I. The introduction of craft gilds.
II. The objects and powers of mediæval craft gilds.
III. The resuscitation of craft gilds.
I. There is a certain amount of assumption in talking about the introduction of craft gilds, because it suggests the belief that they were not a native development. The word gild is, after all, a very vague term, much like our word association, and though we can prove the existence of many gilds before the Conquest,—at Cambridge and Exeter and elsewhere,—their laws contain nothing that would justify us in regarding them as craft gilds. It is much more probable, though Dr. Gross, the greatest living authority on the subject, speaks with considerable reserve, that the hall where the men of Winchester drank their own gild, or the land of the knights' gild at Canterbury, belonged to bodies which had some supervision over the trade of the town—in fact, were early gilds merchant. But I know of no hint in any of the records or histories of the period before the Norman Conquest, that can be adduced to show that there were any associations of craftsmen formed to control particular industries. The earliest information which we get about such groups of men comes from London, where, as we learn, Henry I. granted a charter to the Weavers. It is pretty clear that by this document some authority was given to the weavers to control the making of cloth (and it possibly involved conditions which affected the import of cloth). It is certain that there was a long continued struggle between the weavers' gild and the citizens, which came to a peaceful close in the time of Edward I. There were weavers' gilds also in a considerable number of other towns in the reign of Henry II.; Beverley, Marlborough, and Winchester may be mentioned in particular, as the ordinances of these towns have survived, and there are incidental references which seem to show that the weavers, and the subsidiary crafts of fullers and dyers had, even in the twelfth century, considerable powers of regulating their respective trades. The evidence becomes more striking if we are justified in connecting with it the cases of other towns, where we find that regulations had been enforced with regard to cloth, and that the townsmen were anxious to set these regulations aside, and buy or sell cloth of any width.
So far what we find is this; while we have no evidence of craft gilds before the Conquest, we find indications of a very large number of gilds among the weavers and the subsidiary callings shortly after that date. But there is a further point; so far as we can gather, weaving before the Conquest was a domestic art; we have no mention of weavers as craftsmen; the art was known, but it was practised as an employment for women in the house; but in the time of the Conqueror and of his sons there was a considerable immigration of Flemings, several of whom were particularly skilled in weaving woollen cloth; they settled in many towns in different parts of the country, and it seems not unnatural to conclude that weaving as an independent craft was introduced from the Continent soon after the Norman Conquest.
Institutions analogous to craft gilds appear to have existed in some of the towns of Northern France time out of mind, and some can apparently trace a more or less shadowy connection with the old Roman Collegia. Putting all these matters together, it appears that craft organisation first shows itself in England in connexion with a trade which was probably introduced from abroad; and it seems not impossible that the Continental artisans brought not only a knowledge of the art of weaving but certain habits of organisation with them.
Some sort of organisation was probably necessary for police and fiscal purposes if for none others. Town life was a curiously confused chaos of conflicting authority; in London each ward was an independent unit, in Chester and Norwich the intermingling of jurisdictions seems very puzzling. The newcomers were not always welcomed by the older ratepayers, and they might perhaps find it convenient to secure a measure of status by obtaining a royal charter for their gild. Just as the Jews or the Hansards were in the city and yet not citizens, but had an independent footing, so to some extent were the weavers situated, and apparently for similar reasons; they seem to have had status as weavers, which they held directly from the King, which marked them out from other townsmen, and which possibly delayed their complete amalgamation with the other inhabitants.
There is yet another feature about these weavers' gilds; the business in which they are engaged was one which was from an early time regulated by royal authority. King Richard I. issued an assize of cloth defining the length and breadth which should be manufactured.[1] The precise object of these regulations is not clear; they may have been made in the interests of the English consumer; they may have been made in the interest of the foreign purchaser, and the reputation of English goods abroad; they may have been framed in connexion with a protective policy, of which there are some signs. But amid much that is uncertain these three things seem pretty clear:—
1. That there were no craft gilds before the Conquest.
2. That there were many craft gilds in connexion with the newly introduced weavers' craft in the twelfth century.