The control of industry is a subject for the treatment of which there are materials sufficient for more than one large volume. I do not, however, regret that I can devote comparatively small space to the subject, as its principles are simple and admit of broad treatment. There is, moreover, in the case of the student who is not a specialist, a danger of obscuring the outlines with a multiplicity of detail. And there is also the danger of selecting some puzzling and obscure incident or enactment, due to local causes of which we are ignorant, and using it as a basis for ingenious generalisations. Broadly speaking, the Control of Industry may be said to be either External, by parliamentary or municipal legislation, or Internal, by means of craft gilds. These two sections again admit of subdivision according as their objects are the protection of the consumer, the employer or the workman. Nor can we entirely ignore legislation for purposes of revenue—subsidies, customs, and octroi dues.

Of industrial legislation by the King's Council, the predecessor of Parliament, we find very little trace. The royal charters of the twelfth century confirming or licensing craft gilds may be more justly regarded as revenue enactments, their object being rather to secure a certain annual return from the craft to which the royal protection was granted than to exercise any control over the craft. The proclamation in the early thirteenth century of the Assize of Cloth and of the Assize of Bread and Ale may be considered to mark the beginning of a national control of industry, though in each case existing regulations were formally adopted rather than new rules imposed. The growth of the towns and the rise of a wealthy merchant class during the reign of Henry III. brought about the birth of Parliament, and naturally led to a certain amount of trade legislation. But with trade—the distribution of finished products by persons other than the producers—we are not concerned. Edward III., thanks perhaps to his queen Philippa, from the cloth land of Hainault, realised the possibilities of the English cloth manufacture, and endeavoured to foster it by a series of statutes to which reference has been made above. During his reign, in 1349, the Black Death, that great landmark in medieval history, by reducing the numbers of the craftsmen increased the market value of the survivors, who at once demanded and obtained higher wages. Parliament retorted by passing the Statute of Labourers,[714] according to which no smith, carpenter, mason, tiler, shipwright, leather-worker, tailor, or other artificer was to take higher wages than he had received three years earlier, before the pestilence. Though this was legislation in favour of the employer, it was not exactly a case of favouring the wealthy, for by imposing a penalty on the giver of excessive wages as well as upon the receiver, an attempt was made to prevent the small employer being deprived of his workmen by richer rivals. The Act was, so far as we can judge, inspired partly by fear that the capitalist might control the sources of labour, and partly by fear that those sources might get beyond control. Whatever its origin, the statute failed in its expressed intention, and wages remained, as Thorold Rogers has shown,[715] permanently higher. This was not due to any laxity in applying the Act; for many years after it was passed justices were appointed in every part of England to enforce it,[716] but the records of their proceedings, as for instance in Somerset in 1360,[717] where many hundreds of offenders are named, show that the workmen had no hesitation in demanding, and found no difficulty in getting wages higher than the law allowed. Wholesale imprisonment as a remedy for scarcity of labour was scarcely satisfactory, and the small fines which were inflicted proved no deterrent.

As the position of the artificer had improved after the Black Death, so the crafts in general were assuming a greater importance in public estimation, and from about 1380 onwards the regulation of industries occupies an increasing amount of space on the Statute Rolls. With their growing influence, most of the crafts began to make their voices heard crying out for protection, which was usually given them with a liberal hand. But, although the pernicious effects of protective measures (deterioration of quality and rise of price) were to a large extent checked by the control kept over quality and prices by the national and municipal authorities, the consumer was sometimes roused to action. One of the best instances of the struggle between public and private interests is to be found in the case of the Yarmouth herring fishery. Edward III. had granted to Yarmouth the monopoly of the sale of herrings on the east coast during the season of the fishery. As a consequence the price of herrings had risen enormously, and the king was driven to cancel the privilege: the men of Yarmouth at once began to pull the strings, and in 1378 recovered their monopoly, with the same result as before. Once more the consumer made his voice heard, and in 1382 the Yarmouth charter was revoked, only to be restored in 1385 on the ground that without protection of this kind Yarmouth would be ruined.

If a large number of parliamentary enactments were protective of the producer, as for instance the prohibition in 1463 of the import of a vast variety of goods, from silk ribbands to dripping-pans, and from razors to tennis balls, including such incompatibles as playing cards and sacring bells,[718] yet still more were protective of the consumer. For one thing, of course, a single Act prohibiting certain imports might protect a dozen classes of manufactures, while the denunciation of one particular species of fraud would probably lead ingenious swindlers to invent a succession of others, each requiring a separate Act for its suppression. Sentimental admirers of the past are apt to imagine that the medieval workman loved a piece of good work for its own sake and never scamped a job. Nothing could be further from the truth. The medieval craftsman was not called a man of craft for nothing! He had no more conscience than a plumber, and his knowledge of ways that are dark and tricks that are vain was extensive and peculiar. The subtle craft of the London bakers, who, while making up their customer's dough, stole a large portion of the dough under their customers' eyes by means of a little trap-door in the kneading-board and a boy sitting under the counter,[719] was exceptional only in its ingenuity. Cloth was stretched and strained to the utmost and cunningly folded to hide defects, a length of bad cloth would be joined on to a length of superior quality, or a whole cheap cloth substituted for the good cloth which the customers had purchased; inferior leather was faked up to look like the best, and sold at night to the unwary; pots and kettles were made of bad metal which melted when put on the fire; and everything that could be weighed or measured was sold by false measure.

