London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. LEIPZIG: F. A. BROCKHAUS. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN AND CO. Cambridge Historical Essays. No. V. THE INFLUENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH GILDS: AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE CRAFT GILDS OF SHREWSBURY. BY FRANCIS AIDAN HIBBERT, B.A., OF ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; ASSISTANT MASTER IN DENSTONE COLLEGE. THIRLWALL DISSERTATION , 1891. Cambridge: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1891 [ A

I should explain that, in the present Essay, I have restricted myself to associations which had for their object the regulation of trade. Frith Gilds and Religious or Social Gilds have received only passing notice. The Merchant Gild is too wide a subject to be treated in an Essay such as this. Moreover the records of the Shrewsbury Merchant Gild are too meagre to afford much information, and I would therefore have gladly passed over the whole question in silence but that without some notice of i

“There shall be established in the University a prize, called the ‘Thirlwall Prize,’ to be awarded for dissertations involving original historical research.” “The prize shall be open to members of the University who, at the time when their dissertations are sent in, have been admitted to a degree, and are of not more than four years’ standing from admission to their first degree.” “Those dissertations which the adjudicators declare to be deserving of publication shall be published by the Univers

INTRODUCTORY. In these days of convenience and easy transit, when distance has been annihilated by the telegraph wire and the express train, we can hardly realise, even with an effort, the extent to which such changes have revolutionised the social life of Englishmen. Of local sentiment there can be now but little, yet local sentiment has played a greater part in our history than perhaps any other motive. The England of to-day is little more than a great suburb of its capital. Yet it is a peculi

THE MERCHANT GILD. Dr Brentano [10] is particularly desirous to make it clear that he considers England “the birthplace of Gilds.” But it is scarcely necessary to point out that the conception of the Gild belongs to no particular age and to no particular country. Not to insist unduly on the universality of an institution from which some writers have derived the Gilds, and to which they certainly bear considerable resemblance, the family—common to humanity itself—we note that the Greeks had their

THE CRAFT GILDS. We have seen how the Merchant Gild consisted of all the traders whose business lay in the town. Such an association, though nominally open to all whether landowners or not who could afford to pay the requisite fees, was in essence oligarchical, and this feature became in course of time its most apparent characteristic. We saw, also, how there grew up a large class extraneous to the privileged Merchant Gild. This body of outsiders became continually larger and more important. The

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GILDS OF SHREWSBURY. In the foregoing chapter it has been shown how the Craft Gilds were called into being. They possessed at first no charters [91] because none were needed. It was only when friction arose that there came any necessity for royal authority to step forward with its support and sanction [92] . And as they at first possessed no charters, so they have left few or no records of their earliest life. So long as they worked in thorough accord with the spirit of

REORGANISATION OF THE GILD-SYSTEM. Elizabeth, on her accession, found that immediate reform was imperative in almost every department of state. The whole trade of the country was in a condition of agitation. Everything seemed unsettled and insecure. For the social upheaval which the Reformation had brought about came in the train of a long period of economic disorder. The changes in the mode of cultivation had thrown the mass of the country population out of work. These were driven in large numb

THE DEGENERACY OF THE COMPANIES. The competition of “interlopers” ruined the Welsh trade of Shrewsbury. It was not, as we have seen, from any lack of vigilance on the part of the companies. Stimulated by their new compositions they became extremely active. As early as 1622 the actions against “foreigners” begin. Soon afterwards they become of frequent occurrence until at length the books of the companies are almost mere records of a daily struggle for existence. This was of course inevitable und

SHREWSBURY SHOW. A strange glamour hangs around the Middle Ages. We know so little of man’s actual life in those years,—and what little we do know seems to partake so largely of the mysterious and the picturesque—all, his modes of life and manners of thought are so far removed from our own,—that mediæval history would easily resolve itself into an enchanting pageant bright with its colour and bewildering with its contradictions. It is perhaps in the strange contrasts which are presented to us th

THE END OF THE COMPANIES. The system of elaborate organisation by which men had regulated trade in the past had given way to an equally complete system of individualism. Confused philosophical reasoning, combined with the decay of old means of regulation, had produced this anti-social state of things. Individual competition, in uncontrolled energy, reigned supreme amid almost incredible suffering and squalor. Everything which might tend to check the progress of the devastation was looked upon wi

NON-GILDATED TRADESMEN [238] . The ordinary authorities on Economic history say little or nothing of the non-gildated tradesmen in the towns, though these formed an important portion of the commercial community. To understand fully the conditions under which trade was carried on in mediæval England the existence of such unfree merchants must be taken into account and their importance appreciated. Within the commercial class the enforcement of the Gild regulations doubtless depended very largely

AUTHORITIES CITED. Abram, W. A.—Memorials of the Preston Guilds. An Account of the Poll for Members of Parliament for the Borough of Shrewsbury etc. (1747). Boeckh, A.—Public Economy of Athens, translated by George Cornewall Lewis (1842). Brentano, Lujo—On the history and development of Gilds and Origin of Trade-Unions. “Britannia Languens, or a discourse of trade.” (1680.) Bryce, J.—The Holy Roman Empire (1887). Cowell—A Law Dictionary: or the Interpreter etc. (1727). Cunningham, W.—The Growth