By their new powers, the Companies took over into their own hands the complete control of their trade. Henceforth the function of the Mayor was to compose disputes and settle differences between the Companies, especially in those cases where trades overlapped. The wardens, or the master and wardens, called meetings of the Livery; at these meetings regulations were passed; it was the duty of the wardens to enforce the execution of their own laws. They had the right, which the Fraternities had obtained of the Mayor, to examine the work and to destroy all that was “false.” In all matters concerning the Guild the master and wardens formed the only court: there was no Court of Appeal; their decision was final. There were certain exceptions to their power; the Mayor and Aldermen kept in their own hands the sale and the price of bread, meat, drink and fuel. The punishments were, for light offences, fines, either of money, of wax, or of beer and wine. For serious offences expulsion from the Guild was the worst and last punishment. A man so expelled could not any longer practise his trade in the City. We hear also of ’prentices being flogged for acts of dishonesty or immorality. Every man who practised any trade in the City must needs belong to the Company of this trade. There would have been no power, otherwise, to enforce their laws. What would be the good of calling order for the execution of good work if a colony of workmen set up in the City and refused to obey those laws or to enter their company? It was for self-preservation that this rule was enforced. Afterwards it became a weapon of oppression when the number of members was limited.
The care with which the Companies provided for good work was equalled by the jealousy with which they regarded the admission of new members. They looked to the moral character of a workman as well as his mastery over the craft. They made him serve an apprenticeship varying from seven to ten years. They received the boy in a manner calculated to impress upon his mind the importance of the duties upon which he was entering. At the close of his time he was, with like solemnity, received as a member of the Company, and, therefore, a free man of the City.
Next to looking after the young men, the Company looked after the tools. These were to be inspected regularly; they were to be “testified as good and honest.” The hours were fixed: no one was to work longer than from the beginning of the day till curfew, nor at night by candle-light. One Company, that of the weavers, forbade any work between Christmas and the Purification (Feb. 2). No one was to work on Sunday, or on festivals, or on the eve of a double feast, or on Saturday afternoons. The working men lost their Saturday half-holiday by the Reformation; it has taken them 300 years to get it back again.
As for the ordinances which regulated the conduct of members toward each other, I may pass them over. They were wise; they did what was possible to prevent over-reaching, underselling, taking good servants from a brother member, selling to one member indebted to another member, and, in a word, creating and keeping alive the feeling of brotherhood. Provision was made for those who fell into poverty. As long as any member remained out of work no member was allowed to employ any non-member; and the wife and children of a member might work at the trade with the husband or the father.
WILLIAM SMALLWOOD, MASTER OF THE PEWTERERS’ COMPANY
From Welch’s History of the Pewterers’ Company.
In course of time, very speedily in fact, abuses crept in. The trades began to limit the number of members; the richer members seceded and formed other companies—the shoemakers left the cobblers, the tanners left the shoemakers; masters withheld their wages from the workmen; journeymen were not allowed to work on their own account; nor could they become masters; there were strikes among the men, especially in the building trade; the journeymen formed companies of their own which they used for the purpose of raising wages; in the year 1383 a proclamation forbade the combination of workmen. Among the combinations so suppressed were those of the “yomen” saddlers and the “yomen” tailors.
The ground thus cleared, the masters could use the Companies entirely for their own profit and advantage. They endeavoured more and more to restrict the number of members, and to make the handicrafts of London the monopoly of a few families; in this attempt they were only too successful; in the sixteenth century Bacon calls the City Companies “fraternities of evil.” The masters made the apprentices swear that they would not carry on trade on their own account without the masters’ consent. The weakness of the law is shown in the failure of Henry’s law (1537); fixing the entrance fee of an apprentice at 2s. 6d., it rose to 40s., to £10; in the time of James the First to £20, £60, and £100; and in 1720 to £500 and more.
As to the further degeneration and the final ruin of the Craft Guilds, I refer again to Luigo Brentano.[16]