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of the merchant gild consisted in the exclusive right of its members to buy and sell within the borough, retail and wholesale, on market days and all other times without payment of toll or custom. It is expressly stated in the charter to Oxford, for example, that "none who is not of the gild shall do any traffic in the city or suburbs "1. Only in an emergency were gildsmen as a rule required to pay toll on their merchandise, as at Southampton in 1355 to complete the fortifications of the town 2. Sometimes the monopoly of trading extended to the whole body of burgesses, but here apparently the borough had no gild; in the reign of Henry I. merchants could buy wool, hides or cloth within the borough of Newcastle if they were burgesses, and Newcastle did not obtain a merchant gild till 1216 3. Occasionally the monopoly of the gild extended beyond the walls of the borough. A charter of Henry II. enacted that no one "within a radius of ten leagues of Nottingham ought to work dyed cloth except in the borough of Nottingham"; and some other towns enjoyed the same privilege.

commercial

by gilds

The commercial monopoly of the gild - brethren was Nature limited in certain directions, but the limitations were of the dictated not by a sense of national needs, but solely by a monopoly regard for their own narrow interests. They were conscious possessed that to insist upon the strict letter of their privileges, and men. shut out all merchant strangers from their midst, would impair their prosperity and tend to their own hurt. Hence non-gildsmen were allowed to buy and sell wholesale, provided that (1) they paid toll, (2) sold their commodities to gildsmen only 5, and (3) did not buy certain enumerated commodities like wool, grain, untanned leather and unfulled cloth ®, the supply of which was limited and therefore reserved for the use of the town. Thus in the ordinances of the Southampton gild none but gildsmen were quit of toll, or

1 Riley, Liber Custumarum, i. 671. 2 Oak Book of Southampton, ii. 119. • Ballard, Borough Charters, 211.

Nottingham: Records, i. 3. Derby P. Yeatman, Records of Chesterfield (1884), 18.

5 In 1305 the mayor of Oxford was ordered not to prevent strangers from selling victuals in Oxford provided (a) they paid toll, (b) and did not sell retail: O. Ogle, Royal Letters addressed to Oxford (1892), 17.

• Oak Book of Southampton, i. 35; Cf. Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 46.

could buy anything in the town of Southampton to sell again there as retail1. The rule against retail trading was intended primarily to compel merchant strangers to sell their wares to native dealers instead of direct to consumers; apparently it did not apply to country folk who brought their produce to the town market, though of course they would be required to pay toll. Again, provisions and other small wares could probably be bought and sold in the town even by non-gildsmen, provided they bought for their own use and not for purposes of trade. This may be inferred from an ordinance at Southampton, where a gildsman guilty of certain offences could not buy or sell in the town during the year saving only his victuals 2. At Ipswich also, a stranger could sell victuals by retail, and elsewhere 'foreign' traders were allowed to bring provisions freely into the town. But the unenfranchised trader dwelling within the borough was forbidden to sell retail or to keep open shop. It is common to find non-burgesses presented for these offences and particularly for buying and selling retail 4. The gildsmen were especially exercised to prevent any evasion of toll, and it was therefore a serious offence for a gildsman to avow the goods of a stranger as his own to enable the latter to escape custom. The offence of colouring' goods, as it was termed, or acting as factor for non-gildsmen, involved loss of gildship or other heavy penalty 5. The oath of the freeman of London ran: "Ye shall not avow as your own the goods of foreigners, whereby the king shall lose his custom". At Hereford, if a citizen protected the goods of strange merchants as though his own property "to the hurting of our customs", he was held to have perjured himself, and on that account lost his freedom 7. Similarly at Newcastle a merchant adventurer who shipped the goods of non-members forfeited a penalty. All relations with strangers were in fact strictly forbidden. A gildsman could not enter into partnership a Ibid. i. 39.

1 Oak Book of Southampton, i. 35.

Bacon, Ipswich, 147. Similarly, Northampton: Records, i. 301. 4 Letter Book C, 19; Records of Nottingham, i. 317.

5 Oak Book of Southampton, i. 37; Records of Norwich, i. 187; Morris, Chester, 393-395. • Letter Book D, 195.

" Journal British Archæol. Assoc. xxvii. 476.

8 Newcastle Merchant Adventurers, i. 30.

with a non-gildsman to trade with his money or sell his goods for part-profits1. He could not travel in the country with merchant strangers directing them where to buy wool or other merchandise 2, and craftsmen were not allowed to teach country folk a knowledge of their mistery 3.

of 'lot'.

