their Statutes show, without a particle of change, the essential nature of the Gilds as disclosed by the Gild-Statutes of Cambridge. These Gilds appear as an enlarged great family, whose object is to afford such assistance to their members in all circumstances of life as one brother might expect from another,and consequently, above all things, protection against the unbridled arbitrariness of the mighty, whether exercised by violence, or attempted at law by means of numerous friends as compurgators. The Gilds do not appear however as associations for instituting a new law, but for maintaining the laws already existing, for supplementing a system of order as yet defective and only in course of development, and for guarding in common against the dangers attending a weak government.

The most detail-giving Statutes of Frith-Gilds which any country can show, are the Danish.Gilds had probably been transplanted from England to Denmark under King Canute, about the middle of the eleventh century. They soon placed themselves under the special patronage of the three royal saints of the land, St. Canute the King, St. Canute the Duke, and St. Erich the King, and were called after them St. Canute's Gilds and St. Erich's Gilds. From that time the government got-up relations with them, and favoured them as associations for the maintenance of law, security, and order. The following statementsCompare especially Wilda. pp. 116-144, and the Gild-Statutes contained in this volume.rest mainly on their Ordinances:—

If a Gild-brother has been slain by a stranger, the Gild appears as an ally of his relations for taking revenge, or for obtaining the wergild or blood money. But if a Gild-brother has slain a stranger, the Gild assists him in the atonement he must make for the manslaughter, by means of the wergild; or in his escape, if he has been outlawed for the crime. Even if one Gild-brother kills another, the case is chiefly considered as a matter for the family of the slain; and, having made atonement to it, the culprit may remain a member of the fraternity. Only in the case of malicious and wilful murder was he expelled as a worthless man (niding), and left to the mercy (that is, vengeance) of his victim's family. The Gild-brothers also rendered each other such assistance as was sanctioned by the laws and customs of the time, in prosecuting and supporting their rights in courts of law. But it was everywhere the first principle of the Gild to assist him only who had justice on his side. How strictly this principle was observed may be inferred from the universal esteem enjoyed by the Gild-brothers, so that their evidence was considered specially credible; and wherever twelve persons were required as jurors or compurgators, half the number of Gild-brothers, or even less, were deemed sufficient.

To maintain and carry out their Ordinances, the Gild required a special jurisdiction; and, in consequence of the necessary distrust by the citizens of that time of the tribunals of their masters, it was natural that quarrels of all kinds which arose between members after their admission were brought within the reach of theGild. Quarrels among members only came, as a rule, within the jurisdiction of the association; and it was only in consequence of the peculiar relation of some Gilds to the town that disputes between non-members had also to submit to the Gild. The limits of this jurisdiction varied according to time and place; but it was everywhere the rule that Gild-brothers, before going into the law-court, had to bring their case before the Gild for the sake of attempting, at least, reconciliation between them. But the Gild never assumed a right over the life and limbs of its members; compensation only, and fines, were used for punishments, the highest penalty being expulsion.

The same regulations as the Religious Gilds had with regard to helping Gild-brothers in every need, are to be found in the Frith-Gilds. On this point the Statutes of the Gilds of all countries are almost identical. If a brother falls into poverty, if he incurs losses by fire or shipwreck, if illness or mutilation renders him unable to work, the brothers contribute to his assisttance. If a brother finds another in danger of life on sea or in captivity, he is bound to rescue him, even at the sacrifice of a part of his own goods; for which, however, he receives compensation from the brother assisted, or from the community. English Gild-Statutes frequently mention loans to be given to brothers carrying on trade, often with no other condition than the repayment of it when he should no longer need it. The sick brother found in his Gild aid and attendance; the dead was buried;See also especially Moke, vol. ii. p. 92. for his soul prayers were offered, and services performed; and not unfrequently the Gild gave a dowry to his poor orphan daughter. The numerous provisions as to the poor, as to pilgrims, and other helpless people, in the Statutes of English Gilds, prove that non-members in want found help from them as well.

The regulations as to the payment of chaplains of the Gild, as to common service and prayers, as well as to common feastings, were equally general: and everywhere fines recur equally for the infringement of the agreed-to Ordinances, for unseemly behaviour, and for offending of members.

There was an alderman at the head of the Gild, and often stewards by his side as assistants. Other officials are also now and then to be met with. The reception of a member depended upon the whole association. If any one living in the country, or a foreigner, wished to become a member of the Gild, a citizen had to pledge himself for his honour. In an association so closely united, the honour of every single member was to a certain extent the honour of the whole body. Pure life and spotlessreputationA passage not yet sufficiently explained in the Sleswig Town-Statutes (Wilda, p. 83), appears to me to find its explanation from this fact. According to this passage, the Gild-brothers needed a less number of compurgators than a non-member of the Gild. If the latter was not married, however, he enjoyed the same privilege as a Gild-brother. But if he married, and was not a member of the Gild, he required the double number. People have justly sought for a special explanation of this Ordinance, by which the married was placed in a worse position than the unmarried. Now at that time the civitas and the convivium conjuratumwere identical, it is true; nevertheless, the quality of a full-citizen did not give by itself the freedom of the Gild. A special admission was required. But every married full-citizen of unstained reputation was doubtless a member of the Gild; and if he were not, it was a sign that some stain on his honour excluded him, which justified in itself the requirement of a greater number of compurgators. But as long as a man was not married, he was not considered an adult; he could not therefore require to be a member of the Gild, and no one could wish to subject him to disadvantages at law for the simple reason that he was young. Compare also the regulations at Hamburg, Wilda, p. 268. must thereſore appear as the condition of Gildfreedom. Besides this, the Gild-Statutes demand no other condition for admission. Everybody entering the Gild had to bind himself by oath to keep the Gild-Statutes.

Women also might become members of the Gild. They were, however, generally the wives or daughters of Gild-brothers. It is only an exception when in several of the Gilds women became free of the Gild in their own right. They, however, shared only in the advantages and burdens of the Gild, and never took part in its administration or its councils.