Prior to the middle of the sixteenth century parliamentary attention was mainly concentrated on the cloth trade, and the preambles to the various statutes show that those in authority, including the more responsible manufacturers, realised that honesty is the best policy in the end. In 1390 it was pointed out that the frauds of the west country clothiers had not only endangered the reputations, and even the lives, of merchants who brought them for export, but had brought dishonour on the English name abroad.[720] Two years later it was the reputation of Guildford cloths that had been damaged by sharp practices.[721] The worsteds of Norfolk had early come into favour on the Continent, but in 1410 the Flemish merchants became exasperated at their bad quality,[722] and thirty years later the foreign demand for worsteds had been almost killed,[723] while in 1464 English cloth in general was in grave disrepute, not only abroad, but even in its native land, foreign cloth being largely imported.[724] To give them their due, the gilds recognised the importance to their own interests of maintaining a high standard of workmanship, and co-operated loyally with the municipal authorities to that end.

Although we have classed the control of industries by municipal by-laws as 'external,' and control by gild regulations as 'internal,' no hard and fast line can really be drawn between the two. In England, in contrast to the experience of many Continental states, the two authorities worked together with very little friction, the craft gilds recognising the paramount position of the merchant gild or town council, and the latter, in turn, protecting the interest of the gilds and using their organisation to control the various crafts. The question of the origin of gilds is interesting rather than important, and has given rise to much discussion. It is known that the Roman crafts were organised into collegia, but while it is quite possible that some of the trade gilds in Constantinople, and even in Italy and Spain, might be able to trace their pedigrees back to Roman times, it is more than improbable that there was any connection between the Roman collegia and the English craft gilds of the twelfth century. The gilds of which we find mention in Anglo-Saxon records were clearly fraternities of purely social and religious import. These gilds, friendly societies for the support of religious observances benefiting the souls of all the members, and for the mutual relief of such members as had met with misfortune, survived the Conquest and increased greatly, till by the end of the fourteenth century there could have been hardly a village without at least one gild. It is natural to suppose that in towns, where the choice of gilds was considerable, there would be a tendency for members of the same trade to join the same gild. The strength gained by such union under the common bond of an oath to obey the same statutes and the same officers, and the advantage of the Church's protection must soon have become obvious, and as in 1378 we find the weavers of London forming a fraternity whose ordinances are entirely of a religious nature and contain no reference to the occupation of the members,[725] so we may well believe that many of the early gilds, while apparently purely religious, were in fact trade unions. Whatever may have been the methods in which craft gilds came into existence, we find them increasing in numbers and influence from the middle of the twelfth century onwards. Meanwhile, however, the capitalists and wealthy traders by means of 'merchant gilds' and similar bodies had so firmly established an oligarchic control over the towns and boroughs that they were able to keep the craft gilds in a subordinate position. Everywhere the town authorities, whether they were mayor and council, or gild merchant, or governors, could impose regulations upon the crafts, while such rules as the crafts drew up for their own management were legal only if accepted by the town council. The case of Coventry was typical, where, in 1421, the mayor and councillors summoned the wardens of the crafts with their ordinances. 'And the poyntes that byn lawfull good and honest for the Cite be alowyd hem and all other thrown asid and had for none.'[726] In the same way at Norwich in 1449, the mayor drew up a complete set of ordinances for the crafts.[727] But although keeping a firm hand on the gilds, and taking measures to protect the interests of the consumers and of the town in general, the civic authorities left the gilds in control of the internal affairs of their crafts. So that the craftsman in his relations to another of the same trade was a gild brother, but in his relations to all other men he was a townsman.

From the consumer's point of view the regulation of prices was perhaps the most important problem. The price of raw material was too dependent upon supply and demand to admit of much regulation, though in 1355 Parliament interfered to bring down the price of iron,[728] forbidding its export, and ordering the Justices of Labourers (i.e. those appointed to enforce the Statute of Labourers) to punish all who sold it too high. The local authorities, civic and manorial, took constant measures to prevent the artificial enhancement of what we may call raw food stuffs, corn, fish, and meat, the 'regrator and forestaller,' that is to say, the middleman, who intercepted supplies before they reached the market and forced prices up for his own sole benefit, being universally regarded as a miscreant.[729] The economists of that period had not grasped the fact that the cleverness shown in buying an article cheap and selling the same thing, without any further expenditure of labour, dear, if done on a sufficiently large scale, justifies the bestowal of the honour of knighthood or a peerage. In the case of manufactured food stuffs, such as bread and ale, the price was automatically fixed by the price of the raw material, and in general prices of manufactures were regulated by the cost of the materials. Even in the case of such artistic work as the making of waxen images, it was considered scandalous that the makers should charge as much as 2s. the pound for images when wax was only 6d. the pound, and in 1432 the waxchandlers were ordered not to charge for workmanship more than 3d. the pound over the current price of wax.[730] The principle that the craftsman should be content with a reasonable profit, and not turn the casual needs of his neighbours to his own benefit is constantly brought out in local regulations, as, for instance, in London in 1362, when in consequence of the damage wrought by a great storm tiles were in great demand, and the tilers were ordered to go on making tiles and selling them at the usual prices.[731]