An important privilege attaching to membership of the The right merchant gild was that of sharing in any commercial transaction made by a fellow-gildsman. If a gildsman made a purchase, whether in markets, fairs, or in his native town, it was open to other gildsmen to claim a portion of it at the original price at which the commodity had been bought 4. The mayor alone was exempted from the obligation to share his bargains. The exercise of the privilege, however, was usually conditional on the merchant being present at the making of the bargain in which he claimed the right to go shares. This proviso is explicitly laid down in the Southampton ordinances: "a gildsman shall have a share in all the merchandise which another gildsman buys, if he is on the spot where the merchandise is bought "". But at Berwick even those who were not present at the transaction were allowed to share, provided they paid "to the buyer twelvepence for profit "". The system lent itself easily to abuse and it was necessary to guard against dishonest trickery. "Certain persons", we are told in the Norwich custumal, "have a practice of making their purchases by two, three or four, or more of their servants . so that they have two, three or four parts or more of that merchandise as against a peer [freeman] of the city". It was therefore ordered that none should henceforth make such purchases in the city save by themselves or one of his servants only, so that his fellow-citizens " may share equally if they wish. As a rule, the right of lot, as the privilege was called, was laid down in gild ordinances, but at Grimsby it was inserted in the town charter "that it be not denied

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Oak Book of Southampton, i. 37.

1 Records of Leicester, i. 88, 93; Records of Leicester, i. 92. 4 Records of Leicester, i. 271. • Oak Book of Southampton, i. 39. Customs, ii. 178.

3 York Memorandum Book, i. 54.
At any rate at Leicester: ibid. i. 180.
Similarly Sandwich: Borough

7 J. T. Smith, English Gilds (1870), 345.

8 Records of Norwich, i. 184.

to any burgess of the town to share in any bargains, provided he was present at the sale" 1. At Norwich, which had no gild merchant, the obligation was imposed upon the burgesses in the bye-laws of the borough. The privilege was intended to foster equality, and protect the poor from the rich by preventing the monopoly of trade falling into the hands of the few. It embodied the principle that every burgess should have a share in trade "sufficient for the maintenance of himself and his family" ". The liability of each citizen for the misdeeds of fellow-citizens, of which we shall speak presently, had at any rate a partial compensation in the common right of protection against merchant strangers and above all in an equality of opportunity. The increasing tendency to individualism which marked the later Middle Ages and is especially characteristic of the sixteenth century, revealed itself in a growing reluctance to comply with the obligation, and the charge of evasion became a very common offence at the gild court 4. In 1587 the jurors at Southampton in complaining of the decay of the system laid remarkable emphasis upon its merits: "In times past there hath been a very good order devised, that every burgess of this town should have a part of any bargain made with strangers for any commodity brought to the town, claiming the same in a convenient time, as in the same ancient order may appear. By which device it may evidently appear to us that the chiefest and men of greatest credit and wealth, into whose hands the best and most profitable bargains were like for the most to come, did not respect their own private gains so much as the maintenance of the state of this town, knowing that always they were to continue in the same, but others should grow under them, and therefore willing that the younger people should be partakers with them. Which being so good and politic an order for the estate of this town, we desire your

1 Borough Customs, ii. 168.

4

2 Records of Norwich, i. 184.

Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 185 (pro sustentatione). Eg. Records of Leicester, i. 78. At Coventry (1440) "whoever buys salt fish according to the custom of the town is to distribute it among his neighbours at the same rate at which they were first bought": Leet Book, i. 193. Butchers also had to share wholesale bargains (1468): ibid. ii. 338.

worships may be continued in that good sort and meaning as first it was devised" 1.

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The communal aspect of the gild merchant was also Common bargains. marked in the efforts made to promote co-operation and collective bargaining among the gild-brethren. The gild itself, as an organized body of traders, engaged in commercial transactions. In some towns the gild officers claimed the sole right to deal in certain commodities, the profits of which went into the common purse 2. At other times they could make the first bid for the wholesale purchase of imported cargoes, which were then distributed among the gildsmen at retail prices; these joint purchases were known as common bargains". At Liverpool all produce brought into the town was first to be offered for sale to the community and a value placed upon it by the appraisers; if the merchant rejected the offer, he had then to purchase licence to sell in open market 3. These joint-stock purchases were also common at Berwick, where the authorities made communal purchases" for the common weal of the town" 4. At Chester the profits were devoted to public objects, and here the owner of the cargo was required to give the option of purchase to the mayor; the option lasted for no less than forty days, a period later reduced to ten in order not to discourage trade 5. At Bristol, when a ship came to port, the town-traders assembled to decide "what is to be done in that behalf for the weal of the said fellowship", that is, they prevented competition by a preconcerted arrangement as to the prices at which the cargoes should be bought. The practice of collective bargaining sprang partly from a determination to place the merchant stranger always at a disadvantage, and partly to promote equal opportunities for trade among the brotherhood. It has an additional interest for us in that it appears to have contained the germ of the later joint-stock company?.

1 Southampton Court Leet Records, 262.

2 E.g. millstones at Lynn: Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 165.

3 Ibid. ii. 148.

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4 Hist. MSS. Comm. Various Collections, i. 10.

5 Morris, Chester, 391. Apparently Leicester is an exception, for here, it is said, there were no common bargains': Records of Leicester, i. p. xxxiii. • J. Latimer, Merchant Venturers' Society, Bristol (1903), 32.

7 Cf. W. R. Scott, Joint-Stock Companies (1912), i. 6.

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