Part 10 (1/2)

28. See previous chapter.

29. Kofod Ancher, Om gamle Danske Gilder og deres Undergang, Copenhagen, 1785. Statutes of a Knu guild.

30. Upon the position of women in guilds, see Miss Toulmin Smith's introductory remarks to the English Guilds of her father. One of the Cambridge statutes (p. 281) of the year 1503 is quite positive in the following sentence: ”Thys statute is made by the comyne a.s.sent of all the bretherne and sisterne of alhallowe yelde.”

31. In medieval times, only secret aggression was treated as a murder.

Blood-revenge in broad daylight was justice; and slaying in a quarrel was not murder, once the aggressor showed his willingness to repent and to repair the wrong he had done. Deep traces of this distinction still exist in modern criminal law, especially in Russia.

32. Kofod Ancher, l.c. This old booklet contains much that has been lost sight of by later explorers.

33. They played an important part in the revolts of the serfs, and were therefore prohibited several times in succession in the second half of the ninth century. Of course, the king's prohibitions remained a dead letter.

34. The medieval Italian painters were also organized in guilds, which became at a later epoch Academies of art. If the Italian art of those times is impressed with so much individuality that we distinguish, even now, between the different schools of Padua, Ba.s.sano, Treviso, Verona, and so on, although all these cities were under the sway of Venice, this was due--J. Paul Richter remarks--to the fact that the painters of each city belonged to a separate guild, friendly with the guilds of other towns, but leading a separate existence. The oldest guild-statute known is that of Verona, dating from 1303, but evidently copied from some much older statute. ”Fraternal a.s.sistance in necessity of whatever kind,”

”hospitality towards strangers, when pa.s.sing through the town, as thus information may be obtained about matters which one may like to learn,”

and ”obligation of offering comfort in case of debility” are among the obligations of the members (Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1890, and Aug.

1892).

35. The chief works on the artels are named in the article ”Russia” of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition, p. 84.

36. See, for instance, the texts of the Cambridge guilds given by Toulmin Smith (English Guilds, London, 1870, pp. 274-276), from which it appears that the ”generall and princ.i.p.all day” was the ”eleccioun day;”

or, Ch. M. Clode's The Early History of the Guild of the Merchant Taylors, London, 1888, i. 45; and so on. For the renewal of allegiance, see the Jomsviking saga, mentioned in Pappenheim's Altdanische Schutzgilden, Breslau, 1885, p. 67. It appears very probable that when the guilds began to be prosecuted, many of them inscribed in their statutes the meal day only, or their pious duties, and only alluded to the judicial function of the guild in vague words; but this function did not disappear till a very much later time. The question, ”Who will be my judge?” has no meaning now, since the State has appropriated for its bureaucracy the organization of justice; but it was of primordial importance in medieval times, the more so as self-jurisdiction meant self-administration. It must also be remarked that the translation of the Saxon and Danish ”guild-bretheren,” or ”brodre,” by the Latin convivii must also have contributed to the above confusion.

37. See the excellent remarks upon the frith guild by J.R. Green and Mrs. Green in The Conquest of England, London, 1883, pp. 229-230.

38. None

39. Recueil des ordonnances des rois de France, t. xii. 562; quoted by Aug. Thierry in Considerations sur l'histoire de France, p. 196, ed.

12mo.

40. A. Luchaire, Les Communes francaises, pp, 45-46.

41. Guilbert de Nogent, De vita sua, quoted by Luchaire, l.c., p. 14.

42. Lebret, Histoire de Venise, i. 393; also Marin, quoted by Leo and Botta in Histoire de l'Italie, French edition, 1844, t. i 500.

43. Dr. W. Arnold, Verfa.s.sungsgeschichte der deutschen Freistadte, 1854, Bd. ii. 227 seq.; Ennen, Geschichte der Stadt Koeln, Bd. i. 228-229; also the doc.u.ments published by Ennen and Eckert.

44. Conquest of England, 1883, p. 453.

45. Byelaeff, Russian History, vols. ii. and iii.

46. W. Gramich, Verfa.s.sungs und Verwaltungsgeschichte der Stadt Wurzburg im 13. bis zum 15. Jahrhundert, Wurzburg, 1882, p. 34.

47. When a boat brought a cargo of coal to Wurzburg, coal could only be sold in retail during the first eight days, each family being ent.i.tled to no more than fifty basketfuls. The remaining cargo could be sold wholesale, but the retailer was allowed to raise a zittlicher profit only, the unzittlicher, or dishonest profit, being strictly forbidden (Gramich, l.c.). Same in London (Liber albus, quoted by Ochenkowski, p.

161), and, in fact, everywhere.

48. See f.a.gniez, Etudes sur l'industrie et la cla.s.se industrielle a Paris au XIIIme et XIVme siecle, Paris, 1877, pp. 155 seq. It hardly need be added that the tax on bread, and on beer as well, was settled after careful experiments as to the quant.i.ty of bread and beer which could be obtained from a given amount of corn. The Amiens archives contain the minutes of such experiences (A. de Calonne, l.c. pp. 77, 93). Also those of London (Ochenkowski, England's wirthschaftliche Entwickelung, etc., Jena, 1879, p. 165).

49. Ch. Gross, The Guild Merchant, Oxford, 1890, i. 135. His doc.u.ments prove that this practice existed in Liverpool (ii. 148-150), Waterford in Ireland, Neath in Wales, and Linlithgow and Thurso in Scotland. Mr.