The question of prices, which were thus so largely composed of a varying sum for material, and a fixed sum for workmanship, is very intimately connected with the question of wages.[732] The medieval economist seems to have accepted the Ruskinian theory that all men engaged in a particular branch of trade should be paid equal wages—with the corollary that the better workman would obtain the more employment—as opposed to the modern practice of payment according to skill, which results in the greater employment of the bad workman because he is cheap.[733] There were, of course, grades in each profession, as master or foreman, workman, and assistant or common labourer, but within each grade the rate of payment was fixed—at least within the jurisdiction of any gild or town authority[734]—unless the work was of quite exceptional nature, as, for instance, the making of carved stalls for the royal chapel at Westminster in 1357, where the rates of pay were almost double those of ordinary workmen.[735] Wages were at all times paid on the two systems of piece-work and time, and the hours, which varied in the different trades, and at different places and periods, were as a rule long.[736] For the building trade at Beverley in the fifteenth century work began in summer (from Easter to 15th August) at 4 A.M., and continued till 7 P.M.; at 6 A.M. there was a quarter of an hour's interval for refreshment, at 8 half an hour for breakfast, at 11 an hour and a half to dine and sleep, and at 3 half an hour for further refreshment. During the winter months they worked from dawn till dusk, with half an hour for breakfast at 9 o'clock, an hour for dinner at noon, and a quarter of an hour's interval at 3. These hours agree fairly well with those laid down by Parliament in 1496,[737] which were, from mid-March to mid-September, start at 5 and stop work between 7 and 8, with half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for dinner and sleep (the siesta was only to be taken from beginning of May to end of July, during the rest of the time there was to be an hour for dinner and half an hour for lunch—'nonemete'). The blacksmiths of London worked, at the end of the fourteenth century, from dawn till 9 P.M., except during November, December, and January, when their hours were from 6 A.M. to 8 P.M.[738] In the case of the Cappers' gild at Coventry the journeymen's hours were in 1496 from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.;[739] but in 1520 they had been increased, being from 6 A.M. to 7 P.M. in winter, and from 5 A.M. to 7 P.M. in summer.[740] Wages, of course, when paid by the day, varied in winter and summer, if we may use these terms for the short and long days. In London the determining dates were Easter and Michaelmas,[741] at Bristol Ash Wednesday and St. Calixtus (14th October),[742] and in the case of the workmen at Westminster the Purification (2nd February) and All Saints (1st November), giving an exceptionally short winter period.[743]

Against the long hours we have to set the comparative frequency of holidays. On Sundays and all the greater festivals, as well as a variable number of local festivals, such as the dedication day of the Church, no work was done, and on Saturdays and the days preceding festivals work as a rule ceased at four o'clock or earlier. This early closing was enforced at Norwich[744] in 1490, on the representation of the shoemakers that many of their journeymen were 'greatly disposed to riot and idelnes, whereby may succede grete poverte, so that dyuers days wekely when them luste to leve ther bodyly labour till a grete parte of the weke be almost so expended and wasted ... also contrary to the lawe of god and good guydyng temporall they labour quikly toward the Sondaye and festyuall dayes on the Saterdayes and vigils fro iiij of the clock at after none to the depnes and derknes of the nyght foloweng. And not onely that synfull disposicion but moche warse so offendyng in the morownynges of such festes and omyttyng the heryng of the dyvyne servyce.' In the case of the founders in London,[745] while no ordinary metal work, such as turning, filing, or engraving, might be done after noon had rung, an exception had to be made in the case of a casting which was actually in progress; such work might be completed after time, as otherwise the metal would have to be remelted, even if it were not spoilt by the interruption. So far as Sundays and feasts were concerned no work was permitted except in the case of farriers, who were expected to shoe the horses of strangers passing through the town.[746] A good many shops were open on the Sunday morning until seven o'clock, especially shoemakers,[747] who in Bristol were allowed at any time of the day to serve 'eny knyght or Squyer or eny other straunger goyng on her passage or journee, merchant or maryner comyng fro the see,' or, during the six Sundays of harvest, any one else who required boots.[748] Markets during the early part of the thirteenth century were often held on Sundays, but most of these were soon shifted on to week days; and fairs were usually associated with a saint's day, but a fair was an amusement at which the ordinary craftsman was an interested spectator, though the chapmen and merchants were kept busy enough. The London rule that Saturdays and vigils counted for wages as complete days, but that no payment was to be made for the Sundays and feast days[749] was generally observed, but in the case of workmen engaged in building operations at Westminster and the Tower the custom was that wages should be paid for alternate feast days, but not for any Sundays.[750]

Rules against working at night or after dark are constantly found in all classes of industries, 'by reason that no man can work so neatly by night as by day.'[751] There was the additional reason that in many trades night work was a source of annoyance to neighbours. This was certainly the case with the blacksmiths,[752] and was probably the cause of the enactment by the Council in 1398, that no leather worker should work by night with hammer and shears, knife or file, at making points or lanyers (laces or thongs).[753] Worst of all these offenders were the spurriers,[754] for 'many of the said trade are wandering about all day without working at all at their trade; and then when they have become drunk and frantic, they take to their work, to the annoyance of the sick and all their neighbourhood.... And then they blow up their fires so vigorously that their forges begin all at once to blaze, to the great peril of themselves and of all the neighbourhood round.' Nuisances of this nature the authorities put down by stringent by-laws, in the same way that they banished offensive occupations, such as the flaying of carcases, the dressing of skins, and the burning of bricks, outside the walls.[755]

