Gild or Guild, an association for the promotion of common interests. "Gild," says Blackstone, "signified among the Saxons a fraternity, derived from the verb gildan, to pay, because every man paid his share toward the expenses of the community, and hence their place of meeting was often called the guild or guildhall." The name may be applied properly to any association of fraternal purpose, as the Men's Gild of Trinity Church, The Gild of the Essex Bar, etc. Gild may be used in a literary and less proper sense in such an expression as the gild of newsboys, or gild of bootblacks. The medieval gild is a subject of unusual interest. It grew up with the growth of cities. The medieval gilds were of two sorts, the merchants' or traders' gilds and the artisans' gilds. The typical merchant gild was composed of traders who united to further the business of buying and selling. These gilds sprang up in the trading towns everywhere, and took the lead in such matters as purchasing freedom from local lords, obtaining permission to hold fairs, and in getting town charters from the ruler of the land. In case a city grew and had varied interests, a number of merchant gilds arose. Some of these gilds built halls of great magnificence. The Hall of the Clothmaker's Gild at Ypres (e-pr) is one of the notable buildings of Christendom. The gilds were so closely identified with the government of medieval cities that the term gild hall was used interchangeably to denote a town hall and a hall where the gilds met for deliberation. In fact, the merchant gild was in some cases the city council. The second type of gild is known as the craft gild. It held usually a charter from the town or king. The craft gild was an association of artisans employed in the same sort of handiwork. The number of merchant gilds was limited-ordinarily one in a city-but the number of craft gilds was limited only by the number of skilled occupations. There were gilds of bakers, candlemakers, grocers, spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, clothworkers, goldsmiths, saddlers, bow makers, carpenters, masons, glovers, tanners, and so on to the end of the list. York had fifty craft gilds. Cologne had above eighty. There were over a hundred gilds in London. Twelve gilds, noted for wealth and influence, were called the Twelve Great Companies. They were the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers, goldsmiths, skinners, merchant tailors, haberdashers, sutlers, ironmongers, vintners, clothworkers. Other gilds whose occupations are now extinct were the bowyers, broderers, girdlers, horners, loriners, pattenmakers, and scriveners. Some eighty of the London gilds yet exist. About forty still possess halls. They meet in rooms, at gildhalls, or in the offices of their respective secretaries. Some of the gilds still own enormous property. Fishmongers' Hall has a yearly income of $100,000. The Merchant Tailors' Gild has become a wealthy Tory club; another has become a Whig club. These London gilds cling to their charters with reverence. Most of them are conducted as fraternal orders, having especial care for the widows and orphans of their membership. On occasion, as the inauguration of a mayor or a civic procession, the members turn out like Odd Fellows and Masons in the liveries-gowns, furs, headgear, etc.-of their respective gilds. The craft gilds consisted of three sorts of persons, master workers, journeymen, and apprentices. The master workman might or might not be a person of wealth; but even the humblest was necessarily a man of sufficient capital to command a home in which to live, to work, and to expose his wares for sale. The master employed journeymen and apprentices. An apprentice was bound to a master for a term of years, usually three, seven, or ten, according to the difficulty of the trade to be learned. During this period the apprentice lived in the family of the master and received food, clothing, lodging, and instruction in his art. At the expiration of his apprenticeship, he was free to tramp from city to city, earning wages from any master that cared to employ him. If skillful, industrious, and thrifty, he might hope to settle into a shop of his own, much after the fashion of the journeyman printer of today. The traders' gild was the older type. In later years it was crowded somewhat by craft gilds. Many artisans were also tradesmen. The swordmaker usually exposed his wares in the front room of his shop. At seasons the master left his shop to the care of others and took the road, probably with a string of packhorses, to visit the fairs and sell his wares. The two types ran together somewhat, so that it is convenient to speak of the gild system as a whole. The gilds occupied a large place in medieval society. They sought and obtained charters granting them monopoly. Under ideal conditions, which may or may not have prevailed in their entirety, none but members of the city gilds might trade in the city, or, if outsiders came in, they did so on payment of proper fees and in the interest of wares not produced locally, as in the case of cloth merchants. None but a member of the shoemakers' gild of York might make shoes in York. By forbidding intersale of shoes made elsewhere, and by regulating the number of journeymen and apprentices per master, the market was relieved from modern competition. A proper number of workmen were kept busy. The germs of the labor union were here. Prices and times and places of sales were fixed by the gilds. Materials were purchased in