Many of the towns whose government was in the hands of such Gilds, especially those accessible by the sea, had been founded by merchants. Like the modern so-called "factories" in Asia and Africa, the old merchants fortified places from which they carried on trade with the surrounding people. But in all other towns also the great majority of the more respectable burghers lived by trade. "When the Normans approached the harbour of Tiel," says a writer of the eleventh century, "the population living on the Wahal fled, leaving behind all its goods, money excepted: for it consisted of merchants." He speaks besides of their common feastings, and says that they did not pronounce sentence according to the law of the land, but according to their own will, maintaining that the Emperor had granted and confirmed to them this right by charter.Moke, vol. i. pp. 118, 120, 192. It is therefore evident that a Gild of merchants existed there, who governed the town. The excellent market of Antwerp is mentioned as early as 837, in which year the Normans put it to the flames; Gant (Ghent) is described as flourishing by trade and fishing; and the same may be said of a number of other Belgian and French towns. The magistrates of Paris are said to have been callednautæ in the times of the Romans;Moke, vol. i. pp. 114-123. and in deeds of the twelfth century the words burgenses and mercatores, or mercatores per aquam, are used as synonymous. The corporation of the Paris merchants stood at the head of the town.Raynouard, tom. ii. livre iv. ch. i. ò 9. It was the same with the towns in Germany. Of the foundation of Freiburg in Brisgau we are told, that when Berthold of Zähringen intended to found a free city, with the same liberties and laws as the men of Cologne had in their city, he first assembled a number of respected merchants, to whom he allotted ground for the building of houses on the place destined as the market-place. From their number he took also the consuls of the town. Lübeck was founded likewise on the basis of a free merchant community. And as it was in these towns, so it was in their prototypes. At Cologne, in the eleventh century, the terms "burghers" and "merchants" are alternately used as synonymous. At Spire the patrician ſamilies of the town, from whose ranks the council was taken, carried on trade. In like manner the leading families of Ratisbon consisted of merchants.Wilda, pp. 231, 233, 236, 260, and 235. As to Denmark, the Danish word for town—Kiöbsted (bargain-place)—sufficiently denotes its character. In London also the Gild which was the base of its constitution, may have consisted chiefly of merchants. WildaIbid. p. 249; see also Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 26. alleges, in proof of this conjecture, the early importance of London trade; the ordinance in the above mentioned judicia, that every merchant having made three long sea-voyages on his own account was to have the rank of a Thane; and lastly, the report, that in a national assembly at Oxford in the year 1036, the shipowners, as the most important burghers of London, were delegated to elect King Hardicanute. There is no doubt as to the mercantile character of the later Town-Gilds in England; they are even called there gildæ mercatoriæ;One of these gildœ mercatoriœ certainly existed at York in the time of Henry I. At this date the Gild at Beverley was constituted after its model. (See p. 151 of Mr. Smith's collection.) It became the general rule to confirm the Gild of a town by granting it all the liberties which another town already enjoyed. Wilda (p. 251) quotes from Madox, as towns which had received this confirmation under Henry II., Winchester, Shrewsbury, Andover, Southampton, Wallingford; under Richard I., Gloucester; under King John, Helleston and Dunwich; under Henry III., Hereford. Into the reign of the latter king falls also the rise of the Gild at Chesterfield. (See p. 165 of Mr. Smith's collection.) If the gilda mercatoria at Coventry (p. 226 of Mr. Smith's collection) was really a Town-Gild, its rise must belong to a much earlier time than its confirmation by Edward III. in 1340. Perhaps this confirmation was only a repetition of the sanction of the corporate rights, which might appear desirable to the merchants of Coventry, the better to protect their commerce, which, according to their complaints, suffered from their great distance from the sea. Besides, the Gild. as Mr. Toulmin Smith justly remarks, might be erected without confirmation. At all events, the fourteenth century was no longer the time in which, on the foundation of Gild-Merchants, town-constitutions were formed. Moreover, earlier Gilds existed at Coventry; and the statutes contain nothing which characterizes the Gild as a Town-Gild. Perhaps also this Gild was nothing but a union for mere trade purposes. The Gild of the Holy Cross at Birmingham of the year 1392 was no gilda mercatoria, but appears much more like a Religious Gild. (See p. 239 of Mr. Smith's collection.) and thewords by which the king confirms their Gild to the burghers of a town, are often "quod habeant gildam mercatoriam."Madox, Firma Burgi, pp. 27, 132; Hist. of the Exch. vol. i. p. 412. In Scotland too the gildæ mercatoriæ stood at the head of the towns.Herbert, Hist. of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1837, vol. i. p. 22.

Security from external dangers, and the maintenance of peace in the interior of their towns, had been the original motives of the burghers in uniting themselves into these Gilds. But as almost all Gild-brothers carried on trade, the once existing organization was soon used for the furthering of the common trade interests; for it was in the nature of the Gild to provide generally for all wants which the family union was no longer sufficient to satisfy, and ſor the provisions for which the State was not yet developed and strong enough. To confederate in defence of liberty and right, was in itself the first requisite for the prosperity of trade and traffic. The regulations also that a Gild-brother who had incurred losses by shipwreck or undeserved misfortune, should receive compensation, may properly be referred to here; and, more still, the gratuitous loans given to the poor Gild-brother for carrying on his trade.See pp. 176, 229, &c. of Mr. Smith's collection.Moreover, it was the special endeavour of the Gild to obtain privileges which would further trade, for instance, the right of coinage, staple-right, immunity from tolls, &c.Ibid. pp. 151, 152. The Gild provided also for the regulation of industry, and for buying and selling (compare, for instance, the statutes of Berwick-upon-Tweed,Art. 22, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43. These Articles probably belonged to the various Gilds amalgamated in 1284.and of the Gild of the Holy Trinity at Odensee);See Wilda, p. 274. and for institutions such as the cloth-halls, with their severe control of wares, of which there existed one as early as 1060 at Valenciennes.Moke, vol. ii. pp. 52, 90, 102. See an account of English cloth halls in the Report and Minutes of Evidence on the State of the Woollen Manafacture of England, 1806. See also p. clxxi, below.The importance of these cloth-halls may be seen from the fact that the merchants of Novgorod, after having several times received defective pieces of cloth from other places, determined that no cloth but that from the hall at Bruges should be allowed entrance into the Baltic ports and the Eastern markets.Ibid. p. 103. The sooner a town became chiefly a commercial place,the sooner did the Gild there take the character of a Merchant-Gild. These Gilds had also the superintendence of the craftsmen, as I shall notice when I speak of the origin of the Craft-Gilds. The Gilds founded by the merchants of the same land, even of the same town, in foreign countries—perhaps the oldest, and the prototypes of all others—and their confederacies among each other and with the mother country, the Hanse, can only be mentioned here, as to enter into details would lead us too far.

Though the Merchant-Gilds consisted chiefly of merchants, yet from the first, craftsmen as such were not excluded from them on principle, if only such craſtsmen possessed the full citizenship of the town, which citizenship—with its further development—depended upon the possession of estates of a certain value situated within the territory of the town. The strict separation which existed between the merchants and the crafts probably arose only by degrees. Originally the craftsmen, no doubt, traded in the raw materials which they worked with. Thus the London tailors were, even in the time of Edward III., the great importers of woollen cloth;Herbert, vol. i. p. 29. and as late as the sixteenth century the brewers of Hamburg were the principal corn-merchants.Wilda, p. 117.The growth of wealth and of the number of the people necessarily called forth greater division of labour; the full citizens having become rich, only carried on trade, whilst the handicraft was left exclusively to the poor and the unfree. The poor were originally excluded from full citizenship and from the Gild by the want of a property qualification; and when, in consequence of the development which has just been explained, the poor and the craftsmen became identical,See also Wilda, p. 300. this led to the ordinance repeated in Danish, German, and Belgian Gild-statutes, that no one "with dirty hands," or "with blue nails," or "who hawked his wares in the streets," should become a member of the Gild, and that craftsmen, before being admitted, must have forsworn their trade for a year and a day.Moke, vol. ii. pp. 89, 90, 106, 141; i. p. 193; Wilda, pp. 75, 223, 274, 284, 300. The statement in the Gild-Statutes of SkanörWilda, p. 111. of the year 1266, "that no baker should henceforthbe accepted as a member of the Gild," belongs probably to the time of the transition just described; perhaps, indeed, the bakers there had formerly been corn-merchants too. Such a state of transition may also be inferred from Article 25See p. 343 of Mr. Smith's collection. of the statutes of Berwick, according to which no butcher, as long as he carried on his trade, was to deal in wool or hides, except he were ready to forswear his axe. The facts are, that the Gild of Berwick was adecided Merchant-Gild, and that the members traded chiefly in wool or hides. Formerly this trade was undoubtedly carried on with that of the butchers. But after the craftsmen had been excluded from the Gild, the butchers were forbidden to carry on a trade practised by Gild members. A like case was when the old laws of Gant forbade, in favour of the Gild-Merchant there, that clothes should be dyed for craftsmen.Moke, vol. ii. p. 89.

But the craftsman was not only excluded from the Gild, he was governed, and even oppressed, by it. Before, however, entering further upon this question, a short review of the foregoing investigation may be permitted. I have shown above, how after the protection afforded by the old family had been weakened, the common want of protection called forth in neighbours a feeling of family solidarity, and unity of interests of all who were menaced, and how the weakness of them all caused a feeling of general equality and brotherly love; how this led to the entering upon close fraternities, or Gilds, in imitation of the family; how these Gilds were developed, especially in towns; how in their further growth they shut themselves up in their own doors; and how this caused the formation of similar associations among the excluded ſull-citizens; how, lastly, these associations amalgamated again with the highest Gild at a later period, or obtained a share in the government of the town. Great are the thanks, as KembleThe Saxons in England, vol. ii. p. 312. justly and emphatically says, which we owe to these oldest defenders of the dignity of man against feudal arbitrariness: "in the times of the densest seignorial darkness, they offered a noble resistance to episcopal and baronial tyranny, and formed the nursery cradles of popular liberty."