A third reason for the prohibition of night work was that candlelight not only made good work more difficult, but made bad work more easy. Not only was it easy to pass off faked leather and other deceitful goods by the uncertain, artificial light, which was one of the causes that moved the Council to try to put down 'evechepyngs,'[756] or evening markets, in London, but it also enabled fraudulent workmen to avoid the eye of the vigilant searcher or inspector.[757] All such evasion and secrecy was rightly regarded as suspicious, and at Bristol, to take a single instance, weavers had to work at looms visible from the public street, and not in cellars or upstair rooms,[758] the better class of furs had also to be worked in public,[759] and ale might not be sold in private.[760] The medieval system of search or inspection was very thorough, in theory and, so far as we can judge, in practice also. The search of weights and measures, provisions, cloth, and tanned leather usually belonged to the mayor or equivalent borough officer, or in country districts to the manorial lord, but usually with other manufactures, and very often in the case of cloth and leather, the mayor deputed the duty of search to members of the craft gilds elected and sworn for that purpose. They could inspect the wares either in the workshops, or when exposed for sale, and seize any badly made articles. The forfeited goods were either burnt or given to the poor,[761] and the offending craftsman fined, set in the pillory, or, if an old offender, banished from the town.[762] To facilitate tracing the responsibility for bad work, weavers, fullers, hatters, metal workers, tile-makers, and other craftsmen, including bakers, were ordered to put their private trademarks on their wares.[763]

The process of search must have been much simplified by the custom so prevalent in medieval towns of segregating or localising the trades,[764] so that all the goldsmiths dwelt in one quarter, the shoemakers in another, the clothiers in a third, and so forth. How far this was compulsory, and how far a mere matter of custom it is hard to say, but for those who in addition to or instead of shops sold by barrows or chapmen, definite districts were usually assigned. So the London shoemakers might only send out their goods to be hawked between Sopers Lane and the Conduit, and then only in the morning,[765] and at Bristol smiths were not to send ironware through the town for sale in secret places, but either to sell 'in here howse opynlych' or else at their assigned place by the High Cross, where also all strangers coming with 'eny penyworthes yclepid smyth ware' were to stand.[766] The principle of segregation was carried out still more strictly, as we might expect, in the markets. A list of the stalls in the provision market at Norwich in 1397[767] shows forty butchers' stalls together, followed by forty-five fishmongers and twenty-eight stalls in the poulterers' market, of which nine were used for fresh fish; then there were fifteen shops belonging to the corporation in the wool-market, and the great building of the 'Worthsted Celd,' to which all worsteds sent in from the country had to be brought.[768] Other trades were localised in the same way, and the two divisions of leather-workers, the cordwainers and the workers of the inferior 'bazan' or sheep's leather, were bidden each to keep to their own set of stalls to prevent confusion and fraud.[769]

As the trades were kept each to its own district, so was the craftsman restricted to his own trade. By a law issued in 1364 artificers were obliged to keep to one 'mystery' or craft,[770] an exception being made in favour of women acting as brewers, bakers, carders, spinners, and workers of wool and linen and silk,—the versatility of woman, the 'eternal amateur,' being thus recognised some five centuries and a half before Mr. Chesterton rediscovered it. Later statutes forbade shoemakers, tanners, and curriers to infringe on each other's province. It is true that at Bristol[771] we find a puzzling regulation that if a man who had not been apprenticed to tanning practises the craft to which he was apprenticed and also uses the craft of tanning, he shall not pay anything to the tanner's craft but to his own craft and his 'maistier servaunt de tanneres-crafte' shall discharge the dues, etc. of a master of the craft. But probably this belongs to the later fifteenth century after the rise of capitalist employers; if not, it is certainly exceptional, the general tendency being to keep trades, and more especially the allied trades, separate, in order presumably to avoid the growth of 'combines' and monopolies. For this reason fishmongers and fishermen were forbidden to enter into partnership in London,[772] because the dealers, knowing the needs of the city, would be able to manipulate supplies and keep up prices. The case against allowing all the branches of one trade to come under single control is vividly set out in the case of the Coventry iron workers in 1435:[773]—

