anciently guild officers; and, as all apprenticeship was trans-
acted through the members of the craft guilds, the older
relation between the two institutions must be regarded as
continuously subsisting. In Leicester the connexion is still
more clear; for there the admission to freedom was distinctly
designated as admission to the merchant guild ɪ. At Oxford
the freemen were admitted to the guild and liberty of the
whole city. In other places, such as Preston in Lancashire,
where, owing to some ancient custom or endowment, the idea
of the guild had been kept prominently in view as furnishing
occasion for a splendid pageant, the name was still more
permanent, and the powers of the guild were more distinctly
maintained. But in all these cases it may be said that the
‘ gilda mercatoria ’ had become a phase or ‘ function ’ of the
corporation ; where there was no ancient merchant guild, or
its existence had been forgotten, the admission of freemen to a
share in the duties and privileges of burghership was a part
of the business of the Ieet². Whether apart from, or identified
with, the governing body of the borough, the relation of the
merchant guild to the craft guilds may on this hypothesis be
regarded as corresponding with the relation subsisting at
Oxford and Cambridge between the University and the Col-
leges with their members. Lastly, in some places probably, as
at Berwick, the several craft guilds having united to form
a single town guild, all trade organisation and administration
was lodged, by a reverse process, in the governing body of the
town³.

When the merchant guild had acquired jurisdiction or
merged its existence in the corporation, the communa or govern-
ing body, the guild hall became the common hall of the city,

filins ejus eandem Iiabeat Iibertatem quam et pater suns Acts of ParI. of
Scotland, i. 33, 34.

ɪ Nichols, Leicestershire, i. 375, 377, 379 ^s,l∙ ʌt Beverley the gover-
nours admitted the freemen ; see Poulson, p. 163. At Winchester, the
admission to the merchant guild constituted freedom ; persons not taking
up their freedom paid 6s. 8d., half to the bailiffs, half to the chamber ;
Woodward, Hampshire, i. 27^{0 s}4∙

² As at Huntingdon ; Merewether and Stephens, pp. 1714, 2186.

^j Vol. i. p. 453.

XXi.]               Municipal History.                585

and the ‘ porte mote,’ for that seems to be the proper name for
the eouɪt of the guild, became the judicial assembly of the
freemen and identical with the leet; the title of aiderman
which had once belonged to the heads of the several guilds was
transferred to the magistrates of the several wards into which
the town was divided, or to the sworn assistants of the mayor
in the cases in which no such division was made ; the property
held by the merchant guild became town property and was
secured by the successive charters.

The craft guilds, both before and after the consolidation of nɪe craft
the governing bodies, aimed at privileges and immunities of
their own, and possessed, each within the limits of its own
art, directive and restrictive powers corresponding with those
claimed by the merchant guilds. Consequently under HenryII Bustriction
.. .ɪ ∖ .        ∙1^{0n cra}ft

they are found in the condition of illegal associations, certainly guilds,
in London, and probably, in other towns. The adulterine
guilds, from which heavy sums were exacted in 1180, were
stigmatised as adulterine because they had not purchased the
light of association, as the older legal guilds had done ’, and
had set themselves up against the government of the city which
the king had recognised by his charter. The later develop-
ment of the contest must be looked at in connexion with the
general view of municipal development. The most important
features of the history are still found in London, where the
craft guilds, having passed through the stages in which they
purchased their privileges year by year with fines, obtained
charters from Edward III. The guilds thus chartered became Growth of
. .          the craft

better known as companies, a designation under which they guilds into
still exist. An act of 1364 having compelled all the artisans panics? °°^m
to choose and adhere to the company proper to their own craft
or mystery, a distinction between greater and smaller companies
was immediately developed. The more important companies,
which were twelve in number, availed themselves of the licence,
reserved to them in the acts against livery, to bestow livery on
their members, and were distinguished as the livery companies.
Between these and the more numerous but less influential and

^l -Quia Constitutae sunt sine waranto;’ Madox, Exch. p. 391.

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