Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/274

Rh 260 GUILD predated among the poorer companies. They formed rules for good behaviour at table, and admitted women as members ; they &quot; affirmed their existence by a common worship,&quot; choosing a patron god. From these and other resemblances Mr H. C. Coote contends that there is an identity between the Roman collegia and the guilds of Saxon growth; and M. Raynouard was an advocate of a similar descent in France and Italy. But though analogous in mlny respects, as far as is known they lacked the essential element of the guild, that of mutual help in sickness and poverty; the soldiers colleges, formed in spite of the law which forbade them, approach the nearest to this character, in providing their members with travelling expenses and retiring pensions. The evidence against the connexion between the collegium and the guild is regarded by the ablest German writers who have investigated the subject as conclusive, but this interesting historical question has not yet been fully worked out. 1 The Greeks also, in the 2d and 3d centuries B.C, had their associations of the same kind, called Eranoi or Thiasoi, which were numerous at Rhodes, in the islands of the Archipelago, at the Piraeus, and in other important places. These societies partook more nearly of the char acter of the mediaeval guilds than did the Roman ; the members paid contributions to a general fund, aided one another in necessity, provided for funerals, met in assembly to deliberate on their affairs, and celebrated feasts and religious sacrifices in common. Strict rules against disorderly conduct were to be enforced by fine ; he who did not pay his yearly quota to the society was excluded, unless he could show good cause of poverty or sickness. Women could be members, and were admitted to the meetings. Some of these societies concerned themselves with religion, others with politics or commerce ; in the cause of liberal as opposed to official religion, they appear to have done good service. It is perhaps of little use attempting to ascribe to any one country or race the special initiative of these institu tions, any more than it would be to say that the custom of men to congregate in towns originated with this or that nation. Human nature is the same everywhere, and two motives induce men to join together : weakness, seeking the power of numbers for resisting oppression, or for mutual assistance ; and the affinity which those pursuing the same occupation and possessing the same interests have for each other. These motives are sufficient to account for the existence of the Eranoi in Greece, contem porary with the Collegia of the Romans ; they are sufficient to explain why, although the collegia opificum, or artisans guilds, are found as late as the code of Justinian, and that 50 or 60 years later, in the Cth century, we have record of a soap-makers craft in Naples (Letter of Pope Gregory the Great, lib. x. epist. 26; Migne s Pat. Curs., vol. Ixxvii.), the guilds in the towns of Italy should begin a new life in the 10th century (Hegel); they can explain why in England we find from the 7th to the 10th century other guilds actively in existence, while in Norway they were instituted in the llth century. These societies &quot;may thus have one history in China, another in India, another in Greece or Rome, another in the Europe of the Middle Ages ; the like needs will require the like kinds of help, and develop insti tutions which, amid whatever diversities of outward garb, will substantially fulfil the same ends&quot; (J. M. Ludlow). In the Middle Ages guilds are recognized as belonging to three or four classes. In the north of Europe the frith 1 For a valuable sketch of the Collegia, including trade-guilds and burial-guilds, see &quot;Les societes ouvrieres a Rome. &quot; by Gaston Boissier, Revue des Deux Mondes, December 1871; also &quot;The Friendly Societies of Antiquity,&quot; by H. Tompkins, Oddfellows Magazine, April 1868, and the article CLUB. or peace-guild was an important form, widely spread in early times. These were associations for defence, based upon mutual obligations, &quot; sworn communities for the pro tection of right and the preservation of liberty ; &quot; we see traces of them in England from the laws of Ina (7th cen tury) down to the &quot;Dooms&quot; of London in Athelstan s time (10th century). These statutes of the old London peace- guild are thus shortly described by Prof. Stubbs : &quot; A monthly meeting is directed, at which there is to be bytt- fylling and a refection, the remains of which are to be bestowed in alms : on the death of a member each brother gives a loaf, and sings or pays for the singing of fifty psalms Each member pays fourpence for common purposes, towards a sort of insurance fund from which the guild makes good the losses of members, and a con tribution of a shilling towards the pursuit of the thief. The members are arranged in bodies of ten, one of whom is the head man; these again are classed in tens under a common leader, who with the other head-men acts as treasurer and adviser of the hundred members. &quot; The early English recognized the responsibility of the guild for the actions of its members and their mutual liability, - the fundamental principle of English institutions for keeping the peace; besides this, the rules still exist of Saxon guilds at Abbotsbury, Woodbury, Cambridge, and Exeter, and show by the many points in common with the social guilds of later English growth whence these derived their descent. Abroad, the frith guilds in the llth and 12th centuries extended over the Continent ; one of the most remarkable was founded at Roeskild, under king Canute, for the suppression of the piracy of the vikings. Others, as in Schleswig, Artois, Flensburg, &amp;lt;fcc., joined for hindering violence and maintaining peace, by all means that law and custom allowed, even against kings. These guilds became of such importance that in many places their law grew to be that of the commune or town (see BOROUGH). In France the great development of town governments at this period was frequently but the acknowledgment of an already existing defensive guild, or of the important mer chant or craft guilds. At Montpellier and Paris, in the beginning of the 13th century, the trade guilds took part in the watch and ward of the city, and thus were a recog nized part of the commune. The same was the case in London in early times. 2 Even as late as the 15th century a guild was founded at Ghent, composed of the culverineers, arquebusiers, and gunners, in order to teach the burgesses the use of firearms, so as to be able to defend the town or suppress troubles. It became the chief guild of the city, had public festivities, admitted women as &quot;consoours,&quot; and possessed many of the features of both peace and socialguilds, In the Frankish empire guilds were numerous for defence, for conviviality, and for religious and social duties, among the serfs and the clergy as well as others ; but under Charlemagne and his successors they suffered great oppres sion, and were persecuted by both ecclesiastical and secular authorities. In later times the clergy formed special societies called Guilds of Kalenders, so named from their meeting day having originally been on the kalends of each month (Brentano) ; these were to be found in many towns on the Continent, sometimes we read of the major and minor guilds for the higher and lower clergy. The only company that is known to have partaken of this character in England was the ancient Guild of the Kalenders at Bristol, which kept the records of that town and other places, and in its later years supported a school for Jews. A class of guilds widely spread in the Middle Ages, especially in England, were those which have been distin guished by the name of Social (Toulmiu Smith) or Religious 2 The custom of &quot;setting out the watch,&quot; or the &quot;inarching watch,&quot; in London, Bristol, Worcester, &c., on midsummer eve, ori ginated in the part taken in the defence of the city by the trade guilds or companies of those places; it ras a kind of &quot;military muster&quot; (Herbert).