'Be hit known to you that but yif certen ordenaunses of Craftes withein this Cite, and in speciall the craft of wirdrawerz, be takon good hede to, hit is like myche of the kynges pepull and in speciall poor chapmen and Clothemakers in tyme comeng shallon be gretely hyndered; and as hit may be supposed the principall cause is like to be amonges hem that han all the Craft in her own hondes, That is to say, smythiers, brakemen,[774] gurdelmen and cardwirdrawers; for he that hathe all these Craftes may, offendyng his consience, do myche harme. First in the smethyng, yif he be necligent and mysrule his Iron that he wirkithe be onkynd hetes or elles in oder maner, the whiche when hit is so spilt is not to make no maner chapmannes ware of, Neverthelater for his own eese he will com to his Brakemon and sey to hym:—"Here is a ston of rough-iron the whiche must be tendurly cherysshet." And then the Brakemon most nedes do his maisters comaundement and dothe all that is in hym; and then when the Brakemon hathe don his occupacion, that that the mayster supposithe wilnot in no wyse be holpen atte gurdell, then hit shall be solde for hoke wire. And when hit is made in hokes and shulde serve the Fisher to take fisshe, when comythe hit to distresse, then for febulness hit all-to brekithe and thus is the Fissher foule disseyved to hys grete harme. And then that wire that the mayster supposithe will be cherisshed atte gurdell, he shall com to his girdelmon and sey to him as he seid to the brakemon:—"Lo, here is a stryng or ij that hathe ben mysgoverned atte herthe; my brakemon hathe don his dener, I prey the do now thyne." And so he dothe as his maister biddethe hyme. And then he gothe to his cardwirdrawer and seithe the same to hym, and he dothe as his maister biddithe hym. And then when the Cardmaker hathe bought this wire thus dissayvabely wrought he may not know hit tille hit com to the crokyng,[775] and then hit crachithe and farithe foule; so the cardmaker is right hevy therof but neverthelater he sethe because hit is cutte he must nedes helpe hymself in eschuing his losse, he makithe cardes therof as well as he may. And when the cardes ben solde to the clothemaker and shuldon be ocupied, anon the teeth brekon and fallon out, so the clothemaker is foule disseyved. Wherfore, sirs, atte reverens of God in fortheryng of the kynges true lege peapull and in eschueng of all disseytes, weithe this mater wysely and ther as ye see disseyte is like to be, therto settithe remedy be your wyse discressions. For ye may right welle know be experience that and the smythier and the brakemen wern togider, and no mo, and the cardwirdrawers and the middlemen[776] togider, and no mo, then hit were to suppose that ther shuld not so myche disseyvaball wire be wrought and sold as ther is; for and the craft were severed in the maner as hit is seide above, then the cardwirdrawers and the myddelmen most nedes bye the wire that they shull wirche of the smythier, and yif the cardwirdrawer were ones or thies disseyved with ontrewe wire he wolde be warre and then wold he sey unto the smythier that he bought that wire of:—"Sir, I hadde of you late badde wire. Sir, amend your honde, or, in feith, I will no more bye of you." And then the smythier, lest he lost his custumers, wolde make true goode; and then, withe the grase of Godd, the Craft shulde amend and the kynges peapull be not disseyved with ontrewe goode.'

The interests of the craftsmen, or producers, were as a whole opposed to those of the consumers. It is true that they co-operated, as we have seen, with the local authorities in maintaining the standard of workmanship, because the craft that did not do so would soon find itself 'defamed and out of employ,'[777] but it was obviously to their interest to keep up prices by the limitation of competition and of output. Their success in restricting competition varied very greatly in different trades and places. In Lincoln, for instance, no tiler might come to work in the town without joining the tilers' gild,[778] while in Worcester, so far was this from being the case, that the tilers were not even allowed to form a gild at all.[779] As a whole the gilds had the townsmen behind them in their opposition to outsiders. The traditional attitude of the Englishman towards a stranger has always been to 'heave half a brick at him,' and as far back as 1421 the authorities at Coventry had to order 'that no man throw ne cast at noo straunge man, ne skorn hym.'[780] The sense of civic, or even parochial, patriotism was more developed in those times, and it was generally felt that while artificers ought not to work for outsiders unless there was no work to be had within the town, on the other hand, employers ought to give the preference to their fellow townsmen and not send work out of the town.[781] As to encouraging strangers to settle within their walls, sentiment varied in different places. At Beverley in 1467 it was enacted that any person might come and set up in his craft without any payment for the first year—except a contribution towards the church light and the yearly pageant maintained by his craft—but after that he should pay yearly 12d. to the town and 12d. to his craft until he became a burgess and member of the gild.[782] But the attitude of Bristol, where no one might weave unless he became a burgess (and a gild brother) was more typical of the general feeling.[783] There was, however, at Bristol a rule that a stranger who had come to the town on a visit, or to wait for a ship might work at his trade for his support during his stay.[784] This rule did not hold good, apparently, at Hereford, as a London tailor, whose master had allowed him during an outbreak of plague to go and stay with relations in Hereford, was imprisoned by the wardens of the local tailors' gild because he did some tailoring for the cousin with whom he was staying, in order to pay for his keep.[785] At Norwich, by the ordinances of 1449, no 'foreign dweller' might have any apprentices or even a hired servant unless the latter was absolutely necessary for his business, and in that case at the end of a year he must either 'buy himself a freeman,' or, if too poor to buy the franchise, 'live under tribute to the sheriffs.'[786]

One advantage that the resident manufacturer had over the foreigner was that his wares entered the local market without the handicap of paying customs or octroi dues. Long lists of these dues on every conceivable kind of merchandise, from bears and monkeys to peppercorns, are to be found in the records of many towns,[787] more especially seaports. It is true that the burgesses of many towns, and the tenants of many religious houses were theoretically exempt from paying these dues, but it is probable that the delay and worry of proving such exemption was often felt to be a greater loss than payment. So far as the alien importer was concerned, although there was no such thing as a protective duty (the import of an article was either prohibited altogether or unrestrained), he might find himself called upon to pay a higher, even a double, import duty on all his merchandise. This policy of discriminating against the alien, combined with the continual harassing of the unfortunate foreign merchants, induced many alien settlers to take out letters of naturalisation, and the long lists of these in the fifteenth century[788] show how numerous and widespread these aliens were. Coming for the most part from Flanders and the Low Countries, they settled not only in London and the other great towns, but in the smaller market towns and villages throughout the country, exercising their various trades as goldsmiths, clothmakers, leather-workers, and so forth. In London in particular the foreign element was very large from an early date and, as a result of the invitation issued by Edward III. to foreign clothworkers and their exemption from the control of the native clothiers' gild, we have the exceptional occurrence of a gild of alien weavers. This gild, itself divided by the rivalries and quarrels of the Flemings and Brabanters,[789] was unpopular with the native weavers because, while competing with them for trade, they did not share in the farm or rent paid by the native gild to the king, and in general there was a strong feeling against the aliens in London, which was fanned by the craft gilds and occasionally culminated in rioting, the murder of some of the foreigners and the plunder of their shops.

