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(ii.) Exclusiveness

of the crafts.

the privileges conferred upon them by their monopoly of trade. In their hands lay the control of industry, and the temptation was always present to their minds to abuse their trust. The regulations of the craft gild became oppressive, when its members utilized their position to advance their own interests and selfishly disregarded those of the community. The main charge brought against the craft gilds of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was that they endeavoured to exclude outsiders from their ranks by making their admission fees prohibitive. Among the Tanners of Gloucester, for example, certain families monopolized the trade, and the same names recur repeatedly in the list of masters1. The gilds deliberately sought to close up all avenues to mastership, in order to limit competition and keep their workmen in a condition of economic dependency. Accordingly they compelled an apprentice at his entry into the gild to pay thirty or even forty shillings, "after their own sinister minds and pleasure". A statute of 1531 reduced the fees of apprentices to two and sixpence 2, but the wardens tried to evade this by making apprentices swear that they would not set up as master craftsmen without their licence 3. An ordinance at London in the reign of Edward III. had ordered apprentices who wished to become masters to pay sixty shillings or more, or remain apprentices and wageearners, for fear lest the number of masters should be unduly increased "4. It was afterwards said that this ordinance drove many to leave the city 5. Every effort in sharing in the

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fact was made to shut out strangers from
commercial and industrial life of the towns. At Coventry
the Haberdashers and Butchers extracted from foreigners,
who sought to carry on their trade, a fine of ten pounds;
the Bakers four pounds; and other crafts in proportion 6.
At Chester the fees for admission of strangers to the freedom
of the city were raised in 1557 from twenty-six and eight-
pence to "ten pounds at the least ""; and York pursued

1 Trans. Bristol and Glouc. Archæol. Soc. xiii. 268.

2 And 3s. 4d. at the end of their term: Statutes, iii. 321.
3 Ibid. iii. 654 (1536).

4 Letter Book G, 180.

Vict. County Hist. Warwickshire, ii. 153.

5 Ibid. 212.

7 Morris, Chester, 444.

a similar policy 1. To prevent unfair competition on the part of those who sold inferior wares was a recognized principle of the gild system; to prevent fair competition by excluding rival craftsmen was to distort this principle. The folly of this short-sighted policy was exposed by the author of the Discourse of the Common Weal: "I have heard said in Venice, that most flourishing city in these days of all Europe, if they may hear of any cunning craftsman in any faculty, they will find the means to allure him to dwell in their city; for it is a wonder to see what a deal of money one good occupier doth bring into a town . . but where other cities do allure unto them, our men will expel them out; as I have known good workmen, as well smiths as weavers, have come from strange parts to some cities within the realm, intending to set up their crafts, and because they were not free there, but specially because they were better workmen than was any in the town, they could not be suffered to work there. Such incorporation had those misteries in those towns that none might work there in their faculty, except they did compound with them first Hales was willing that strangers should be required to take up the freedom of the city-otherwise no one would trouble to serve an apprenticeship-but an exception ought to be made "when a singular good workman in any mistery comes, which by his knowledge might both instruct them of the town, being of the same faculty, and also bring into the town much commodity beside" 2. "Private liberties and privileges should give place to the "public weal"; or in other words, the welfare of the city came before the franchises of the crafts.

In addition to the admission fees, whether imposed on Comapprentices or strangers from other towns, some crafts pulsory feasting. compelled new members to give a feast to the gild; in 1560 a cordwainer of Oxford was required to pay forty shillings for his admission, and "also he made the occupation a dinner at his admitting of his free and frank goodwill which came of himself, which cost him twenty-two shillings "".

1 Vict. County Hist. Yorkshire, iii. 450.

2 Lamond, Discourse of the Common Weal, 128-129.

3 Archæol. Journal, vi. 268. In 1485 the admission fees were only 13s. 4d. ibid. 268 (n. 7).

Attempts to

overcome

This liberality was probably compulsory, and the burdens of membership drove craftsmen to seek relief from the financial oppression of the gilds by flight from the towns, setting up in suburbs or country districts. In 1495 the rulers of Norwich framed an order curtailing the charges of the gild feasts1, but the pernicious practice of excessive feasting was revived, and in 1531 it was said that “all the said city is sore decayed because the charges of the said gilds were of so great importance, that many of them that did bear the charges of such gilds could not after that recover the great losses that they sustained in making of the same. By occasion whereof many of them fled and daily went from the said city and inhabited themselves otherwhere for poverty. And many would have come to the same city if it were not for such costs and importune charges that might be laid upon them, which caused that many houses, habitations and dwellings within the same city stood empty and grew to ruin. And in conclusion the same city fell thereby to desolation, the service of God diminished, churches that were wont to be richly adorned ruined and fell down "2. The complaint was renewed at York as late as 1607 that the gilds refused to accept new members unless they paid "a great sum of money or make a breakfast, dinner or supper to the whole company, which hath been to the utter [undoing] of divers young men who have had little store of money to set up their occupation withal ”3.

