The influence and development of English gilds

by Francis Aidan Hibbert

During earlier years all the Craftsmen who so desired, and could afford the necessary payments, were admitted into the Gild of Merchants. The designation ‘merchant’ was then extended to all who engaged in trade. But as the Gilda Mercatoria became in practice more and more identical with the Communa the idea seems to have grown up that landless men, renters of their shops within the towns, should not be admitted to the Gild.

Gild seems to become Communa.

For in this period, that is during the 14th and 15th centuries, the old democratic government of the towns was giving place to a close governing council[47]. This was in no sense the Merchant Gild, though probably all the members of the select body would be members of the Gild[48]. Being also the most important of its members they would be able to use its influence for their own ends, and in these measures they would generally have on their side the majority of the “foreigners,” who would not know or care much about the internal concerns of the town. Thus it came about that having secured important trading privileges the influence of the Merchant Gild was chiefly directed, though by a small coterie of its members, towards municipal rather than mercantile objects.

Rise of Craft Gilds favoured by Merchant Gild and Communa.
This favour natural under the circumstances and proved by the Charters.
Summary.

These latter it left to be dealt with by the new companies into which the craftsmen were beginning to amalgamate. In this action they were helped and encouraged by the Merchant Gild, or as it now was in practice, the municipal authority. It is a mistake to speak of the rise of the Craft Gilds in England as a movement bitterly hostile to the Merchant Gilds and therefore strenuously opposed by the latter. The reverse was the fact. The increased complexity of the task of regulating trade, as division of labour developed and commerce expanded its bounds, became difficult, and the central body was for this additional reason glad to depute its powers to, and to exercise its functions through, smaller and specialised agencies. The charters of the Craft Gilds too contain no articles which would stand the members in stead in a conflict with a higher power, whereas if these charters had been the hardly-won prize of a severely contested struggle they would assuredly have contained some bitter articles in consequence of the past and in preparation for the future. We shall however examine the rise and history of the Craft Gilds in the subsequent chapters.

The substance of the foregoing paragraphs may be briefly summarised thus.

The most noticeable feature in the Economic history of England during the years immediately succeeding the Norman Conquest was the growth of the towns. They differed however but little from the country districts in government except in the particular that they possessed a Merchant Gild.

These trading corporations are first unmistakeably perceived soon after the Conquest, originating probably in the need which arose, as the towns increased in wealth and importance, for the existence of some authority to preserve peace within their borders, as without peace and order trade could not prosper.

Such an union for securing internal peace, consisting as it did of the principal persons interested, easily went on to enact commercial regulations. These were, on the one hand, the reserving to its own body the privilege of purchasing the stock of the foreign merchant, and, on the other, restricting the right of selling within the town to its own members. Royal authorisation set the seal to this practice. When the kings began to give charters to the towns, the legal recognition of their Merchant Gild was one of the chief of the privileges desired by the townsmen.

This restricted trading was not prejudicial to the town because practically all the burgesses were members of the Gild. If they all were not Gildsmen before the royal authorisation they would be likely to become so afterwards.