What all this change and reform amounted to was this. The system of Gilds was re-organised and strengthened. Part of the functions which the Craft Gilds had performed were taken over by the state. Part were left to be still performed by the companies. The companies were in all cases brought into the closest possible connection with the town and the town authorities.
As regards the designation of these 16th century trade associations it appears that they were generally termed societies or companies in public documents, probably because the name “Gild” might seem to savour somewhat of the Chantries and mass-priests. But in their own books and lists they still called themselves Gilds and fraternities.
The new companies show permanence of Gild-feeling.
Though they differed essentially from these, as has been already pointed out, yet, viewed superficially, they might seem to have retained many of the features of the old Gilds. In practice they bore no small share of the burden of public charities. They were also not unmindful of the wants of their members, though of course these now consisted of masters only. Elizabeth’s charter to the Merchant Adventurers of Bristol ordered them to distribute yearly among twenty poor men twenty “vestes panneas” and to assist all of the company who were impoverished by mischance or otherwise.
In their ordinances and compositions they were even more similar in appearance to the old Gilds. The composition which Elizabeth granted to the Glovers of Shrewsbury in 1564 is as strict as any mediæval regulation. It restricted all masters to a maximum of three apprentices. It confined each brother to a single shop, and to the selling of the products of his own work only. It authorised the Wardens to seize corrupt or insufficient wares, and was altogether a most thorough piece of industrial regulation, entirely modelled on the lines of the old Gild arrangements.
Other indications of the same spirit were not lacking. In 1621 “by and with the allowance and agreement of the right worthie” the town authorities, skins and fells were ordered to be purchased only between sunrise and sunset. As though the Wardens of the Barbers’ company had not been sufficiently thorough in executing their duties the new composition which the company received from Charles II. in 1662 made provision for the appointment of a searcher and defined the duties appertaining to the office. The composition granted to the Smiths in 1621 forbade the keeping of two shops by a single tradesman in the town, and disallowed the employment of foreigners for a longer period than a week without express permission obtained from the Wardens. The composition of the Tailors, granted in 1627, forbade the wearing of “any lyvere of any Earle Lorde Barronett Knight Esquire or Gentleman” while occupying any Gild office; prohibited unfair competition and the employment of foreigners; and ordered that “noe pettie Chapman or other p’son or p’sons shall buy any Skynnes of furre” within the town. In the composition of 1686 the articles are repeated against indiscriminate admittance of foreigners, and against the piratical infringement of unfree persons on the province of the brethren.
The “Regulated Companies” which arose about the same time were a further development of the same movement, but on a larger scale. In many respects indeed the Craft Gilds of the 14th and 15th centuries were but little different from the Regulated Companies of the 17th. Admission was practically free on payment of a fine, the individual so received into membership being left to prosecute his trade in his own way, by his own means, and to his own particular profit.
Though altered conditions of trade make their work difficult.
But the difficulties attendant on attempts to regulate expanding trade were daily growing greater and more numerous. “The false making and short lengths of all sortes of cloths and stuffes” necessitated the appointment by the Mercers of two men “to oversee and look after” these things in 1638. The Barbers too in 1662 empowered the stewards to search for bad materials. In 1639 the Glovers’ company was brought to something like a crisis “by the taking of many apprentices.” It was thought necessary to dock each brother of one of the apprentices allowed by the Elizabethan composition of 1564[141].
The frequency with which it was necessary to renew the compositions, the reiteration of the same articles,—against employing foreigners, against unfair competition, against neglect of the legal period of apprenticeship,—again shows the futility of such restrictions. Actions against intruders even thus early figure frequently on the records. In those of the Tailors and Skinners the decision of the company under date of August 23, 1627, is recorded thus:—“The Wardens and Sitters met and agreed that the Wardens should fetch process for Intruders and implead them before the Council in the Marches, and Mr Chelmicke to draw the bill against them.”