Fellmongers, the Drapers, the Mercers, and the Clothiers. Of the Tanners I cannot speak so decidedly, as during a hurried visit to Coventry I had no opportunity of examining their books.

In looking more closely at the powers of mediæval craft gilds, it is necessary to distinguish a little; a craft gild was a gild which had authority to regulate some particular craft in a given area. I do not, therefore, want to dwell on the features which were common to all gilds, and which can be traced in full detail in the admirable volume edited by the late Mr. Toulmin Smith for the Early English Text Society. I desire to limit consideration to the powers that were special to craft gilds. Like other gilds they had a religious side, in some cases strongly developed, and the members engaged in common acts of worship, especially in common prayers and masses for departed brethren. Like other gilds they had the character of a friendly society, and gave loans to needy brethren, or bestowed alms on the poor. Like other gilds they had their feasts, when the brethren drank their gild, and they had hoods, or livery, which they wore at their assemblies. Like other gilds they took their share in civic festivities and provided pageants at considerable cost; but all these common bonds, important as they were in cementing men into a real fellowship, and in calling forth such different interests and activities among the members, were of a pious, social, or charitable character. There was no reason why such associations should not be multiplied on all sides; even when a gild consisted of men who followed the same craft it was not a craft gild. The case of the journeymen tailors in London who assembled at the Black Friars Church may be taken as conclusive on this point. A gild was not a craft gild unless duly empowered to regulate a particular craft; it might be called into existence for this purpose, or an existing gild might be empowered to exercise such functions, much as the brotherhood of S. Thomas à Becket was changed into the Mercers' Company. The important thing about a craft gild was that it had been empowered to exercise authority in a given area and over certain workmen, as the weavers' gilds had been empowered by charter from Henry I., and as the bakers were empowered by the Court Leet at Coventry, in the sixth year of King John.

Two points were specially kept in view in framing any set of regulations. They were, first, the quality of the goods supplied; and, second, the due training of men to execute their work properly—admirable objects certainly. The machinery which was organised for attaining these objects was also well devised; the men who were thoroughly skilled, and were masters in the craft, had the duty of training apprentices, and the wardens had the right of examining goods exposed for sale, and of making search in houses where the trade was being carried on—again, an excellent arrangement where it could be satisfactorily carried out. And on the whole it seems as if the scheme had worked well, for this simple reason—that while it was maintained, so much work of excellent design and quality was executed. I wish to lay stress on this, because the historian of craft gilds is apt to overlook it. When craft gilds appeared on the stage of history, it was because something was out of gearing, and the institution was working badly. One is apt to infer that since they worked badly whenever we hear of them, they also worked badly when we do not; but I am inclined to interpret the periods of silence differently, and to regard them as times when the organisations were wisely managed, and when the craft gilds enjoyed the proverbial happiness of those who have no history.

There were, however, three different dangers of disagreement, and possible quarrel:—(1) Between a craft gild on one hand and the municipal authorities on the other; (2) between one craft gild and another; (3) between different members of a craft gild.

1. It is obvious that the gilds, if they were to exercise any real authority, required to have exclusive powers within a given district; it is also obvious that these exclusive powers might be misused, so as to be mischievous to the consumers of the goods; a craft gild might take advantage of its monopoly to the gain of the members and the impoverishing of the citizens. The feeling of the citizens would be that the goods supplied by the members of the gild were bad and were dear at the price. It was therefore of the first importance that the citizens should be, in the last resort, able to control the gild, and resume the privileges which their officers exercised. There is a well-known case, which is detailed in Mr. Toulmin Smith's book, which shows how the tailors of Exeter enjoyed a charter from the Crown, and how much trouble they gave to the local authorities under Edward IV.; but it was a matter of common complaint that in many places the gilds had charters from great men which exempted them from proper control.[3] Even in Coventry, where there does not appear to have been interference from without, it was necessary for the leet to keep a tight hand on the craft gilds. An ordinance of 8 Henry V. runs as follows:—"Also that no man of any craft make laws or other ordinance among them but it be overseen by the mayor and his council; and if it be reasonable ordinance and lawful it shall be affirmed, or else it shall be corrected by the mayor and his peers."[4] At a later date we have another entry of the same kind:—"Also that the mayor, warden, and bailiffs, taking to the mayor eight or twelve of the General Council, to come afore them the wardens of all the crafts of the city with their ordinances, touching their crafts and their articles, and the points that be lawful, good, and honest for the city be allowed them, all other thrown aside and had force none, and that they make new ordinances against the laws in oppression of the people, upon pain of imprisonment." In some other towns the craftsmen had to yield up their powers annually and receive them back again from the municipal authority; this was the case with the cordwainers at Exeter,[5] but the Coventry people did not insist on anything so strict.

2. The difficulties between one craft gild and another might arise in various ways; as time went on or trade developed there was an increasing differentiation of employment, and it was not always clear whether the original gild had supervision over all branches of the trade. Thus in London the weavers' gild claimed to exercise supervision over the linen as well as over the woollen cloth manufactures, and this claim was insisted on on the ground that the two trades were quite distinct. In Coventry the worsted weavers, the linen weavers, and the silk weavers were one body, in later times at any rate, though the arts cannot be precisely similar. In other cases there was a question as to whether different processes involved in the production of one complete article should be reckoned as separate crafts or not. Thus the Fullers were organised in independence of the Shearmen in 1438; and during the fifteenth century the sub-division of gilds appears to have gone very rapidly at Coventry, as there were something like twenty-three of them at that time; at the same time from the repeated power which is given to the Fullers to form a fellowship of their own,[6] it appears that they were from time to time