While the gilds were constantly coming into conflict with outside interests, there was also an internal conflict of interests between the masters, the hired servants, or journeymen, and the intermediate class of apprentices. This becomes more noticeable towards the end of our period. While there was occasional friction between employer and employed even before the second half of the fourteenth century, it was during the next two centuries that the rise of the capitalist, coupled with the descent of the small independent masters into the position of journeymen, brought about strained relations between the two classes. In the earlier period in most of the trades there was reasonable prospect for any craftsman that he would be able to set up as an independent master, but as time went on the difficulty of attaining independence increased. The growing attraction of town and craft life as compared with agriculture swelled the ranks of the craftsmen, and the gilds, whose management was in the hands of the masters, endeavoured to limit competition by raising their entrance fees and more especially by raising their 'upsets,' that is to say the fees which had to be paid by a craftsman upon setting up as a master. One of the earliest instances of this restriction of competition occurred in connection with the weavers' gild of London, concerning whom it was reported in 1321 that they had during the last thirty years reduced the number of looms in the city from 380 to 80.[790] In this case the object was to benefit all the members of the gild at the expense of the public, and not to protect existing masters from rivals within the gild, and the method employed was therefore the raising of the fee for entrance to the gild. This same weavers' gild was so far ahead of its times that it had instituted the modern trade unions' restriction of output, no member being allowed to weave a cloth in less than four days, though such a cloth could easily be woven in three if not in two days.[791] But this was a most exceptional move, if not absolutely unique.

How far the desire to restrict output was at the bottom of regulations forbidding the employment of more than a strictly limited number of apprentices and journeymen, and how far such prohibitions were inspired by fear of the monopolisation of labour by capitalists it is difficult to say. Probably the dread of the capitalist was the chief incentive for such regulations, which are very numerous; the cobblers of Bristol, for instance, being restricted to a single 'covenaunt hynd,'[792] and the cappers of Coventry allowed only two apprentices, neither of whom might be replaced if he left with his master's leave before the end of his term of seven years.[793] The same principle of fair play between employers led to the ordaining of heavy penalties for taking away another man's servant, or employing any journeyman who had not fulfilled his engagement with his previous master, and to the strict prohibition of paying more than the fixed maximum wages. As this last provision was sometimes got over by the master's wife giving his servants extra gratuities and gifts, this practice was forbidden at Bristol in 1408, except that the master might at the end of a year give 'a courtesy' of 20d. to his chief servant.[794] As the unfair securing of labour by offering high wages was forbidden, so the use of the cheap labour of women was as a rule regarded with disfavour. The fullers of Lincoln were forbidden to work with any woman who was not the wife or maid of a master,[795] and the 'braelers,' or makers of braces, of London, in 1355, laid down 'that no one shall be so daring as to set any woman to work in his trade, other than his wedded wife or his daughter.'[796] A century later the authorities at Bristol went even further, for finding that the weavers were 'puttyn, occupien and hiren ther wyfes, doughtours and maidens, some to weve in ther owne lombes and some to hire them to wirche with othour persons of the said crafte,' whereby many 'likkely men to do the Kyng service in his warris, ... and sufficiently lorned in the seid crafte ... gothe vagraunt and unoccupied,' absolutely forbade the practice in future, making an exception only in the case of wives already so employed.[797] Of child labour we hear very little, one of the few notices being an order on their behalf made, suitably enough, by Richard Whittington in 1398, that whereas some 'hurers' (makers of fur caps) send their apprentices and journeymen and children of tender age down to the Thames and other exposed places, amid horrible tempests, frosts, and snows, to scour caps, to the very great scandal of the city, this practice is to cease at once.[798]

