Francis Aiden Hibbert

“ The Welsh ravages in the exposed country would induce numbers to seek the friendly shelter of the town, which by this continuous infusion of fresh blood, found its trade become more and more flourishing, and consequently its attractions to “foreigners” more and more powerful. Each branch of industry was also incessantly receiving large accessions of strength in the shape of fugitive villains from the country-side, who, by residence during a year and a day were released from fear of a reclaim to serfdom. ”

“ It is true that a town might become a free borough without possessing a Merchant Gild, but this would be an exception to the general rule. It would be similar to the case of a free borough not holding the firma burgi: such a contingency was possible but unusual. To the mind of the lawyer therefore the possession of a Merchant Gild seemed the necessary precursor of a royal charter of privileges. And in practice this was found to be, speaking generally, the case.
This apparent identity of Burgesses and Gildsmen would find palpable expression in the fact of the Gild Hall becoming the Town Hall. ”

“ The system of elaborate organisation by which men had regulated trade in the past had given way to an equally complete system of individualism. Confused philosophical reasoning, combined with the decay of old means of regulation, had produced this anti-social state of things. Individual competition, in uncontrolled energy, reigned supreme amid almost incredible suffering and squalor. ”

“ There was indeed a feature in the modern companies which at the outset deprived the attempt to utilise them beneficially for trade-purposes of all chance of success.
The Gilds have changed to capitalist companies.
The old Gilds, which had lived through the shocks of the Reformation, and the Elizabethan changes, had quite altered their character. The new ones which had arisen differed widely from the old fraternities. Instead of being brotherhoods of craftsmen desirous of advancing the public weal, they were now mere societies of capitalists, intent only on private and personal advantage. ”

“ There is a constant endeavour to restrict the companies to favoured individuals. Every “foreigner” is subjected to a heavy fine, which grows larger in amount as the companies feel the trade slipping from their hands in spite of their desperate endeavours to restrict it. The new compositions continually point to this abuse by bringing back the fines to their original sum, or rather reducing them to an amount less inordinate than that which they have irregularly reached. ”

“ In order to carry out the rules of the Gilds it was imperative that all men of a trade should belong to the particular Gild of that craft. For there might come men carrying on trade in the town unwilling to submit to the rules framed for ensuring good work and protecting the interests of the craft. These it would be impossible to check until the Gild had been recognised and authorised by the crown or the corporation, and so had obtained power to enforce its ordinances in a legitimate way. ”

“ We have noticed the existence of something of this contradictory spirit in the view we have had of the early Gilds [180] . The elevated ideal which they set before their members must of course have been far above the level which was ever actually reached. We may smile at their vain attempts after the impossible, yet we cannot but allow that their perseverance betokens the widespread acceptance of a nobler conception of human life than is common in our own too merely practical age. ”

“ Up to the present the Trades Unions have made no real attempt to grapple with this evil, though its removal is a necessary preliminary to anything like completeness in our industrial reformation. Until they can show their ability to direct trade in this respect in a manner more beneficial to the community than competing capitalists have done during the past, the student will find their analogy to the mediæval Gilds incomplete (and that in a point where the latter might be followed with benefit) , and the public will consider their usefulness to society unsatisfactory. ”

“ This remarkable document, which Canon Dixon printed for the first time, is of surpassing interest, not only to the historian of the Craft Gilds but also to the student of constitutional history. The unscrupulous recourse of the government to jobbery and corruption is not more revolting than the evidence of the increasing constitutional power of the Commons is interesting. ”

“ Organisation indeed seems to have been a characteristic of the English people at all stages of their history. The Saxons had their Frith Gilds and their Monks’ Gilds; the English of the Middle Ages had their Merchant, Religious, Social, and Craft Gilds; in the sixteenth century they had their Trade Societies, the direct and in many cases the little-altered successors of the Craft Gilds. Then came the larger Regulated Companies, which also had some features in common with the mediæval Gilds, more with the sixteenth century societies. ”

“ And when the introduction of machinery transformed the face of England to such a large extent, the changes which it brought to Shrewsbury were extremely slight. Local life was strong. The town was slow to accommodate itself to new conditions of industry. Its Gilds and companies maintained their vigour to the end. Their yearly pageant continued to our own day. The timbered houses which the substantial tradesmen built in the days of their prosperity are still, many of them, standing. The streets of the town have been only gradually altered and improved. ”

“ It is a mistake to speak of the rise of the Craft Gilds in England as a movement bitterly hostile to the Merchant Gilds and therefore strenuously opposed by the latter. The reverse was the fact. The increased complexity of the task of regulating trade, as division of labour developed and commerce expanded its bounds, became difficult, and the central [Pg 21] body was for this additional reason glad to depute its powers to, and to exercise its functions through, smaller and specialised agencies. ”

“ The services which the Gilds rendered to the cause of liberty by the feeling of strong cohesion which they produced among the townsmen would be less difficult to estimate if the burgesses had played a more distinctive part in the work of Parliament [90] . It is easier to point out how, if they may have interfered to some extent with family life on the one hand, they on the other increased the tendency to narrowness and localism which was otherwise sufficiently strong throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed through considerably later times. ”