Yet before this liberty attained a wider expansion, many a hard struggle had to be fought with those who had been its midwives. Independence being obtained, the old spirit departed from the citizens.A writer of the twelfth century describes the degeneration of the citizens as follows: "Igitur in initio communia fœderationis fuit grata quia optimi viri eam tum sanxere, vita quorum justa, simplex, innocens fuit, ac sine cupididate agitabatur; sua cuique satis honeste placebant, jus bonum apud ipsos valebat, concordia maxima, minima avaritia inerat. Civis civem honorabat, dives minorem non exprobrabat.... Postquam vero cives paulatim cœpere torpescere et alter in alterum insurrexere, scelera sceleratorum multa (inulta) reliquere, quisque sua dishoneste dilatavere; . . . sic gradatim vi, mendacio, perjurio inferiores quoque opprimere cœpere; jus æquum, urbis bonum sic evanuit, corruit etiam dominium."(Chron. Aubertinum, ad annum 1138; Hist. Fr. vol. xiii. p. 499, quoted by Moke, vol. ii. p. 12.) See also Moke, vol. ii. p. 92 sqq. The victory of the Liège citizens over the Duke of Brabant at Steppes in 1213 was followed by a bitter oppression of the craftsmen by the ruling families, carried almost to slavery. The craft organizations were abolished, and the presidents removed; the patricians went even so far as to forbid the craftsmen to drink wine, except in case of sickness (Moke, vol. ii. p. 69). The older the Gild-Statutes, the more favourable arethey to the man of low rank. Though the citizens were modest and benignant towards the poor, as long as freedom was to be obtained, yet the possession of it rendered them insolent and hard. By the enjoyment of power the descendants of the old simple associates of the Frith-Gilds became proud, ambitious, and tyrannical. The freer and more independent the burghers became, and the less they needed assistance from the general body of the crafts for the defence of liberties acquired and the obtaining of ſresh ones, the greater was the degree in which this degeneration of the original noble spirit seems to have taken place. At least it appears to me that the greater dependence on a strong executive power, in which the towns remained in England and Denmark, was one of the causes why we find there no patrician order, whilst the ruling class in the Belgian and German towns, which had grown into small, and almost independent, republics, formed itself into an exclusive aristocracy. This aristocracy consisted chiefly of the descendants of the old merchant families, and partly of the offspring of the noble possessors of the surrounding estates, and of the officials originally appointed by the princes for the government of the towns.

The accumulation of riches helped to widen this ever-increasing breach between the feelings and interests of the different classes. Riches acquired by trade and employed in the purchase of estates and lucrative privileges, and the like, enabled the Gild-brothers to remain idle. Idleness became a matter of rank and of honour,Arnold, vol. ii. p. 195; Wilda, p. 201.and a part only of the Gild-members carried on wholesale trade. Even the laws of the land make the distinction between the patrician and the man "without hearth and honour, who lives by his labour," and the former might with impunity box the ears of the latter for not showing him sufficient respect.Thus the municipal law of Brussels of the year 1229 (Moke, vol. ii. p. 115). As ever, the ruling class, these patricians, also threw the chief burden of the taxes upon the governed. Frequent raisings of these taxes made them always more oppressive, while the income which they afforded, as well as the corporation property and the revenues it yielded, were employed for the private uses of the ruling families.Arnold, vol. i. pp. 418, 419, vol. ii. pp. 299, 343, 377; Moke, vol. ii. pp. 13, 25, &c. Lacomblet, Urkundenbuch des Niederrheins, vol. ii. p. 245, Dusseldorf, 1840: "Quod quociens placet maioribus ciuitatis, ipsi faciunt . . . noua exactionum statuta, quarum exactionum onus portant fraternitates et alii populares, qui communitas appellantur et sic depauperantur," etc.Besides this, the law was partially administered, or redress entirely refused to the unprivileged; and the worst oppressionsin consequence of the mundiumProtection given by a noble or rich man to a poorer, for services to be rendered, and assessments paid by the latter. led to the fear that a new serfdom might arise. As many of the craftsmen had once stood in the mundium of the bishop or the burgrave, as long as these ruled over the towns, so, after the patricians had got the dominion, a mundium of these over the lower classes came into existence, and those "who struck the lion down, had to pay the wolves homage." The mundmen were obliged to swear an oath (fidelitas) and to agree to services and taxes, for which the mundmasters promised them protection and assistance. This relation was particularly rigid at Strasburg; some of the ruling families there extorted in this way from the craftsmen a yearly rent of from 300 to 400 quarters of oats. In Cologne the craftsmen were almost the serfs of the patricians. Had the dominion of the patricians lasted longer, this dependence would certainly have become hereditary.Arnold, vol. i. p. 425; vol. ii. pp. 192, 193; Moke, vol. ii. p. 69; Lacomblet, vol. ii. p. 245.

The general deep hatred of the governed towards their oppressors seems therefore only too just; and the one idea which animated the souls of the craftsmen of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,Moke, vol. ii. p. 127, says: "L'histoire du 14 siècle n'a rien de plus extraordinaire que la persistance des tisserands et des foulons de Brabant à rêver encore leur cité détruite, comme jadis les Hebreux captifs songeaient à la reconstruction de Jerusalem." the abolition of the patriciate, seems only too easily to be understood. It was not seldom that they were aided in this endeavour by the degeneration of the patricians themselves. The principles of association, of brotherly love and unity of interests, under which the patricians had grown free and strong, must have hindered the rivalries of the strong in all their endeavours; and in free competition they fought for superiority in the towns in which a patriciate was most predominant. I need only recall to mind the fights between the Overstolzen and the Weissen at Cologne, between the Zornen and the Mülnheimer at Strasburg, between the Starbearers and the Popinjays at Basle, the strifes of the Auer with the rest of the patricians at Ratisbon, and the similar differences among the ruling families at Spire.Arnold, vol. i. pp. 352, 366; vol. ii. pp. 297, 396. But the more the interests of the strong differed, the closer were the confederations of the weak. Already in the thirteenth century in all these towns the most violent struggles broke out between the craftsmen, united in the most brotherly way into Craft-Gilds, and the hated patricians. Tournai, Gant, Bruges, Brussels, Louvain, Huy, Liège, Cologne, Frankfort-on-Main,Spire, Strasburg, Bâle, Augsburg, Magdeburg, Halle, and all other towns, however named, were witnesses of the changing fortune of their contests. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the victory was almost everywhere on the side of the Craft-Gilds.

FierceThus, for instance, at Magdeburg in the year 1301 ten aldermen of the Craft-Gilds were burnt alive in the market-place. After the Cologne weavers had lost, in 1371, the "Weavers' Battle" against the ruling families, thirty-three weavers were executed on November 21, 1371; on the day after also houses, churches, and monasteries were searched; all who were found were murdered; lastly, 1800 of them were exiled, with their wives and children, and their hall, "a palace," was demolished. The exiled found a reception at Aix-la-Chapelle, where they helped considerably to raise their trade. Further examples could easily be enumerated. as the civil war had been, the people were moderate and generous in their victory.Compare the generous treatment of the South by the North after the close of the late civil war in the United States. Their idea was that of equality of political rights and of justice. Notwithstanding their hatred against their tyrants, the multitude did not wish violence to put its stamp on their laws; they did not wish to oppress those who for former merits might have a right to participate in the government of the towns, and who by education were their superiors.See Arnold, vol. ii. p. 191. Mixed governing bodies were formed, consisting of patricians and craftsmen; and often even a majority of one vote was left to the former.Moke, vol. ii. p. 131.In some places, it is true, the craftsmen compelled the patricians to enter their fraternities if they wished to take part in the government of the towns;See Moke, vol. ii. p. 80. The same happened at Cologne. but even then the great soon got such paramount influence, that new laws had to provide that the "small folk" should form half of the council of the Craft-Gild.See Moke, vol. ii. p. 159.The craftsmen did not, however, in the long run remain at the head of the town; but the political equality which their efforts had obtained was maintained in principle; the old Gild constitution was replaced by that of the "commune."

