THE PATH OF DEGENERATION IN SOCIOLOGY 215 



vendors of lime, coal, seeds and beer), the two offices 

 of Furnes (street porters and vendors of beer), and 

 the community of the bakers of Bruges. 



All the ancient statutes of the four offices have 

 been preserved, including trade monopolies, the 

 freedom of the city, and scales of charges, help 

 in. times of illness, accident, or when out of work ; 

 religious ceremonies and banquets. With the com- 

 munity of bakers, however, this is not the case ; 

 here the economic functions discharged are reduced 

 to a minimum. The association continues to exist 

 in a triple capacity : as a syndicate to keep up a 

 fair price in wheat and bread, as a mutual assur- 

 ance association in times of distress among the 

 members, and as a confraternity imposing religious 

 obligations and holding an annual banquet and fete. 



In the second group consisting of mutual aid 

 associations such as the corporations of tailors, shoe- 

 makers and weavers of Bruges, all trade interests 

 have disappeared, and the corporations only exist 

 in the capacities of confraternities and mutual aid 

 societies. At this particular stage of degeneration 

 these corporations resemble in a striking degree the 

 old guilds which preceded the ambachten en neringen. 

 It is interesting in connection with this, that the 

 corporation of wool weavers (wollewevers) in Bruges 

 has lost its orginal professional character, and quite 

 heterogeneous elements have been introduced ; there 

 are only twenty-five weavers in Bruges, and their 

 society numbers nearly two hundred members. The 



