Thus, we read in the rules of the Calendar
Guild, a religious fraternity, that the wives of guild members had
gone to such extremes in their entertainment of the guild as to cause
it to be stipulated that no woman should spend in excess of a certain
specified sum for hospitality toward the guilds; for these guilds were
formed for various purposes besides trade, and were in the nature of
friendly societies. In addition to their commercial side, they were
"associations for mutual help and social and religious intercourse
amongst the people." The proportion of women in the membership was
always large. In her introduction to _English Guilds_, Miss Toulmin
Smith says that "scarcely five out of five hundred were not formed
equally of men and women.... Even where the affairs were managed by a
company of priests, women were admitted as lay members, and they had
many of the same duties and claims upon the guilds as the men."

Women's association with the guild was not a merely nominal one, for
they shared in all of its privileges and contributed to all of its
funds, although the payments asked of them were sometimes smaller. The
female as well as the male members had a right to wear the livery of
the guild. Women were engaged in trade and even in manufacture, and
so had direct interest in the craft guilds, aside from that which they
would naturally feel through the relations thereto of their husbands
and brothers. In the work of his trade a member was always allowed to
employ his wife, his children, and his maid, for the whole household
of the guild brother belonged to the guild. In later times this led to
the degeneration of the guilds into mere family monopolies.

The fraternal feature of the craft guild reminds one of the same
features of the benevolent orders of the present time. If a member of
the guild, male or female, became impoverished through mishap, they
were cared for, and, if need arose, were buried; dowerless daughters
were provided with marriage portions, or, in case they wished to enter
the religious life, they were provided with the means to do so. Nor
must we overlook the large influence which the guilds exerted on the
side of morality, attaching, as they did, the greatest importance to
the moral character of their members.

The great Drapers Company embraced in its membership many women who
trained apprentices and carried on business, as did the male members.
The rules of the company provided that "every bro