n-crops, to grind at his mill, to redeem their strayed cattle from his
pound. The great forest around was the Earl's, and it was only out of his
grace that the little borough could drive its swine into the woods or
pasture its cattle in the glades. The justice and government of a town
lay wholly in its master's hands; he appointed its bailiffs, received the
fines and forfeitures of his tenants, and the fees and tolls of their
markets and fairs. But in fact when once these dues were paid and these
services rendered the English townsman was practically free. His rights
were as rigidly defined by custom as those of his lord. Property and
person alike were secured against arbitrary seizure. He could demand a
fair trial on any charge, and even if justice was administered by his
master's reeve it was administered in the presence and with the assent of
his fellow-townsmen. The bell which swung out from the town tower
gathered the burgesses to a common meeting, where they could exercise
rights of free speech and free deliberation on their own affairs. Their
merchant-gild over its ale-feast regulated trade, distributed the sums
due from the town among the different burgesses, looked to the due
repairs of gate and wall, and acted in fact pretty much the same part as
a town-council of to-day.

[Sidenote: The Merchant Gild]

The merchant-gild was the outcome of a tendency to closer association
which found support in those principles of mutual aid and mutual
restraint that lay at the base of our old institutions. Gilds or clubs
for religious, charitable, or social purposes were common throughout the
country, and especially common in boroughs, where men clustered more
thickly together. Each formed a sort of artificial family. An oath of
mutual fidelity among its members was substituted for the tie of blood,
while the gild-feast, held once a month in the common hall, replaced the
gathering of the kinsfolk round their family hearth. But within this new
family the aim of the gild was to establish a mutual responsibility as
close as that of the old. "Let all share the same lot," ran its law; "if
any misdo, let all bear it." A member could look for aid from his
gild-brothers in atoning for guilt incurred by mishap. He could call on
them for assistance in case of violence or wrong. If falsely accused they
appeared in court as his compurgators, if poor they supported, and when
dead they buried him. On the other hand he was responsible to th