“ Now, then this monopoly, as it is called, extends no further than to exact an apprenticeship of seven years, or to a fine of £20; the former sanctioned by law and the latter a sum of no comparative amount to a respectable person, desirous of establishing a respectable trade, especially if there be any truth in the argument, that goods are sold by this corporate body for more money than they would be, if no such corporation existed. Neither can the fine be called excessive, because it is added to a stock which he from whom it is exacted directs in common to be applied to the common good ”

“ The Socialists have always made State-organisation of labour one of the strongest planks of their platform [231] . At the same time Englishmen have looked with peculiar jealousy on any attempts by the state to extend its sphere of action. Nevertheless a steady development has been witnessed in this direction; the various Civil Services show a uniform increase with the numbers and requirements of the nation. The Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Charity and Ecclesiastical [Pg 142] Commissioners, are further indications of the same tendency towards organisation. ”

“ For the principal members of the companies were the principal members of the town corporation, which had silently, since the fourteenth century, been usurping the ancient powers of the general body of the burgesses. It was the companies which mainly profited by it. They profited indirectly, by the influence which they exercised through individual members on the town council, which had obtained part of the functions of the Leet. They profited directly as they themselves acquired definitely other of the powers of the Court Leet. ”

“ It has been pointed out that the Gilds prevented extreme poverty from ever becoming at all normal. Uncertainty of employment and demoralising fluctuations of wages are among the most crying evils of our modern social régime. The Craft Gilds did much to secure regularity of work and to steady the price of labour. ”

“ But the later Communa did not take cognisance of trade affairs except indirectly through the Craft Gilds which the increasing complexity of trade was calling into being. Many of the members of these latter bodies were members of the Merchant Gild, and to them were added large numbers of the lesser craftsmen. The Craft Gilds specialized the work of the Merchant Gild, which gradually ceased to discharge any important office as a collective whole, though through the many branches into which it had ramified its influence continued to be of the greatest importance to the welfare of town and trade. ”

“ The proportion of journeymen to apprentices was regulated: there were to be three apprentices to one journeyman. The workman was protected from wilful dismissal. The hours of labour were defined, and Justices of the Peace or the town magistrates were to assess wages yearly at the Easter Sessions. All disputes between masters and servants were to be settled by the same authorities. The statute [Pg 82] incorporated everything that was worth taking in the ordinances of the Gilds and applied it nationally to the regulation of the country’s trade.
Trade-regulation becomes national instead of local. ”

“ In these days of convenience and easy transit, when distance has been annihilated by the telegraph wire and the express train, we can hardly realise, even with an effort, the extent to which such changes have revolutionised the social life of Englishmen. ”

“ In the first place the Companies hold it requisite, in order to be free of their body, that all but the sons of Freemen shall serve a regular apprenticeship to one of the Corporation. Now in this they have been sanctioned and dictated to by the ancient law of the land ... that youths might be properly taught their respective arts, and that the community might not be imposed upon by pretenders to that which they were not properly acquainted with. ”

“ Nevertheless where commercial privileges were at stake the distinction was rigidly preserved by every means in the possession of the townsmen. The tenser’s fine was maintained up to the present century, though not without considerable difficulty. On every hand there were evidences that the companies had outlived their usefulness. Friction was everywhere injuring the social machine. Competition and individualism had taken the place of custom and co-operation. At Winchester there were grievous complaints of intruders who did “use Arts, Trades, Misteries and manual occupations ... ”

“ The Commons saw in its true enormity the conspiracy of the rich and powerful against the weak and poor, and this once perceived a check was given, tardy but not quite too late, to the [Pg 69] long and disastrous course of spoliation and confiscation.
The opposition to the bill was obstinate, especially as regarded that portion which dealt with the Gilds. Led by the members for Lynn and Coventry the house showed unmistakeably that it was at length determined to submit no longer. In fact the feeling was evidently so strong that the government perceived the absolute necessity of drawing back. ”

“ At this juncture came the breaking down of the social police within the towns by the weakening of the Gilds, while in the rural districts the dissolution of the monasteries took away from the poor their main hope of sustenance. The evils which such a policy of mere destruction must inevitably have brought upon the nation were averted through the national growth of wealth which the same period had witnessed. ”

“ If a man be slain in fair quarrel with a Gild-brother the wite is to be borne by all, but the wilful or treacherous murderer is “to bear his own deed.”
These Gilds rapidly spread over all Europe, and existed probably in every town. They doubtless formed the model to which the later associations looked, and, except in details, differed little from the Craft Gilds. They were frequently connected with trade, even in some instances consisting entirely of followers of specific crafts [105] , and loans were made out of the common chest to help members in misfortune [106] . ”

“ The journeymen no longer in the companies.
It is by reason of the widely-reaching influence of their degeneracy that their later history is of importance. For as regards the poorer members of society their history is useless. The workman disappears from their books. That he no longer was looked upon as the brother member of the masters is quite evident.
“Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease,
We go when we will, and we come when we please [173] .”
They begin to form benefit societies, animated by much of the old Gild-spirit. ”

“ Such a tendency to association is simply the result of man’s gregarious nature, and there is no need to restrict what is found alike in all peoples and all periods. But it is none the less true that the tendency has been more strongly marked in England than elsewhere. The earliest Gild Statutes which have come down to us are English [16] , and the development of Gilds in England proceeded according to its normal course without being diverted and confused by external and disturbing circumstances. ”