There are a few traces in other towns of a struggle on the part of the municipal authorities to break down the the gild monopoly. exclusiveness of the crafts. At Oxford in 1531 admission

fees were reduced to twenty shillings, though the limit does not appear to have been observed for any length of time. Again at Coventry (1518) the fines for apprentices were fixed at six and eightpence, and country settlers who had not passed through apprenticeship were only to be charged reasonable fees 5. One or two towns anticipated or followed 1 Records of Norwich, ii. 105.

2 Ibid. ii. III.

3 Vict. County Hist. Yorkshire, iii. 452. 4 Records of Oxford, 107. In 1560 forty shillings were exacted (Archæol. Journal, vi. 268), and in 1575 an attempt was made to extort 10 (ibid. vi. 150). 5 Coventry Leet Book, iii. 655.

the lines of policy laid down by Hales in the passage cited above, and surrendered their monopoly. In 1517 Lincoln, which had suffered severely from pestilence, the loss of its staple and the flight of its inhabitants, and at one time was said to be on the verge of destruction, offered to enfranchise all spinners of wool and other cloth-workers who settled in the city, and to release them for a period of three years from summons of any kind1. Subsequently, however, trouble revived when the Weavers' gild tried to compel weavers settled in the suburbs to contribute to their gild, and the matter was brought before the Court of Requests 2. We shall also see how the mayor of Chester overcame the monopoly of the local manufacturers and introduced weavers from Shrewsbury 3. Again, in 1588, a craftsman was admitted to the freedom of Lynn "and pardoned his fine as a good furrier, and the town has need of one of that craft "4.

of power.

Another complaint directed against the craft gilds was (iii.) Abuse that they were no longer fulfilling the purposes for which they were founded. They were intended to serve the community faithfully and well, to keep their members "in peace, wealth and tranquillity", and to maintain "rule and order " among their apprentices and journeymen. But instead they brought neither "profit nor commodity" to the city, and were decaying alike in "wealth, substance and comely obedience to the distress of the commonwealth of this city and shame, contrary to the true meaning of the first foundation of the fellowships and fraternities" 5. A definite instance of abuse of power is recorded at London in 1471, where the Bakers made presentments of foreign bakers out of envy and malevolence, and made no presentments touching bakers who resided within the liberty of the city; accordingly the mayor and aldermen of the city appointed two officers to assess penalties. The charges levelled against the craft gilds are sometimes regarded as a sign of the degeneracy of the gild system, but they were in no way new. At the opening of the fourteenth century the 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. App. viii. pp. 5, 26, 263. 2 Select Cases in the Court of Requests, 47. 3 Infra, p. 390.

5 Records of Norwich, ii. 296-297 (1543).

4 Antiquary (1911), 375.

6 Letter Book L, 100.

State inter-
vention:
(a) the
statute

of 1437.

London Weavers were arraigned before the itinerant justices at the Tower to meet the indictment that they restricted membership, and framed ordinances for their own private advantage and to the public detriment. In particular, it was said that they limited the output of cloth by allowing no one to work between Christmas and Candlemas or to make pieces of broad cloth in less than four days, although two or three days often sufficed1. But the outcry against the oppression of the craft gilds grew in later centuries until eventually it found expression in two legislative enactments, the import of which we have now to examine.

In 1437 an act of parliament represented that "the masters, wardens and people of the gilds . . . make themselves many unlawful and unreasonable ordinances . . . for their singular profit and common damage to the people "; and ordered that they should submit their ordinances to justices of the peace in counties or to "the chief governors of cities and towns 2. There is a tendency to regard this act as a turning-point in the history of the craft gilds, but there is no reason to assume that it altered the character of the gilds or in any way changed their relation to the municipality or the state. It does not place craft gilds in towns under any external authority; and they still remained subject to the municipal magistrates, not only in their capacity as "chief governors" of the town, but as justices of the peace. An act of 1495, for example, compelled the Shearmen of Norwich to obtain the approval of the mayor and aldermen of the city for any ordinances they might make1. A truer interpretation of the act would seem to be this under Edward III. and his successors, and especially under Henry VI., many of the craft gilds began to receive royal charters by virtue of which their right to control industry was henceforth derived from the Crown rather 1 Riley, Liber Custumarum, i. 416-425.

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2 Statutes, ii. 298. Cunningham (i. 445) quotes the act of 1504 as that of 1437, but there is an important difference in the wording: the words "in prices of wares are not in the act of 1437. The petition which led to this act was prompted by municipalities all over England, not by London, as is sometimes supposed: Rot. Parl. iv. 507.

* Municipal magistrates were appointed as justices of the peace: First Report of the Municipal Corporations (1835), 17. 4 Statutes, ii. 578.

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