href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@39030@[email protected]#f_14" id="fna_14" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[14]. So early as to be anterior to the earliest known Frith Gilds, that is to say in the latter half of the seventh century, a regularly organised system of confederation existed among the Anglo-Saxon monasteries throughout England, according to the rules of which the united Abbeys and Religious Houses undertook to pray for the members, living and departed, of one another[15]:

Each of these associations, so various in date and object, bore great resemblance to the Gilds of later times, according as the latter are considered in the light of some one or other of their functions: now it is the common feast, now it is the possession of corporate property, here it is the union of all the workmen of a craft into one sodality, there it is the association of neighbours for mutual responsibility and protection; now it is the confraternity “in omni obsequio religionis.” 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. The real history of Gilds will thus be the history of English Gilds, not of those of the Continent, whose records detail rather a bitter struggle between rival classes in the towns[17]. If the constitutional importance of the Gilds was thus greater on the Continent than it was in England[18], this was because there a social institution was dragged out of its proper sphere of action, and in the arena of politics was shorn of the most attractive of its features.

In these pages we shall be concerned solely with examples drawn from the history of our own country. Where necessary reference will be made to the institutions of other towns, but in general our attention will be concentrated on one provincial borough only—a town, as we have seen, well calculated to illustrate the social life of England in the past. It is only by working out the several departments of local municipal history that anything like a complete view of the subject can be ultimately obtained[19]. In the following chapters an attempt will be made to contribute something towards such a consummation.

The records of the later Craft Gilds at Shrewsbury are entirely satisfactory, but unfortunately those of the Merchant Gild are of the most meagre description. They throw but little light therefore on its functions or history, and still less on the interesting question as to the precise nature of the relationship which existed between the Gilda Mercatoria and the Communa. Our attention will consequently be chiefly directed to an examination of the history and development of the Craft Gilds. A few remarks, more or less general in their scope, on the Merchant Gild seem however to be called for, in anticipation of the history of the later trade associations.

In England, as elsewhere, the growth of the towns was one of the most marked features of the twelfth century. This was due to various causes. William’s conquest had opened up increased facilities for communication with the Continent: the Norman soldiers brought skilled Norman traders in their train, and so war ministered to commerce just as subsequently the Crusades were largely helpful to the growth of trade and the progress of the towns. The vigorous administration of Henry I. and Henry II. had also facilitated the expansion of industry. Henry I. favoured the rising towns both because of their commercial utility and in order to make use of their counterbalancing influence against the power of the Barons. Shrewsbury he took into his own hands, having enforced the surrender of the town from the rebellious Robert de Belesme. The amendment of the currency and the organisation of the Courts of King’s Bench and Exchequer were also as favourable to material prosperity as were the legal reforms of Henry II. afterwards. The circuits of the Justices Itinerant were restored, and appeals to the king in Council were established. A further weakening of baronial power was also effected by the destruction of the castles which the lawlessness of Stephen’s tenure of the sovereignty had permitted; while the introduction of scutage made the king in some measure independent of the feudal forces by enabling him to call in the support of mercenary troops. On the other hand the Assize of Arms restored the national militia to its old important place.

Shrewsbury had seemed to be depressed by the conquest. The town had been granted, in the first instance, to Roger de Montgomery, whose two great works, his castle and his abbey, yet remain. Both the earl and his works were at first the cause of complaint. In Domesday Book it is pointed out that Montgomery had destroyed 51 houses to make room for his castle; to the abbey he had granted 39 burgesses; 43 houses in the town were held by Normans and exempted from taxation. Consequently, as the same sum was required from the town as had been paid tempore regis Edwardi, the burden fell with undue hardship on the English inhabitants who remained.

But the ultimate result of both castle and monastery was beneficial to the town. The latter attracted trade and the former protected it[20], and Shrewsbury early became a commercial centre of some importance.

The towns at this period differed but little from the country. They both engaged in agriculture as well as trade; they were alike governed by a royal officer, or by some lord’s steward. In the towns the houses were of course more closely clustered, and a further difference arose afterwards in the fact that a freeman in the town, when admitted to the Gild, might be landless[21]. The chief distinction indeed between town and country lay in the fact that the former had a Merchant Gild.

The origin of such