which grew up for reasons of convenience out of the “Mark,” and for the most part became incorporated into the feudal manorial system. The freemen—that is, the landholders of 68 the mark, formed a municipal aristocracy in these inchoate towns, and from them the governing body was chosen. When the towns began to be incorporated through privileges granted to them by their feudal overlord, the old semi-independent inhabitants, who were probably the survival of the conquered tribe, joined to those who had flowed into the town for protection and convenience, formed a population of craftsmen and traders. Of these, the traders, who fetched and carried wares from the east of Europe, mainly Byzantium, still the centre of organised commerce as in the later Empire, were the most important as to position, although very few in numbers. They were the first founders of the Merchant Guild, which, as its name imports, was purely commercial in tendency, although organised like all associations of the Middle Ages on quasi-religious grounds, and including some survivals of the fellowship of the freemen. A recent work on the Merchant Guild by Mr. Grosse shows conclusively that it was not deduced from the old Frith-gild; neither, on the other hand, 69 was it identical with the corporation of the towns, since non-residents could be members of it, whereas the members of the corporation (Les Lineages, Geschlechte, Porterey, Ehrbarkeit, Patricians, etc.) were bound to be holders of the lands which were once tribal.
But the principle of association was ~sure to have further development amongst the useful classes of the time; as handicraft began to grow in its capacity for production, guilds for the special crafts were founded all over Europe, till they embraced every department of craftsmanship in the widest sense of the word; thus the ploughman’s guild was the most important one in the villages and small towns of England. The constitution of these guilds was strictly on the received model of mediæval associations, but concerned itself also with the minutest details of the craft. They were thoroughly recognised legal bodies, having the power of enforcing penalties for the breaking of their special rules; and