410 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



CRAFT GILD. 

 ;. Masttr 



1. Shipping Merchant 



1. Ship-Own er 



2. Ship-Master 



3. Exporting Merchant 



1. Itinerant 



1. Supercargo 



2. TraveUing Merchant 



3. Factor 



2. Resident 



1. Banker 



2. Insurer 



3. Speculator 



4. Commission House 

 5 Exporter 



2 Factor 



3 IMerchant Employer 



1. Wholesaler 



2. Factor 



3. Large Master- 



4. Shop-keeper — 

 2. Journeyman 



1. Small Master 



1. Large Master- 



2. Shop-keeper — 



3. Small Master 

 2 Journeyman 



L Shop-keeper — 

 2. Journeyman 



WTiile these differentiations were in progress the trading population 

 was being recruited from various trades and places. Inside the gilds 

 was arising a middle class, which was to transform feudal society into 

 the society of modern times. ^ During and after the sixteenth century 

 various causes were operating to force the urbanization of the rural 

 folk. Enclosures and sheep-farming were reducing the chances of 

 livelihood in the country. As the urban population increased the 

 middlemen increased the faster in both numbers and activities, and 

 drew a large proportion of their tale from the peasant freeholders and 

 the gentry. "The progress of discovery and the increase of inter- 

 national trade were offering new opportunities for wealth to the mer- 

 cantile class, and the sons of the English gentry were impelled or 

 drawn towards those favored seaports which had chartered or statu- 

 tory trading facilities. There they became apprentices, as their only 

 available means of entering the trading community, whose status they 



» Ashley, Ec. Hist., II, 168. 