In England the same change of the town constitution went on at the same time. The ordinance of the London citizens in Edward the Second's time, that no person, whether an inhabitant of the City or otherwise, should be admitted to the freedom of the City unless he were a member of one of the trades or mysteries,Herbert, vol. i. p. 27.shows clearly the preponderance of the craftsmen. But the completion of their triumph may be seen by the account, that "In the 49th Edward III. an enactment passed the whole assembled commonalty of the City, by which the right of election of all City dignitaries and officers, including members of parliament, was transferred from the ward-representatives to the trading-companies."Quoted by Herbert, vol. i. p. 32, from Norton's Commentaries on London.In the year following, the number of the companies which took part in this election was increased from thirty-two to forty-eight.Herbert, vol. i. p. 33. Nevertheless here also the power remained ultimately in the hands of the old burghers. When, after the ordinance under Edward II, all citizens of London were obliged to belong to the Trade-Gilds, the old burghers probably entered, as in a similar case the old ruling families of Cologne did,See Wilda, p. 259. into some of the better Trade-Gilds, from which in later days sprang the so-called twelve great companies; and they pursued under new shapes their old political and industrial interests. Already, towards the end of the reign of Edward III., the separation of these richer companies from the poorer ones may be observed. They gained paramount influence in the Common Council; and from this time dates the still-existing custom of choosing the Mayor of London exclusively from them.Herbert, vol i. p. 36 sqq. The Grocers—merchants who, according to Herbert,Ib. p. 29. received their name from the engrossing (buying up wholesale) "all manner of merchandize vendible"—were particularly powerful. Not less than sixteen aldermen belonged to their Gild, and in 1385 they carried the election of Sir Nicholas Brembre as Mayor for two successive years against the rest of the citizens.Ib. pp. 38, 39. As regards industry, the rule remained however for centuries, as will be shown further on, to the principle of small capital (see pp. cxxiii, cxxiv).

In the time of King Henry VI. the victory of the crafts was general in England; for about that time the kings, as MadoxFirma Burgi, p. 27.tells us, began generally to recognize the constitution and liberties of towns in other terms than by confirming their Gilds. "They granted to the men of a town or burgh that they should be a communitas perpetua et corporata, a corporate and perpetual community." The Craft-Gilds, whose rise the old city authorities had endeavoured till now also here to suppress, obtained the victorySee Delpit, Collection générale des documents franâais qui se trouvent en Angleterre, tom. i. p. lxxx. Paris, 1847. about the same time as their brethren on the Continent did. A more detailed account of the transition is wanting. Nevertheless in England there is nothing to be found of the severe struggles of the German and Belgian companies against the patriciate. The latter never attained a similar development on British soil; probably because, as has been stated, the rich did not obtain a similar independent dominion in the towns, which were less independent of the sovereign; and becausethere is not in the English aristocracy in general that caste-like seclusion which characterizes the Continental nobility. Greater freedom of the lower classes, as well as the gradual formation of political institutions according to the relative amount of the social power of different classes, which is so characteristic of England, perhaps contributed in this case too—as under similar circumstances of later times—to ward off a bloody revolution.

In the Danish towns also no real exclusive rule of special families seems to have sprung from the Gilds. The towns in Denmark were smaller, and therefore the Gild did not appear, in proportion to the entire population, as a close circle of families. Commerce was there of less importance, and so no very great difference arose between merchants and craftsmen in point of fortune. To this must be added the less independence of the towns in general as already mentioned. For these reasons also the Gild existed in Denmark until the time of the Reformation, which shook vehemently the whole system of Gilds, and wrought the fall of most of them, on account of their connection with the Roman Catholic service. At a later period, it is true, Gilds were carried on or re-established in Flensburg, Copenhagen, and other places. But after the political as well as the religious objects of the Gilds had disappeared, there remained of their old essence nothing but social purposes. Shooting at the popinjay was an old exercise handed down from the glorious times of the burghers, when they combated kings and made them responsible for wrongs committed on Gild-brothers. This became now their chief object. The old St. Canute-Gilds changed everywhere into Archer-Gilds; kings sometimes became members of them; and the degenerated descendants of the Hezlagh of Sleswig, instead of, like their forefathers, defending their old liberties and privileges against sovereigns with the bow, shot in common with them at the popinjay.Wilda, pp. 156 sqq., 161 sqq., 283 sqq.

In Germany too these Gilds, where they went on, and sometimes—as the House Limpurg in Frankfort-on-Main—still exist, sank into the same political insignificance; and the only advantage which the Gild now affords is the right of receiving assistance from its funds in certain emergencies of life.

THE origin of the Craft-Gilds—which everywhere in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, as has just been shown, either snatched the government of the towns from the hands of the Old-burgher Gilds, or at least obtained a share in it by the side of those Gilds—has been the subject of considerable controversy. In spite of the absolutely independent origin and development of the handicrafts in the Germanic states of the Middle Ages, and in spite of their character being entirely different to that of the Romans, some authors, finding in the Roman collegia opificuminstitutions which may in some degree be compared to the Craft-Gilds, have derived from them the unions of the handicraftsmen that sprung up with the handicrafts. But this view needs rather to be proved historically by its adherents, than to be refuted by its opponents. It would be much more probable that the Craft-Gilds descended from the companies into which, in episcopal and royal towns, the bond-handicraftsmen of the same trade were ranged under the superintendence of an official, or that they took their origin from a common subjection to police control or from common obligations to pay certain imposts. But even these views deserve no further consideration after Wilda's striking refutation. "The Craft-Gilds," as Wilda says, "did not spring from subjection and dependence; they originated in the freedom of the handicraft class."Wilda, p. 307. Compare also Arnold, vol. i. pp. 250-258.

The population of the towns, at least of those on the Continent, consisted, as late as the eleventh century, of officials, old freemen, and bondmen.See Additional Notes, No. 3. To the last belonged the greater part of the handicraftsmen, who, obliged to pay certain taxes and to perform certain feudal services and labours for their lords, were subjected to officers appointed by them. But besides, there were free handicraftsmen, who in earlier times probably belonged to the body of the full citizens; for the expulsion of craftsmen assuch from the full-citizens' Gilds, took place only at a later period of their development, as has been already stated in Part III. As long as one part of the handicraftsmen remained in the organized state of bondage just described, whilst the other part belonged to the full-citizens' Gilds, there was neither want nor room for a further free organization of that class, similar to that of the later Craft-Gilds. The former stood, in all trade matters, entirely under the orders of the lords of the town, whether these were bishops, burgraves, or citizens; and as to legal protection, they were their clients. But the handicraftsmen who were full-citizens received from the full-citizens' Gild on the one hand legal protection, and on the other hand by far greater advantages in matters of trade than even from the later Craft-Gilds; for as full-citizens,Wilda, p. 302. Legal advice of the sheriffs of Magdeburg, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, to Duke Henry the Bearded, for his town Goldberg: "Noveritis vestre nobilitatis benignitas, quod quilibet burgensis, aut propriam habens domum vel aream quarumcunque rerum venalitatem habuerit, eas in domo propria libere vendere potest aut pro aliis rebus commutari. De domo quoque, quam ad augmentandum censum vestrum in communi foro frequentari et per singulas mansiunculas inhabitari statuistis, scire debetis indubitanter, quod si dominus noster Archiepiscopus hoc in nostra civitate attemptaret penitus deficeret." these handicraftsmen enjoyed perfect freedom of trade in the towns, whilst the foreign handicraftsmen, and those who were not full-citizens, had to buy from the lords of the town the right of carrying on trade, and had to purchase, by various burdens and imposts, the privilege of using the markethalls and other institutions established ſor buying and selling.

After the free handicraftsmen had been expelled from the full-citizens' Gilds, their relation to the old-burghers was similar to that of the ancient freemen at the time when they confederated into Gilds for protection against the aggressions of the great. On the one hand, the citizens endeavoured to suppress the handicraftsmen into a kind of subjection, and on the other, as, after the expulsion of the royal and episcopal officers, they had the police in market and trade matters in their hands, it was in their power to take measures injurious to the craftsmen. The old-burghers must have felt a great temptation to subject the handicraftsmen, sprung from the free families, to the same imposts as those paid by the bondmen. The right also to allow foreigners, on payment of entrance fees, to carry on trade, could not but endanger the interests of the native craftsmen. Just as in earlier times the maintenance of the personal liberty and the preservation of the small freeholds of the old freemen were concerned, so the question was now to protect the independence of the craftsmen and their earnings, which depended on their stockand labour. Isolated, they must have succumbed to the difficulty of their circumstances; hence these of necessity called forth the same free organization of free craftsmen, as that of the old freemen in earlier times. The constitution of the old Gilds evidently served as the model of the Craft-Gilds, and it appears to have been altered only in so far as a change was rendered necessary by the peculiar wants of the craftsmen which made them confederate into Gilds, namely, protection of the industry of the freemen.

