cost price, on request, and paying ready money, under penalty of 20s. for refusing to share."

§ 31. So long as any members were out of work, no brother was permitted to work with a non-member. But they were always allowed to employ their wives, children, and servants, for the whole of the household belonged to the guilds; they were, however, not allowed to work with other women. At this time the manufactures were chiefly domestic, and hence by means of these regulations the guilds often degenerated into family coteries. If a guild-brother died, the widow could continue to carry on the trade and remain in the guild; if she married again to a man of the same trade she conferred on him the freedom of the guild, but if she married one of another trade she was excluded.

§ 32. Members were forbidden to offer insults to, or ill-use a brother, or to appear before a court of justice in case of disputes about debts or other matters, unless every part of the transaction had been first examined by the wardens, and compromise appeared impossible: their rules, moreover, contained provisions relating to their domestic conduct towards each other, and prohibiting unneighbourly tricks.

§ 33. These guilds stood in the same relationship to their members as the head of the family, each and all were equally provided for and assisted; but besides looking after the temporal welfare of the members, they were to some extent also religious fraternities: in this respect the craft-guilds of all countries were alike. They chose particular saints for their patrons, they founded masses, erected altars, and in churches and cathedrals put up painted windows where to-day their coats of arms range proudly by the side of kings and barons. In later times they went in solemn processions to their churches, and even now, in country villages, some of the local clubs do the same. They had their ordinances for the support of the sick and poor, and settled homes for some of the distressed. Every year special masses were said for the dead, the names of all the departed guild-brothers being mentioned in these services; and on the death of any brother special services were held for his soul, and alms were distributed to the

poor, who in return had to offer up prayer for the departed member.

§ 34. Sometimes we find several craft-guilds belonging to the same trade in one town; as, for instance, in London there were two farmers'-guilds, one without Newgate, the other without Cripplegate; similarly there were four weavers'-guilds at Cologne in the thirteenth century. The same thing exists in trade unions to-day. Similarly there was a tendency to unite or confederate, as the Cologne weavers did in 1396, and the fullers and shearmen in London in 1527. In some cases they formed large amalgamations like the engineers and carpenters do now over the entire country. In 1361 the tailors' union in Germany extended to twenty-five Silesian towns. Nearly a century later the cutlers'-guilds in Germany united into four great fraternities at Augsburg, Munich, Bâle, and Heidelberg; by these all disputes, which could not be settled by the separate guilds or by their presidents, were legally decided. But the most renowned of these confederations was that of the building lodges of Germany. This was effected in 1452; two years later the common statutes were discussed and passed at a general meeting at Ratisbon; these were subsequently revised and confirmed. Four central lodges were created, each with a separate district, Strasburg having the precedence, the other three being at Cologne, Vienna, and Zurich. The government of these confederations was almost identical with that of the amalgamated societies in our own day, not in general principle only, but also in the details of management.

§ 35. Regulations were made in the guild-statutes with regard to the relationship of masters and servants; masters were prohibited from engaging the servant of another before the expiration of his servitude, or so long as the former master had a claim on him; the number of servants allowed was defined; punishments were inflicted on masters who kept back their servants' wages; and it is probable that the wages were fixed by the wardens, by whom also all disputes were to be decided. § 36. There was, however, no real working-class or journey. men, in the sense in which they are now understood, for most of the craftsmen were small masters, with one or two appren

tices, who, as soon as their apprenticeship expired, worked at their handicraft on their own account. The chief exception to this rule was in the Belgian towns, where the manufacture of cloth was carried on for an extended market, and on a larger scale. And here the servants, by their delegates, had a voice in making the ordinances for the regulation of the trade, and even in the supervision of the labour, and fixing the proportion of their pay. In some places the servants had an actual share in the masters' profits. Even where the woollen manufactures were entirely in the hands of the patricians, no regulations were framed without previous consultation with the servants. There was at this time no question at all about separate interests, and no ideas of distinct classes such as we see now-of capitalists and workmen.

§ 37. The contests of the craft-guilds were not consequently struggles for equality of labour and capital, but for the political mastery of the towns; it was a fight for the recognition of the political equality of stock-in-trade and real property; it was a contest of an oligarchy of landed proprietors and the new oligarchy of capitalists; as trade increased so the latter flourished; wider markets afforded greater opportunities for the employment of larger capital, and so the craft-guilds gradually changed from being societies for the protection of labour, into associations for the investment of capital.

