582 Constitutional History. [chap.
craft guilds, the ‘ gilda telariorum/ the ‘ gilda Corvesariorum ’
and the like, are scarcely less ancient in origin, but come
Relation of prominently forward in the middle of the twelfth century. The
mmatoria ‘gilda mercatoria’ may be regarded as standing to the craft
guUdfl°raft guilds either inclusively or exclusively; it might incorporate
them and attempt to regulate them, or it might regard them
with jealousy, and attempt to suppress them. Probably in
different places and at different stages it did both. It would
be generally true to say that, when and where the merchant
guild continued to exist apart from the judicial machinery of
the town, as a board for local trade and financial administra-
tion, it incorporated and managed the craft guilds ; but, when
and where it merged its existence in the governing body of the
town, identifying itself with the corporation and only retaining
a formal existence as the machinery for admitting freemen to a
participation of the privileges of the town, it became an object
with the craft guilds to assert their own independence and even
to wrest from the governing body judicial authority over their
own members.
Power ortho The charter granted by Henry H to Oxford distinctly lays
guild to down the principle that the merchant guild has an exclusive
ιegulatθ . r / . . ʌ
trade. right of regulating trade except in specified cases1 ; it is pro-
vided that no one who is not of the guildhall shall exercise any
merchandise in the town or suburbs, except as was customary in
the reign of Henry I, when, as we know from the Pipe Rolls,
the craft guilds of weavers and Cordwainers had purchased their
freedom by fines2. We may infer from this that, wherever such
exceptions had not been purchased, the merchant guild possessed
full power of regulating trade. In the charter granted to the
city of ΛVorcesteι, by Henry III a similar provision is inserted,
and at Worcester as late as 1467 we find the citizens in their
ζ yeld merchant ’ making for the craft guilds regulations which
imply that they had full authority over them3.
1 Select Charters (2nd ed.), p. 167 ; PeshaIfs Oxford, p. 339. So also
the charter granted by Henry III to Worcester; Madox, Firma Burgi,
p. 272 ; and other instances noted above, vol. i. p. 452.
2 In the charter of Oxford the exceptions arc ‘ nisi ,⅛icιιt solebat tempore
régis IIenrici avi mei;’ in that of Worcester ‘ nisi de voluntate corιιndeιιι
civium.’ 3 Smith’s English Gilds, pp. 371-412.
XXI.]
HiIercliant Guilds.
583
When the merchant guild had become identified with the The mer-
Corporation or governing body, its power of regulation of trade merged t∏
passed, together with its other functions and properties, into ration.4”
the same hands. It is probable that this is true in all cases
except where the towns continued to be in the demesne of a
lord who exercised the jurisdiction through his own officers, as
the archbishop of York did at Beverley. In that town the Casesin
merchant guild administered the property of the town, regulated merchant
trade, and exercised most of the functions which the ‘ local not tɪm^
boards ’ of modern towns now possess ; it elected the twelve h0dyUfthβ
governours of the town annually ; but the courts were heldtown,
in the archbishop’s name and by his bailiffs, down to the reign
of Henry VIII ɪ. But as a rule it was otherwise : the ancient
towns in demesne of the crown either possessed a hundredal
jurisdiction at the time of the Conquest or obtained ‘ sac and
soc ’ by grant from the crown2 ; as soon as they obtained the
exclusion of the sheriffs and the right of electing their magis-
trates, they were municipally complete ; and then the merchant
guild merged its existence in the corporation. In some cases uɪɪioɪɪ of the
it dropped altogether out of sight ; at York for instance it had guild with
either been forgotten, or newly organised as a merchants’ com- jurisdiction,
pany, one among many craft guilds, at the beginning of the
fifteenth century3 : and at London it is uncertain whether any
primitive merchant guild ever existed. But, even where the
name was suppressed, the function of admitting freemen was
discharged in such a way as proved that the powers exercised
by the corporation were those of the old merchant guild. At The office of
_ r , , . , „ „ , ∙ chamberlain.
York the right ot freedom was acquired by birth, apprentice-
ship or purchase : the admission of apprentices was subject
to the jurisdiction of eight chamberlains4, who were no doubt
1 See Poulson’s Beverlac, passim ; and below, p. 6oι.
2 As for example Dunwich, Select Charters, p. 311 ; Worcester, Nash’s
Worcestershire, vol. ii. App. p. ex; the Cnihtengild of London, Madox,
Birma Burgi, p. 23.
3 So also at Beverley there is a Mercers’ guild ; Poulson, pp. 254, 255 ;
at Coventry a new merchant guild is instituted in 1340; Smith’s Gilds,
p. 226.
4 Drake, Eboracum, pp. 187, 199. One of the earliest custumals in
which freedom of the town is mentioned is that of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
where it is said ‘ si burgensis habeat filiuιn in domo suo ad mensaɪn suam,