Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/97

 GUILDS

67

GXTILDS

establishment of a kind of insurance-fund against losses, and the furnishing of assistance in the cap- ture of thieves. These provisions, however, are characteristic rather of the merchant guilds which grew up during the latter half of the eleventh century.

Merchant Guilds. — These differed from their prede- cessors, the religious or frith guilds, by being estal> lished primarily for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining the privilege of carrjang on trade. Hav- ing secured this privilege the guilds guarded their monopoly jealousl.v. Everj-where the right to buy and sell articles of food seems to have been left free, but every other branch of trade was regulated by the merchant guild or hanse, as it was often called. The first positive mention of a merchant guild, the " cnigh- ten on Cantwareberig of ceapmannegilde", occurs during the primacy of St. Anselm (1093-1109). From the time of Henry I the charters of successive sover- eigns bear witness to the existence of merchant guilds in the principal towns. These charters, such as those granted to Bristol, Carlisle, Durham, Lincoln, Oxford, Salisbury, and Southampton, were of the utmost importance to the guilds as they secured to them the right and power of enforcing the guild regulations with the sanction of law. For this reason Glanvill, the lawyer, writing in the twelfth century, regards the guild merchant as identical with the commune, that is, the body of citizens with rights of municipal self-government (Ashley, op. cit., inf., 72). From the fact that out of one hundred and sixty towns which were represented in the parliaments of Edward I, ninety-two are certainly known to have possessed a merchant guild, the conclusion is drawn that a guild was to be found in every town of any size, including some that were not much more than vil- lages.

The organization of the merchant guilds is known from the constitutions or guild rolls which have sur- vived. The.se documents are only four in number, but fortunately refer to towns in four tlii'ferent parts of England. They are the guild statutes of Berwick and of Southampton, and the guild rolls for Leicester and Totnes (Ashley, p. 67). From these we learn that each guild was presided over by one or two aklermen assisted by two or four wardens or cchcHns. These officials presided over the meetings of the society and administered its funds and estates. They were as- sisted by a council of twelve or twenty-four members. The guildsmen were originally the actual burgesses, those inhabitants who held land within the town boundaries, whether they were merchants or holders of agricultural land: but in coiu'se of time rights of membership passed by inheritance and even by pur- chase. Thus the eldest sons of guildsmen were ad- mitted free as of right, while the younger sons paid a smaller fee than others. The guildsmen could sell their rights, and heiresses might exercise their mem- bership either in person or through their husbands or sons.

The merchant guilds possessed extensive powers, including the control and monopoly of all the trades in the town, which involved the power of fining all traders who were not memljers of the guild for illicit trading, and of inflicting punishment for all breaches of honesty or offences against the regulations of the guild. They also had liberty of trading in other towns and of protecting their guildsmen wher- ever they were trading. They exercised supervision over the quality of goods sold, and prevented strangers from directly or indirectly buying or selling to the injury of the guild. Besides these commercial ad- vantages the guild entered largely into the life of all its members. The guildsmen took their part as a corpor- ate body in all religious celebrations in the town, organized festivities, provided for sick or impoverished brethren, undertook the care of their orphan children,

and provided for Masses and dirges for deceased members, ,4s time went on the merchant guilds be- came more exclusive, and when the rise of manu- factures in the twelfth century caused an increase Ln the number of craftsmen, it was natural that these should organize on their own account and form their own guilds.

Craft Guilds. — Seeing that the merchant guilds had become identical with the municipality, the craftsmen, ever increasing in numbers, struggled to break down the trading monopoly of the merchant guilds and to win for themselves the right of super- vision over their own body. The weavers and fullers were the first crafts to obtain royal recogni- tion of their guikis, and l>y 1130 they had guilds established in London, Lincoln, and Oxford. Little by little through the next two centuries they broke down the power of the merchant guilds, which received their death-blow by the statute of Edward III which in 1335 allowed foreign merchants to trade freely in England. In the system of craft guilds the administration lay in the hands of wardens, bailiffs, or masters, while for admission a long appren- ticeship was necessary. Like the merchant guilds, the craft guilds cared for the interests both spiritual and temporal of their members, providing old age and sick pensions, pensions for widows, and burial funds. The master craftsman was an independent producer, needing little or no capital, and employing journey- men and apprentices who hoped in time to become master craftsmen themselves. Thus there was no "working class" as such, and no conflict between capital and labour. .\t the end of the reign of Ed- ward III there were in London forty-eight companies, a number which later on rose to sixty. Besides the merchant and craft guilds, the religious and social guilds continued to exist through the Middle ."Vges, being largely in the nature of confraternities. At the Reformation these were all suppressed as supersti- tious foundations. The trade guilds survived as corporations or companies, such as the twelve great companies of London which still maintain a corporate existence for charitable and social purposes, though they have ceased to have close conne.xions with the crafts, the names of w'hich they bear. The merchant guild of Preston also survives in a similar state, but such bodies have no real significance. The Refor- mation shook their constitution, while the altered in- dustrial and social conditions finally deprived them of the power and influence they had possessed in the Middle Ages.

TouLMiN Smith, English Gilds; ordinances of over 100 English Gilds, uith the usages of Winchester. Worcester, Bristol etc. In- troduction on the histon,' of guilds by Brenta.vo. Early Eng- lish Text Society, Vol. XL (London. 1870) : Gross, Gilda merca- toria (Gottingen. 1S83): Bl.\nc, Bibliographic des corporations ouvriires avant /7<SS(Paris, 1885); Seligman, Mediaeval Gilds of England in Publicaiions of American Economic Association. II, No. 5 (New York, 1887); Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, I (London, 1888); Lambert, Two Thousand Years of Gild Life, containing bibliography by Page (Hull, 1891); Milnes. From Gild to Factory (London, 1904); G^^CiVE.T, Eve of the Reformation {Ijondon. 1900).

Edwin Bubton.

In Fl.\nders .vnd Fr.\nce. — The word gilde, or ghilde, is but one of many terms used formerly in France and in the Low Countries to denote what the more modern word corporation stands for, viz., an as- sociation among men of the same community or pro- fession. Gilde, metier, metier jure, confrerie, nation, maitri^es et jurandes, and other like appellations, all essentially express this idea of association, at the same time laying stress on some particular feature of it. The word gilde, however, is the first to appear and we meet it very early in the history of western conti- nental Europe. A capitulary of 779 says: "Let no one dare to take the oath by which people are wont to form guilds. Whatever may be the conditions which have been agreed upon, let no one bind himself by