GILD REGULATION. 463 



conflicts with adjacent nations. Within the region which 

 each occupied, were feudal divisions held by lords who 

 fought with one another for supremacy or minor advantage. 

 The assemblage of men constituting a town, sometimes had 

 struggles with their feudal lords, and habitually dealt with 

 men of other towns as foreigners at enmity with them. 

 And within each town there grew up these separate bodies 

 of traders, all of them hostile to outsiders and often more or 

 less hostile to one another. 



But the general truth of chief concern for us, is that while 

 each gild fought for the interests of its members by 

 measures now defensive now aggressive, the concomitant of 

 this industrial warfare was the submission of its members to 

 coercive government. The ability to carry on a bread- 

 winning business was conditional on membership of the 

 gild and payment of taxes for its maintenance. Subordina 

 tion to gild-authorities, and conformity to the laws they 

 established, were insisted upon. Various limitations to 

 working and trading were imposed on each gild-brother. 

 Spies were employed to detect any breaches of regulations he 

 might commit; and he was punished pecuniarily or other 

 wise when convicted. 



Thus the so-called &quot; free-man &quot; of those days was free in 

 but a very qualified sense. ~Not only in his life at large, but 

 in the carrying on of his business, he was subject to one set of 

 imperative orders by the government of the country, and to 

 another set of orders, no less imperative, by this local in 

 dustrial government. 



