[311] Von Ochenkowski thinks the relation of municipalities and crafts depended on the relative force of the three principles then contending for the mastery—feudal rights, the king’s will, and the common law; in the conflicts between guilds and towns he sees the alternating forces of the king’s law and of the common law. (Wirthschaftliche Entwickelung, 59-60.) Many homelier causes than this were probably at work.

[312] The surprising number of guilds formed under Richard the Second and during the next hundred years must strike any one who looks at the town records. As a single example see the list given for Shrewsbury in Hibbert’s Inf. and Dev. of Eng. Gilds, 58-9. In many cases it can be proved that the new fraternity was really an old one, but its re-constitution is as important as a new creation.

[313] Boys’ Sandwich, 678, 680.

[314] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173-4. “Provided always that any such masters so elected shall be none of the same crafts or mysteries whereof they shall be elected.”

[315] Boys, 685, &c.

[316] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173-5, 148. Sometimes wealthy guilds united to gain a monopoly of power in the borough. There was a tendency to combine even in the poorer social or religious fraternities. (Eng. Gilds, 219.) A decline took place in the number of miracle plays for the crafts. Pollard’s Miracle Plays, xxx.

[317] See the curious provision made by the mayor of London at the request of the farriers to get their bills paid. (Riley’s Mem. Lond. 294.)

[318] English Guilds, 285.

[319] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.

[320] Shillingford’s Letters (Camden Soc.) 4.