The Conflicts of Capital and Labour

§ 1. THE origin of Guilds is very remote. their existence in this country, in early Anglo-Saxon times, is very clear and distinct, many of their purposes being accurately defined in ancient statutes. According to Dr. Brentano, England is the birthplace of guilds, although something akin to them, but in a ruder form, existed elsewhere at an earlier date. Northern historians ascribe the origin of these guilds to the feasts of the German tribes from Scandinavia. The term signifies a feast, banquet, guild, or corporation; in its primary meaning it implies a feast, and also the company assembled. Banquets and social feasts were the forms of celebration among the German tribes on the occasion of their sacrificial assemblies and anniversary festivals, and also on the occurrence of great political and national events, at which times those assembled deliberated on matters concerning the community, and concluded alliances both for the purposes of protection and of plunder. These feasts were also general in connection with family matters, such as births, marriages, and deaths, and in cases where an inheritance was left, there was something of a legal significance in the celebration of the event. We may recognise in these primitive assemblies the germ from which, in later times, and in certain stages of national growth, the guild developed itself, and became the natural successor of the family,

§ 2. The family is the natural foundation of all social relations; among the German tribes it was an important factor within the community even after they had settled into fixed abodes, and when the local relationship of neighbourhood had widened the sphere of social life and enlarged its circle. Its importance still continued to be recognised when the divisions into "hundreds" not only existed, but were even prevalent in municipal life. Kinship was but the natural extension of the family ties; blood-relationship being the first basis of all early communities, the social circle would be laterally extended so as to embrace those nearest related to each other.

§ 3. These kinsfolk were bound together in mutual responsibility one to the other; as regards the relations of private law the legal protection of life, limb, and property-these were provided for by the family. According to the laws of Ina and Alfred, the paternal and maternal relatives of an offender were in the first degree responsible for his crime. These earlier forms of social life and mutual responsibility continued to exist long after the formation of communities, when society based on local relations had come into existence, and when the ties of mere kinship were lost or merged in the wider relationship of neighbourhood and locality.

§ 4. As society grew more complex and less stationary, it necessarily outgrew these simple ties of blood-relationship; in England this dissolution of the family bond, as the chief element in the community, took place at an early date, and at a time when the temper of the feudal lords rendered the dissolution perilous, and isolation on the part of the "freemen dangerous. All social and political changes are of slow growth, sometimes they are almost imperceptible, especially in the dim records of early times, but in England the development of the earlier forms of social organisation may now be distinctly traced, if not in detail at least in outline.

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§ 5. For a time the providing care of the family satisfied. all existing wants; for society ties there was therefore no But when needs arose which the family could no longer satisfy or provide for, artificial alliances were sought, either to supplement the efforts of the State, or as a protection against

its encroachments. The necessities which called into existence these "artificial alliances" were varied; so also were the objects for which they were formed; but the basis of these early associations was in all cases the same, namely, the union of man with man for mutual advantage and protection. The growth of the towns gave rise to those earlier attempts at organisation, as a means of resistance to the influence and power of the great landed proprietors.

§ 6. The "town," in the first place, consisted of land owners, or "old freeholders"; those only had municipal rights, the "landless" men having no civic rights or recognised national existence. But there grew up within the town men who were not land owners; these had to fight for civil rights, and the sturdy old burghers bought their freedom in the towns, in many instances, by sheer bargaining, for the poverty, or greed, or both combined, of some of the feudal lords had enabled these burghers to purchase charters and grants of municipal liberties.

§ 7. The growth of the craftsmen within the towns gave rise to another form of social life apart from, and often opposed to, the old freeholders; these, in their turn, had to contest for municipal rights and liberties. The history of the rise of these craftsmen of the towns, their early associations, and the struggles by which they won power and privilege from the freeholders and old burghers, singly and combined, have hitherto found but an infinitesimal place in some of our so-called histories, but it forms an important part of our national history properly considered.

§ 8. The earliest distinct form of association which took the place of the family was that of the Frith-guilds. These were circumscribed and narrow at first, but they became broader as industrial and political interests developed themselves. As the family expanded into the brotherhood of kinship, so this in turn gave place to the brotherhood of the Frith-guild. These Frith-guilds in their earlier development, were partly social, partly religious, and partly protective. During the ninth and tenth centuries, the tendency to unite in a kind of guild had become general throughout Europe. The objects of the guild-brother were to seek protection among his fellow-freemen

by voluntary association with his neighbour for the purposes of order and self-defence, and to replace the older and more restricted brotherhood of kinship by a brotherhood based on the broader foundations of social relations.

§ 9. On the Continent these guilds were roughly met and repressed; scourging, nose-slitting, and banishment were the fate of those who united in these voluntary associations. In England they were more fortunate, for the system of "frank pledge," or the free engagement of neighbour for neighbour, was accepted as the basis of social order. Among the laws of Ina (A.D. 688-725) are two touching the liability of the brethren of a guild in the case of slaying a thief; and the laws of Alfred (A.D. 871-901) recognised the common responsibility of the members of the Frith-guild side by side with that of the kinsfolk; while the laws of Athelstan (A.D. 924-940) accepted Frith-guilds as a constituent element of borough life in the "dooms" or laws of London.

§ 10. The Frith-guild in the earlier English towns was similar to those which formed the basis of social order in the country at large. An oath of mutual fidelity among its members was substituted for the tie of blood, while the guildfeast, held once a month in the Common Hall, replaced the gathering of kinsfolk around the family hearth. Within this new family the Frith-guild was to establish a mutual responsibility as close as that of the old, and a protection even more complete and thorough. The one first principle of these guilds was: "If one misdo, let all bear it, let all share the same lot." If any member incurred guilt, or met with mishap, he could look for aid to his guild-brothers, either in atoning or paying. He could call upon them for assistance in case of violence or wrong; if falsely accused, they appeared in court as his compurgators; if poor, they supported him, and when dead they buried him. On the other hand, he was responsible to them, as they were to the State, for order and obedience to the laws. A wrong done against a brother was also a wrong against the general body of the guild, and was punished by fine, or, as a last resort, by expulsion, which left the offender a lawless man and an outcast. If, however, a member committed an act which

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The Conflicts of Capital and Labour: Historically and Economically ...