Foremost amongst the free handicraftsmen were the Weavers. They formed a kind of middle class between the patricians and the bond craftsmen. The fact that whilst the other crafts worked to supply mere local demands, the Weavers' manufactures found markets in the most distant countries, naturally invested them with greater importance. They were distinguished above all others by wealth, self-respect, and a sense of freedom. Their unions enjoyed of old the greatest independence. In all towns they stood at the head of the craftsmen; and the contests of the handicraft class with the patricians for political emancipation, and its victories, were, above all, the struggles and victories of the Weavers.Arnold, vol. ii. p. 208, and Moke, vol. ii. passim.

Accordingly, in all the manufacturing countries of that time, in England, Flanders and Brabant, as well as in the Rhenish towns, the most ancient Gilds were those of the Weavers. The Gild of the London Weavers was chartered by Henry I.,Delpit, vol. i. p. lxxxiii. and so was that of the Oxford Weavers. In the reign of Henry II. Weavers' Gilds, confirmed by the king, existed at Nottingham, York, Huntingdon, Lincoln, and Winchester.Wilda, p. 314. In Germany the Wool-weavers' Gild of Cologne arose as early as the eleventh century.Arnold, vol. i. p. 254.And in like manner the oldest German charterLacomblet, vol. i. p. 251. See below (p. cxix, note 1). referring undoubtedly to a Craft-GildThe record of the appointment of twenty-three men as fishers at Worms by Bishop Adalbert circa annum 1106 (Schannat in Cod. Probat. Hist. Wormat.Num. ii. p. 62), seems to speak rather of the creation of one of those companies among bond-handicraftsmen, mentioned in the text, than of a free-Craft-Gild. It is utterly unlike the manner in which all other Craft-Gilds have been chartered. is that of a Cologne Weavers' Gild. In the year 1149 the textores culcitrarum pulvinarium (weavers of pillowcases) formed a fraternity with the consent of the judges, sheriſſs, and aldermen; and thenceforth all who wished to carry on the trade within the town were obliged to join the fraternity and to submit to its rules. The record proves that a union of these handicraftsmen had existed long before the year 1149, andthat it was merely confirmed in the said year. At Spire the Gild of the Wool-weavers existed at the beginning of the twelfth century. At Mayence the Weavers are mentioned as early as 1099; at Worms in 1114. At Frankfort-on-Main also, wool-weaving ranked first among the crafts.Arnold, vol. i. p. 254, &c. It was, however, in the first manufacturing country of the Middle Ages, in Flanders and Brabant, that the influence of the Wool-weavers' Gild was the most prominent: it appears there as almost the sole leader in all the revolutions of the handicraft class. And when we consider the early flourishing state of the Belgian woollen manufactures—for as early as the first century the clothes of coarse wool woven in Belgium found a greedy market in Rome;Moke, vol. i. p. 58. also, that the necessity of defending their coasts against the inroads of the sea and of piratesIbid. p. 51. always kept most keenly alive in the minds of the people the fundamental idea of all Gilds, the brotherly solidarity and community of interests; lastly, the bold spirit of independence which led even serfs here to confederate into Gilds,See Part I. of this Essay, pp. lxxvi, lxxviii, lxxix.—we may infer that here, among these extremely industrious and stubborn weavers of Flanders and Brabant, did the first Craft-Gild originate.

Although the Craft-Gilds arose first among the most eminent of the handicraft class, among those who were free,—just as in earlier times the most ancient Gilds originated among the old freemen, and later on the Trade-Unions among the best situated working men and ci-devant small masters,—to stop the deterioration of their condition and encroachments on their rights and interests, yet this new organization was also soon made use of by the lower members of their class as a means of elevation. With the liberation of the bond handicraftsmen from bondage proper, many of the companies into which they had been ranged passed gradually over into the number of free Craft-Gilds. The latter appear, therefore, everywhere in greater number about the time when the last traces of bondage disappear. Craft-Gilds of this kind, when obtaining their privileges, were frequently put under obligation to pay certain fixed imposts in return for their greater independence in labour and trade, and for the remission of the fines on inheriting property,I find in the Vita Gebehardi Episcopi Constantiensis (Pertz, Seriptores, vol. x. p. 588, lines 32-59: "Post hæc convocatis servis suis elegit ex eis optimos quosque, et constituit ex eis coquos et pistores, caupones et fullones, sutores et hortulanos, carpentarios et singularum artium magistros, et constituit eis, ut eo die, quo fratribus deservirent, de annona quoque fratrum in patre reficerentur, quia dignus est operarius cibo suo. Ut autem bono animo suis ministrarent dominis, huiusmodi donario ipsos cumulavit, scilicet ut cum quis præsentium vel eorum successorum, qui de progenie illorum esset, moreretur, exuviæ de eo non sumerentur, sed hæredes relictam hæreditatem indivisam possiderent; si vero de alia progenie aliquis accessisset, ab hoc donativo alienus exstitisset." For the bond-handicraftsmen in towns and their societies, see Additional Notes, No. 3. to which theirepiscopal or lay lords were entitled, as well as for other matters. And in proportion to the degree of independence which they obtained according to circumstances, these imposts were greater or smaller. Such, for instance, was the case at Bâle, Constance, &c. Everywhere, however, these societies were changed after the model of the Gilds of those farther advanced craftsmen which have been spoken of. The latter impregnated them with an altogether different spirit and a new life. A similar process may have taken place, in certain cases,Perhaps the many religious regulations, and the many relations to the cathedral, of some of the Gilds at Bâle (compare, for instance, Berlepsch, vol. ii. pp. 18, 19), as well as of the Fullers at Lincoln (compare Mr. T. Smith's collection, p. 179), refer to such a process, though it seems rather doubtful to me. But see also Mr. Ludlow in the Fortnightly Review, October, 1869, p. 393. in fraternities originally religious, which, after the origin of Craft-Gilds, framed trade regulations after the latter's example, and—as in later times certain friendly societies changed into Trade-Unions—so gradually transformed themselves into Craft-Gilds. The time of the origin of Craft-Gilds in general may be said to extend from the beginning of the eleventh to the middle of the thirteenth century.Compare Arnold, l. c.The origin of certain Craft-Gilds depended of course on the gradual rise of the various trades in a town.

The organization of the free craftsmen into Gilds, we thus see, was called forth by their want of protection against the abuse of power on the part of the lords of the town, who tried to reduce the free to the dependence of the unfree, and, by imposts and otherwise, to encroach on the freemen's earnings. Being organized, the Craft-Gildmen provided for the maintenance of the customs of their Craft, framed further ordinances for its regulation, saw these ordinances properly executed, and punished the Gild brothers who infringed them. The maintenance of their independence against the city authorities, and the possibility of carrying out and making efficient their trade-rules, depended, however, on the condition that all who carried on the trade should belong to the Gild. And though the first Gilds, at their formation, included doubtless all men of the trade, yet in course of time some one or more craftsmen must have turned up, who, unwilling to submit to the rules framed for insuring good work and for protecting the interests of the trade, would carry on his trade without belonging to the Gild. It was impossible either to check this, and prevent detriment arising from it, or to enforce theirregulation of the trade in a legitimate manner, unless the Gild had been previously acknowledged by the lord of the town or the body of citizens. And thus, though the Craft-Gilds as voluntary societies did not need confirmation by the authorities at their birth, yet this confirmation became afterwards of the greatest importance when these Gilds wanted to be recognized as special and independent associations, which were thenceforth to regulate the trade instead of the authorities of the town. This once obtained, all further protective measures would follow as a matter of course.

