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Just as the town magistrates imposed disabilities upon the tenants of ecclesiastical lords who refused to acknowledge their authority 1, so they displayed a similar treatment to independent bodies of craftsmen. We are apt, in truth, to see everywhere privileges where the men of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw only burdens. Gildship, like parliamentary representation, was originally not a privilege but a burden, and involved heavy responsibilities. The gildsmen of the earlier Middle Ages were exercised not how to keep men out, but how to bring them in 2, and normally the craftsman was admitted to their ranks if he paid his dues and resigned all pretensions to control his trade. It is certain,

at any rate, that the merchant gilds were not confined to large dealers, and that craftsmen as a rule were freely admitted to the rôle of membership 3. The gild rolls of Leicester and Shrewsbury show that we must interpret the word "merchant" in a wide sense, for in the earlier period it was applied to all who engaged in trade. This definition includes the master craftsman who was not only an artisan but also a trader, who bought the raw material and sold the finished product.

On the whole our conclusion must be that, speaking generally, the conflict between the twelfth-century weavers

1 At Hereford, e.g., ecclesiastical tenants were refused community of rights with other inhabitants: Journal of the British Archæol. Assoc. xxvii. 467. On the whole question, see supra, p. 186.

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2 Compare the following entry in the rolls of the Leicester gild merchant (1336): Peter of Worthington charged that he bought and sold against the ordinance of the Gild and that he was rich enough to enter the Gild [i.e. to support its burdens], who came and swore that his chattels are not worth 20s. and so withdrew till another time": Records of Leicester, ii. 30. Cf. also the flight of weavers, fullers and dyers from Northampton to escape taxes: Rot. Hund. ii. 3.

3 (i.) Leicester: Record, i. pp. xxix. 12 et passim. (ii.) Shrewsbury : The rolls of the fourteenth century have been printed by C. H. Drinkwater in Trans. Shropshire Archæol. Soc. 3rd ser. ii. 65; iii. 47, 351; iv. 217. See also Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 107 (n. 1). At Newcastle artificers were members of the gild merchant : The said artificers that now be and their predecessors before them have always been free burgesses and gild-merchants in the said town": Select Cases in the Star Chamber, ii. 79. At Bristol Edward III. claimed the fees paid by Bakers, but the mayor refused to comply on the ground that Bristol possessed a gild merchant with exemption from custom and tolls, thus showing that the gild included craftsmen : Latimer, Merchant Venturers, 6.

4 Gross, i. 107 (n. 2); Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 374 (n.).

and burgesses was neither racial nor economic 1, but con- A constitutional. It is very much the parallel of the conflict struggle.

between the Church and the towns. Abundant evidence has already been given to show that throughout the Middle Ages the municipalities refused to tolerate a divided authority, and struggled for centuries to bring all rival jurisdictions under their control. The hostility towards the weavers, therefore, if its nature and extent have not been exaggerated, can best be explained by their attempts to establish feudal immunities within the towns 2. In any case, the submission of the Weavers' gild in 1300 apparently removed the objection of the authorities to the formation of crafts; and there was a rapid development of craft gilds among

1 In his invaluable contributions to English Economic History, Prof. Ashley has adduced other evidence which may well seem to point to economic oppression. (1) Many towns purchased from John the right to sell cloth freely, and "it is clear that the ruling body intended to use their privileges against the craftsmen ". (2) Weavers at High Wycombe were required to pay a tax on their looms, and the authorities also retained stallage, the right to monopolize or control the sale of the cloth". (3) The readiness of the citizens of London to bribe the king to destroy the Weavers' gild is a fact which needs explanation. (4) Again, why were the Fullers of Lincoln denied community of rights with the free citizens? (5) Lastly, the monopoly of the gild merchant is shown by its refusal at Leicester to allow weavers to weave cloth for men of other towns (Woollen Industry, 1887, pp. 22, 24; Surveys Historic and Economic (1900), 218). I would urge, however, (i.) that the concession which the towns purchased was really the suspension of Richard I.'s assize of cloth (see infra, p. 394), and was not an attempt on the part of the merchants to obtain the monopoly of sale. (ii.) That the tax on looms was an ordinary fiscal device which is found even in the fifteenth century (infra, p. 413); while the reservation of stallage meant only that the weavers must continue to pay rent for their stalls or booths in the market-place. (iii.) That the citizens of London wanted to get the Weavers' farm into their own hands; the extra two marks which they offered represented the increment, which they were willing to pay with the intention to recuperate themselves out of the profits of the farm (supra, p. 324, n. 5). (iv.) That the Fullers were denied community of rights for the same reason that tenants of ecclesiastical fiefs were sometimes denied such rights (supra, p. 326), viz. because they would not be amenable to civic control. (v.) That the prohibition relating to the Weavers of Leicester was part of a general 'anti-foreign' policy pursued by mediaeval towns, which sought to check both the commercial and the industrial rivalry of country competitors (on this point, see infra, p. 438). It was not therefore a sign of economic oppression.

2 It is probable enough that in a few towns certain callings may have been a disqualification for citizenship. Thus the Customs of Bristol drawn up in 1344 contained a clause: "Henceforth no baker be admitted to the liberty in any way. . . unless he shall be willing to abjure his business first" (Little Red Book, i. 36). But the clause is marked vacat, and weavers at any rate were required to be citizens (ibid. ii. 4: 1346).

