mass around them.
The same change which severed at Florence the seven Greater Arts or
trades from the fourteen Lesser Arts, and which raised the three
occupations of banking, the manufacture and the dyeing of cloth, to a
position of superiority even within the privileged circle of the seven,
told though with less force on the English boroughs. The burghers of the
merchant-gild gradually concentrated themselves on the greater operations
of commerce, on trades which required a larger capital, while the meaner
employments of general traffic were abandoned to their poorer neighbours.
This advance in the division of labour is marked by such severances as we
note in the thirteenth century of the cloth merchant from the tailor or
the leather merchant from the butcher.

[Sidenote: Trade-Gilds]

But the result of this severance was all-important in its influence on
the constitution of our towns. The members of the trades thus abandoned
by the wealthier burghers formed themselves into Craft-gilds which soon
rose into dangerous rivalry with the original Merchant-gild of the town.
A seven years' apprenticeship formed the necessary prelude to full
membership of these trade-gilds. Their regulations were of the minutest
character; the quality and value of work were rigidly prescribed, the
hours of toil fixed "from day-break to curfew," and strict provision made
against competition in labour. At each meeting of these gilds their
members gathered round the Craft-box which contained the rules of their
Society, and stood with bared heads as it was opened. The warden and a
quorum of gild-brothers formed a court which enforced the ordinances of
the gild, inspected all work done by its members, confiscated unlawful
tools or unworthy goods; and disobedience to their orders was punished by
fines or in the last resort by expulsion, which involved the loss of a
right to trade. A common fund was raised by contributions among the
members, which not only provided for the trade objects of the gild but
sufficed to found chantries and masses and set up painted windows in the
church of their patron saint. Even at the present day the arms of a
craft-gild may often be seen blazoned in cathedrals side by side with
those of prelates and of kings. But it was only by slow degrees that they
rose to such a height as this. The first steps in their existence were
the most difficult, for to enable a trade-gild to carry out its objects
with any success it was f