a spirit of cooperation, and each member of the gild "had a right to share in any purchase made by another." Grades of material and standards of workmanship were established and maintained by a system of fines leading, in extreme cases, to expulsion from the gild and loss of a livelihood. In essential respects, the gilds were monopolies, but they were monopolies conducted in the interest, not of a few wealthy members, but ordinarily in the interest of many members of moderate means. In looking after quality, weight, and measure, in defending the buyer against the scant gallon, the short yardstick, and adulteration, the gild benefited both buyer and seller. A parallel, which it were unprofitable perhaps to carry too far, may be drawn between the medieval gilds and chivalry. Chivalry, knight, and squire made lords and vassals-feudal tenure of land-possible. The medieval gilds, with their enlightened selfishness, made cities possible. Both chivalry and the gilds were aristocratic. Knighthood was the dominant element in camp, court, castle, and manor, It presumed a vast body of common people, freeholders and serfs. In like manner, though not to such a degree, the merchants in their gilds and the masters and journeymen in their gilds formed an aristocratic, a dominant, element that controlled the towns. In some cities the gild members and their families constituted doubtless a large part of the population; but, in any case, one not a member of a gild was a mere laborer, without voice and without citizenship. It goes without saying that gilds differed in wealth, influence, and in social standing; but there was a greater difference between membership in the humblest gild and membership in none at all. The citizens-the burghers of whom we read-were gild members. Beneath the gilds, there was a substratum of low degree, corresponding to the serfs and villeins that underlay feudal society. Virtually the only way to rise from the rabble lay through the jealously guarded door of the gild. The thoughtful reader cannot fail to note that the medieval gild did, in a way, the work of several special institutions of the present day. In addition to being in a varying degree boards of trade, chambers of commerce, inspectors of weights and measures, pure food departments, interstate commerce commissioners, insurance companies, boards of aldermen,-they were fraternal orders caring for their own-not everybody's-needy; and they were social organizations devoted to banquets and drinkings. The gilds cherished the arts and the sciences. They stood for thrift and for peace. They made the cities possible and were at all times a counterpoise to chivalry. The gild was based on essentially sound social principles. It was selfish, not for itself, but for its members. It never considered the welfare of the gild superior to the prosperity of the members. It did not rank the government as a thing above, and apart from, and superior to the governed. Dishonesty, private monopoly, extortion, secret rebates, sugar trusts, oil trusts, and coal trusts were as foreign, as unthinkable, as were cut-throat competition and shoddy workmanship. If the genuine gild idea could be expanded to include the whole world in a universal gild, we should have no need for a millennium. Search shall be made at hucksters' houses for bread made outside the town. Such bread is forfeited. Horse loaves shall be made two for a penny, of clean beans; otherwise, a fine must be paid, which goes half to the city and half to the guild. No baker shall be allowed in the town, unless a freeman, and also one of the guild.-From the Bakers' Guild at Exeter. Common fines shall go into the stock of the guild. Brethren shall bequeath something to the guild, if they make wills. If a brother be foulmouthed to another, he shall be fined; and, on repetition, shall be further punished. Heavy fines shall be paid for bodily hurt done. Weapons shall not be brought to guild-meetings. None shall be taken into the guild without paying at least forty shillings, saving the sons and daughters of guildmen. Help shall be given to poor and ailing brethren. Dowries shall be given to poor maidens of good repute [in the guild]. Poor brethren shall be buried at the cost of the guild. Help shall be given to brethren charged with wrong-doing. If the brother has been rightly charged, he shall be dealt with as the aldermen and brethren think well. No lepers shall come into the borough, a place for them being kept outside the town. No dung or dust-heaps shall be put near the banks of the Tweed. Underhand dealings in the way of trade shall be punished. If any one buy goods, misled by false top samples, amends must be made. Forestalling of the market shall not be allowed. Wools and hides shall not be engrossed by a few buyers. The affairs of the borough shall be managed by twenty-four discreet men of the town, chosen thereto, together with the mayor and four provosts. The mayor and provosts shall be chosen by the commonalty. Bewrayers of the guild shall be heavily punished. Out-dwelling brethren of the guild must deal in the town on market-days. . . . No woman shall buy at one time more than a chaldron (36 bushels) of oats for making beer to sell. . . . Whoever buys a lot of herrings, shall share them, at cost price, with the neighbors present at the buying. . . . Tanned leathers, brought in by outsiders, must be sold in open market and on market-day. . . . No one shall have more than two pair of mill-stones.-From the Guild of Berwick-on-Tweed, 1283-1284.