This transfer of all trade concerns to the management and jurisdiction of the Craft-Gild was generally accomplished by a confirmation of their ordinance, that every one carrying on the trade within the town or a certain district, should join and belong to the Gild.Lacomblet, vol. i. p. 251. Record of the confirmation of the Gild of the textores culcitrarum pulvinarium at Cologne in 1149: "fraternitatem .... confirmatam suscepisse, hac videlicet ratione, ut omnes textorici operis cultores (scilicet culcitrarum pulvinarium), qui infra urbis ambitum continentur, sive indigene sive alienigene huic fraternitati quo jure a supra memoratis fratribus constat disposita sponte subiciantur. Ei vero aliqua enormitate obviantes et subire non coacti nolentes, judiciaria severitate refrenati, cum rerum suarum detrimento, subire et obsecundari tandem compellantur." For the London Weavers see note 1, p. cxx. In the charter of the Oxford Weavers in Madox's History of the Exch. vol. i. p. 339, we read: "nemo operaretur de ministerio eorum infra quinque leucatas circa Burgum Oxoniæ." See also below, p. cxxi, note 7, the charter of the Magdeburg Shoemakers. That this ordinance merely enforced a custom which already existed in the craft before the confirmation, may be seen there in the passage beginning, "Cum enim jus et distinctio, que inter eos est," etc.; as well as in the passage in Italies in this note. And in return for this privilege the Gild was yearly to pay certain taxes.Compare also, below, the charter of the Magdeburg Shoemakers, p. cxxi, note 7. In London these taxes went to the king. Thus, under Henry I. (A. D. 1100-33) and every succeeding king, the London Weavers paid to the crown a rent or ferme for their Gild; and MadoxHistory of the Exch. vol. i. pp. 390, 391. enumerates eighteen Gilds which, under Henry II. (A. D. 1154-89), were amerced as adulterine, for neglecting to pay this tax. But as, in consequence of these privileges of the Craft-Gilds, the citizens no longer enjoyed undivided sway in the towns, they showed themselves everywhere extremely jealous of the jurisdiction which had thus sprung up in their midst, to their own detriment. They therefore opposed with all their might the establishment of Craft-Gilds; and the whole history of these Gilds, till they obtained the mastery in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, appears as nothing else than one continual struggle of the handicraftsmen with the town for these privileges. The Norman kings however, equally ready to make the most of both these clashing interestsfor the benefit of their exchequer, seem to have put up to auction the confirmation and the suppression of these Gilds.

The contest of the Weavers with the City of London furnishes us with a very striking example of this struggle between the rising Craft-Gilds and the body of the old citizens. The Weavers had obtained from Henry I. the privilege that "nobody, except by them (i. e. by becoming a member of their Gild), shall introduce himself, within the City, into their mystery, and nobody within Southwark or other places belonging to London, except he be a member of their Gild;"Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 286: "nullus nisi per illos se intromittat infra civitatem de eorum ministerio et nisi sit in eorum Gilda neque in Sudworc neque in aliis locis Londoniæ pertinentibus." The words "ministerium" or "officium"were used in medieval Latin for mystery, trade, craft-gild. and these privileges were confirmed to them by Henry II. Exemption from the jurisdiction of the City excited the jealousy of the citizens to such a degree, that the Weavers' Gild had to maintain the most violent struggles with them for its privileges and property. King John had to promise the citizens, in answer to their prayer, "that the Gild of Weavers shall not from henceforth be in the City of London, neither shall be at all maintained;" but as the Gild had been accustomed to pay the king eighteen marks per annum, the citizens "should pay twenty marks in money for a gift" instead. It appears, however, that this suppression of the Craft-Gilds was as ineffective here as in the like case in Belgium and Germany; for as early as the sixth year of Henry III. (A. D. 1221-22) we find the Weavers and the City again at strife; and "the Weavers of London," as Madox relates, "fearing lest the mayor and citizens of London should extort from them their charter and liberties granted to them by King Henry II., delivered that charter into the Exchequer, to be kept in the treasury there, and to be delivered to them again when they should want it, and afterwards to be laid up in the treasury." Even in the fourteenth year of Edward II. (A. D. 1320-1) the privileges of the Weavers remained still a point of contention between them and the town; but in this case it was before a court of justice. On occasion, as it appears, of a complaint for transgression and abuse of their privileges, the Weavers had to prove their right to have a Gild, as well as the legality of every single ordinance framed by them for the regulation of their trade. Their privileges could not, however, be impugned as a whole, but several regulations were pointed out which had crept in after the grant of their charter.Compare Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 192, &c.; Herbert, vol. i. pp. 17, 24. Among the documents contained in Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection, those referring to the Tailors' Gild at Exetershoweven in the fifteenth century the existence of the same struggle between this Gild and the authorities of the town.Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection, pp. 299-316. Sometimes, as in the case of the Bakers' Gild at Bâle, these conflicts, which the new organization of the handicraftsmen called forth between their wardens and the police authorities of the towns, were the chief cause of fixing the rights of the Craft-Gild in a charter.Compare Wilda, p. 310.

To the complete independence of the Craft-Gilds, it was indispensable that they should have the right of freely electing a warden for regulating their trade and for managing the Gild. In England this freedom was never restricted; at least, I know nothing to the contrary from the accounts of English Craft-Gilds.The governor, however, of the fraternity of the Porters in London, constituted in 1646, is always an alderman, whose appointment is vested in the Court of Aldermen. (Allen's History and Antiquities of London, vol. ii. p. 412.)But on the Continent the right of appointing the warden of a Craft-Gild varied according to the nature of the origin of the Gild, or the degree of independence which the particular handicraft enjoyed at the time when its Gild was recognized. Thus the Craft-Gilds which the free handicraftsmen formed amongst themselves possessed, of old, absolute independence in the election of their warden, as, for instance, the Weavers' Gild at Cologne,Lacomblet, vol. ii. p. 250. Award of arbitration between the archbishop and the town of Cologne, &c., 1258: "Quod ab antiquo consuetudine fraternitates eligunt sibi quosdam, qui magistri fraternitatum dicuntur, per quos insolentes fraternitatum compescuntur," &c. and the Craft-Gilds in Flanders.Moke, vol. ii. p. 95. At Bâle, on the contrary, where the Craft-Gilds sprang from the companies of bondmen above-mentioned (p. cxiv), the bishop appointed the warden, according to the oldest charters, and in the probably less important trades (Spinnwettern and Butchers, 1248); whilst in 1260 the Tailors (who were at the same time cloth-merchants) elected their own warden.Berlepsch, Chronik der Gowerke, St. Gall (no date), vol. ix. p. 19, vol. v. p. 18, vol. ii. p. 18. In 1157 Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg had, from truly generous motives, granted to the Shoemakers the right of free election of their warden. This instance was, however, probably as unique, as the disposition was rare.The charter runs thus: "In omnibus actibus nostris, in quibus aliquid de honore et utilitate Magdeburgensis ecclesie agere studuimus, libertatem matrem actionis nostre esse volumus, ut, cum honor et utilitas in disputatione nostra accurrerit, libertas suprema semper existeret, quia honor et utilitas sine libertate vilis servitus estimatur. Notum itaque esse volumus universis tam futuris quam presentibus, quod officia civitatis nostre magna sive parva, quodlibet in suo honore secundum jus suum integrum esse volentes, jus et magisterium sutorum ita consistere volumus, ut nullus magistratum super eos habeat, nisi quem ipsi ex communi consensu magistrum sibi eligerint. Cum enim jus et distinctio, que inter eos est, eos, qui eo jure participare non debent, ita excludat, quod opus operatum alienigene infra jus communis fori vendere non debeant, constituimus, ne alienigene opus suum operatum ad forum non deferant, nisi cum omnium eorum voluntate, qui jure illo quod Inninge appellatur, participes existunt. Itaque ad recognoscendum se annuatim Magdeburgensi archiepiscopo duo talenta solvent, que magister eorum presentabit, prout archiepiscopus mandavit," &c. (Berlepsch, vol v. p. 30.) In Paris, the provost in the thirteenth century appointedand deposed, as he pleased, the wardens of the Cordiers (rope-makers), and the Poulaillers (poulterers); but the Étuvistes (bath-keepers) elected freely and independently three preud'hommes for regulating their trade.Ouin-Lacroix, Histoire des Anciennes Corporations d'Arts et Métiers, &c. de la Capitale de la Normandie, Rouen, 1850; Statuts des Cordiers de Paris, art. 10, (p. 738); Statuts des Poulaillers de Paris, Art. 11 (p. 747); Statuts des Étuvistes de Paris, art. 5 (p. 739). Free election then became the rule in all trades, till Charles IV. of France (1321-1328) deprived the Parisian craftsmen of the right of freely electing their wardens.Wilda, p. 324.Charles VI. in the year 1408, whilst confirming the statutes of a Craft-Gild, actually appointed one of his valets to the warden-ship.Ouin-Lacroix, p. 734—Statuts des Barbiers de Tours en 1408, art. 1: "Notre premier barbier et varlet de chambre est et sera garde du dict mestier, auquel tous devront obéir."In other countries, even in the thirteenth century, it became the rule for Craft-Gilds to elect their wardens themselves; and it was only during the contests between the crafts and the hereditary ruling families in the German and Belgian towns that the craftsmen had to acquiesce in the appointment of their wardens by the patricians. But this of course changed at once with the triumph of the handicraftsmen.