Apprenticeship was from quite early times the chief, and eventually became the only, path to mastership. The ordinances of the London leather-dressers,[799] made in 1347, and those of the pewterers,[800] made the next year, give as alternative qualifications for reception into the craft the completion of a period of apprenticeship, or the production of good testimony that the applicant is a competent workman. A similar certificate of ability was required of the dyers at Bristol,[801] in 1407, even if they were apprentices, but as a rule the completion of a term of apprenticeship was a sufficient qualification. That term might vary considerably, but the custom of London, which held good in most English boroughs, eventually fixed it at a minimum of seven years. This would often be exceeded, and we find, for instance, a boy of fourteen apprenticed to a haberdasher in 1462 for the rather exceptional term of twelve years; but in this case the master had undertaken to provide him with two years' schooling, the first year and a half to learn 'grammer,' and the next half year to learn to write.[802] In a list of apprentices who took the oath of fealty to the king and the city at Coventry in 1494, the terms range from five to nine years, though the majority were for seven years; during the first years of their terms, they were to receive nominal wages, usually 12d. a year, and for their last year more substantial rewards, varying from 6s. 8d. to 25s.[803] The oath to obey the city laws serves as a reminder that the apprentice, not being a full member of the gild, was under the charge of the city authorities to some extent. Indentures of apprenticeship had as a rule to be enrolled by the town clerk,[804] and in London the transfer of an apprentice from one employer to another was not legal unless confirmed by the city chamberlain.[805] Besides having his indentures enrolled, and paying a fee to the craft gild, the apprentices, or rather his friends, had to give a bond for his good behaviour. The rights of the apprentice, on the other hand, were probably always guarded by a right of appeal to the wardens of his craft: this was certainly the case at Coventry in 1520, the masters of the cappers being obliged to go once a year to all the shops of their craft and call the apprentices before them, and if any apprentice complained three times against his master for 'insufficient finding,' they had power to take him away and put him with another master.[806] As a master's interest in his apprentice was transferable to another master, so it was possible for an apprentice to buy up the remainder of his term after he had served a portion. He could not, however, be received into his gild as a master until the whole of his term had expired,[807] and although it would seem that he could set up in business by himself,[808] probably he might not employ workmen, and as a rule he no doubt spent the unexpired portion of his term as a journeyman.

The journeymen, working by the day (journÉe), either with their masters, or in their own houses, as opposed to the covenant servants, who were hired by the year,[809] and lived in their employer's house, constituted the fluid element in the industrial organisation, and were composed partly of men who had served a full apprenticeship but lacked funds or enterprise to set up independently, and partly of others who had either served only a brief apprenticeship, or had picked up their knowledge of the craft in other ways.[810] Although more or less free to work for what employers they would, practically all gild regulations contained a stringent order against the employment of any journeyman who had broken his contract or left his late master without good reason.[811] In the matter of home work rules varied; the journeymen of the wiredrawers and allied crafts at Coventry in 1435 were allowed to work at home and might not be compelled to come to their masters' houses,[812] but in London, in 1271, the shoemakers were not allowed to give out work, as the journeymen were found to go off with the goods.[813] The vagaries of this class, indeed, caused much heart-searching to their masters. Instead of being content with their holidays, and accepting their twelve hours' working day, they had a pernicious habit of going off on the spree for two or three days, and amusing themselves by playing bowls, 'levyng ther besynes at home that they shuld lyve by';[814] and the Coventry employers, with that touching regard for widows and orphans (or in this case wives and children) which has always distinguished the English capitalists, forbade them to frequent inns on workdays, 'as it is daylye seen that they whiche be of the pooreste sorte doo sytte all daye in the alehouse drynkynge and playnge at the cardes and tables and spende all that they can gett prodigally upon themselfes to the highe displeasure of God and theyre owne ympovershynge, whereas if it were spente at home in theyre owne houses theyre wiffes and childerne shulde have parte therof.'[815] Not having any voice in the craft gilds the journeymen were continually forming 'yeomen gilds,' 'bacheleries,' and other combinations, which the masters' gilds usually endeavoured to suppress. In 1387 the London journeymen cordwainers formed a fraternity[816] and endeavoured to secure it by obtaining papal protection; nine years later the mayor and aldermen put down a fraternity formed by the yeomen of the saddlers, at the same time ordering the masters to treat their men well in future,[817] and in 1415 the wardens of the tailors complained that their journeymen had combined, living together in companies in particular houses, where they held assemblies, and adopting a livery, whereupon the council, in view of the danger to the peace of the city from such an uncontrolled and irresponsible body, forbade the combination and ordered the journeymen to live under the governance of the wardens of the craft.[818] The fraternity of the yeomen tailors, however, was not so easily suppressed, and is found two years later petitioning for leave to hold its yearly assembly at St. John's, Clerkenwell.[819] In the same way at Coventry, when the journeymen tailors' gild of St. Anne was suppressed in 1420, they simply changed their patron and reappeared as the gild of St. George, against which measures were taken in 1425.[820] The charges against the yeomen saddlers in 1396 were, that they had so forced wages up that whereas the masters could formerly obtain a workman for from 40s. to 5 marks yearly and his board they had now to pay 10 or 12 marks or even £10, and that also business was dislocated by the bedel coming round and summoning the journeymen to attend a service for the soul of a deceased brother. The clashing of religious observances with business led to an order at Coventry in 1528 that the journeymen dyers should make no assemblies at weddings, brotherhoods, or burials, nor make any 'caves' (i.e. combinations), but use themselves as servants, and as no craft.[821] This was practically an enforcement of an order issued ten years earlier, that no journeymen should form 'caves' without the licence of the mayor and the master of their craft.[822] Such a licence would not as a rule be granted, unless the masters were unusually broadminded, or the journeymen exceptionally strong. There was, however, at Coventry a recognised fraternity of journeymen weavers in 1424; their wardens paid 12d. to the chief master for every brother admitted; each brother gave 4d. towards the cost of the craft pageant, and the chief master contributed towards the journeymen's altar lamp, while both masters and servants held their feasts together.[823] At Bristol also there was a gild of journeymen connected with the shoemakers' craft, sharing with the craft gild in the expenses of church lights and feasts.[824]

