of their
well-being may be further judged from the wealth of their guilds,
which, although varying in different places, at all times formed a
considerable proportion of the wealth of the town. The guild system
was based upon the notion that the individual master and workman was
working as much in the interest of the guild as for his own advantage.
Each member of the guild was alike under the obligation to labour, and
to labour in accordance with the rules laid down by his guild, and at
the same time had the right of equal enjoyment with his
fellow-guildsmen of all advantages pertaining to the particular branch
of industry covered by the guild. Every guildsman had to work himself
_in propria persona_; no contractor was tolerated who himself "in ease
and sloth doth live on the sweat of others, and puffeth himself up in
lustful pride." Were a guild-master ill and unable to manage the
affairs of his workshop, it was the council of the guild, and not
himself or his relatives, who installed a representative for him and
generally looked after his affairs. It was the guild again which
procured the raw material, and distributed it in relatively equal
proportions amongst its members; or where this was not the case, the
time and place were indicated at which the guildsman might buy at a
fixed maximum price. Every master had equal right to the use of the
common property and institutions of the guild, which in some
industries included the essentials of production, as, for example, in
the case of the woollen manufacturers, where wool-kitchens,
carding-rooms, bleaching-houses and the like were common to the whole
guild.

Needless to say, the relations between master and apprentices and master
and journeymen were rigidly fixed down to the minutest detail. The
system was thoroughly patriarchal in its character. In the hey-day of
the guilds, every apprentice and most of the journeymen regarded their
actual condition as a period of preparation which would end in the
glories of mastership. For this dear hope they were ready on occasion to
undergo cheerfully the most arduous duties. The education in handicraft,
and, we may add, the supervision of the morals of the blossoming members
of the guild, was a department which greatly exercised its
administration. On the other hand, the guild in its corporate capacity
was bound to maintain sick or incapacitated apprentices and journeymen,
though after the journeymen had developed into a distinct c