This triumph, as has been shown in Part III., was won everywhere in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though sooner or later, according to circumstances. In London the Craft-Gilds appear in full possession of the mastery in the reign of Edward III. The privileges which they had till then exercised only on sufferance, or on payment of their fermes, were now for the first time generally confirmed to them by charter by Edward III.; the authorities of the City of London, who had in former times contended with all their might against the Craft-Gilds, now approved of their statutes; and in the fourteenth century a large majority of the trades appeared before the mayor and aldermen to get their ordinances enrolled. At the same time they adopted a particular livery, and were hence called Livery Companies. Edward III. himself actually became a member of one of them, that of the Linen-armourers, and his example found numerous imitators amongst his successors and the nobility of the kingdom.Compare Herbert, vol. i. pp. 28, 29; Delpit, p. lxxx., and the numerous ratifications of ordinances by the City authorities from 1344—1418 in Riley's Memorials.

TRADE-UNIONS are the successors of the old Gilds. With this assertion I concluded the foregoing part of this Essay. It is far from being a new statement. On the contrary, friends and enemies of these associations have repeatedly, in words and print, pointed at their connection with the old Gilds, the former to justify, by this pedigree, their existence, the latter to condemn them at once by describing them as continuations of institutions considered for long, and generally, at best as antiquated. Their enemies, by the dodge of applying to them the epithet of "long-condemned associations for the restriction of trade," generally dispensed with all further inquiries into the real results of their working.

Indeed, every reader of the foregoing pages who has ever made himself familiar with the rules of a Trade-Society, or with one of the numerous blue-books inquiring into the organization of Trade-Societies, must grant at once their similarity to the Craft-Gilds. But notwithstanding this striking likeness, and the numberless writings on the subject of Trade-Unions, nobody has yet inquired historically how these Unions originated,Mr. Thornton's chapter On the Origin of Trades' Unions (in The Fortnightly Review, New Series, vol. ii. p. 688, and in his work On Labour and its Claims) bears the same relation to the real origin of Trade-Unions, as Rousseau's Contrat Social to the historical origin of States. and how far they may really be considered as the descendants of the old Gilds. All opinions on this point which I have yet met with are vague, and, as I am obliged to say, far from corresponding with the reality. The most plausible theory is expounded by Mr. Ludlow in one of the best papers ever written on Trade-Unions.Trade-Societies and the Social Science Association, in Macmillan's Magazine, February and March, 1861. According to his idea, the first Trade-Unions originated in the capitalist-masters withdrawing from the Craft-Gild, so as "to confine it to the operative class, so thatthe Gild would necessarily merge in the Trade-Society." He accordingly says, "The Trade-Society of our days is but the lopsided representative of the old Gild, its dwarfed but lawful heir." For the historical proof of the identity between the two, he refers to Mr. Hill's Account of Trade-Combinations at Sheffield.Trades' Societies and Strikes. Report of the Committee on Trades' Societies appointed by the Social Science Association, London, 1860, p. 521.

Considering only the rules and restrictions prevailing in the old Craft-Gilds, and comparing them with the regulations which our modern Trade-Associations, existing only among workmen, try to enforce, one might feel inclined to accept this opinion at once. But the fact is, that in no one single instance did such a withdrawing of the masters from the Craft-Gild, leaving it to the workmen alone, ever take place. On the contrary, I think it more probable that the masters generally remained in the corporation, to prevent its bye-laws being enforced against them, and to annihilate its influence. Such, at least, was the case at Sheffield—as I will show further on—or the audience of Mr. Roebuck's declamations against the United States, the still existing Cutler's Company in Hallamshire, would have consisted of the same persons as returned Mr Mundella for Sheffield! Trade-Unions are no lopsided representatives of the old Gilds; they are complete Gilds themselves, as well as the Town-Gilds and Craft-Gilds. And when calling them the successors of the old Gilds, I did not mean to designate them as continuations of the Craft-Gilds, nor do I think that their descent from these now certainly antiquated societies could justify their existence. But if I succeed in proving that wherever we find in a trade the first formation of such unions among the workmen, and if, wherever more detailed records of their origin are extant, we see them arising under the same circumstances and for the same objects as the Frith-Gilds and Craft-Gilds previously arose, that is, under the breaking-up of an old system, and among the men suffering from this disorganization, in order that they may maintain independence and order, I think that this, together with the identity of their organization with that of the Gilds, will not only justify me in calling the Trade-Unions the successors of the latter, but will justify as well the existence of the Unions, as I shall then have proved that certain circumstances of disorganization, if unchecked by stronger restrictions,The want of a similar growth of Trade-Societies on the Continent must be accounted for by the military sway prevailing there at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, which suppressed all kinds of meetings and unions, and by the absence of a similar disorganization of trade to that which prevailed at that time in England. call forth necessarily inall times the same organizations into Gilds. Indeed, in our time of physical and economical law-making, one might call this a historical law.

Our inquiry makes it necessary that we should first of all represent to ourselves the regulations of the Statute of Apprentices, the 5th Elizabeth, c. 4, which codified the order existing for centuries among the Craft-Gilds, and applied it to all the trades of its time. There were indeed combinations and associations similar to Trade-Societies already before 1562. But, as I have shown in Part IV., they were but exceptions, occurring chiefly in the building-trades.See p. cxliv, above. And the very fact of their occurring in the building-trades in the Middle Ages, is another proof of the justness of the theory which I am going to put forward in these pages; for these trades resembled entirely our modern manufactures, with their small number of masters and their masses of workmen, with sub-contractors, and deductions from wages. And as to the 2nd and 3rd Edw. VI. c. 15, it has been shown aboveSee pp. clvii, clviii. that this statute refers, not to associations of journeymen like our Trade-Societies, but to the abuses of craftsmen in general.

According to the 5th Eliz. c. 4, no one could lawfully exercise, either as master or as journeyman, any art, mystery, or manual occupation, except he had been brought up therein seven years, at least, as an apprentice. Every householder dwelling in a city. town-corporate, or market-town, might take apprentices for seven years at least. But only those youths might be taken as apprentices whose parents possessed a certain fortune; and none could be bound but those who were under twenty-one years of age. Whoever had three apprentices must keep one journeyman; and for every other apprentice above three, one other journeyman. As to journeymen, it was enacted that, in most trades, no person should retain a servant under one whole year, and no servant was to depart or be put away but upon a quarter's warning. The hours of work were fixed by the Act to about twelve hours in summer, and from the day-dawn till night in winter. Wages were to be assessed yearly by the justices of the peace or the town-magistrates, at every general Sessions first to be holden after Easter. The same authorities were to settle all disputes between masters and apprentices, and protect the latter. The 1st Jac. I. c. 6 expressly extends this power of the justices and town-magistrates to fix wages, to the wages of all labourers and workmen whatever.

It is evident that, as long as the regulations of the Statute of Apprentices were maintained, the position of the workmen wassecure. The long term of service assured them the regularity of employment, which they desired above everything. The magistrates were, according to the intention of the Act, to assess the wages so as to "yield unto the hired person, both in the time of scarcity and in the time of plenty, a convenient proportion of wages;" and the hours of work were not excessive, especially as the manner of carrying on industry was not then so exhaustive as it is now-a-days. Besides, the restrictions as to apprentices prevented a too great competition from lowering the skilled workmen to the level of common labourers. But as Adam SmithWealth of Nations, Bk. I. ch. x. Part ii. tells us, the operation of this statute was limited by interpretation to cities, towns-corporate, and market-towns, and to those trades only which were established in England before the 5th Eliz.