The success of the London saddlers in forcing wages up is a remarkable tribute to the power of union; and we find that during the fourteenth century the strike was well known, and when a master would not agree with his workmen the other workmen of the craft would come out and cease work until the dispute was settled.[825] This practice was, of course, forbidden, but we may doubt with what success. At the same time the masters were pretty well unanimous in forbidding the employment of a craftsman whose dispute with his master had not been settled. So far as the offence of detaining wages due was concerned, penalties were often laid down in gild ordinances,[826] while in the case of other disputes the matter would be settled by the council or court of the craft.[827] The existence of a craft gild practically implied a court before which disputes between members of the craft or between craftsmen and customers were tried.[828] Such courts were at first directly under the borough authorities, the mayor or his deputies presiding over the weekly courts of the weavers in London in 1300,[829] and although they seem to have attained a greater degree of independence there seems usually to have been a right of appeal to the borough court.[830] It was probably to avoid this that some of the Coventry masters took to impleading craftsmen in spiritual courts, on the ground that they had broken their oaths in not keeping the gild rules.[831]

Too much attention must not be given to the quarrelsome side of the gilds, for they were essentially friendly societies for mutual assistance. One of the rules of the London leather-dressers was that if a member should have more work than he could complete, and the work was in danger of being lost the other members should help him.[832] So also, if a mason wished to undertake a contract he got four or six responsible members of the craft to guarantee his ability, and if he did not do the work well they had to complete it.[833] Again, if a farrier undertook the cure of a horse and was afraid that it would die, he might call in the advice of the wardens of his company, but if he was too proud to do so and the horse died, he would be responsible to the owner.[834] The rule of the weavers at Hull, that none should let his apprentice work for another[835] was not an infringement of the principle of mutual aid, but was designed to prevent evasion of the order that none might have more than two apprentices; the fact that a fine was only exacted in the event of the apprentice so working for more than thirteen days actually points to the loan of temporary assistance being allowed. While help was thus given to the craftsman when in full employ, a still more essential feature of the gilds was their grant of assistance to members who had fallen ill or become impoverished through no fault of their own.[836] Nor did their benevolence end with the poor craftsman's death, for they made an allowance to his widow and celebrated Masses for the repose of his soul. The religious element in the organisation of gilds, though very strong, does not affect us very much in considering their industrial side, but there is one indirect effect which must be referred to. The custom of all the gilds and fraternities going in procession to the chief church of their town on certain feast days, carrying their banners and symbols, gradually developed during the fifteenth century until each gild endeavoured to outshine its rivals in pageantry. Payments towards the pageants were exacted from all members of the trade even if they were not members of the gild, but in spite of this the expenses were so great that the smaller gilds were almost ruined, and consequently we find during the latter half of the fifteenth century schemes to amalgamate, or at any rate to unite for the support of a common pageant, many of the smaller mysteries or crafts. An account of a pageant at Norwich[837] about 1450 is interesting as showing the numbers of these lesser crafts, and the way in which they were combined. Twelve pageants were presented: (1) The Creation of the World, by the mercers, drapers, and haberdashers. (2) Paradise, by the grocers and raffemen. (3) 'Helle Carte,' by the glaziers, stainers, scriveners, parchemyners, the carpenters, gravers, colermakers, and wheelwrights. (4) Abel and Cain, by the shearmen, fullers, 'thikwollenwevers,' and coverlet makers, the masons and limeburners. (5) 'Noyse shipp' (Noah's Ark), by the bakers, brewers, innkeepers, cooks, millers, vintners, and coopers. (6) Abraham and Isaac, by the tailors, broderers, the reders and tylers. (7) Moses and Aaron with the children of Israel and Pharaoh and his knights, by the tanners, curriers, and cordwainers. (8) David and Goliath, by the smiths. (9) The Birth of Christ, by the dyers, calenders, the goldsmiths, goldbeaters, saddlers, pewterers, and braziers. (10) The Baptism of Christ, by the barbers, waxchandlers, surgeons, physicians, the hardwaremen, the hatters, cappers, skinners, glovers, pinners, pointmakers, girdlers, pursers, bagmakers, 'sceppers,'[838] the wiredrawers and cardmakers. (11) The Resurrection, by the butchers, fishmongers, and watermen. (12) The Holy Ghost, by the worsted weavers.

In some cases the smaller crafts seem to have been absorbed into the larger, but in the Norwich regulations of 1449,[839] when general orders were given for the annexation of the smaller crafts to the larger, the bladesmiths, locksmiths, and lorimers, for instance, being united to the smiths, it was laid down that such of the annexed misteries as had seven or more members should elect their own wardens, and that the mayor should appoint wardens for such as had fewer than seven members. This, which is interesting as showing how small some of these misteries were, points to a retention of control, the amalgamation being mainly concerned, no doubt, with the expenses of the pageant and the gild feasts. These latter became so elaborate and costly that many of the unfortunate members chosen as 'feast-makers' were ruined, and in 1495 orders were given at Norwich that the wardens alone should be feast-makers, and that they should provide one supper and one dinner, on the same day, and no more, and that should be at the common expense of the gild.[840] These orders had to be repeated in 1531, and it is rather interesting to read that in 1547[841] the dishes which had to be provided by the cordwainers' feast-makers were 'frumenty, goos, vell, custard, pig, lamb, and tarte. At soper—colde sute,[842] hot sute, moten, douset,[843] and tarte.'

With the pleasant picture of our craftsman resting from his labours and regaling himself in true English fashion, we may take leave of him and his work.