§ 38. The spirit of acquisitiveness having set in, the craftsmen sought to increase the productiveness of their investments; they began to strive to create a monopoly, for which purpose they raised the entrance fees and established new restrictions as a barrier to the competition of the aspiring families outside the guild. On the Continent this spirit was carried to a much greater extent than in England; there every effort was made to debar all new candidates and refuse them admission; the endeavour being to restrict the guild as much as possible to a few families, sons, sons-in-law, and even daughters, each assisting to perpetuate the monopoly. Thus, in the fourteenth century, commenced the transformation of craft-guilds into a kind of entail for the benefit of a comparatively limited number of families; the grand idea of association for mutual help gave

place to a narrow-minded spirit, centralised in the mere acquisition of capital; petty rivalries and hateful egotism prevailed over brotherhood and equality of rights; the richer craftsmen withdrew from their poorer brethren into separate guilds, and internal disputes arose as to what privileges belonged to their special trade. It is asserted that the membership of the guilds was "grossly bought," and that, in the town councils, the crafts sought only their own advantage to the detriment of the public, and that, therefore, the only remedy was their complete abolition.

§ 39. The abuses which had crept into these guilds led, perhaps, to the ordinance requiring returns as to the aims, constitution, statutes, and means of the guilds, in the twelfth year of Richard II.'s reign. To this return we are indebted for most of the documents in Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection. Complaints of similar abuses led to an inquiry, in 14 Ed. II., into the case of the London weavers; and later, in 15 Hen. VI., 1437, the commons, in a petition to the king, declared that the craft-guilds had abused the privileges granted to them, by enacting ordinances hurtful to the common profit of the people. The Act of 15 Hen. VI. c. 6 was the result of this petition: it ordained that, besides the returns above-mentioned, the guilds should not make or use any ordinance disparity or diminution of the franchises of the king or others, or against the common profit of the people, or allow any other ordinances without their being first approved and enrolled before the justices of the peace, and that the same should be by them revoked and recalled, if not found to be wholly loyal and reasonable.

$40. The restrictions of the craft-guilds, and the aggregation of the craftsmen in the towns, prevented great numbers of the workmen from becoming masters, and, hence, there grew up a distinct class of operatives with views and interests separate from, and often opposed to the masters; the guild-statutes before the fourteenth century do not even mention the workmen; after about the middle of the fourteenth century it became necessary to make regulations concerning journeymen and their masters. The wardens of the guilds were still the

authorities to decide between the contending parties, and to enforce the payment of wages due to the journeymen, or to compel the obedience of the "serving-man" to his master. On the Continent, again, the restrictions were more severe than in England; in some places the workmen were compelled to work as journeymen for a certain number of years before they could set up as masters; in other places journeymen were strictly forbidden to work on their own account; the wives were not allowed to work; the men were frequently compelled to join the guild and to pay contributions, although they had no voice in its ordinances. A difference was also made in regard to those who had little prospect of becoming masters, and others who were apprenticed to a trade with that view. There were, however, some regulations favourable to the workmen, as, for instance, this: "If any serving-man of the said trade, who has behaved himself well and loyally towards his masters whom he has served, shall fall sick, or be unable to help or maintain himself, he shall be found (supported) by the good folks of the said trade until he shall have recovered and be able to help and maintain himself."

§ 41. By the plague of 1348 the first great lesson in political economy was given to all classes; if supply and demand are the natural and inevitable laws for the regulation of prices and of wages, these were well applied during this period. Merchants and traders took advantage of the scarcity of commodities and advanced the prices; in like manner the workmen demanded an increase of wages, because of the demand for their labour; even the clergy, taking advantage of their lessened numbers, charged higher fees for masses and prayers.

§ 42. This universal dearth of labour, as the result of depopulation caused by the plague, plunged even the propertied class into distress; in consequence of this state of things the statute of labourers was passed (23 Ed. III.) which ordained that "every man and woman able in body, and within the age of threescore, not living in merchandise, nor exercising any craft, not having of his own whereof to live, nor land about whose tillage he might employ himself, nor serving any other, should be bound to serve, if required, at the accustomed

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