The Act was repealed in 1311, and again enacted in 1322, but with the accession of Edward III. it was again repealed.
Foreign commerce is said to have been better governed than inland trade, for the King had an arbitrary authority in the regulation of trading.
In dealing with the trade of London it is necessary to say something about the origin of Gilds; but this is a most difficult question, respecting which very different opinions are held by writers on the subject.
It will be impossible to discuss these points at all fully in this chapter, and therefore a few dates will be found sufficient for the present purpose.
Mediæval gilds were voluntary associations established for mutual assistance. It is quite easy to show the likeness between them and the Roman Collegia, but to do this is futile, because few now believe in any connection between the two institutions. Similar circumstances often cause similar institutions to arise.
In the Middle Ages few men and women could stand alone, and combination was a positive necessity for existence, and the people soon found that union is strength.
The great authority on this subject is Mr. Toulmin Smith’s work, entitled English Gilds, which was edited by his daughter, Miss Toulmin Smith, and published by the Early English Text Society in 1880.
Prefixed to this great work is Dr. Brentano’s valuable Essay on the History of Gilds, in which he writes: ‘I write to declare here most emphatically that I consider England the birthplace of gilds.’
Some writers have fixed upon the second half of the ninth century as the date of the origin of gilds, but Miss Toulmin Smith points out that among the laws of Ina (A.D. 688-725) are two touching the liability of the brethren of a gild in the case of slaying a thief. Alfred (A.D. 871-879) still further recognised the brotherly gild spirit in his laws as to manslaughter by a kinless man, and again where a man who has no relatives is slain.[304]
Dr. Brentano writes: ‘An already far-advanced development of the gilds is shown by the Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ, the Statutes of the London gilds, which were reduced to writing in the time of King Athelstan. From them the gilds in and about London appear to have united into one gild, and to have framed common regulations for the better maintenance of peace, for the suppression of violence—especially of theft and the aggressions of the powerful families—as well as for carrying out rigidly the ordinances enacted by the King for that purpose.’[305]