dy much restricted by the town
governments, their remaining power to make rules for themselves must
now have been very slight. Their power of jurisdiction was likewise
limited by a law passed in 1504, prohibiting the companies from making
any rule forbidding their members to appeal to the ordinary national
courts in trade disputes.

[Illustration: Residence of Chantry Priests of Altar of St. Nicholas,
near Lincoln Cathedral. (_Domestic Architecture in the Fourteenth
Century._)]

But the heaviest blow to the gilds on the part of the government came
in 1547, as a result of the Reformation. Both the organizations formed
for the control of the various industries, the craft gilds, and those
which have been described in Chapter III as non-industrial, social, or
religious gilds, had property in their possession which had been
bequeathed or given to them by members on condition that the gild
would always support or help to support a priest, should see that mass
was celebrated for the soul of the donor and his family, should keep a
light always burning before a certain shrine, or for other religious
objects. These objects were generally looked upon as superstitious by
the reformers who became influential under Edward VI, and in the first
year of his reign a statute was passed which confiscated to the crown,
to be used for educational or other purposes, all the properly of
every kind of the purely religious and social gilds, and that part of
the property of the craft gilds which was employed by them for
religious purposes. One of the oldest forms of voluntary organization
in England therefore came to an end altogether, and one of the
strongest bonds which had held the members of the craft gilds together
as social bodies was removed. After this time the companies had no
religious functions, and were besides deprived of a considerable
proportion of their wealth. This blow fell, moreover, just at a time
when all the economic influences were tending toward their weakening
or actual disintegration.

[Illustration: Monastery turned into a Farmhouse, Dartford Priory,
Kent. Nichols: _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_.]

The trade and craft companies of London, like those of other towns,
were called upon at first to pay over to the government annually the
amount which they had before used for religious purposes. Three years
after the confiscation they were required to pay a lump sum
representing the capitalized value of this amount, est