of the violence of mobs.
Probably enclosures more or less complete were made during this period
in as many as half the manors of England. They were at their height in
the early years of the sixteenth century, during its latter half
they were not so numerous, and by its close the enclosing movement had
about run its course, at least for the time.

*38. Internal Divisions in the Craft Gilds.*--Changes in town life
occurred during this period corresponding quite closely to the
enclosures and their results in the country. These consisted in the
decay of the gilds, the dispersion of certain town industries through
the rural districts, and the loss of prosperity of many of the old
towns. In the earlier craft gilds each man had normally been
successively an apprentice, a journeyman, and a full master craftsman,
with a little establishment of his own and full participation in the
administration of the fraternity. There was coming now to be a class
of artisans who remained permanently employed and never attained to
the position of master craftsmen. This was sometimes the result of a
deliberate process of exclusion on the part of those who were already
masters. In 1480, for instance, a new set of ordinances given to the
Mercers' Gild of Shrewsbury declares that the fines assessed on
apprentices at their entry to be masters had been excessive and should
be reduced. Similarly, the Oxford Town Council in 1531 restricts the
payment required from any person who should come to be a full brother
of any craft in that town to twenty shillings, a sum which would equal
perhaps fifty dollars in modern value. In the same year Parliament
forbade the collection of more than two shillings and sixpence from
any apprentice at the time of his apprenticeship, and of more than
three shillings and fourpence when he enters the trade fully at the
expiration of his time. This indicates that the fines previously
charged must have been almost prohibitive. In some trades the masters
required apprentices at the time of indenture to take an oath that
they would not set up independent establishments when they had
fulfilled the years of their apprenticeship, a custom which was
forbidden by Parliament in 1536. In other cases it was no doubt the
lack of sufficient capital and enterprise which kept a large number of
artisans from ever rising above the class of journeymen.

Under these circumstances the journeymen evidently ceased to feel that
they enjoyed any