FROM SERFDOM TO FREEDOM. 93 



unjust oppression or dangers from without, they began to legislate for 

 their own immediate advancement and for their own pockets. " It 

 became their especial business to obtain from the crown or from their 

 lords wider commercial privileges, rights of coinage, grants of fairs, 

 and exemptions from tolls; while within the town itself they framed 

 regulations as to the sale and quality of goods, the control of markets, 

 and the recovery of debts." And further, the members of the guild 

 withdrew from the humbler trades to confine themselves to the larger 

 business of commerce or trades requiring large capital, leaving the 

 trades and traffic given up to their poorer neighbors. This ruling 

 class comprised only a part of the inhabitants, only the members of 

 the merchant guild. The great mass of the people, the artisans and 

 the poor, the men without land, the serfs escaped from the country 

 and gaining their freedom in the town, all had no voice in the govern- 

 ment whatever. They lived and worked and earned their daily bread 

 practically by permission or at least under the direct control of the 

 merchant guild. From a simple association, the guilds in towns had 

 become the governing body, and a government in the hands of a few 

 at that. From the need of protection on account of individual weak- 

 ness, the members of the guilds had grown to be in need of repression; 

 and with the demand for repression came the instrument of repres- 

 sion the craft guild. Against the autocratic power of the merchant 

 guild arose the craft guilds, or associations of workers in the various 

 trades, those trades abandoned by the merchants, and these guilds 

 " soon rose into dangerous rivalry with the original merchant guild 

 of the town." 



These craft guilds in the old English towns, in order to attain their 

 objects, considered it necessary to compel the whole body of craftsmen 

 belonging to the trade to join the guild of that craft or trade; and 

 further, that the guild should have legal control over the trade itself 

 who should be admitted to it, and so forth. " A royal charter was in- 

 dispensable for these purposes, and over the grant of these charters 

 took place the first struggle with the merchant guild, which had till 

 then solely exercised jurisdiction over trade within the borough." 

 The struggle was a fierce one and long continued, but the spread of 

 the craft guilds went steadily on, and the control of trade passed into 

 their hands. Then the next step a share in the government of the 

 borough itself was taken, and the government of the towns passed 

 from an oligarchy into the hands of the middle classes. 



The craft guild came into being just as its predecessor had, from 

 the necessity of association for protection, and like it was democratic 

 at first; and, again like it, became in time an oligarchy as narrow as 

 that which it had deposed. The craft guild arose because the artisans 

 and tradesmen had grown to a position where they could recognize the 