In order to prove my assertion, that the Trade-Unions originated with the non-observance of these regulations, I will now successively consider, first, some of the trades subject to the 5th Eliz. c. 4; then, some of those which were incorporated by charter; and lastly, some which were free from any restrictions, whether by charter or Acts of Parliament.

The woollen manufactures were the old staple trade of England. I have already spoken in Part IV. of the great importance of the Craft-Gilds of the Woollen-weavers; and we have seen how the great number of workmen employed in this trade led them to combine whenever there was a temporary want of sufficient organization.See pp. cxliii, cxliv, above. Later on, the trade came under the 5th Eliz. c. 4, and was regulated besides by the 5th and 6th Edw. VI. c. 22 as to the use of machinery, and by the aboveSee p. clxiii. cited 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary, c. 11, as to the number of looms which one weaver might have.

According to a report of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1757, the assessment of wages by the justices seems to have fallen into disuse in this trade already before 1720. In that year the justices fixed a rate of wages; but it was not carried out into practice. This want of fixed wages evidently led to oppressions of the workmen by the masters, and induced the men to combine. Accordingly, in 1725 the 12th Geo. I. c. 34 prohibited the combinations of workmen employed in the woollen manufactures; and an Act of the following year ordered the justices once more to fix the rate of wages in this trade. In accordance with this Act, the workmen petitioned the justices in 1756 to fix such rates of wages. But as the masters made a counter-petition, the justices refused to act. The immediate consequence, according to the evidence of a master, was, thatthe Weavers revolted, hindered the journeymen who went on working, and drove them from their looms. This master estimates the losses which arose to the country from these riots, at from £15,000 to £20,000. This strike induced the master manufacturers to agree with the workmen, and peace was at once re-established.Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xxvii. pp. 730-733. In the same year the justices were ordered again, by the 29th Geo. II. c. 33, to settle the rates of labour yearly in the woollen manufactures.

But these were mere transitory skirmishes, called forth by individual attempts of the masters to abolish the existing order of things. As, however, this order was still maintained by the legislature, these attempts did not at that time lead to the formation of lasting Trade-Societies. This did not come about till the transition of the woollen manufactures from the domestic to the factory system, and till the attempt of the master manufacturers to get the 5th Eliz. c. 4 repealed. A Parliamentary ReportReport and Minutes of Evidence on the State of the Woollen Manufacture of England, July 4th, 1806. Every single statement made in the following account in the text can be proved from this report, which I recommend every reader interested in the subject to peruse, as it is one of the most interesting reports I know of. exists which gives almost a photograph of the state of the woollen manufactures at the time of these changes. As it is of importance for the understanding of the origin of Trade-Unions in all trades to have a clear idea of this transition, I will give a detailed account of these changes in the woollen manufactures, and will then deal less fully with the other trades.

The woollen manufactures were carried on in the last century by small masters in their own homes. They dwelt in villages and scattered houses, and often cultivated besides a little land, from three to twelve or fifteen acres. Often too they had a horse to carry their cloth to market, or, in later times, to the public mill. The number of such small masters in the environs of Leeds was estimated in 1806 as 3500.

Every master had served a seven years' apprenticeship. Though the 5th Eliz. c. 4 was not known, either to masters or men, its regulations were maintained, because they corresponded to custom. Thus even in 1806 there were in Harmley, a clothworkers' village of from 4000 to 5000 inhabitants, ninety-seven apprentices bound for seven years, and only four bound for a shorter period.

Each master employed on the average ten journeymen and apprentices. As a rule there was one apprentice to two or threejourneymen. Besides, the master was regularly assisted by his wife and children. Children working with their fathers did not need to be bound by indenture. As a rule, all these persons worked in the master's house, where the wool was worked through all the various stages, till it became undressed cloth, and, if necessary, was dyed. Sometimes also the journeymen did the work in their own houses, and were assisted in it by their wives.

The master himself taught the apprentice his trade. If the latter had the prospect of ever becoming a master himself, he was also taught how to buy raw materials. In this case the master received a premium on taking the apprentice. After the seven years' apprenticeship the apprentice could settle at once as a master; but as a rule he worked first for one or two years as a journeyman. The fact that a young man of good repute could always get credit for as much wool as would enable him to settle as a small master, is especially urged in recommendation of this system. The great stability and regularity of employment appears, however, as its chief advantage. Slackness of trade did not at once stop work in the workshops. The master went on working, although he could not find an immediate sale for his products, and took his wares to the market. The fact is, that he seldom worked to order. Sale in the cloth-halls was the rule. If, then, a sudden stagnation occurred in the foreign market, or a large firm became bankrupt, the losses distributed themselves over a larger surface. They fell on the whole body of manufacturers; and though each individual small master suffered by it, there were but few, if any, whom it ruined. In such extreme cases the small masters also often took work from other small masters, to maintain their families.

Like the trade of the masters, the employment of the journeymen was exceedingly regular. As a rule, journeymen were hired for a year, and had board and washing at their masters'. They received besides, annual wages of from £8 to £10. There were journeymen who had continually for twenty years and more worked with the same masters. If trade became slack, or there was a stop in the sale, journeymen were not suddenly discharged in masses. Such discharges scarcely ever happened; as a rule, the masters let the men work on in the hope of better times. They considered it a duty to keep, in time of distress, the workmen to whose exertions in good times they owed their wealth. If a master was in want of work for his journeyman, he used to see about for a job for him at another master's; if one could not be got, he was kept on by his old master. "The men and masters," says a master, "were in general so joined together in sentiment, and, if I may be permitted to use the term, love to each other, thatthey did not wish to be separated if they could help it." If, on the other hand, a master ever had more orders than he could satisfy, he asked another master to lend him a journeyman.See the Report above referred to, p. 8. See, for the passage cited in the text, p. 43. As the statements in the text might be thought by some exaggerated, I will quote some questions and answers from the Report. "During the time you were employed by a domestic manufacturer, had you regular work constantly?" "Yes, I had; I never had reason to complain." "Were you constantly employed without reference to masters, or were you sometimes employed and sometimes discharged?" —"I never was discharged; I have been with masters where they were short, and they used to see about for a job for me, and if one could not be got, I was continued." "If the domestic master was short he wished you to pick up another job, if you could get it; if not, he would continue to give you employment?" —"Yes." (p. 117.) "As to the habit of clothiers keeping the persons they employed, you have stated that to be your habit?"—"Yes." "Would it have been possible for you, without evident disadvantage to yourself, to have kept on persons, paying them wages, without deriving any benefit from their work?"—"We consider it as a duty, and there is that good understanding between the employers and the employed, that we should think it a very irksome task to turn off a workman whom we consider as a good and an honest workman." (p. 131.) And again on p. 40: "I scarcely ever knew a man discharged from his master because his master could not give him employment."

The centres of this organization of trade were the cloth-halls, to which the masters brought their products to market. In Leeds there were two halls, one for white cloth and one for coloured. Similar halls were at Bradford, Halifax, and Huddersfield. There the cloth was examined and measured by the authorities. The two chief cloth-halls at Leeds were under the direction of a certain number of Trustees, who were elected for three years by all the clothworkers of the manufacturing villages, as the most trustworthy and most intelligent of their body. They watched over the general trade interests, and especially the observance of all rules and bye-laws which were framed from time to time for the government of the halls. No clothworker was allowed to bring his wares for sale in these halls, unless he had served a seven years' apprenticeship.

The introduction of machinery brought a change into this state of things. Mills were now erected on rivers and streams, to make use of the fall of the water. Various processes, which had before been chiefly performed by hand under the masters' own roof, were now executed in public mills by machinery. In the neighbourhood of every manufacturing village were several such mills to be found. The manufacturer brought his wares to them with little trouble and loss of time, and fetched them back after they had gone through the necessary process. The cost was but small, so that he was enabled to get by these mills the advantage of very expensive machines. Sometimes too the master himself performed the work by machinery in the mill, in order that it might be well done.