One motive at least for thus connecting Crafts with religious Fraternities was that they thereby gained; not only the sentimental bond which religion gave, but also a religious sanction for the enforcement of the oaths administered to the members before they had obtained the legal authority so to do. They thereby obtained the support of the Church, and some were in the habit of registering their ordinances in the Court of the Commissary of London in order to secure the assistance of the Spiritual arm, since those who broke the rules could be summoned before the Spiritual Courts.1 The thirteenth century is marked by the rise of what has been The rise of called the system of Town Economy. It is the period when the Town earlier family or Manorial system is breaking down; when Economy. industry is no longer a mere by-employment subservient to agriculture, but has become more specialized, and when each town with its surrounding country was looked upon as a self-supporting economic unit. The principles on which this system was worked were, that everything that could be produced within the town or its district should be there produced, and should be sold directly by the producer without any intermediary or any "forestalling' or 'regrating', while the imported goods should only be offered in the open market and sold in gross not by retail. These were the essential principles of the Gilds, whose aims, moreover, were to meet at a 'just price' the wants of the home consumers, while full satisfaction was given to foreign customers of local industries.3 association, and that it was the cohesion of the Fraternities, and the religious element in them, which gave them influence in the City, and enabled them to secure their trading privileges from the Crown. The reason, he thinks, why we hear so little of them before is to be found in the secrecy which is a characteristic of all religious societies. Cf. Unwin, Gilds and Companies of London. In Flanders we find religious brotherhoods- confréries '-being formed among craftsmen in the twelfth century, while in the thirteenth century they become Métiers' or Mysteries. Pirenne, Belgique, i. 372; and so in Paris, Lavisse, Histoire de France, v. 402. A good many of the customs of the Gilds with regard to Feasts, elections, and 2 Bücher, Industrial Evolution, English translation, Wickett, p. 114. Relation of the four teenth century to the Municipal Govern It is not surprising, therefore, to find that, as the century advanced, the Craft Gilds were organizing themselves for the purpose of local industry or trade, and that the first Pageant in which every citizen took part according to his Craft, belongs to the early years of Edward I. The Gild system was, however, closely protective. Not only was the 'foreigner' vigorously excluded, but no one within the town was allowed to work at any trade or Craft unless he belonged to the Gild that controlled his particular industry. Their rise, therefore, was not only viewed with jealousy by those who were excluded, but led to quarrels between Gild and Gild. Already in the year 1202 we find the Mayor and the citizens. paying King John sixty marks to suppress the Gild of the Weavers. Fitz Thomas was accused of urging the various trades to organize themselves in Craft Gilds, and Hervi of actually giving them Charters when he was Mayor,3 while in 1268 the Goldsmiths and Taylors had a violent quarrel in which the Clothworkers and the Cordwainers joined. Over 500 persons are said to have taken part in it, and many to have been killed.* Nevertheless the fourteenth century saw a remarkable advance the Gilds of in the position and powers of the Gilds. In dealing with this period we must, as Mr. Unwin has reminded us, distinguish between two different aspects of the Gild. of the Gild. It is one of the main agencies in the transformation of the civic constitution' and yet 'exercises a subordinate authority delegated to it' by that constitution.5 Thus, on the one hand, we find the reforming Mayor, Richer de Reffham, (1310-11) granting powers of self-regulation to many Crafts with the support of the Aldermen, and in 1321 the City authorities claiming, and in 1328 exercising, the right to authorize ment. I 2 Herbert, Livery Companies, quoting Stow. They gave him sixty marks pro gilda telaria delenda et quod de cetero non suscitetur'. Letter Book C, p. 55. The attempt was repeated in 1322, when the Weavers produced their Charter, and though the Gild was not dissolved, it was held that they had gone beyond their Charter. Riley, Lib. Cust., i. 416. 3 Cf. PP. 9, 11. 5 Unwin, Gilds of London, p. 65. 6 The Tanners, Dyers, Whittawyers, Ironmongers, Cappers, and others. Cf. Unwin, p. 68. their government.' On the other hand, under the next Mayor, John de Gisors (1311-13), the good men of the commonalty of every Mystery demanded that, 'since the City ought to be governed by aid of the men engaged in trades and handicrafts, no stranger, native or foreign,' be admitted to the freedom of the City until the merchants and craftsmen, whose business he wished to enter, had certified the Mayor and Alderman of his condition and trustworthiness, and prayed that such observance may be strictly kept for the future as regards the wholesale trades and the handicrafts ('grossiora officia et operabilia ').3 Finally, in the Charter which the City obtained from Edward II in 1319, it was ordained ‘that no man of English birth, and especially no English merchant, who followed any Craft or Mystery, should be admitted to the freedom of the City, except on security of six reputable men of that Mystery', while a complementary article, which each Craft subsequently got inserted in its own ordinances, ordered that no one should exercise his Craft unless he were free of the City. By the same Charter of Edward II it was also enacted that the Mayor and Aldermen should be annually elected, and should not hold office for two years running. By an ordinance of 1346 it was, indeed, ordered that the Common Council should be elected by the Wards, each Ward sending from four to eight representatives according to its size, but, inasmuch as the freedom of the City was a qualification for membership, and freedom could only be enjoyed by those who belonged to some Letter Book E, p. 143. In 1328 the names of those sworn to govern twenty-four Mysteries are approved by the Mayor. Ibid. 232. 