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which the powers of the merchant gild would seem to have been parcelled out1. This would account for the general disappearance of the gild merchant in the fourteenth century. We get glimpses of the process of disintegration at Leicester, where in 1260 the fullers were made to swear that they would hold no private "morning-speech" or meeting. The fullers were evidently breaking away from the control of the merchant gild, and forming a separate organization in which to manage their own affairs. The break-up of the merchant gild was brought about not by legislation, but by the operation of economic forces; increasing specialization in industry was the fundamental economic cause which robbed it of vitality. It is true that the name, merchant gild, reappears later and is then often applied to an organization of merchants. But there is a gap of two centuries to be bridged, and the absence of any general record of its activity during the intervening period indicates that where it did not survive as the aggregate of craft gilds, it died from inanition. The relation between the craft gilds and the town authorities in the later Middle Ages is a problem of the utmost authorities importance. It involves the fundamental questions how craft gilds. far mediaeval industry was shackled by external control,

Relation between

the town

and the

whether on the part of the municipality or the state, how far the restrictions imposed upon it were conceived in the interests of the community, and how far the craft gilds were able to bring pressure to bear upon the municipal government and manipulate it to serve their own ends. It will be as well to emphasize what has already been stated, that every city has its own history and that no one generalization can cover the whole field. The position of the gilds in every town was marked by its own distinctive characteristics and individual features. The records of Norwich, Bristol, Coventry, and above all London, have cast a flood of light upon this aspect of our subject, and enable us to determine with some degree of confidence the relations which subsisted between the craft organizations and the municipality.

1 Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 117.

2 Records of Leicester, i. 90.

3 Brentano (Gilds, p. cxxiii), for example, holds that the craft gilds "retained everywhere the independent government and jurisdiction over their trade".

Nowhere was the control of the civic authorities over (i.) At Norwich. the gilds more complete than at Norwich. At first, indeed, Norwich set its face resolutely against the gild system, and in 1256 induced Henry III. to insert a clause in its charter forbidding any gild “henceforth to be held in the city to the detriment of the city"1. The opposition to the institution of craft gilds was not inspired by any sentiment of hostility to the artisans, nor was it an attempt at industrial oppression; it sprang from the belief that they were organized with the object of raising prices and making themselves independent of municipal control. It soon became apparent, however, that it was impossible to check the growth of the gilds, and the alternative expedient was adopted of placing them under the control of the city magistrates. Accordingly about 1286 the craft gilds of Norwich received formal recognition, but the municipal government, in order to keep its power over them in its own hands, ordered the bailiffs "and twenty-four of the city commonly elected" to choose every year two members from each gild to search four times a year and present all defective wares to the bailiffs 2. The authorities continued, moreover, to amerce adulterine gilds instituted without their licence. In 1293 the Cobblers were fined for setting up a gild without leave "contrary to the prohibition of the lord king", and a similar punishment was inflicted upon the Saddlers and Fullers 3. Henry III.'s charter afforded the rulers of the city an instrument by which they could compel every gild to acknowledge their rights of control, and could exact the most implicit obedience to their commands. They nominated the wardens of the crafts and received presentments of all faults and frauds 4. Subsequently the wardens were chosen by the gild, but they were still sworn before the mayor to whom the power of appointment reverted, if the craft showed

1 Records of Norwich, i. 18. Similarly the water-carriers of Leicester were forbidden to form an association, and the purpose of the prohibition comes out in the injunction that they ought to serve the community loyally and well: Records of Leicester, ii. 197 (temp. incert.).

2 Records of Norwich, i. 192.

Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich, 42.

4 Records of Norwich, i. 192 (c. 1286); i. 105 (1415); ü. 315; ii. 282 (1449).

(ii.) At Bristol.

negligence in the exercise of its functions1. The gilds were
thus completely subordinated to the governing body. They
could not meet in assembly without licence 2, and could only
frame ordinances for their mistery provided that the approval
of the civic authorities had been first obtained 3. They were
not allowed to hold independent courts which might enter
into conflict with the municipal court, or at any rate become
an instrument for the exclusive control of their trade.
is ordained that no gilds of crafts, fraternities or company
shall make or assess any manner of fines for any manner of
default within themselves, but all such defaults shall be
presented unto the mayor", who was to make the assess-
ment with the aid of some of the members of the craft con-
cerned. This last restriction is found also at York, where
the civic authorities claimed the right to punish gild offences,
and no searchers of any occupation were allowed to correct
or punish defaults 5.

The history of Norwich has a valuable parallel in that of Bristol. We find the same jealous scrutiny of gild ordinances and the same determination that these ordinances should not remain a dead letter. The aldermen of the Weavers and other crafts were bidden to make search throughout the mistery, and "if they shall find anything contrary to the prescribed ordinances, so often as they shall find it, they ought to show and faithfully present it to the mayor". This indicates that in Bristol, as in Norwich, the authorities refused to allow the gild the right of coercive jurisdiction over its members in matters of trade, and so weakened its power of resistance to their rules. How complete was the control of the municipality over the gilds may be seen from the significant words with which they ratified the ordinances of the Fullers in 1406: "Saving always to the jurisdiction of us the mayor and council of 1 Records of Norwich, i. 105 (1415).

2 Ibid. ii. p. xlvii (1418).
4 Ibid. ii. 114.

3 Ibid. ii. 280 (1449). This was in 1531; apparently in 1449 the gild authorities had been allowed to judge defaults (though required to present them to the mayor), and the power being abused was now taken from them: ibid. ii. 280. 5 Drake, Eboracum, 215 (1519).

Little Red Book of Bristol, ii. 4 (1346); similarly: ii. 185 (Pewterers, 1457), etc.

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