composition that neither should exact toll from the other 1. In 1279 a similar arrangement was made between Nottingham and Derby 2, in 1304 between London and Winchester, in 1329 between Salisbury and Southampton 4, in 1452 between Nottingham and Coventry 5, and in 1549 between Cambridge and Lynn. There was also direct intercourse between towns in England and on the continent; the citizens of Amiens, Corbeil and Nesle were admitted to special privileges in London and Norwich as a result of commercial treaties, and London also entered into a commercial treaty with Bayonne (1442) 8. This intercourse was carried on directly, and not through the medium of the central government. In certain directions, however, it is possible to trace from an early date the spread of a uniform economic system and the gradual concentration of national activities in the state. When a town received a charter of enfranchisement it usually adopted the customs of some other town, London, Winchester, Oxford, Breteuil or Bristol, which served as a model for the rest. The charter of the merchant gild at Oxford gave it "all the customs, franchises and laws which belong to the citizens of London "9, and towns frequently made application to the mother town for information respecting its customs and legal procedure 10. This affiliation of boroughs did not invest the parent borough with any rights of political interference or control over the affairs of the daughter town. Their relations were analogous to those of a Greek citystate and its colonies, which cherished the sacred fire taken 1 Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 256. 3 Letter Book C, 133. Records of Nottingham, ii. 362. 2 Records of Nottingham, i. 55. 4 Oak Book of Southampton, ii. 18. Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. iii. 246. 7 Infra, P. 450. * Letter Book K, 270-271. Cf. letters sent abroad to foreign towns complaining of deceits in the textile industries: ibid. I, 257. • Riley, Liber Custumarum, i. 671; Collectanea (Oxford Hist. Soc.), iii. No. 45. Henry II. gave Redcliffe the customs and liberties of Bristol (c. 1164): Latimer, Bristol Charters, 7. Preston received "all the liberties and free customs which I have granted to my burgesses of Newcastleunder-Lyme": Abram, Memorials of the Preston Guilds, 3. On the affiliation of boroughs, see Gross, Gild Merchant, i. App. E. 10 Application of Oxford to London: Sharpe, Cal. of Letters, 90, and next note. Application of Droslan to Hereford: Journal British Archæol. Assoc. xxvii. 460. from the hearth of the mother state to remind them of their common origin, but none the less retained complete independence in the management of their domestic concerns. In England the sacred fire that passed from town to town was the knowledge of law and the ordered liberty that springs from law. The charter granted to Oxford, for example, laid down that “if there be any doubt or dispute of any judgment that they ought to make, they shall send their messengers to London, and what the Londoners shall decide, they shall approve "1. Again, Bedford when in difficulties was to apply to Oxford, and "what the citizens of Oxford shall adjudge, that they shall hold and do without doubt "2. The importance of affiliation lies in the fact that it facilitated the growth of a national economy by clustering the towns together in well-defined groups, each of which followed similar customs and were bound together in a community of economic life. It was thence a single step to assimilate municipal practices to a uniform standard and consolidate the different groups into one compact whole. The mediaeval town thus formed a complete economic whole, in which the interests of the stranger and the general control of economic life were consciously subordinated to the well-being of a select number of burgesses or gildsmen. The gild system undoubtedly fostered a spirit of jealous exclusiveness. The aims of municipal policy were frankly and avowedly selfish, and they were inspired by an energetic determination to assert the supremacy of the townsmen over all who stood outside their own privileged circle. It was immaterial whether the stranger within their gates was an Englishman from a neighbouring town or a foreigner from beyond the sea. He was in either case subjected to disabilities, embodying principles which have long disappeared from modern life. On this account the merchant gild has been severely condemned for its narrow range of vision, for a policy which placed the municipality before the state, and the burgher before the Englishman. But it is 1 Charter Rolls, i. 92. Two occasions are recorded of the mayor of Oxford consulting London: (i.) concerning the rights of a testator, (ii.) procedure re pleas of land: Sharpe, Calendar of Wills, i. p. vi. 2 Charter Rolls, i. 26. only fair to remark that the monopoly which the gild asserted so jealously and guarded so rigorously was won at a heavy sacrifice, and was only maintained by an unremitting care. To all appearance, moreover, they freely extended their privileges to those who were willing to bear the financial burdens by which their franchises were maintained, "supporting at all times all the due and customary burdens within the aforesaid town". If the struggle for freedom bred within the townsmen a spirit of monopoly and harshness of temperament, it was not perhaps without compensation in the eager, active existence in which citizenship carried with it real responsibilities and duties. Among the burgesses at any rate there seems to have been a genuine sense of solidarity, a co-operation of social and economic forces for the common welfare, which made the English borough of the Middle Ages a storehouse of political ideas and a valuable school for political training. It paved the way for the day when the municipality would be merged into the state and the burgesses into the nation. Whether the fruits which it achieved could not have been produced under a system affording more scope for independent enterprise and more latitude for individual initiative, is a question which hardly falls within the province of the historian to determine. It is more important to decide how far the system of commercial monopoly must be condemned on economic grounds. The eminent historian of the gild merchant holds that the rigid protection of the older chartered boroughs sapped their commercial prosperity, and was among the potent factors that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries brought about a great revolution in English municipal history-the widespread decay of once powerful boroughs 2. No one will lightly dissent from these views; yet it would scarcely be safe to attribute undue influence to any one factor, and every instance of the alleged decay of towns must be dealt with on its own merits. In the first place, the monopoly of the towns largely tended in practice to be more apparent than real, for the holding of markets and fairs, 1 Little Red Book of Bristol, i. 102. 2 Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 52. often protracted over the greater part of the year 1, must have afforded ample opportunities for the restricted needs of mediaeval commerce; while the great mass of traders could claim freedom of traffic by virtue of charters or commercial treaties 2. Again the trend of the cloth trade away from the old corporate towns to new industrial centres, while partly prompted by the desire to evade control and escape financial obligations, was ultimately due to the rapid expansion of the woollen manufactures 3. Other factors have also to be taken into consideration: the heavy burden of taxation and the firma burgi, the oppressive character of craft ordinances, changes in the localization of the staple, the transformation of trade routes, and the succession of epidemics and fires. Moreover, many towns were extremely slow in recovering from the Black Death, which dealt a severe blow at their prosperity, and from the Hundred Years' War, which diverted the energies of the nation into unprofitable channels and drained the country of its economic resources. 1 Supra, p. 208. 2 Supra, pp. 252, 275. CHAPTER VIII CRAFT GILDS craft gilds. THE fundamental and perennial interest of the mediaeval Significcraft gilds lies in the fact that they represent a vital stage in ance of the economic evolution, and enable us to discern how industrial problems were handled and solved in the Middle Ages. These problems, it must be acknowledged, differ widely from our own, which are at once more complex and involve larger issues. But in the effort to provide a fair remuneration for the worker and to reconcile the conflicting claims of producer and consumer, were developed principles of industrial control and conceptions of wages and prices to which we may perhaps one day again return. The craft gild comprised three classes of members-the masters, the journeymen and the apprentices. We shall deal first with the institution of apprenticeship as the most typical and instructive feature of the gild system. The object of apprenticeship is defined in an Eliza- Appren bethan state document: "Until a man grow unto the age ticeship. of twenty-three years" he has not "grown unto the full knowledge of the art that he professed". It was a system of technical training, by which the craftsman was initiated into the secrets of his craft and rendered qualified to carry on his calling. The terms of apprenticeship varied. from place to place, but there was everywhere an underlying similarity of ideas and purpose. It was essentially a contractual relation involving mutual obligations on the part of master and apprentice alike. The master was required to provide bed and board and technical training, |