2 The foreigner' who was not an alien meant one who was not a London man. 3 Letter Book E, p. 134. John Simeon—a ' foreign' Draper, who had been admitted to the freedom by favour of certain great men without the goodwill of the Drapers-and his valet were accordingly ousted from the freedom. 4 Liber Albus, i. 127. Of course, this would not refer to exceptional cases where the freedom was conferred as an honour, though in many cases the recipient of the freedom became the member of a Gild. Stubbs, Const. Hist., ed. 1878, p. 573, says: This may mean either that trades were gaining a hold on the City or that the governing body were so jealous of admitting any tradesman to the freedom that it required six sureties for his good behaviour.' Taken, however, with the other evidences there can be little doubt that Stubbs's first interpretation is the true one. Divisions within the Gilds. Craft, this ordinance practically secured that Gildsmen alone should compose the Common Council. We are here dealing no longer with a struggle between the commons of the City, represented by the Crafts, as yet illorganized, and the old semi-hereditary Aldermen of the Wards, but with a movement of well-organized Crafts, who, with the support of the Aldermen, now for the most part members of the more important Gilds, are seeking to wrest the municipal government from the hands of the Wards, as well as to gain control of those pursuing their respective industries.1 Mr. Sharpe holds this to be a triumph of the Craft and manufacturing element over the mercantile; but the evidence seems scarcely to support this view. The trading Gilds seem to have taken at least an equal interest in the question. The movement was led by wealthy merchants like John de Gisors, a Pepperer, and Hamo de Chigwell, a Fishmonger, who frequently filled the office of Mayor in the early part of the fourteenth century,3 and by the richer traders and employers. The truth seems to be, as Mr. Unwin says, that the victory was not one of one class over another, but of a new form of social and political organization (that of the Gilds) over an old one, and one of the main causes of the victory was that the ruling class (the Aldermen) had gradually transferred itself from the old form to the new '. Nevertheless, the interests of the various classes which had thus won the victory were not identical, and, the victory once won, divisions arose. The organization of a Craft under the Gild would always benefit the master rather than the journeyman or apprentice, but in earlier days, when little capital was required, the master himself worked at his Craft, and the journeyman who had passed his apprenticeship could rapidly become a master. But with the widening of the market more capital was required; the 1 Cf. Unwin, Gilds, p. 70; Loftie, London, i. 218; Beaven, Aldermen of London, p. 242. After 1340 almost all the Mayors and Sheriffs and Aldermen belong to some Craft. 2 Sharpe, London, i. 110. 3 John de Gisors was Mayor in 1311, 1312, 1314; Chigwell in 1319, 1321, 1322, 1324, 1325, 1327. 4 Unwin, Gilds, p. 75. industry became more specialized, and the business of management Rise of the trading element and This, added to the specialization of industry, led to a great Increase in increase in the number of the Crafts, while the widening of the the number market gave growing importance to the trading as against the of Crafts. handicraft Gilds, or to those Gilds in which the trading element was predominant.2 Thus, during the reign of Edward III, the number of Crafts struggle which obtained the right from the Mayor and Common Council to secure to elect officers and to publish ordinances increased from twenty- business. the trading five to eighty-eight, and most of them represented the humbler trades, and in 1422 the number of the Crafts is given as one hundred and eleven, although not all had received powers of self-government. 1 Cf. Riley, Memorials, p. 542, where in 1396 the Saddlers complain that their serving men have influenced the journeymen under colour of sanctity to form a Fraternity with the object of raising their wages. Cf. also Letter Book H, P. 431. In 1415. The Yeomen taylors attempt to consort together in various houses, and become insolent. The Mayor and Aldermen, on being appealed to, enjoin them to submit to the rule of their wardens and forbid them to live together or to wear a livery. Letter Book I, p. 136. 2 Cf. Liber Albus, p. 495, where Gilds are already in the reign of Edward II divided into Officia mercatoria' and 'Officia manuoperalia'. Cf. the struggle abroad-the Arti Maggiori and Minori in Florence; the privileged Corps de Metiers in Paris; the lower and higher Zünfte in Germany and in Ghent, The reason why the conflict between the trading and handicraft interest came at a later date in England than abroad is because England was in early days an agricultural not a manufacturing country, and its chief export was wool. Cf. Unwin, Industrial Organization, pp. 17 ff. 3 For a list cf. Unwin, Gilds, p. 88; Letter Book E, p. 232. |